In recent days, news has begun circulating regarding the status of The Guard in the upcoming 2024 VCT Americas tournament. Sadly, the organisation has failed to qualify for the 2024 VCT Americas, and according to Riot Games, it’s because of the company’s own inaction and inability to meet deadlines. Shockingly, this has had a knock-on effect across the board, effectively changing the face of the tournament for the season ahead and forcing Riot to adopt new rules at the last second.
Now, fans are rallying behind The Guard – which has seen its fair share of struggles in the last few months. There are petitions to allow the organisation to access the 2024 VCT Americas event despite them missing the ‘deadline to agree to the Team Participation Agreement’ of the tournament. It has now gone so far that The Guard’s coach, JoshRT, has reached out to celebrity-level VALORANT fans, like Ben Affleck and Elon Musk, pleading to them for assistance in some way.
Will The Guard Fall Short?
Following a lengthy statement published on Twitter by Leo Faria, the Head of VALORANT Esports at Riot Games, it seems highly unlikely that The Guard will make it back into the 2024 VCT Americas. It was a fantastic breakdown of the events thus far and a very transparent statement by Faria, but it did once again stress that it’s The Guard’s own fault that it won’t be competing in the upcoming competition.
‘We’re very disappointed on behalf of the players who competed the whole season and won’t be able to qualify as a team due to circumstances beyond their control. As painful as it is to make this decision, we have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the sport and will always do what’s best for the long term.‘
It was explained that Riot reached out to The Guard several times over a period of two months, and despite the organisation originally qualifying for the 2024 VCT Americas, it failed to sign agreements that would guarantee a spot. By way of a knock-on impact, Riot was then forced to figure out a path ahead, and they had three options:
Sign the five ‘now unqualified’ players to a new organisation
Promote the Ascencion runner-up, M80
Not promote any team from Challengers beyond Ascension
Ultimately, Riot decided to choose the latter option – opting to not promote any Challengers team past Ascension into the 2024 VCT Americas.
What is Happening With The Guard?
At the start of the year, The Guard found itself in hot water following a mass and sudden strike of layoffs that impacted the majority of the company’s staff. This organisation backs a number of esports teams, such as The Guard in VALORANT, the LA Gladiators on Overwatch, and the LA Guerrillas in the Call of Duty League. While everything has gone relatively quiet on the shutdown front, it seems that The Guard is still interested in actively competing across esports tournaments.
However, given this recent news, it seems that there are still clerical issues present within the firm. With the team having failed to sign the documents that would have secured them access to the 2024 VCT Americas, they’ve effectively re-written a popular tournament and seriously impacted their fortunes for the season ahead.
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