OpTic Gaming, the runner-up of VALORANT Champions Istanbul, reportedly missed their cut to join the other 30 partnered teams in the VALORANT franchised league for 2023.

Now that VALORANT Champions 2022 has finished, all eyes are looking ahead to the upcoming VCT 2023 season. Not only that, Riot also has announced the teams which have actually secured partnership status in one of the international leagues.

There are a total of three international leagues, with 10 teams in each of them. Because of that, Riot had to make hard choices about which organizations would make it through.

New reports regarding this, suggested that the final list came as a shock to many fans, that some of the biggest organizations have been denied franchising in these so-called leagues, despite having field the best rosters all year.

One of the biggest bombshells is how OpTic Gaming, the runner-up of the recent VALORANT Champions in Istanbul, has been denied partnership (according to Sport Business Journal's Kevin Hitt).

OpTic has been one of the most consistent teams all year, where they placed top three at every international LAN tournament they have attended and even won Masters Reykjavik. So, this news is really hard to accept and unbelievable.

On the other hand, teams like Cloud9, Sentinels, and NRG which don't shine as much as OpTic managed to be accepted into the partnership league. What will happen to the current OpTic members is still unknown. 

According to the report, the team has expressed their desire to stick together as a core six but could be split between multiple teams depending on how the off-season goes. What do you guys think about this?

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