How crypto-throwing trolls led to Valorant Pro City’s High Elo League

Valorant exploded onto the gaming scene back in 2020 with its unique blend of tactical gunplay and heroic abilities and has since become a monumental gaming presence. millions of players log in daily to play in ranked mode, including some of the most popular content creators in gaming. Unfortunately, all is not well with the competition in North America, as a nefarious crypto toss system has had disastrous results, prompting arguably the most successful streamer to create his own private league called Pro City.

So what is the crypto toss drama all about then? Well, the highest tiers of ranked play have been plagued by people buying boosted accounts and then trying to make big bucks by betting (cryptocurrency) and rolling against the streamers in their games to ensure a payout. The problem has become so serious that dozens of content creators and professional gamers in North America have practically gone on strike and refused to play ranked games.

Riot Games has kept a low profile on the situation, and in an attempt to combat the problem, one of North America’s top content creators and heroes (depending on who you ask) is taking matters into his own hands.

By now, many of you know the story of Tarık Çelik, former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro turned content creator. Tarik won North America’s only CS:GO Major in 2018 and has since focused on dominating the content creation side, with his popularity being instrumental in boosting Valorant’s numbers. In addition to playing the game, he also hosts esports watch parties, like the recent one Ludwig x Tarik Invitational.

Tarik is an avid ranked player; If you look at the leaderboards, you’ll see his name at the top of every single act. Because of his reach, he was a prime target for the crypto throwers, and after much visible frustration, he began creating an official high-elo discord to avoid the throwers and scammers.

Enter Pro City.

What is ProCity?

Pro City is Tarik’s solution to the ranking dilemma; A 10-man professional server that pits the highest levels of professional and semi-professional players against each other, free not only from crypto throwers but also from the usual ranked trollers. There is even one leaderboard which tracks each member’s stats and MMR. Ironically, Tarik sits at the bottom of the rankings! But we’ll let him loose a bit since he’s played most of the matches…

As this is a private group, it is important to note that participants are not playing for in-game rewards or official rank badges. The proverbial reward is the experience, as this group gets as close to players as possible to replicate a pro setting away from competition.

Who can play in Pro City?

As previously mentioned, Pro City is made up of top-ranked players in North America. This contains Pros from Valorant’s esports teams (Franchise, Challengers and Game Changers) or players at the top of the leaderboardsincluding many popular content creators.

At the top of the group sits the Pro City Council, which determines the players who come onto the server. The council remains anonymous, but paying attention to the list of players usually invites the top tier of North American players who take Valorant seriously. There has been a lot discussion in terms of eligibility, but since it’s only been a few weeks, much of the structure of the system isn’t set in stone.

How to watch Pro City games

Watching the Pro City Games is easier than you think; All you have to do is tune into your favorite player’s POV. Typically, players invited to Pro City stream the games on their Twitch channels. although it depends on how active the player is streaming. Pro City is usually active later in the night to accommodate players’ training schedules.

A slightly more tedious way of checking would be to go to Valorant’s Twitch Directory and scroll through thousands of streams with the same goal, but this method is more than time consuming.

Below are a few different POVs for you to check out:

The future of ProCity

If you are a fan of this format, you should keep in mind that Pro City is an idea developed by players. If Riot Games decides to take action against the lobby, Pro City will have to close its doors. However, if the developer remains silent on crypto betting, we hope they will leave this creation alone as it is extremely entertaining to watch and provides a platform for professionals to compete at a higher level than on a daily basis.

With this year’s Champions Tour scheduled to start at LOCK//IN in a few weeks, it will be interesting to see how the group handles players moving back and forth due to work commitments. For now, given the sad state of high-level ranked play, it was a nice change of pace as viewers can watch their favorite players team up for high-level tactics, misplays, and Hijinx.

Keep it locked for everything Valorant on Twinfinite, including our latest feature on the state of the meta and Chamber’s fall from grace in particular.