Hot Take: Academy Teams are bad for T2 Scene

#1

Taz04

Seeing recent results and player signings, it just seems like Academy teams are hurting the talent pool available to create strong t2 competition. The good players can just be bought by franchised teams who want a good academy team to pull people from whenever they need subs, leaving most smaller orgs who are trying to compete for ascension with much less talent to choose from.

Realistically, if you have the chance between signing with a franchised team, even if its on their backup roster, why wouldn't you. Top tier scrimming and coaching + pretty good likelihood that you get a job in the near future if you perform well.

I'm betting this causes this years ascension tournament to be the weakest yet. Next ascension winners from every region are likely going to be a repeat of Bleed esports in terms of success.

#2

Ronyko23

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Strong poobert academy lol

#14

Taz04

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Cubert is part of the problem imo. A player like Nismo shouldn't be on an academy team. He should be on a top T2 team that actually has a chance to ascend. Academy teams should be for players that aren't old enough to play in t1

#28

Whatever4567

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The point is that if cubert are doing really good and have a chance at ascending, some other org will buy them out. SEN has made it cheap to do that

#3

kaesra

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job security in tier 2 i take it honestly

#4

mitski

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personally I think players getting better pay and orgs getting more viewership is a net positive for T2, but go off I guess

#7

washedradiant

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Yea i cant agree with bro

#13

Taz04

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well thats just the thing though, academy teams can't compete in ascension, therefore weaker teams may end up ascending just due to that restriction. I think the rule should be academy players have to be under 18. That would be a net positive

#20

mitski

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you're focussing too much on ascension and T1 instead of seeing T2 as it's own ecosystem
the only way for T2 to thrive is for it to attract viewers, because that's what makes orgs money, and players, who need financial support to see playing valorant as a viable career
more viewership means more orgs wich means more players who in turn creates more competition

also, most of the academy teams so far are just... not amazing? they're mostly consisting of 1 or 2 young prospects who see a chance at playing in T1 eventually but can't right now and mid experienced players who want job security in the end of their careers
for a lot of players, a shot at ascension is still more valuable than the security of an academy roster

#21

Taz04

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okay but academy teams can't compete in the ascension tournament. Most of the best players are signed to academy teams. you're going to have very little viewership for ascension

#22

peetherium

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"most of the best young prospects are being scouted by tier 1 orgs who can properly develop them"
ok and how is that a problem? It's up to the player at the end of the day. If they want to they can play on a tier 2 org and run it in ascension, or they could choose the talent development pipeline for tier 1. also most people who watch ascension do it regardless because they want to see if a team from their country/region will ascend anyways. the viewership isn't doomed just because a certain team can't play

#23

Taz04

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my point is younger players should be in academy teams. not players like skuba, Nismo, etc. If you're old enough to play in T1 you should be in a T2 team thats trying to ascend.

#24

peetherium

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you're treating it like the academy team's only goal is to hog prospects and leave scraps to the rest of the league that have a collective 800 followers on twitter. Cubert have Nismo, Tdawg, and Skuba because they are focusing on developing a talent PIPELINE

#15

bees

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W take from Mitski thank you for writing Heaven btw

#26

mitski

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I may bet on losing dogs but I don't lose arguments

#30

sideshowsbaldhead

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can’t believe i laughed at this

#5

Vegaaa

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its actually better. higher pay, higher viewership, and it allows teams to have what EG had, just a bit weaker since theyre their own dedicated team but its also gona be easier to have that.

#6

foythvlr

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that would just cause them to be unemployed because theres not too many orgs on t2 already. is healthy dont worry

#8

Boketto

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Well Tier 2 was bound to start dying because the thing is since riot introduced maximum 2 ascension teams and a promo/rele system that sometimes didn't guarantee team ascension to Tier 1 orgs were slowly starting to back away since most of the times they just want the money in Tier 1 and these academy teams were the only way riot could save Tier 2. Also this helps bring more viewership and bigger orgs meaning bringing in more money therefore potentially reversing the effects bringing in more orgs just maybe give it time idk

#9

IonlywatchvcjXD

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there's more nuance to this imo. For regions that has horrible viewership and little choice, academy team is like others said, bringing in viewerships and security.

