The Guard is currently going through a tough time as an organization. Many are aware that the company has been winding down operations, retracting from several competitive games. Unfortunately, their Valorant team has also been told to shutdown.
The Guard’s Unexpected Departure from Valorant!
Even after their remarkable victory in the Ascension League, the organization has found itself in financial turmoil. They’ve informed Riot about their decision to abstain from competing any further. What’s even more unfortunate? The players were left in the dark, learning about this news solely via Twitter.
On August 29, the news broke out when Riot Games announced that The Guard wouldn’t be participating in VCT Americas next year. This decision came as a surprise, especially since The Guard had recently secured a win at the region’s Ascension tournament. Riot, however, decided not to promote any teams this year.
According to Riot’s statement, The Guard “failed to meet the deadline to agree to the Team Participation Agreement of VCT Americas“. This failure led to the decision of not promoting any Challengers teams for the subsequent two seasons, 2024 and 2025.
The whole competitive community was understandably taken aback by this development. Most shockingly, The Guard’s players and their coach discovered this piece of news on Twitter, without any prior notice or communication.
Imaging waking upto this news after winning the Ascension series, surely not something anyone would want to experience.
Eight hours following the revelation, Leo Faria, the Head of Valorant esports, took to Twitter to provide more insight into Riot’s decision. He clarified, “Every team that qualified for Ascension signed the Team Participation Agreement before the tournament commenced, and the signatures were held in escrow.”
Riot initiated the onboarding process with the winning teams right after the conclusion of Ascension, expecting these teams to release their signatures from escrow. This move would finalize their promotion to the International Leagues.
However, The Guard failed to complete this essential step. Despite multiple follow-ups over a span of two months, Riot had to make a challenging decision to not jeopardize the forthcoming season.
Riot contemplated various solutions. They considered allowing The Guard’s players to join a new organization or even thought about promoting the Ascension runner-up, M80. But eventually, they settled on not promoting any team at all.
Interestingly, Riot was already bracing themselves for a potential free-agent team victory in Ascension. However, the fact that the team had played both Challengers and Ascension under The Guard’s banner posed complications.
This could inadvertently pave the way for VCT slots to be sold, an outcome Riot wishes to avoid.
Leo Faria also expressed concerns regarding M80’s potential promotion without them securing an Ascension win. He emphasized, “The point of Ascension is to reward performance.
While M80 is undeniably talented, promoting a team that didn’t clinch the tournament win negates that principle. Promotion is earned in-game, not outside of it.”
