Rishoo [#8]
2023 had its dull moments but 2024 is a pretty meh year so far. Lock In finals was the best finals we might ever see, and the games leading up to it were great too, Loud vs NRG comes to mind. Master's Tokyo wasn't a great tournament all things considered with the large gap between FNATIC and the rest of the competition, but PRX getting third place with a sub was great and EG's run to second place was great. Champions 2023 was great, the atmosphere and EG playing with the home crowd was one of my favorites. Even though in specifically Valorant Champions 2022 was probably better, in my opinion Champions 2023 was the best we've had so far because of the hype from the crowd.
Compare that to 2024, Masters Madrid was alright, the grand finals was electric but leading up to it wasn't great. There was a sizable gap between Sentinels and GenG vs the rest of the competition. Masters Shanghai was worse in my opinion, with many of the favorites to win such as PRX and 100T not showing up. Patitek's story with Team Heretics was great though and Pacific's first international win is one to remember. Overall, unless Champions 2024 has some crazy storyline, 2023 was a much better year than 2024.
I don't know where I'd place 2023 but I remember being Loud fan but not really that much, and after seeing them crumble on Tokyo and being kinda mid the first matches of Champs, I thought the team was just done. You could see how poeple were spreading rumours about their relationship and everything, and everyone was thinking about how thew went from the second best team in the world, to losing matches they easily would win any other day. I remember having school at the time Loud vs Fnatic were playing, so I just didn't even watched the match thinking about how Loud would just get mopped by Fnatic. When I came back home and saw the results I literally got goosebumps, it may sound corny but the way Loud went from doubted to feared again, the way they got back into form just in time for the Playoffs and how they were playing insanely good those last matches just made me the biggest fanboy. I was rooting for them on every match, and the rematch against Fnatic on the lower bracket was fire af