Paper rex the first and last dance storyline:
paper rex played with a sub on masters and got 3rd place after starting the year roughly on lock//in and getting doubted by all of the world, s0mething was a tier 2 japan player who used to FARM kills on that region proving an insane mechanical skill breaking all the kill records for a individual vcl performance on a bo5, yet he got discreditted by people saying he was just good on tier 2 and he got signed by paper rex only to get the overall mvp of pacific, everyone wanted to see him on masters but his visa didnt got accepted in time so he had to watch from home, now he is visa ready and is attending this champions and wants to prove all of his haters wrong.
jinggg one of the overall goats from pacific, is just on his last ever chance to win a international trophy despite of being the best raze itw and young enough to have a long career, but he has to serve to his country after this making it impossible for him to play ever again, with this and after a great masters rating shocking everyone with flashy plays, a lot of pacific fans root for him to get not only his first and last trophy, but pacific´s first international tournament win.
Edward gaming the underdog storyline:
EDG a team conformed by 5 chinese players got their first ever appearance on 2022, even though they didnt even had a proper server to play on since the game itself wasnt launched on china, everyone got shocked after they were invited to east asian lcq, conformed by korean and japanese teams, surprisingly they managed to sweep through all of them without getting a single lost, but got out of the tournament very early after losing to paper rex and team liquid, they got invited to lock//in without a win at all yet again and everyone started doubting riot´s decisions on implementing "free chinese slots" for a region without a proper official compeittive environment.
Masters tokyo got announced and riot announced a chinese qualifier for chinese teams, with a tournament qualifier, where the best 2 teams were going to make it to masters and as everyone expected edg, made it to this event, without any expectative but to get eliminated early, their first match started, they faced an underdog t1 who beated edg and sent them to lower bracket where they were going to face one of the clear favourites of the tournament "natus vincere" with 4 former masters champions of 2022, put up a hell of a fight but finished giving a underdog their first ever international win, with a masterclass from "zmjjkk" aka "kang kang" this wasnt their only win since they got the revenge against t1, and beated loud on playoffs to get a 6th place after losing to paper rex, this tourney they dont only have a chance to prove that their masters run wasnt a "lucky run" but to also get revenge against the actual paper rex team after losing to their downgraded version with a sub, and also to get that champions title since they are one of the favourites now.
Giants gaming, the emea dark horse storyline:
GIants gaming its an spanish org with emea players which got many critics, one of them is "being made of leftovers" from other emea teams such as g2, 2022 na´vi and tier 2 giants, after a rough lock//in, and average vct EMEA playoffs where they were just 1 bo3 away from attending masters, things didnt go too bright for them, the emea lcq came, and they started on a pretty good streak defeating kc and koi, becoming the first ever spanish organization to attend a champions, but still not even close to being a favourite,making it through this group is their chance to make a statement and prove they are a solid team internationally and not only another emea team who is trying to get close to fnatic.
KRU Esports, the greatest comeback of all time storyline
Kru is a latin american team created by the superstar football player, Sergio "kun" aguero, on 2021 they shocked the world with a champions run where they beated some clear favourites such as fnatic and sentinels, but got knocked out by the former masters champions Gambit esports, after the run they got seemed as latam E-sports symbols and won a lot of fans, but their next year didnt go as bright as everyone expected, they started 2022 qualifying to masters beating their rivals, australs but with a new face, team leviatan, on that first masters they were placed on a group with former nv, optic, and team liquid, they got knocked by both of these without looking any similar to their 2021 version.
after this incident they managed to qualify to any international event, but got bombed out of any single one on groups, underperforming against the former champions of every single ond of them, but still managed to get inside of the franchising program of riot on the current year, but 3 of their players departed the org, joaquin espinoza aka "delz1k", roberto rivas aka "mazino" and, angelo mori aka "keznit", but brought the players melser xand and axeddy as 6th player. they got bombed out of the showmatch tourney valorant lock//in, and everyone called out kru for changes, so they brought back keznit, hired daveeys´s former coach atom, and announced the departure of xand and leazo the head coach. they started the league with a 0-2 against furia, and a promising 1-2 against mibr, but started to get close losses until they got the catastrophic 0-9 score, no one was happy with this, latam fans, and international fans started doubting kru and making fun of them for this poor performance and everyone yelled for roster changes, but kru kept working on silence.
there was a lot of sadness, kru lost one of their stars, couldnt win a single match despite of being pretty close a lot of times, klaus and nagz got some of the worst individual performances of the entire league and because of this everyone wanted them out of the roster, this wasnt all because sadly for their fans and region, they couldnt attend a international tourney for the first time on all of their org´s story, they only had a single elimination match against mibr which had already beated them before to prove this roster still had it, and they managed to stomp mibr, shutting the mouths of a lot of people as klaus showed a masterclass performance clutching and owning his rivals on many rounds throughout the match, they had another single elim match against furia, one of the clear favourites to win the LCQ and a team which showed no struggle against kru on the regular phase match, and with a 1st map win kru were against the ropes, they had to win 2 maps in a row, and with a masterclass on ascent, one of the best furia maps, they managed to get a decider where furia again, had them against the ropes since they were 2 rounds away from beating kru on a 11-7 scoreboard, but after a klaus and nagz masterclass proving all haters wrong they managed to comeback it and started their 2-0 run on lcq, they faced leviatan, their latam rivals? they owned and got an 3-0, they faced c9 the strongest team from the regular phase where they got 0-9? they 2-1´d them and got a 4-0 run, and after a lev comeback on lower final they got a grand final against leviatan, their longtime rivals but still got the win 3-1 and qualified to champions.
kru is looking strong, but they dont have an easy group at all and are going with everything they have to this international tournament and try to get as far as they could, to prove their lcq win isnt just a cinderella run.
only 2 of these teams can make it through this group, im going to cry ngl
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