Earlier in 2022, Riot announced a new Valorant in-game tournament mode for VCT 2023 ecosystem that will be closely integrated with the Domestic Leagues. They have finally done the alpha testing of this feature, and it will be called Premier.
The feature is designed to help Valorant players to experience it in a similar way as VCT pros and teams. As a part of the alpha test, Premier was available for a small group of players, and Riot collected feedback from them and will implement it before rolling it out globally.
Update: We checked this page for the latest information on "Valorant Premier Tournament Mode" on February 17.
Valorant Premier Tournament Mode Release Date and Alpha Test
The developers rolled out an alpha version of Premier on November 1 in Brazil, and it was available till November 21. There is no information about when the feature will be available globally.
Jon Walker, a designer on the VALORANT Competitive team, explained, "While we want to roll this out to a larger cohort in the future, a smaller group will allow us to test and iterate faster, ensuring that the final product gets into the hands of the rest of you sooner."
How to Participate in Premier Alpha Test and Use It
In order to participate in the alpha test, players needed to have a Brazilian Valorant account. The eligible players received an SMS verification within the client, and all they had to do was complete the verification to test Premier competitive mode.
If you are not from Brazil, you will have to wait for its global release. In addition to this, the mode had 60% of the planned features since it's an alpha test, as the developers need to work on a few parts.
Discussing the goals of Premier, Jon Walker, a designer on the VALORANT Competitive team, stated, "We want to present an even higher goal beyond Radiant that provides the most competition-hungry players with a rewarding challenge beyond ranked."
Players will be able to create or join a team of five friends, acquaintances, and neighbors in the Premier mode. After that, your team will be placed in a division where you will play across a persistent season that includes both weekly matches and tournaments.
While participating, you will accumulate points that will help you progress to the playoffs, and you will also receive a weekly bonus. In addition to this, you will be able to see all the upcoming matches within the Premier feature section.
Each season will run for a few weeks, and your goal will be to qualify for the end-of-season tournament to battle for the Division Champion title. The players participating in the alpha test provided feedback to Riot Games regarding the following:
Team Creation (With Team Logos and Colors)
Tournament Play (Including a Map Pick-and-Ban System)
- Server load
- Premier Score (and qualifying for the end-of-season tournament)
- Matchmaking and queue health throughout the Alpha
- General bugs and more
We will update this page as we have more information regarding Premier.
