Prior to VCT, with the Breeze map being included in the map pool with latest update, Riot changed the map pick-and-ban process.
We are almost a week away from the VCT and Riot made some changes for the map pick-and-ban. There will be 6 maps instead of 5 in the tournament. They also released different formats for VCT Competition Rules / Eliminations and Challengers Main Stage. According to this, the team with the better ranking will be named Team A. If there are no ranking available, the teams will be randomly decided as Team A and B. Eliminations will be based on best of three and map-pick will be like this:
- Team A bans one map, Team B bans one map.
- Team A picks map one, Team B picks a side for map one.
- Team B picks map two, Team A picks a side for map two
- Team A picks map three, Team B picks a side for map three.
Therefore, the team with the good ranking will pick 2 maps. On the other hand, the low ranking team will pick 2 sides.
Things are a bit different for the Challengers main event. Before the main event, each team will list their preferred maps and the most common map will be chosen as the third map.
- Team A bans one map, Team B bans one map.
- Team B picks map one, Team A picks a side for map one.
- Team A picks map two, Team A picks a side for map two.
- Map three is the highest-seeded map, Team B picks a side for map three.
Team A will not have the choice of two maps or side choices. Only the main event format allows them to pick a starting side for the two groups. For the best-of-one plays, Team A will get to ban 3 maps while Team B will be limited to two. Team B will do the last picking. In regard to the Challengers Main Event, this is the rotation for a best of five:
- Team A bans one map.
- Team B picks map one, Team A picks a side for map one.
- Team A picks map two, Team B picks a side for map two.
- Team B picks map three, Team A picks a side for map three.
- Team A picks map four, Team B picks a side for map four.
- Map five is the only remaining map, Team A picks a side.
VCT Stage 3 will make Breeze available to play. However, we won’t be able to play The New Agent KAY/O until Challengers Two.
