Exclusive: VCT EMEA Riot executives reflect on the VCT, Challengers, and more

The VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Stage 2 Finals were an event to behold with an exquisite Finale between Team Liquid and the tourney's surprise, GIANTX. Before the grand final in Berlin, THESPIKE got an opportunity to participate in a meeting with Daniel Ringland, Head of VALORANT Esports EMEA, Jonathan Tilbury, Head of VCT EMEA, and Tomek Borowka, Esports Product Manager.

Below is a transcript of some highlight questions asked and answered during the meeting and a video with the entire meeting.

LEC-esque roadshow event

STRAFE: We've seen a lot of value with the LEC Roadshow this year. Teams traveled to both MOVISTAR Koi and Karmine Corp, where they hosted the respective games. With that sort of encouragement of grassroot audiences rooting for their home teams, is this something that VCT EMEA would like to explore in the future?

Jonathan Tilbury: We're always talking with our LEC colleagues. Because with us obviously both running different products we want to share learnings and want to discuss what's working for them, what's working for us. One of the nice things about doing two shows out of Berlin is that we can both kind of test and experiment with different things and I think we're really impressed with what they've been doing, obviously it's been really successful for them. It's definitely something that we'd love to explore in the future if the opportunity was there.

Obviously, VALORANT can be a bit more challenging to produce an event [for] due to the nature of the game. But we're definitely discussing with them kind of what's working for them, what's not, and it's something that we'd love to explore in the future if the opportunity was there.

On VCT EMEA Challengers format

THESPIKE: This year we've seen a reduction (and merger) of the EMEA subregions in the Challengers. So compared to last season, did you outright see any benefit to that reduction and are you seeing any trends in competitiveneess or increased regional viewership due to those mergers.

Tomek Borowka: So starting in 2025, what we did is introduce the new Challenger EMEA Leagues. That turned out to be really working well for fans and teams and also players. We actually surveyed the players about what they thought about the tournament and we talked to the teams. There are really really good numbers coming back in terms of the feedback. They agree it's more competitive and that there is more visibility across the board.

The beauty of this new tournament format is not only that we created it hand-in-hand with the TOs in 2024, so that was an outcome from a workshop we held here (in Berlin). But also, this is a product that belongs to the license of the TOs, so basically it's their thing to broadcast and accumulate that viewership.

To your point about the number of Challenger Leagues. I think the reduction probably helped fans follow the competition better and what we see is a really competitive field if you look at which teams play and the Challengers EMEA 1, 2, and 3, it's a very diverse mix. That shows the pool of talent is really deep, so that's what we love to see.

Daniel Ringland: So I think one of the other benefits of concentrating the number of Challengers is it aligns with the Premier mode and how that game works. And that has unlocked some really cool things for teams and fans.

So for EMEA Turkey for example, we had a team go from Premier mode into the Turkish Challengers and ended up here in Ascension. They almost went from Premier to the VCT. That is such an incredible pathway. But to be able to make that happen, we needed to make sure there's an alignment between the Premier shards and Challenger Leagues.

VALORANT Mobile and console events in EMEA

THESPIKE: We've seen VALORANT Mobile in China become a big thing on launch. Do you think that sometime down the line in the EMEA region there's space for non-PC VALORANT competitions, be it console or VALORANT Mobile in some capacity?

Daniel Ringland: Yeah, good question. I think for us, it's wait and see. We look at things when launching a new product we're kind of wanting to react to what the players tell us. So when we launched VALORANT, if you remember when we had First Strike, it was the IGNITION Series. And that was very much a small thing, we didn't run tournaments ourselves. But the fan feedback was "we want more, we want more." We kept trying to respond to that demand.

So we'll treat it the same way. If we're hearing from fans of console that they want an esports experience, we'll sit down and think "ok, what can that look like." So yeah, it's kind of middle of the watch. It's the philosophy of how we approach it.

For the full 20+ minute interview, check out the video below.

*Some questions and answers have been edited for the sake of clarity.

Featured image credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games