Project Blender to Bring Bounty System to Valorant Esports

Project Blender: Riot’s €75,000 Valorant Tournament With Open Signups, Bounties, and Draft Chaos

Project Blender is coming, and we cannot wait. A Riot-backed Valorant tournament with open signups, a bounty system, and one of the weirdest draft formats the game’s ever seen. Win a match as an underdog, and you get paid.

It’s a sandbox event, but with serious backing. €75,000 is on the line, LAN finals in December, and a structure built to test how far casual teams can push pros. Here’s everything you’re going to want to know before you find the guts to sign up. Let’s take a look.

Project Blender isn’t just another scrim bracket

This isn’t just a scrim night with a fancier logo. Project Blender is run by Gozulting, the French crew behind those cracked watch-party productions, and it’s officially part of the VCT EMEA Partner Series, which gives it legit status on Valorant betting sites. Riot isn’t just blessing this, they’re actively pushing it as an experimental lab.

It’s built around four phases, starting with open qualifiers in October and ending in a LAN final in December. But before that, we’re getting a five-day showcase (August 20–24) to preview the format. Basically, we get a taste test before the full blender hits.

Fearless Draft, but on steroids

The draft format is where it gets hectic. They’re calling it Blender Draft, and it works like this:

• Game 1: Standard rules, every agent is fair game.
• Game 2: You can’t use any agents your team already picked in Game 1.
• Game 3: You can’t use any agents from Game 2.

By the time you hit a third map, you're working with leftovers. Off-meta picks suddenly matter. Teams that can’t flex crumble. I played a mock-up scrim under these rules last week, and let’s just say our duelist ended up on Chamber. Not by choice.

It’s like Fearless Draft from League, but layered and asymmetric. No mirrored bans. No “safe” second maps. It rewards real depth and punishes one-trick setups hard.

Challengers Call & the mind-games of picking your poison

If that wasn’t enough, teams that qualify can actually pick their next opponent in certain phases. It’s called Challengers Call.

Imagine making Top 32, winning your group, and then dropping a “we want Team Heretics” callout on stream. It’s bold, cocky, and content gold. If I somehow sneak into Phase 2, I’m calling out a squad just for the storyline. Go big or go home.

How the bounty pot works

Here’s the part you really want to know. The bounty system. Every team is classified into one of three tiers:

• Amateur (open bracket teams)
• Tier 2 (VRC-level orgs, scrim-known names)
• Tier 1 (VCT talent and big names)

Then during Phases 2 and 3, if a lower-tier team knocks out a higher-tier one, they get a cash bonus:

• Amateur → Tier 2 = mid bounty
• Amateur → Tier 1 = high bounty
• Tier 2 → Tier 1 = mid bounty

Suddenly, the bottom side of the bracket becomes appointment viewing. Every upset has real weight. Even pros now have to play every game like it’s playoffs, or they risk funding their own downfall.

It reminds me of how EVO used to offer cash bonuses for character-specific wins, except now it’s built into the bracket.

The numbers on the table

Here’s what’s confirmed so far:

We’re still waiting on Riot and Gozulting to drop the exact bounty values, but even just the idea of this system has people talking.

Timeline, phases & how to jump in

The full event plays out like this:

Registration kicks off in September, and if you’ve got even a half-functioning five-stack and a decent ping, there’s no reason not to sign up.

Why Riot needs experiments like this

Let’s be real, Valorant’s off-season can feel like a ghost town. Scrim leaks and ranked grind montages only go so far. Blender offers something different. Structure, storylines, and a reason to care about matches in November.

Riot’s already said this isn’t just about testing competition. It’s about connection. Getting pros, amateurs, content creators, and newer players into the same room (or bracket) and seeing what sparks. This is the kind of event that could quietly influence the future of VCT. If Blender Draft lands, expect it in next year’s Ascension quals.

We put ranked in a blender and hit purée

I’m already workshopping my team name. We’re not good, but we’re annoying, and in a Blender format, that’s half the battle.

It’s rare that Riot lets the community cook like this. So if you’ve got time in the fall and a comp you trust, throw it in the Blender. Worst case, you get some reps and a good story. Best case, you get a bounty and go viral. Let’s hit blend and pray it doesn’t spill.

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