TL;DR

• College VALORANT (“CVAL”) will be open to school-based teams at all accredited colleges and universities in the United States and Canada
• Three open regional tournaments will be held during the fall, winter, and spring
• Tournament winners and overall top performers from each region will be invited to the 32-school, cross-region College VALORANT Championship, concluding with a LAN finals event.
• Riot will award scholarship prizes at all thee season tournaments, as well as the Championship

The RSAA is committed to fostering the development of gaming as a meaningful and complementary part of the college experience. With the continued growth of College League of Legends and professional VALORANT esports ecosystems, we are proud to announce details of the 2022-23 College VALORANT Season (CVAL).

As VALORANT is a vastly different game from League of Legends, we’ve created a new structure for the first year of CVAL. As always, we will continue to evolve the competition to meet the needs of students and schools as best we can. Our goals and values remain the same, starting with the three RSAA value pillars – students first, long-term sustainability, and competitive integrity.

A brief overview of how College VALORANT will work this year:

Shaping the College VALORANT Ecosystem

While CVAL will look different from CLOL, our priority remains the same across both programs: to provide students the means to play our games in an organized, highly competitive environment as a supplement to their higher education experience. As with CLOL, we do not plan to directly connect CVAL to the professional VALORANT ecosystem, but we expect the highest level of scholastic play to draw the attention of pro scouts who already have a vested interest in seeking out top talent.

In addition to having the same goal as CLOL, CVAL will also share the same student eligibility requirements. CVAL players must be currently enrolled in a degree program lasting at least two years and in academic good standing at the school they are competing for as either a (a) full-time student, or (b) part time student that is a former full-time student within one academic year of their expected graduation. CVAL is open to multiple teams per school, and allows both school-supported varsity esports programs as well as student-run club teams to participate, all at no cost. We will not be providing partner conference competitions in CVAL for the 22-23 school year, and will consider conferences for 23-24 or later. 

Once our first year is complete, we’ll factor in community feedback with our learnings to make changes for next year. With our community’s help, we’re looking forward to a bright, long future of College VALORANT.

College VALORANT Season Format

For the inaugural season of CVAL, we will host three tournaments over the course of the fall, winter, and spring. Each tournament is separate, with their own registration process and a fresh bracket to play through. These events will culminate in a singular College VALORANT Championship event, with the final rounds to be held live in Los Angeles around May or June 2023.

Tournaments will be held across four geographic regions, based around VALORANT game server locations. Schools are free to participate on whichever server that works best for them, but can only earn credit towards the CVAL Championship in one region. Matches will be held on Saturdays and Sundays, with teams playing one best-of-three match per day and two matches per week.

The 1st and 2nd place teams per region from each tournament will automatically qualify for the CVAL Championship, while the remainder of the Top 16 teams in each region will receive points based on their performance. The Top 2 point earners from each region at the end of the Season will also qualify for the Championship, for a total of 32 teams in the CVAL Championship bracket.

Each tournament will feature a round robin group phase, in which each team in a group plays each other team once. The best performing team from each group will then qualify into a mixed elimination bracket, where the first two rounds will be single elimination, and the top 8 rounds will be Double Elimination. The size of the groups and bracket will depend on the number of teams entering each event, but each region’s tournament will be capped at 384 teams.

The Championship event will use the same format as Phase 2, with teams seeded such that teams from the same region cannot meet until top 8 and the start of double elimination. All matches will be best of three.

Season Operations RFP

We will work with a variety of third party tournament administrators to bring the CVAL competition to life. Each administrator will be responsible for one or more individual regional tournaments, but the season will operate through a single unified Discord server, and will run through a central tournament platform provider.

The first year of CVAL will be an opportunity for tournament organizers to get involved, build connections to regional communities, and demonstrate their operational excellence. Based on the number and quality of partners we work with, we’ll make a decision about how to partner with providers to create the best overall experience for students and schools across CVAL for year two and beyond.

Proposals will be due on August 1, and selections will be made by September.

Third Party Scholastic Competitions

While we are very excited to work with third parties tournament operators for the official Riot College VALORANT Season, we won’t be able to work directly with every interested organizer. That being said, we still encourage third party tournament operators to run VALORANT competitions for colleges. These third party competitions must obey VALORANT Community Competition Guidelines and schedule their match days so they DO NOT conflict with CVAL match days or take place during the College VALORANT Championship period.

Important Dates

RFP

• Operations RFP process begins: July 13
• RFP submissions due: August 1

Fall Tournament

• Registration: 9/9 – 10/7
• Phase 1: 10/22 – 11/6
• Phase 2 11/12 – 12/11 (No matches scheduled over Thanksgiving weekend)

Winter Tournament

• Registration: 11/28 – 1/6
• Phase 1: 1/21 – 1/29
• Phase 2: 2/11 – 3/5

Spring Tournament

• Registration: 1/23 – 2/27
• Phase 1: 3/11 – 3/26
• Phase 2: 4/1 – 4/30 (No matches scheduled over Easter weekend)

CVAL Championship

• Online rounds: 5/6 – 5/21
• Live finals: TBD, June or July

What’s Next?

In August, we’ll share more details about how the season will work – rules, eligibility, and how to get involved. The results of the RFP and full details about registration will be available in early September. We’re excited to kick College VALORANT off and celebrate the launch with everyone this year!