the only valid answer

based on last season no, but we'll see as the season goes on

New fokus roster is heat and the scrimbux are actually looking good again
That being said its like a week of practice for them as far as I can tell

Fokus 2-0

Theyre amazing, I was so stoked when I saw the first vid on twitter
the rate is insane atm too (expect it to slow down now that t2 starts, but still)

holy t2 super team
Apeks vs KPI gonna be a banger if we get it, and ngl I think id favor kpi with the last 2 upgrades

Idk, I dont really have a horse in this race. I cant say its nearly bad enough to upset me, but with the context that we have had pros... ya know... this might rub someone the wrong way
Its not like valo has the most mature or (purely based on age) mentally stable fanbase
But... orgs like Sen and G2 have always posted stuff thats SO on the line that I feel like this is going from 0 to 100 a bit quick

it has a very different tone though since its him joking about doing it himself, not joking about other people doing it
cant really say if bren was fine with that either though, but in general you have to hold orgs to a higher standard

fuck
no who cars and no nille

lmao, yall are actually a perfect balance
gj

we better start seeing some mad support out of you

What a hype finals
Insane crowd, and an absolute brawl of a last map
GGs to CGN

all lan games are played within 1 day so a bo5 to end it off would be hard time wise
(So theoretically if SK had won all their games they would have played 3 Bo3s)

Dach is budget this year so what can you do; luckily this is only for points so its not the end of the world but yeeeeea.... lots of weird decisions with this scheduling

13-0s all day rn

13-0 dang
Requiem are genuinely impressive, hope to see them in t2 this time round

well that means you are confirmed as a non "emeatard[s] or chronicle cock sucker", obviously

click happened again

https://www.vlr.gg/event/1925/champions-tour-2024-emea-kickoff/playoffs
winning kickoff is worth 3 points

nop 0-2 loss means TL qualify
2-1 is round diff (so BBL qual)
2-0 is map diff so auto bbl qual

As mentioned above, remove single elim from playoffs and then this is an interesting format
Its harder to understand which is a bit of a problem, but its super interesting from a simulation standpoint

By having all teams in a group play against the exact same opponents you can implement the 2 win rule (which helps reduce the unfair group problem we always have in valo) - and is in general a more fair way to judge teams on paper (idk if it is in practice, this entire split has been wild in all 4 regions)
If only it was 12 teams not 11, but thats just gonna be a problem in any format ig (since that impacts the 2 win rule)

Its weird not having h2h matchups though ngl

TL really wanted revenge for that ascension final

theory is probably just that m8 is one of the most anti-strat heavy teams
but this is still quite something

good thing m8 doesnt like lurking.... riiiight?

if theres 1 team that likes making life hard for the TL boys its m8 so this is perfect ngl

Yea then they wont be good this year
Scrims are good regionally, but I just cant see a world where they make it to Champions (and theyre out for masters)

They are the definition of a mid atm
You wont be seeing them in internationals, but theyre not a hopeless team
It looks like they cant punch up (at all), but they have good games vs teams on an equal level

So depends on what you have as your definition of good

Yes riot has always pushed narratives for their media day videos, however its braindead to blame them for this backlash
There have been plenty of players who have equal if not worse quotes taken out of context by the team to create tension, yet weirdly enough those players then dont also fully lean into it during live interviews, press conferences and their personal tweets.

Like do any of you think of MIBRs frz as a toxic player because of the quote during the original Reykjavík? Do we think Scream is an NA hating asshole?
Even if its the most atrocious shit you can either call out riot or explain where the quote is from and youll be fine.
Assuming the current discourse around demon1 has gotten to him, just stopping with the persona will realistically fix it; the only players we remember as toxic are people like Zombs who made it their personality and farmed interactions with it. If that aint you then you dont have to do it

yea the problem with discussions on here is that people arent here to be convinced or informed. The few times we do have people who are well informed on the subject due to their studies share their opinions/understanding of the subject they have to deal with idiots to the point where they just dont comment on future threads

There is nothing to be gained from the threads in their current form. It sucks to indirectly silence a minority however I just dont see a way you can change this fact without HEAVY moderation, which VLR has never really done.

it does look like he was helping with the calls a good bit, they feel kinda lost in some situations
at the same time it might just be one of those games where nothing works how they want it to and the mental is destroyed, so we'll see how they bounce back

every International the team I was cheering for didnt win was a fluke, how is that so hard to understand?!

