real question, although the competition is really close
why do EMEA mostly come on top ?
what about them is making them the best?
playstyle?
anti-strating?
individual players?
?
I think it’s a few things.
Streaming - I know this sounds like beating a dead horse, but truly there is more (potential) money for a player in streaming than most in going pro. Therefore focus is split a little which can cause some issues.
Culture - Like someone mentioned above, many pros have said that a lot of teams in NA don’t take scrims and things seriously. This is changing, but teams on the whole apparently aren’t too serious.
Money - In EMEA, there is a scene and a path for tier 2 that allows for fresh & upcoming talent to constantly be gaining experience & moving. On top of that, the relationships between orgs and players allows for tier 1 talent to shuffle as well between teams to be consistently creating the best teams (take FNATIC for example). NA teams & orgs have set outrageous buyouts, so players are a little more stagnant. Talent doesn’t shift between teams as often, & even tier 2 NA orgs have outrageous buyouts for their players. In an unproven scene, that is hard for orgs to jump on & it hurts growth. I mean just look at some tier 2 talent that has come up in NA versus EMEA. (Cryo, Zander, & who else really?) versus (Alfajer, most of G2s roster, most of ACENDs new roster, & a few others)
playstyle, better players, good infrastructure and clear path to tier1, tier1 na talents in cs werent better than tier3 european talents so that tells you how many good csgo players there were in europe, nats for example was a random tier59 russian player who had just a couple matches in hltv, you can argue european teams generally play the best brand of valorant and the most fundamentally sound but I think what makes the most difference is just that the players are better, outside of FPX the rest of european teams have big issues with their playstyle sometimes and lack adaptation generally, what carries them through is pure individual skill most of the times
Real answer is that there is a lot of countries in EMEA, even tho population is similar to NA, there is competition between regions, some regions or countries have their own tournaments making deep competitive scene where a lot of players could develop. Same happened in CSGO, NA and EU were competitive with each other at the start, but over time skill gap increased.
Though also EU seems to be always more organized compered to US, with is good for long term rosters, but can be negative if you change players. with might also be a factor, but its not universal to all teams in those regions.
I hope EMEA and NA will stay competitive as its fun to watch NA vs EMEA games.
It's mostly a mindset thing, European valorant players don't chase social media relevancy as hard as NA pros, they dont stream as much and focus mostly on scrimming and training, there's nothing wrong with wanting to build a personal brand, hell i'd even say that from a career point of view, NA players are smarter, cause they build audiences that stick with them and provide them with a consistent income, look at Shroud and how he turned his meh CS career into a streaming empire or on lower scale, look at BabyJ that despite being unsigned makes a living streaming valorant cvause he used his time as a pro to build a brand.
In EU, most players have a background in traditional team sports(look at how many pros used to play football or things like that) and having that team game mentality makes hella difference, it teaches you how to treat your teammates, act profesionally, suppress your ego and makes it clear to you that training is sacred and more important than anything else.
This kind of mentality definetely amkes for better teams and team players, but you arent building huge personal brands so maybe in the long run you might actually lose out, money-wise.
I also think a lot of NA pros aren't as passionate about the game, most of them are either failed CS prospects stuck in tier 2.-3 of NA Cs(dapr,tex,crashies, curry, penny, food), Players past their expriation date that couldnt find teams(Dephh, FNS, hazed) or players forced to swtich cause there wasn't enough money in the game anymore(Subroza, WARDELL, Ethan, Vanity, Xeppaa, Leaf), all these players I feel like aren't in Valorant cause they truly love the game, but because it's the only game in NA that pays as much as it does, not to say that we dont have those types of players in EMEA(ANGE1, ScreaM, CREA, HyP, Mixwell, Hoody, Nukkye etc.) we also have lots of ex-CS pros that couldnt land jobs and switched, but I feel like the main core of Valorant players in EMEA is young players that never really had a career in CS and are now realizing their dream in valorant(nAts, Shao, Cloud, cNed, twisten) which I think makes them way more passionate about the game, just my opinions tho.
i just don't understand how that would benefit the T1 EMEA teams, scrimming with differebt teams makes you understand their playstyle and be ready yes but at the end of the day EMEA teams still play the same
i understand that you mean that the T2 teams are playing with other regions' top teams and that beneficial for them unlike other regions' tier 2 teams who can only play their own, so yes that does make the T2 teams in EMEA get more experience
BUT here's the thing bcz EMEA is mostly on top, tier 2 emea teams play with the best on a daily basis already they don't really need another region coming and scrimming them to get that much more experience
and that doesn't correlate directly to why EMEA was always on top even before that
By “EMEA teams play the same” you are assuming that just because they continue to play the same EMEA play style even after scrimming a team with different play style they don’t benefit that much, but you are completely wrong. Having better training partners more regularly is indisputably a huge advantage. If you are a NA team and you don’t qualify to masters, you don’t have the chance to scrim against the best like LOUD, FPX, PRX. The experience against a team with PRX style, for example, is simply nonexistent. However, EMEA teams like M3C and Acend who didn’t qualify to any event at least had a chance to know how’s playing against a different playstyle, besides just having more good training partners. Imagine being Crazy Raccon in Japan and the BEST partner you have to scrim is Zeta Division. Oh there’s northeption too and… yeah that’s it.