I personally liked 2021 bc it was cs with extra util and it felt like gunplay was the number 1 focus. Obviously a high mechanical ceiling is still needed now but abilities IMO are too strong to the point where if you play site, most of the time you're guaranteed dead. When compared to 2021, it felt more brawly for site control and you didn't have to play retake all the time
i dont think the problem is necessarily with skye nerf but with gekko buffs, at least in the first half of the year. he's too much of an exec agent and he was too strong on almost every map, turning most of them into attack sided. so we just watched the same round over and over again, because every exec was very strong, every post plant was very strong (specially sunset) and people were just playing retake instead of holding a bomb. there was no space for creative plays and readings because the best way to play was to just stick to the manual. pearl on 2023 was kinda like that too with the harbor viper, but there was much more space for counters
on the other hand we had a lot of fun plays with him because his util is very good for solo rounds (like sacy 1v4 vs loud), but most games were just kinda boring to see.
second half was better but it was just the neon and breach fuckfestival and it went to too much chaos too quick. but it was still too exec-oriented for my tastes
Less was the lockin MVP over Leo let me explain why
More rounds played, higher acs, higher adr , 22FK > 6FK
Leo is good but his stats are inflated bc he never takes first duels
Also Less had the best performance in the grand finals
https://www.vlr.gg/167393/loud-vs-fnatic-champions-tour-2023-lock-in-s-o-paulo-gf
There are a few.
Lock/In is the greatest esport event ever.
Vandal and Phantom should shoot a bit faster ( make it so you can actually kill a plat player shooting their torso before they flick you)
Playoffs shouldn't have lower brackets
We need more teams at internationals and more internationals.
They play FAR TOO FEW games in a year (12 series for some of the teams).
They need to move Americas VCT somewhere else
They need to move Americas VCT somewhere else
out of USA or out of LA?
if its out of USA there's some problems in that. english is the current universal language so it's pretty difficult to take all the teams out of there, specially when the majority of the league is NA teams. also i don't think there's enough audience on other countries to cover the costs of LANs
but - and i don't want to get too political but it should be a factor now - i feel like usa government and trump administration will get pretty rough on work immigration for the next few years, and it's already a big problem possibly getting even bigger. so i think it's pretty possible for riot to change the location or format of vct
what i do think might happen by 2026/2027 is the subdivision of leagues, kinda like what league of legends is doing right now. americas but with two conferences
It's a very stupid decision to not invest in academy teams and every team that doesn't will be negatively affected in the upcoming seasons.
More struggling teams should be doing open tryouts instead of directly poaching tier 2 players
Everyone trying to say that pre-franchising was better because the 'meta was more enjoyable' are blinded by nostalgia and the actual reason was because teams had identity and character (LOUD and Optic were the 200iq superteams, DRX Korea's last hope, Zeta was Japan's unlikely hero, etc)
I agree. Not to mention Riot keeps adding stupid ass maps like Sunset and Abyss where you just plant the spike and the MOST EFFECTIVE post plant idea, is to go back into main and spam the spike, which makes pro games on those maps so bedge and annoying to watch
I swear, who is Riot even hiring at this point? I wanna know, cuz us fans can design better maps and agents than them
VCT 2021 and 2022 were HORRIBLE times for asia valorant. All matches are pre much midnight to sunrise, asia teams clearly behind, needs time to develop and not competitive enough to seriously challenge the western teams. 2023 was year PRX caught up, 2024 emergence of KR talent shows in GenG and SPG with EDG (China) deliver in champs. 2025 will be the most competitive year, valorant truly international game.
I hate double-elim and i dont care what anyone says about "fairness" or whatever i couldnt care less. There's a LOT of ways to make things more fair without giving everyone an extra life in playoffs therefore making upper bracket matches completely stakesless. Double-elim defenders love to talk about "fairness" when their format FUCKS the >>BEST PERFORMING TEAM OF THE TOURNAMENT<< by NOT GIVING IT THE EXTRA LIFE ADVANTAGE YOU GAVE TO LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE. Single-elim is the superior format.
The issue is that in the context of grand finals, it's the two best teams ITW, its rare that the "disadvantaged" team have many stinkers of maps. At the end of the day, you still have to play out the maps and if someone has an off series or one has the series of their life, it can swing the whole series regardless of map bans.
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