I would say they signed him for his experience to help with the 3.5 inexperienced players but yes the goal was never to have him igl (at least initially during the offseason interviews)

I miss guy....

Team that lost all their good players to other orgs, that just swapped coaching staff and has very inexperienced (in t1) players

individually probably not (he had an insane game vs Vit but hes always had these blowout games from time to time), but the util they lose when he dies tends to be less valuable

They really gotta ban pansy from the building, this is insane

stating current standings/form isnt bias
and at least imo it hasnt been distracting in terms of frequency with a decent amount of praise mixed in between criticisms

its the other way round since turkey was part of emea first, but yes you are correct

I dont think hes very underrated at all since everyone knows that hes a talent
hes just always been signed to big orgs that arent likely to just let him go

Sorta the same way how all the acend players didnt get on t1 teams, despite multiple teams being interested in them; buyouts are a bitch

Only if consoles become strong enough to run it at 60fps with updated graphics, otherwise I see no world where they remaster it
(and dream on if you think theyd port it to pc while also improving the product... that'd make them money and we cant have that)

sayf really wanted to stay with leo so its not impossible
but since he was pretty clear that his goal was to try and teach younger players this year, joining a team like fnatic would go against that

potential problem with that is that we dont know how much midrounding input starxo has (since Shadow is new to igl)

doubt it'd fix anything, but yea would be an upgrade atm

I wanna see them bolster their coaching staff, last year they always feel so flat in the idea department (and feels like theyll continue that trend this year)

nah g2 is spanish too
just have headquarters in germany, but they never really tried to be a german org and market to german fans

(realistically they are just international since they dont have a focus on any country at all nowadays)

Koi vs Bleed is gonna be a battle for the ages
But after today Koi do just have to be the worst team, they have all the issues of the other teams while also lacking firepower
(New IGL and very few setplays, lacking fundamentals, missed lineups galore, firepower)

Mibr is just better than the other teams here based on what we saw and really should be here^ but ye its gonna be between them and giants imo

thats for the better ngl

way way WAY too early

its gonna depend on the person for sure; someone young like Miniboo probably wouldnt shit-talk to coach that got him into t1
but theres quite a few players who do just call out their former coaches when asked to compare them

the ones I can think off of the top of my head are sayf talking about barbarr (wasnt that negative), nukkye had a pretty long discussion comparing his past coaches to pipson a while ago and then theres the ardiis stream where he just talks about all his past teams (and a ton of coaches get called out)

but also them just bringing up past coaches when not explicitly asked about them is a sign for a good coach (like the miniboo example above)

You pretty much have to listen to how their former players talk about them

I have very little knowledge about the Spanish scene so I cant give you that much info, but miniboo praised him on his stream today as a strategic coach

Yea id say hes good enough and I can see him being a filler piece on a roster rebuild when one of the bottom teams restructures.
However thats also sorta the only way I can see him getting picked up into t1 again - it wouldnt make sense to pick him up as a player to develop and hes not super star level either (obviously since hes in t2).

Its a shame for him that the internals of case are so fucked (and that they just blew up the offseason roster for a certain fraud watch coach) since I could have seen him make a return this year based on their offseason performance and the teams INSANE upper limit.

lmao yea I remember the amount of flaming that resulted due to that series
had people convinced they were gonna be absolute garbage

high deaths so a lot of his kills were considered "low impact" (traded) by the ratings formula
(still bad) rule of thumb is to use ACS for duelists and rating for support players

fut know how to play their comp on attack so they didnt lose