How is Japan rn?

Can someone from the japan scene tell me how things are going in there? The strongest teams? The new ones?

All bad why do you care

Wall of text incoming.

ZETA Division looks like the strongest team right now. They let go of their weaker parts and picked up REALLY strong replacements. SugarZ3ro is the best Astra player in Japan, TENNN slapped on NTH and will probably be playing sentinel, and Dep was a VERY good Jett player back on REJECT before he took some time off. The main question is if Dep can go back to his REJECT days. If so, then ZETA looks like the favourites for Masters.

CR looks very improved, but they have two main issues: their firepower and communication. Firepower is a bit weaker because they let go of their fragging sentinel Medusa, and brought in Astell, who is a good IGL but he could never clutch up. I believe in the Chad Raccoon, but communication will still be a issue because it's a JP/KR team. Granted, Astell speaks fluent Japanese, but there's still doubts about communication. If they can solve that, then CR can gun for the masters spot.

Northeption has a COMPLETELY new roster, and tbh, I don't have a lot of expectations for them. Sure Mete0r was an absolute demon on Jett for TNL, and JoXJo is a really flexible player and was good on GoNGo Prince, but their Japanese pickups leave a lot of question marks. Unless you've been studying the JP scene like it's a PHD, no one knows about Xandrite, BlackWiz and xnfri. The two latter players played for a pug team called "Run It Back' and was decent, especially xnfri. BlackWiz was alright, and I know nothing about Xandrite. So many questions around NTH, but if their JP players can perform, then they can be a fair shot to be decent in the JP scene, but it will be a far cry from how they were in 2021 APAC LCQ.

New boys on the block have got to be Sengoku and SCARZ. Sengoku picked up the core of Feeling (Art, GangPin, and Misaya) and added Theify and kobra. Feeling was a tough team to deal with in JP: they took ZETA to OT and gave CR a hard time. GangPin is a beast, he'll surely be a player to watch come challengers. Art and Misaya are good, kobra is fairly good, but I don't know much about Thiefy. If Thiefy can be a good player, then Sengoku has a fair shot for masters, but still unlikely.

SCARZ is my darkhorse pick. I don't know why people are underrating them; this team is really, really good on paper. C1nder is insane, as seen when he played on Wyvern for the ShotVAL Pride KR competition. He will surely be the spearhead for SCARZ. Marin and ryota- are really good, and has been really good even on the old SCARZ roster. Shuzz and Anthem are great pickups for SCARZ: Shuzz played on Hexad and primarily played initiator and looked fairly good. Anthem played on a lacklustre FAV Gaming but he looked like a bright spot, and if he can keep that up then SCARZ has a strong core. Their last pickup (yes it's a 6 man team) is show/sio, formerly known as x1o. He played on Blue Bees (the team that Something plays for) and he was really good there, but he had a lot of attitude problems. Apparently he's very toxic in ranked, as stated by the JP community. If he can improve his attitude issues, then SCARZ has an ace up their sleeve in sio.

IGZIST is a fairly new org, they haven't been in any other esports as far as I'm aware. Despite that, they have picked up one of VCT Japan's alumnus roster, one of the first best teams in Japan: Blackbird Ignis. BBI were what CR is now, they were ahead of their time. They even came 2nd in First Strike Japan, and were considered a contender for Masters Reykjavik by a lot of people. However, as time went on, they weren't able to catch up with the new strats and meta and slowly fell behind until they weren't considered good anymore. IGZIST has a lot to prove: being such a new org that picked up one of JP's storied rosters. IGZIST is BBI sans Popogachi (who plays for CR now) and added Lakia and Ask. BBI was already decent with Popogachi but we know how much better Lakia is. Ask is yet to play an official match, so it's unknown how good he is. If IGZIST can build synergy between the old BBI core and Lakia and fix any communication issues, then they can be a REALLY strong team. If IGZ can improve beyond what BBI was, then I think they have a shot to be a top 3 team. Only time will tell how good they'll be.

Unlike IGZ, DetonatioN Gaming is a well-known org, especially in LoL. Their VALORANT team, DetonatioN Gaming White, is a very strange roster. It's 3 ex-PUBG players (Melofovia, SSeeS, and Machao), Suggest (ex-NUTURN), HSK (KR CSGO legend) and Killer (ex-Feeling). Yes, another 6 man roster. I don't know what to think of this team, because it gives out inaugural 100T vibes (4 PUBG players + Hiko) and 4 of the players have yet to play an official match in VCT (Melofovia, SSeeS, Machao, HSK) so it's unknown how good they will be. Killer is, in my opinion, not a very good addition, as he was one of the weaker parts of Feeling. If Suggest can perform well, then DNGW can do well. If HSK and the PUBG core can transition properly, then they can do really well. I don't have a lot of opinion on this roster, because it's such a mish-mash of players. As it stands, their potential is high. Can they do well? Absolutely. But I don't think they'll be favourites to even qualify for VCT JP Week 1, never mind masters.

REJECT is also another well-known org, especially in APEX and PUBG. Unlike DNGW, REJECT has some well-known players that have played for top teams: Takej and Reita from ZETA, Zepher and Medusa from CR. They have also kept their star duelist HaReee, and a serviceable player in Feez, thus making another 6 man roster. The roles are a bit of a question mark: they have 4 duelists and 2 of them are Jett mains. Reita has a bit of experience playing smokes, but Zepher has primarily played Jett and nothing else. HaReee and Takej have similar playstyles, never mind similar roles, so it will be interesting to see who wins the secondary duelist position. RC was a good team but slowly fell off as VCT ended. If RC can figure out the roles and show glimpses of their former self, then I believe they are a top 5 team.

I think the biggest issue with Japan is the format. Very little game is required to advance into Challengers playoffs (3 bo2 group stage games). Open qualifiers are bo3, but those aren’t games tier 1 Japanese teams care about.

Ware seoldam

Anyone know about Igzist or Detonation Gaming? Don't really know the players aside from Lakia or Suggest, and Japan Challengers just started based off of the Twitter of the JP teams.

Shit region, but better than korea

best

1. Zeta Division new team is incredibly good
2. probably CR new team is decent removing Fisker was a mistake
3. Igzist transfering Lakia is huge and other members are really good but there will be communication problems always
4. FAV gaming old team with good players like Fisker, Bazzi etc.
5. Reject players like takej, zepher etc.

Any info about live streams? Would any of the open qual matches be streamed?

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