Signups have today opened for the newly launched official Valorant United Kingdom Circuit, also known as VUKC.
As part of the Beacon Northern Europe ecosystem, VUKC is a new grassroots series which aims to provide more opportunities for amateur players in the UK to take part in organised play.
The first season of VUKC will take place online on Wednesday evenings from September to November 2024. It will begin with a Swiss League for the first four weeks, followed by four weeks of playoffs.
The top three teams overall will share a prize pool of £1,000.
The tournament will also offer teams an opportunity to qualify into Eclipse, the qualifying competition for the UK and Nordics Challengers North: Polaris series.
Irish players will also be able to play in a separate Ireland league, as mentioned in this video featuring further details about the Eclipse format (published just over a month after this article went live):
There will also be leagues for Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.
While we understand there won’t be an official broadcast for VUKC at the moment, community streams are allowed.
The new VUKC circuit is run by NUEL, a subsidiary of esports educational technology company GGTech Entertainment.
Related article: How NUEL is Evolving Beyond UK University Esports: Interview with NUEL and GGTech
In addition to running the esports circuit now known as ‘University Esports’ in the UK since 2010, NUEL has recently organised the Beacon Spring 2024 and Beacon Game Changers Contenders Qualifier tournaments.
David Jackson, Managing Director of NUEL, said:
“We’re delighted to have the opportunity to launch the first official UK Valorant National League. Our first goal is to establish the circuit on a sustainable footing, and then build up the competition and other events over the coming year.”
David Jackson, NUEL
Teams can sign up now on the VUKC Challengermode page. Players without a team can also sign up individually and will be matched with other players to form balanced teams.
Players can also join the Beacon Discord server where there is a newly-created VUKC section. Tournament updates will also be posted on the Valorant UKC X account.
Key dates for the first VUKC season
- Signups open: July 31st 2024
- Swiss Stage: September 18th and 25th, October 2nd and 9th
- Playoffs: October 16th, 23rd and 30th, and November 6th
Who can play in the VUKC?
Organisers said in a press release that teams may not contain more than two players who are not residents or citizens of the United Kingdom.
All players must reside within the EMEA region, be 16+ years of age on the date of registration, and must not play in multiple national leagues at the same time.
All team members must also be members of the official tournament Discord (the Beacon Discord linked halfway through this article).
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
