Ok so... Here me out... This is just a thought I've been having.
Before being discouraged by the length of this. Just take a quick look. I promise you'll find it interesting.
For context I want to remind you Sentinels have the largest valorant fanbase ITW and contribute to A LOT of their revenue whether its from ticket sales, to online, to watchparties (ahem tarik) to merch and everything else.
What's been happening in Valorant esports as of late? Masters Shanghai. (Geng 1st, TH 2nd). I think riot saw major decreases in revenue from NA. No teams in the finals will surely do that and a lack of support from the big fanbase of SENTINELS will surely contribute. After all, high expectations as before Shanghai, business was booming as SEN won Masters Madrid. The money was flowing for riot. Now, not so much. As said before they saw rev decreases during shanghai mostly because (as much as I hate to say it) sentinels does bring them a LOT of viewership and a LOT of money from NA and elsewhere.
So what does that mean? Simple. Because Sentinels failed to qualify, when asked who the best teams in the world are valorant fans would say names such as TH, Geng, PRX etc but no Sen. After all a team that cant qualify cant be the best. No more SEN at internationals meant riot lost a huge portion of their revenue from this massive contributor. Thus, SEN lost their identity as a major powerhouse. Riot thought: "well its fine... They will qualify for Seoul and shit on everyone" and we will be back to making lots of money from them and we will all be happy greedy pigs. Well, sorta.
Yes sen have qualified but what riot weren't expecting was the group draw. Oh. My. God. If Im riot im thinking holy shit now even if sen win first game against the best team itw (geng) they have to play TH???? Theyre doomed. Panic mode activated. If Im riot im thinking its too late to save them at seoul so I enter crisis management ASAP. What can we do to get this team (our primary moneymaker) back to the top where they can be most profitable? (after all, more matches played, more rev. Keep in mind it increases per match until GF)
That's where the map pool comes in.
Riot shocked the ENTIRE valorant esports scene by readding split and pearl, whilst removing icebox and lotus. Huh... Weird. Wasn't split just removed? And why pearl? They changed nothing to either map?
I guess it's a concidence a map like Lotus is very favourable to Fnatic... A coincidence that TH have an 80% win rate on a map like icebox... Huh.
Funny how Sen's best map is split but it's also geng's worst (50% WR) and pearl? The map that was known by everyone as JohnQT's best map on ghost gaming? ok....
It certainly looks to me like they just single handedly nerfed every other region's best teams whilst buffing one team in NA the minute they didn't qualify for grand finals.
You cannot deny the evidence is there.
Why would riot suddenly panic change the map pool in this way?
If they had it their way I bet it would be in effect for champs
But that would be wayyyyy too sus
So they set it up for after the tournament to dodge allegations.
Dear riot,
I see
Right.
Through.
You.
see you next time
TLDR:
Basically Sentinels make riot A LOT OF money and them doing bad hurts their econ. After they didnt qualify for Shanghai and got an unlucky draw in Seoul, they needed to act. So they want to nerf Geng And TH whilst buffing SEN with the new map pool changes for 9.08 after champs.
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