However, for Japan this is a mixed bag imo, orgs like FAV and BB missed out of the tournament in place of ZETA and DFM AC, just like you said this unnecessarily tightens the competition which makes it hard for orgs with fewer resources to compete. Even, between orgs with plenty resources have to face elimination like FAV and BB( orgs that are actually trying to elevate the scene). This is not good because FAV just left the scene ( from what I can see).

However, many of this resourceful orgs love to play "refugee camp simulator" ( they hate to scout local talents and choose to actually scout young imports, repeat this word 3 times and you will understand how stupid these orgs are) meaning much of the local talents doesn't have a chance to play in place of imports. In this case Zeta and DFM actually helped the scene by developing the scene's local talent.

I have to say, relationship between viewership and academy teams isn't that straightforward. Zeta and DFM doesn't bring in viewerships.

#10

Anguibok

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Not really sure of that, in France KC have just bought young player that couldn't play T1 anyway, it's a good things because they buy player that could win ascension but indeed not participate into T1. Aca team kinda work well in EMEA usually, I donno how it is in NA, but T2 NA scene in lol was always old washed player and NA where never able to make yound NA player shine, donno if thats can happen in Val too.

#12

IonlywatchvcjXD

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In terms of development NA doesn't really need one imo, since everyone is basically either from US or Canada

Whereas in japan unironically Zeta and Dfm has done more than 90% of VCJ orgs in terms of talent development.

#25

Anguibok

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What ? In LoL NA where suffering from having no T2, no good academics team while some of our best team competed in special tournament that hyped a lot and make blossom a lot of rookie. Our structure invest in detetion always good to find hidden gems while NA where perpetually recycling washed player from all around the world. I think the problem of NA culture is that they don't have academics team culture, but they need to develop it otherwise they gonna have a stagnation, and it's good Riot push them to have it (To me every T1 team should have a aca team, and I hope that will be something that will be an obligation when the franchise will be renew)

#27

IonlywatchvcjXD

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Oooooh you meant NA League, if so I agree with you, in fact, LJL ( japan league) and what used to be LCS are the primary reason I'm very against imports. There's nothing you can do when multiple orgs' owners ( including jack ettiene which is why i kinda don't like him) actively tried to prevent Riot for restricting import rules. In LJL there are academy team but due to the large gap between Japan and the rest, unfortunately it's way too late.

However in Valorant it's different, the Gap between regions are still close, there are still ways to prevent to prevent league situation from happening. Which is why I HATED it when japan orgs actively search for young imports and choose to abandon their own local talent, they acted like this is League and a not a different game with different situation( you can clearly see this with how DFM operates, they clearly think they are in league when they tried to form a 3 korean roster ). For every imports they picked we are moving 1 step behind in terms of development.

I change my mind, NA valorant needs all the development it can gets just like any other region and that includes academy teams

#29

Anguibok

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I was more talking about NACS the league 2 of NA, while the national league in EMEA that is combined league 2 did an amazing job. But yeah you are right, thats also true for LCS thatd also found a HUGE loophole that just destroyed the region on the long term, wish is pretty sad. T.T

#11

sideshowsbaldhead

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who cares rankers are winning everything anyway

#16

RA621H

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From this year onwards, if you want to win Ascension in any of the regions you have to beat at least one of the 2 guest teams currently in each international leagues (unless both are ass and are auto-relegated). That means, either the current guest team is even worse than the Challenger team, or if this year's Ascension competitors are as bad as you say, they'll not win Ascensions

#17

youngbonk

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Good player doesn't need academy team to develop them.

#18

youngbonk

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RANKER aren't even academy or fulltime salary team.

#19

KClaw

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It's not a hot take , it's rather pretty obvious that's the case , academy teams take up a spot that could have been given to a different and new team /org wanting to invest in valorant , their spot can't be qualified for ascension thus taking away a potential chance at ascension of that players team ( like how cubert looks good and can possibly make ascension but since they are under sen they can't)