The Valorant offseason is in full swing as third-party tournament organizers hold LAN and online tournaments without the Riot Games circuit impeding viewership or team participation. Dexerto spoke to pros at Red Bull Home Ground about what they thought of the new offseason schedule.
The Valorant offseason has been a mixture of high profile LAN and online events with serious Riot-partnered team competition and pro versus content creator show matches. The offseason calendar is a chance for teams to figure out what they have with their new rosters and also travel around the world, according to players that spoke to Dexerto.
Some pros want to see more events crop up in the future so they can get ready for the regular season, and others are fine with the current state of their tournament schedule.
“The more tournaments you play, the more you get into the tournament mindset,” Team Heretics player Óscar ‘mixwell’ Colocho said. “Because sometimes when you come back from a break and you play your first tournament, you don’t have that mindset of being focused all round every game, the communication is not flowing, all that stuff.”
His Heretics teammate Aleksander ‘zeek’ Zygmunt told Dexerto that he would like to see more events in the future, but at the same time would also prefer more online events so he could cut down on his offseason travel.
“I’m traveling every two weeks now and it’s it’s kind of tiring. I want to just chill at home before the official season begins,” zeek said.
Heretics competed at Red Bull Home Ground in Manchester, England, which started on Dec. 9 right after finishing the Valorant India Invitational in Hyderabad, India on Nov. 20.
Although, other pros enjoy traveling and getting to see the world in a low-stakes environment like an offseason LAN event.
“I love these tournaments. I love to travel, the flights. I think this tournament is a good show,” KRÜ Esports player Alexandre ‘xand’ Zizi said.
Valorant pros enjoy offseason events
Coaches also enjoy the offseason events as it helps players get acclimated to a LAN setting, for those who aren’t accustomed, and lets them see what their team needs to work on before the official season starts.
For Team Vitality’s head coach Salah ‘Salah’ Barakat, the Red Bull Home Ground LAN and online tournament G-Loot Valorant Clash have been a crash course in what his team needs to improve on and what they are already great at.
“It was really good to be able to practice and then use that practice and realize that we’re here with this stuff and we’re here with that stuff. The team that played against NAVI in G-Loot vs. the team now is two times better,” Salah said.
Pros can also compete in show matches and content creator battles in some of the offseason events as well. mixwell, who is also a popular streamer, is set to compete in some for-fun events in the future and said that those matches don’t contribute to any potential burnout and are a breeze to play in.
“I just troll the s*** out of people and have fun and play with the crowd, then I leave,” he said.
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