While the 2023 competitive VALORANT season hasn’t concluded just yet, anticipation is already high for the 2024 campaign given that the season will feature two splits and head to China for the first time for Masters Shanghai—that is, until you consider how packed the schedule could potentially be.
In a recent video, former Team Liquid coach turned full-time streamer Connor “Sliggy” Blomfield expressed how worried he is about the 2024 schedule as he thinks there’s going to be much less time for players to properly rest. “A lot of tier one players this year are talking about burnout, I’m pretty sure next year you’re going to be hearing that word maybe 10 times the amount we’ve heard it this year,” he said.
Sliggy’s concerns begin with the Masters Shanghai announcement video, which declares that the Chinese city will host the second global event of the 2024 season. In the video, global head of VALORANT esports Leo Faria said the event will celebrate the one-year anniversary of the game’s launch in China, which was only two weeks ago on July 12.
Related: Riot is celebrating China’s one-year anniversary in VALORANT with a VCT Masters of its own
But if the second Masters event of next year is starting in July, that means the two splits and the first Masters event will have to be crunched into a six-month window. Sliggy speculates that the first split of the season will start at the end of January and conclude at the very end of March, with the first Masters event starting just two weeks later. In order to have enough time for the second split to fit in before Masters Shanghai, Sliggy guesses that the second two-month split would start less than a week after the conclusion of the first Masters event.
Sliggy admits that he might be “overthinking” the Masters Shanghai date and whether it would start on the exact anniversary of VALORANT in China, but he’s still extraordinarily worried about the players. “This is five months where everything’s going to be condensed, and I know a lot of teams have been talking about burnout already,” he said. “Add in an extra [split] with no time off; I’m really worried.”
The concern is quite understandable. Teams will have to play significantly more VALORANT next year, especially the top teams that go to their VCT league playoffs and the Masters events. In 2023, teams had fewer matches and even had around a month off or more following the LOCK//IN. Unless the league play schedule is condensed, it could be a tiring six months for the world’s best VALORANT players.
