Announcing the VALORANT Ignition Series

Hey esports fans! We’re Whalen Rozelle and Kasra Jafroodi, two members of the team focused on building VALORANT into the next global esport.

Today we’re announcing the Ignition Series, our first step after launch to build a robust competitive ecosystem for VALORANT. At this early stage, it’s important for the esports scene to grow naturally in a way that will authentically develop talent, players, and stars. VALORANT esports should reflect the voice of the community, which will only be possible if you continue to provide us with feedback at every step. We’re committed to building VALORANT on the core pillars of competitive integrity, accessibility, and authenticity to create an experience that will captivate you for many years to come.

During the closed beta, we were thrilled to see hundreds of tournaments and invitationals take place around the world. These events provided opportunities for the millions of players aspiring to become the first VALORANT bonjwas. As we look beyond the launch, we want to celebrate VALORANT competition globally by making it easier to follow the sport through a more organized cadence of events.

As such, we’re introducing the VALORANT Ignition Series, an official Riot-partner program where we spotlight a few tournaments each week, help discover talented players, and build global recognition for top VALORANT pros and teams.

To create the Ignition Series, we’ve partnered with more than 20 esports organizations around the world to bring you VALORANT events. Each organizer will use their expertise to design their own unique Ignition Series tournament—we expect to see a combination of competitive open qualifiers, show matches, and invitationals featuring top players of the game, established personalities, and aspiring amateurs. In places where VALORANT has launched, Ignition Series tournaments will provide players with the opportunity to begin building their region’s competitive legacy. While we’re only announcing a few tournaments today, the Ignition Series will have events in North America, Brazil, Latin America, Korea, Japan, South East Asia, Oceania, Europe, Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East.

Riot Games will support Ignition Series events with amplification through our channels, a dedicated page with an updated schedule, and sharing lessons between tournament organizers to improve the experience week over week. Feel free to head over to the Ignition Series landing page  to learn more about each event. We’re working with partners to lock in additional events - expect the Ignition Series to run through the fall.

We've already learned so much from community and organizer feedback, and we’re actively working with the development team on features that will help make it easier to watch as well as opportunities that will provide a level of competition beyond the ranked system. You’ll continue to see us increase our support for esports to ensure that both the amateur and professional scenes flourish. As always, please share your feedback via social media—we’re excited to hear what you think.