In a rather surprising turn of events, Acend Club has made the decision to exit and leave behind the Valorant esports space. The team, which was one of the first to be dubbed a Valorant Champion, has presented a reasoning behind the decision, a reasoning that can be summarised down to the “hostile ecosystem”.
Speaking about the decision, Acend notes: “Though we failed to reach the Ascension tournament this season we have continued on business as usual, scouting for 2025 and planning to keep on grinding. However, the tier-2 ecosystem has been showing alarming signs of decay this year with tournament organisers going out of business, not paying out prize money and cancelling tournaments. It has been increasingly difficult to justify fielding a team with an extended offseason, tiny prize pools and the pressure of VCT level salary expectations.
“With truly heavy hearts we must announce today that Acend Club will not be participating in Valorant esports in 2025. The increasingly hostile ecosystem has simply made it untenable to responsibly run a team.”
Riot Games has not yet responded to these claims of a hostile ecosystem.