I'm sapphiRe and joining me is /u/Prius707 (@priusOBS). We are professional VALORANT Observers (otherwise known as an in-game Director). We are currently in Istanbul, serving as the two POV observers for VALORANT's VCT Championship.

For background, prius and I have been professional esports observers for seven years, starting with CS:GO but also dabbling in Overwatch, PUBG, Fortnite and currently VALORANT. In our CS:GO roles, we both observed at least 50% of the CS:GO Majors, as well as events such as IEM Katowice, ESL One Cologne, ELEAGUE, BLAST, Beyond the Summit, among others. We've traveled to 20 or so different countries for obbserving.

While primarily our role is serving as VALORANT's Global POV Observers, we also observe a number of NA VCT events, as well as other third-party events. Before observing, a played Counter-Strike professionally - even playing some time in ESEA Invite (now ESL Pro League, though didn't play on a global scale). I've competed since 2002 in Counter-Strike. I was also a analyst for CS 1.6 and CS:Source, mostly in the form of journalist articles. I've done a handful of events on a broadcast desk both for CS:GO and VALORANT. prius was formerly an admin for CS:GO and League of Legends, before getting his start in observing.

In addition, since April 2020, we've also been consultants to Riot Games, advising on the development of the observer toolkit.

At VCT Champions, and other global VALORANT events, we're partnered with Yehty and Synga who serve as both the Cinematic observers (free cam) and the "in-game TD" - the person that dictates whether we switch between Cinematic and POV cameras. We're happy to field questions for Yehty and Synga as well, so they can reply.

I put together this TikTok video (along with a number of other VALORANT behind-the-scenes videos explaining the different roles in esports), to outline what a typical day looks like at VCT Champions for the Observers.

We get a number of questions about what it means to be an observe, how we make difficult decisions on which POV to watch, why an observer might sometimes switch at the last second before a fight happens, how one becomes an observe, and if we can give you a Riot gun buddy (no, we can't!).

We're using our off-day in Istanbul to host an AMA, so fire questions away! We'll answer throughout the day and likely into tomorrow before the final weekend of VCT Champs starts!

EDIT: It's Midnight in Istanbul, so need to head to bed. I'll answer more questions when we get to the Arena tomorrow, before the show kicks off!