Are ADC Vaults Tougher Than People Think? The Numbers Tell an Interesting Story

 

The ADC Vault has become one of the biggest developments in grassroots darts.

Thousands of players now compete across the UK and Ireland, from relative newcomers to players capable of competing at MODUS Super Series and professional level.

But how strong are the tournaments themselves?

Having already used my Q4QS Tournament Strength Score to compare the major tours around the world, I wanted to apply the same measurement to the Vault.

Could an ordinary night at your local Vault actually produce a field comparable with some recognised international tours?

The answer is more complicated than I expected.

First – What Is Tournament Strength?

The Q4QS Tournament Strength Score is not the tournament average.

It is a calculated measure designed to assess the overall quality of a tournament field, incorporating factors including player ratings, performances and the strength of the players taking part.

That means two tournaments producing similar match averages don't necessarily receive the same Strength Score.

For this analysis I've also separated ordinary weekly Vault tournaments from the larger Regional Finals and MODUS Super Series qualifying events.

That's important.

A normal £6 Vault night open to players of widely differing standards isn't really the same competition as a Regional Final containing many of the strongest players from an entire region.

How Strong Is a Normal Vault?

This is where the size of the Q4QS database becomes particularly useful.

There are more than 3,500 ordinary 2026 Vault tournament records in the dataset after removing Regional Finals, MODUS qualifiers, Level Up events, break-week competitions and obvious malformed records.

Across that enormous sample, a typical Vault sits at around 60 Tournament Strength points.

But that doesn't tell the whole story.

The strongest ordinary Vault nights are considerably tougher.

Some of the Strongest Regular Vaults in the Database

Event	Tournament Strength
8 Ball Bar & Sports, Paignton – Vault 17	75.08
Lindsay Constitutional Club, Cefn Hengoed – Vault 18	73.44
Bengeworth Club, Evesham – Vault 18	71.06
Hotshots Sports Bar, Bletchley – Vault 18	70.62
Sartan Club, Bishopsworth – Vault 18	70.25
Lindsay Constitutional Club, Cefn Hengoed – Vault 18	69.93
Samba Darts Academy, Tipton – Vault 17	69.81
Beechwood Club, Blackburn – Vault 17	69.50
Cardiff County Conservative Club – Vault 18	69.35
Sartan Club, Bishopsworth – Vault 16	69.26

That immediately demonstrates something important.

There is no single standard of “Vault darts”.

One venue can produce a substantially stronger field than another, and even the same venue can change significantly from week to week.

That's hardly surprising when Vault is deliberately accessible to players across a very wide range of abilities. The ADC describes the format as being for everyone, from beginners through to experienced competitors.

Paignton Produces the Standout

The biggest surprise in the regular-event data is 8 Ball Bar & Sports in Paignton.

Its Vault 17 event on 27 April scores 75.08.

That is particularly interesting when compared with the figure from the previous article in this series:

PDC Women's Series – 74.95

I wouldn't interpret a difference of 0.13 points as meaning the Paignton Vault is definitively "stronger than the Women's Series".

The methodology and samples are different, and we're comparing one exceptionally strong Vault with the leading events used for a whole circuit.

But it demonstrates the level that an unusually strong local Vault can reach.

A grassroots Monday-night tournament producing a field that even enters the same numerical territory is noteworthy.

Then the Regional Finals Change Everything

Once we move from ordinary Vault nights to the end-of-series Regional Finals and MODUS qualifiers, the numbers rise again.

Among the strongest in the database are:

Vault Finals/Qualifier	Strength
South East & London Vault 16 MODUS Qualifier	82.19
South Wales Vault 15 MODUS Qualifier	79.98
South Wales Vault 17 MODUS Qualifier	79.19
South Wales Vault 16 MODUS Qualifier	79.17
South West Vault 16 MODUS Qualifier	78.79
South West Vault 17 MODUS Qualifier	78.53
Midlands Vault 17 MODUS Qualifier	78.12
South West Vault 15 MODUS Qualifier	77.70

And 82.19 changes the conversation considerably.

How Does 82.19 Compare With the World Tours?

Using the illustrative Tournament Strength figures from the previous Q4QS analysis gives us some context:

Circuit/Event	Q4QS Strength
Challenge Tour	91.85
Development Tour	89.26
Asian Tour	87.13
DPA Australia	83.25
Strongest Vault Regional Final	82.19
Nordic & Baltic	82.46
DPNZ New Zealand	79.22
CDC North America	79.05
Strongest ordinary Vault	75.08
PDC Women's Series	74.95
CDLC	66.48

Now it gets interesting.

The strongest Vault Regional Final in the database is sitting almost level with the Nordic & Baltic circuit, not far behind the DPA, and above the figures we produced for DPNZ and CDC.

Again, that doesn't mean ADC Vault is a stronger tour than CDC or DPNZ.

It isn't a like-for-like comparison.

We're comparing the very strongest Vault Regional Final with representative scores from complete circuits.

But it does demonstrate the quality that can assemble at the sharp end of the ADC system.

And the ADC pathway is specifically designed to funnel local Vault competition into Regional Finals, National Finals and ultimately opportunities including the Global Championship and MODUS Super Series.

But Is Vault Challenge Tour Standard?

This is where the data gives us a pretty decisive answer.

No.

At least not as a circuit.

The Challenge Tour score of 91.85 is in another bracket.

So too is the Development Tour at 89.26.

Even the strongest Vault Regional Final currently recorded at 82.19 remains around seven points below Development Tour level.

That's quite a substantial gap on this scale.

And an ordinary Vault, typically around 60, is obviously operating in a completely different competitive environment.

But that shouldn't really be surprising.

Challenge Tour fields contain former Tour Card holders and players actively attempting to enter or return to the professional game.

Vault has a completely different purpose.

Perhaps That's Actually the Strength of Vault

This might be the most interesting conclusion of all.

The attraction of the Vault isn't that every tournament is brutally difficult.

It's that the standard can stretch so far.

At one end, someone relatively new to competitive darts can enter their local event.

At the other, the strongest players progress into Regional Finals containing fields capable of registering Tournament Strength Scores above 80.

The structure deliberately accommodates that range. Vault operates through seven-week series before Regional Finals, while the wider 2026 pathway also includes average-banded Level Up competitions.

That's a very different model from the Challenge or Development Tours.

Location Matters – A Lot

There is another story hidden in these numbers that I'll return to later in this series.

Where you play your Vault matters.

Paignton reaching 75.08 while thousands of other Vault tournaments sit around the 60 mark demonstrates just how much local player pools affect tournament difficulty.

Sartan Club appears repeatedly towards the higher end.

So does Lindsay Constitutional Club.

Evesham, Bletchley, Tipton and several other venues also produce particularly strong nights.

That opens up another question:

Where are the toughest places in Britain to play darts?

That's an article for later in this series.

Final Thoughts

So, are ADC Vaults tougher than people think?

At the top end, absolutely.

A normal Vault isn't comparable with the Challenge Tour or Development Tour, and it would be misleading to pretend otherwise.

But the best ordinary Vault fields can reach the mid-70s on the Q4QS Tournament Strength scale.

And once the strongest players from a region are concentrated into the Regional Finals, scores can climb beyond 80.

That's enough to put the strongest Vault showcase events into territory occupied by some established international circuits.

Perhaps that's the real story.

The journey from a normal local Vault night to the sharp end of a Regional Final represents a considerable increase in difficulty in its own right.

And for a competition designed to provide a pathway from grassroots darts towards much bigger opportunities, that's exactly what you would hope to see.

Next in the Q4QS Tournament Strength series: The Toughest Individual Tournaments of 2026.