With fall of sea pride and joy prx. It's over. Korean valorant will rein supreme in apac.
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Korea will dominate
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SEA had 2 free slots to all tournaments in 2022.
SEA had on paper the richest org in non CN Asia (BLEED)
SEA had more slots than KR in Franchising (TS/PRX/TLN/RRQ+BLD)
Despite that, almost every KR team finished in top 4 and have, on average, consistently better results than SEA teams at all events. Even though Valorant had a fumbled launch and almost 0 interest in KR since the start.
The only difference is that KR VCL had a bit more prizepool money.
The KR tier 2 scene suffered from low viewership and org investment for almost 3 years.
The 2nd best KR team of 2021 did not qualify to any internationals because of a single elim bracket. Don't forget that one of the 3 KR teams to qualify to an international pre-franchising was F4Q, a team of fucking streamers. There was only 1 big org in Korea until 2022 and that org is actually small in comparison to the heavyweights in Franchising right now.
I cannot believe any excuses for "SEA would be the best region if blablabla" as if Korea did not go through similar shit years earlier.
The fact of the matter is simply that KR tier 2 talent has always been ridiculously underrated and that SEA has been given plenty of chances to prove they are the best region in the game, and since 2022 the only team that has been internationally proven is PRX. Korea has sent Nuturn, DRX/VS, and now GEN.G. Shit, you can even say T1 is more proven than any SEA team not named PRX after they won an offseason event and at least consistently qualified to internationals.
Last Ascension proved a lot. SPG 13-0ed Full Sense, heavy favourites. DSG, the other heavy favourites, lost in lowers. SPG ran the bracket through Premier and the only team to give them a run for their money out of all of Asian tier 2 was a home crowd BOOM.Nongshim Redforce in Korea were the only other team to challenge them.
The mistake you may be making is comparing SEA, a region of Asia containing over half a billion people, to Korea, a country with only 60 million population. A mere tenth of the population of all of SEA. Despite SK being more developed and having a stronger gaming culture with league of legends before valorant, making up a 10:1 ratio even considering the factors i mentioned is unfathomable. I'm certain that there was room for improvement with the way riot handled the SEA pro scene in the early days; it was clear that it was underdeveloped compared to Korea back then. But investing on Korea was the easier and safer option for riot with the success of LOL there. SEA is still underrepresented in pacific franchising today because almost half of the players are Korean. It started from the lack of promotion of SEA pro valorant in 2021 and 2020. Korea had tournaments as early as 2020 and massive orgs investing there, even if it was only temporary for some of them. Korea undeniably got more love from riot in terms of the pro scene compared to the entirety of SEA, where really good talent will continue to go unnoticed until they are given the chance. With the number of orgs pulling out of SEA tier 2 now and with the SOOP deal with riot, the nail is in the coffin for the SEA region. Riot has continued to make mistake after mistake when handling a growing region with lots of untapped potential still. Its not nearly as bad as what South Asia has suffered with, but it's not fair to claim that the tier 1 of Korea has been treated the same and gone through the same struggles as the tier 1 of SEA, especially in the very crucial early years of both regions.
Sure these are all valid points, but also a large reason SEA tier 2 talent isn't moving up is because SEA as a region isn't properly managing their players. PapiChulo locked in contract hell, RRQ player controversy, TS and JessieVash's nepotism. Most of your woes are self inflicted, because despite Korea's lack of resources besides preexisting infra and more Riot support, their players have consistently proved themselves. SEA hasn't.
And Korean tournaments do not compare in any way shape or form to BLEED's, or GalaxyRacer, or whatever SEA tournaments were being run.
The reason half the players are Korean is literally because orgs think that those players are clearly good. It's why RRQ picked up Estrella, why Fr0sT picked up ban and Governor, why T1 went for an all-Korean roster, why GE picked up UdoTan, why DFM got Jinboong and Akame, etc. The players are good, so they got picked up.
Speaking of unnoticed, KR tier 2 talent has been unnoticed hella as well. You know free1ng? Did you know he's actually been playing professionally since launch? He played against the first iteration of VS. Same goes for Persia.
How did free1ng get his chance? He kept playing, and eventually proved his worth on Dplus. How did Persia get his chance? Winning Ascension.
When it comes down to it, the KR players proved themselves and orgs wanted to pick them up. Despite all the shit they went through, like F/A teams, low pay, low viewership, Persia even moved to India. They did what it took, there is nothing stopping SEA talent from doing the same.
KR tier 2 has had criminally low viewership and org numbers FOREVER. Why do you think people kept saying they needed to merge with Japan? Why do you think KR talent moved to Japan, like Meteor?
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