reasons why LOCK//IN is not a fluke:
reasons why Madrid is a fluke:
neither FNC nor XSET should be considered "top 5" but if you were going to put one above the other XSET literally has the h2h tiebreaker so FNC is 6th and XSET was 5th
https://www.vlr.gg/130681/xset-vs-fnatic-valorant-champions-2022-ubqf
fnc was just the best team undisputed, fluke or no fluke
lock in favored teams that were intact for much longer with the exception of fnc so ofc it would be the same teams as champs 2022.
3-11 is both a crumble and a fluke
this is literally the most expected trend based on prep time and footage
we don't know yet
the bigger fluke was winning Tokyo
EMEA was horrendous other than them ---> free pass to playoffs while showing little to no strats just running over EMEA bots (when your second best team is Liquid you know the region is doomed)
The only real team they beat at Tokyo was NRG who had an EU spy (coincidence?)
EG didnt have any practice, demon1 had visa issues and wasnt supposed to be at the event, they were practicing with a sub until a week before the event
PRX had a stand in
Despite all this they barely won against EG 13-11 0.1 seconds left in upper finals map 3 and grandfinals was 13-11 and 14-12
FNATIC dominance is the most greatly overexaggerated things in the valorant community
You could argue this for so many teams that made deep runs and some that won tourneys as well. Loud faced literally nobodies in Champs 22 but they very obviously were the best team at the event, EG faced garbage until the upper finals and lower finals and then PRX threw the GF, Optic have literally never had a difficult run for their entire 1 year podium placements (they at most had 1 difficult game and 1 thrown away game (typically DRX)).
Theres never an argument for why a tournament is a fluke because for the past 3 years of valorant there has never been a tournament where there were more than 4 genuinely good teams (usually only 2 of which have a real chance at winning).
meanwhile OPTIC had the easiest tournament ever (Reykjavik 2022) with 0 of the good EMEA teams being in full form at the event (FPX couldnt attend cuz of visa issues, FNC had 2 subs)
OPTIC also had the easiest Copenhagen run:
(washed up LOUD that got grouped, KRU, XSET (who looked like hot fkn garbage and everyone thought NA was doomed after the game), DRX (chokers that got 5th/6th again))
while GUILD, who 2-0'd OPTIC, faced PRX and FPX (the finalists of the event) as soon as they entered playoffs, going 0-2 in playoffs...
but somehow Tokyo is a fluke (this is when FNC was shitting on everyone and maintaining their position as the best team in the world, despite how hard this is because everyone watches you)
so much of their shit was close as fuck, if eg went ot in that split game and won that masters tokyo would have been way more competetive, and they also barely won lock in, fnatic obviously deserved to win but i just think it could have gone any other way and it wasnt really clear until they had the map pick advantage which they know how to abuse
Im not so convinced, its like the Loud 3-1 in champs. Loud were so obviously the better team in that tournament and just because they had close maps doesnt mean anything. If you lose multiple maps in a grand finals and you arent able to pull out your 120% to win the game then youre just the worse team no 2 ways about it.
FNC winning 3 maps in a row just goes to show that theyre that much better regardless of the map scores. And if you wanna pull out the map scores to argue that had they won 1 more round they couldve posed a challenge then im sure i could look thhrough the match and make an even more bulletproof argument that FNC had more unlucky rounds that were taken away from them.
SEN in 2021 had a bunch of close maps in iceland but didnt lose a single one. That just goes to show how much better they are at closing out games than everyone else competing
it wasnt even a nerf tho. PRX played at pretty much the same level they did with something. Why do you think CGRS was given such massive praise by everyone at the event and everyone watching it?
The level of play didnt significantly increase with Something and if anything they were far less disciplined and overheated WAAAY more when something came back which cost them key rounds in many games and even during the GF against EG.
The only thing that changed was their consistency map to map and their comp prep which again really wouldnt have made much of a difference considering their oppositions best maps and perma bans
ignoring the player quality which gap is unimaginably . they needed to change their whole gameplan. they needed to switch multiple roles and much more. cgrs was a good sub but with something its a different team. prx games were won by heroics. saying it wasnt a nerf its almost makes me think if the comment was a bait
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