Leo Faria, Head of VALORANT Esports, has commented on the major technical problems in the VCT league in the EMEA region, which worsened during the final matchday in the Team Liquid vs. Karmine Corp match.

The match at VCT 2025: EMEA Stage 1 on April 25 resembled more of a podcast show than a tournament broadcast. The main problem was the technical pauses, which delayed the first map between Team Liquid and Karmine Corp for up to three hours. During this time, hosts and commentators had to entertain the audience. After the completion of the Split map, this and the following matches were postponed indefinitely, causing outrage in the community. Leo Faria joined the discussion on X, joking about whether this was the longest map in history, but the joke was not well-received, and he had to issue a more official statement:

I understand you're all frustrated by the situation with VCT EMEA. I am also. The volume and recurrence of issues is simply not acceptable and not up to Riot standards. Rest assured I'm addressing it. That said, the tweet below was meant as harmless commentary on the map taking 48 rounds to complete, not mockery on the situation. Ofc timing was terrible, and once again I'm reminded that humor doesn't translate well on Twitter. As we've addressed via official channels, the team is on it and we'll provide further updates soon.

Leo Faria

He did not say anything specific or new, as it was already stated immediately after the matches were postponed that the team was working on the issue and would provide more information soon. More details about the technical problems during the Karmine Corp vs. Team Liquid match were shared by Dmitry "SUYGETSU" Ilyushin, a KC player, during his personal stream:

What happened during the match was that the guys on Team Liquid kept pausing — it looked like their PCs were lagging. At first, we were laughing about it, but then everyone's PCs started lagging, and something froze every round.

In one round, I was left in a one-on-one clutch (against a low HP kamo) — and right then I experienced a massive lag. We asked for a round reset, but it was denied. We had to keep playing.

After that, we were offered to lower our monitor refresh rates from 360Hz to 240Hz — supposedly to help with the lag. For me, that was a complete disaster because we had played the entire Stage on 360Hz, and the difference is very noticeable.

At first, we played on online servers, with Frankfurt selected — things were relatively stable. Then they offered to switch to offline servers with a 1ms ping, claiming it would be better. But in reality, those servers were unstable: the lagging only got worse.

Dmitry "SUYGETSU" Ilyushin

The problems at VCT EMEA revealed serious technical shortcomings from the organizers. Despite official promises, there has been no clear communication or concrete solutions so far. The community and professional players expect Riot Games not only to offer words but to deliver real improvements in equipment and fixes to the existing issues.