Riot Games is shrinking the VCT Pacific partnership roster from 10 teams to 8 starting in 2027, part of a broader restructuring that fundamentally changes how professional VALORANT works.
The reduction brings Pacific in line with a new global standard. Every VCT region will now field exactly eight partnered teams.
The bigger picture: league play is dead
On April 8, 2026, Riot announced it’s gutting the regular-season league format entirely, replacing it with a tournament-centric model built around open qualifiers and regional VCT Cups. Instead of watching the same partnered teams play each other in a drawn-out season, the new system lets non-partner squads fight their way into events alongside the established names.
Riot is targeting over 20 global events annually under the new framework.
