by FAR the strongest region going into this tournament.
That's the NA logic brother.thats what I was talking about the whole time.G2 is the only good thing to come out of NA in the last couple of years.everything else is white noise.Rn EMEA is diverse and balanced because every teame has a cracked duelist who would dominated the world's best 4/10 times.derke sayf miniboo/woot queutionrx cned Keiko marteen/narrate .the lineup is fucking crazy have never seen before in any region.
if you only want to look at Shanghai, then I guess Fnatic isn't a good team huh. I mean they have to be worse than Lev if they got a worse placement overall. Get it through your brain that things change in between tournaments and teams that didn't look as strong before can easily look like the strongest now.
EMEA as a region was the best the best at Shanghai
EMEA doesnt have the best team though
very similar situation to 2023 and 2022
in 2021, EMEA was the best region and had the best 2 teams (GAMBIT, ACEND)
in 2022, EMEA was the best region overall, but AMER had the best 2 teams (OPTIC, LOUD) with the rest of AMER looking horrendous (other than XSET at Champs)
in 2023, AMER was the best region overall, but EMEA had the best team (FNATIC)
When you look at it, there are a ton of high quality teams that are in form coming into champs, but I expect some out of form teams to rev back up once we get high steaks.
PRX and Heretics are both very high tier teams that I am inclined to believe they're saving strats. On an unironic level, I think Heretics lost to Vit so they would be POTENTIALLY mentally boomed from losing 3 Grand Finals this year.
As for inform teams, Fnatic look to be on a high level (Not as dominant as their early 2023 form). Fnatic are a genuine threat to win this thing. G2 and Lev are polar opposites, but easily the best 2 teams from America's. Lev have such an insane skill ceiling, and G2 has some of the best gameplans/discipline in the world. Basically no other team in the world has such depth at all 5 positions like Lev and G2 do.
But who the fuck cares, Gen.G clears these teams all-time peaks at 75% of their current form. This tournament is Gen.G's to lose, and it's up to the rest of the world to prove that Gen.G is even mortal.