that the power ranking is worthless
literally any masters team can beat another masters team
minor region team can shit on NA/EU
Power ranking #1 and #2 are about to be grouped
It's fun to watch but I've never seen other esports this unstable
"Unstable"
Yeah, I do not know about that one chief. Teams' beating out favorites is a common thing tbh, we would call a lot of esports unstable if that was the primary determinant.
Fans create narratives around teams and upsets happen because the general expectation is "Team A will shit on Team B", when in reality, the skill gap is significantly smaller than portrayed by fans or even non-existent at times.
If you've followed Guild, for example, you would know that pairing them up with OPTIC could prove to be at least difficult for OPTIC.
This would make sense if the eventual winners hadn't had successful runs in their respective regions/tournaments. Every team that has won has looked near or straight up the best in the respective regions (NA or EMEA) either by peak performance or consistency. At the international stage, different styles and metas will clash and WILL lead to upsets, especially if teams haven't played each other and fail to adapt soon enough to salvage a map. Good fundamentals will get you 7-10 rounds by itself. The rest will be up to your pop off players, site execs or unique strats. And the fact that these matches are close make it apparent that the apparent skill gap that fans think exist at the international level is but a thin veil. And even then, it's always been NA or EMEA winning.