It’s impossible not to compare Valorant and Counter-Strike when it comes to esports and, while both games are immensely successful and great for their own reasons, CS2 has a huge leg up on Valorant in one key area: The way their pro scenes are structured.
Valorant’s pro scene has a franchised structure with Ascension slots that, once per year, allow a team from tier 2 to move up and keep their spot for up to 2 years. 10 franchised teams with 2 Ascension slots total a 12 team league.
On the surface, creating a franchise league seems like a great way to create a sustainable esport. And it is! For the teams that are in it, anyways.
Franchising guarantees that you’ll see the same teams at most esports events, that those teams can build a fandom. A team like Sentinels will always have fans regardless of how they perform, so having a team like them in the circuit is a huge boon for viewership. This structure is an incredibly safe option.
Colin Young-Wolff/Riot GamesBut G2’s team Ascended from Challengers (sort of), bringing together players who couldn’t find a spot they fit within existing VCT teams that have come together to make a world-class roster. It’s a great story, and a roster that should be stuck in tier 2.
Makes you wonder how many teams like that are stuck in T2 that never get the chance to shine, how many teams down there that have players who could be better than the ones that are currently in VCT.
A franchise structure helps (and hurts) Valorant esports
There’s nothing better than a good underdog run. A team that’s expected to lose, that has much less funding or less experienced players that the competition, is hard not to root for.
While this can happen in a franchised structure if a team that historically plays poorly spends big or scouts a young prodigy to carry them, teams have to be willing to spend to stay competitive. But you know what really lights a fire under teams and encourages them to do better? Relegation.
This is where Counter-Strike 2’s scene handily beats Valorant’s. No one is safe. It doesn’t matter if you’re Team Vitality hot off an IEM Katowice win, if they have a series of bad performances, the org’s dynasty means nothing. Teams usually have to earn their spots on stage with performance, not prestige. Astralis winning several Majors in the past hasn’t kept them from repeatedly dropping out of qualification now.
Again, this is part of why Riot’s franchise structure is so good for the teams within it. Even if an org picked to represent Valorant has an off split, they can sign a “budget” roster and keep their spot. Riot does reserve the right to boot teams from the VCT as they see fit, but it’s rare.
Trying to build a CS2 team is much riskier, something that’s made clear by a massive esports org like Cloud9 exiting the esport after failing to build a great roster.
This is partially because Counter-Strike’s player salaries are heavily inflated, but also because it’s hard to stick around if you have a team that can’t perform. Even an org like C9 doesn’t have deep enough pockets to take losses like that.
Valorant’s structure is definitely more sustainable and benefits teams that can get into it, but it loses the true spirit of esports: Putting together a team of great players and proving you’re the best.
And there’s a rising team in Counter-Strike with a story that’d be almost impossible to pull off in Valorant’s current ecosystem.
Valorant misses out on the best thing about esports
The way that Ascension is structured currently, only two teams can Ascend to VCT leagues at once. Currently, G2 is safe for 2025 and likely 2026. Their placement at this Masters event almost guarantees them for Champions at the end of 2025.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that 2GAME ends up also making it to Champions at the end of the year. Even if these two teams are by far the best rosters in the region, one of them will be relegated. And, if either team were to get relegated in the case that they’re top 2, it’d be a disaster.
Either the relegated team’s current roster goes through the Challenger’s league knowing they’re likely going to win, or the roster gets torn apart and bought out by franchised VCT teams, hurting fandom for players and the org as a whole.
What’s more, there only being one Ascension slot per year incentivizes orgs who aren’t already in the VCT to spend big and get the best players they can, with every one of them risking a huge financial loss if they don’t qualify.
M80 is a great example of an org that’s been on the cusp but has just narrowly missed qualification, spending big on a roster and faceplanting in the finals. Twice.
Not only is this a shame for M80 who clearly wants to succeed in the scene and is willing to fork over the capital to do it, but also teams that have to compete against them. It could be argued that there are multiple tier 2 teams that are better than current VCT rosters with how competitive that single slot is.
This often keeps newer teams from having the chance to play stage games against the best teams in the world. How many G2s are there out there that just can’t fit into that one Ascension slot? How many great teams have crumbled because of that franchise barrier, especially when G2 itself is made up of VCT veterans?
There’s one Counter-Strike 2 team currently that embodies just how important getting experience on stage and giving rookies time to cut their teeth can mean: The MongolZ.
Despite being a somewhat lackluster org for most of the time they’ve existed, this team has turned up the heat over the past 2 years, to the point where they have three teenagers that are beating the gods of Counter-Strike, players worth millions. Just a bunch of young Mongolian players putting everything on the line to flip the script on the longest standing dynasties in CS.
This team is so successful that they’ve been recognized as national athletes by their government, with Mongolia backing the players and supporting them to try and grow the country’s presence in esports.
There’s absolutely no chance a franchised team picks up a roster like what The MongolZ have. This type of storyline is next to impossible in Valorant, and underdog runs like this are the absolute best thing that can happen in established esports.
What would it be like if every org had to try? If everyone had to earn their spot, put everything on the line or risk being irrelevant? It’s hard to imagine that, if every team had to try as hard as G2 to build a winning roster, the esport wouldn’t be all the better for it.
That isn’t to say that Valorant is a bad esport, far from it. The final between G2 and T1 at VCT Masters Bangkok 2025 was a spectacle, something I’m sure even Counter-Strike fans could appreciate. Both teams were dead even in terms of skill in the back and forth final.
It’d be great to see a level of competition like that in Valorant all the time rather than a somewhat lackluster regular season that brings fleeting interest while fans wait for the few big internationals the year’s circuit brings.
At this point, there’s no chance that Valorant will ditch the franchise system. For the orgs that find their place in it, it’s a great deal, and the orgs that have earned their way in are unlikely to give up the spots they have.
Valorant may be a healthier esport than CS in terms of sustainability for teams who are already within the tier 1 ecosystem, but the game’s storylines are also a hell of a lot less fun because of it.
