Hello. Since most america's offseasons are over, we have an idea on how teams might play and im not going to watch tixinha's final later today, i decided to update my VCT Americas Early Power Ranking. Decided also to change a bit and order teams in tier lists because i think the league is stacked and is hard to predict actual placements, so i'm going to unite them into possible placements, with no special order inside them (which means, any team inside the tiers could be at any placement, like Sentinels could be either 3 or 6 or anything in between)
1-2:
- G2: Obvious candidate, already good core, and again: they feel like the only undeniable big upgrade on Americas. If everything goes right, they will be the strongest team on americas.
- NRG: Liked what i saw already, some upsets happened but that's offseason, it's fine. Great firepower and good mix of youth and veterans.
3-6:
- MIBR: Also obvious, a team with Aspas, they looked pretty good and will be even better with time. Might be the greatest BR team since Loud 22. I still think this team will demand a bit of time when the season starts, because they will get more punished with better and more experienced teams, but by the end of the season they will be top 3 at least.
- Furia: I'm a Furia believer since day one, glad to see they are fullfilling my expectations. Still a lot to work on this team but they have a lot of potential, and i think they will fight for a champions spot at the end of the season.
- 2G: They looked much better than expected without their IGL. Guys have interesting ideas and can shoot a lot. Gobera also looked really good subbing in. Might be a team to watch out for during the season. They will however lose a lot of firepower without Spike for most of the year, and i think Silentzz needs to step up a little more so the team can be truly great during that time.
- Sentinels: They didn't look exactly great, but i do think they have their shit together a lot more than the other teams below. My problem with this team is that they look psychologically fragile, but if they fix a few things they might be really good.
7-9:
- Leviatan: Again, this might be my hot take, but i don't really like this team. They didn't look really great either. But it's offseason so who knows? They might surprise me. I hope they do. They have a lot of firepower, that's for sure.
- Kru: I might have been too rough to them on my last power ranking, i will say that. They are average, i think. Definitely will fight for playoffs. They could be great, specially with a strong core Keznit-Mazino-Shyy, but i don't think they will.
- 100thieves: Kinda mixed cause i really do think this team is underrated, and Trust in Plug is your average offseason loss. But idk, everyone above them just seems more interesting. They might be good at the start of the season because their core have been together for more time, but probably will fall behind with time.
10-12:
- Loud: Lost all my faith on this team. They look straight up boring. The firepower is there, but they really do need to fix too much things, most of them having been a problem for this entire year, and i don't trust the coaching staff to do this. Hoping they can surprise me, but i don't really believe it anymore.
- EG: Don't know what to expect from this team. Probably the same things as this year but a bit worse. I don't even know if the offseason squad will be the same. Icy coming is definitely an upgrade for Sym, but not a big one. It's not 2023 anymore. May be great, may not. Who knows?
- Cloud9: We all see this coming, right? Just straight up an avalanche of bad decisions. Probably just there for the vibes. Not big ambitions, just gonna win some games, make some jokes and that's it.