Poor havoc man, his whole team is throwing so many rounds when he is playing good

Its not a mental problem tho because usually when a team has a mental problem they dont know what to do and freeze for a whole minute in a round without doing anything. Furia were still proactive when they were but they were too individual

Furia players have so much individual confidence that its too much confidence, everyone in their team thinks they are aspas and swings every fight. They were winning rounds on attack when they were patient and waiting for rechargable utilities to come back and punisjing G2 for their mistakes but as soon as they started losing rounds teamplay was gone, khalil is throwing random paranoias, raafa is swinging on 5v4, 4v4s when he is a breach, heat is playing in completely different game, everyone in his team is dead but he is flanking from T spawn etc. I am just annoyed how G2 got away with this map win with how horrible they looked formwise.

From the following which one will have larger quantity in this upcoming stage(regular stage only):

A) Number of "pi" s FNS hit
B) Number of maps 2G win
C) Number of maps G2 drop
D) Number of Raze ults demon1 hit
E) Number of times SEN player swears on broadcast
F) Number of rope/mid-air kills Asuna gets etc.

Which other usually rare but often occuring event deserves to be on this list?

When teams dont ban their opponents best map even if they are the best in the world at that map because usually they have a perma ban themselves. It is really hard to be a team with 7 good maps, GENG is the only example that I could think that had 7 map pool. Thats why teams let through FNC Lotus, EG Fracture and Sen Split in the past.

Having a bad attack side in one of the most attack sided maps is not a good sign in my opinion. But KRU in the past have showed that they could improve in maps really quickly so I hope they fix their default on attack.

VCT Americas 1st stage is about to begin tomorrow, so I decided to make a prediction based on maps for all the matches. There are two new maps in the pool and there's been a lot of time to fix bad maps for a lot of teams so a lot of map veto and predictions are based on last years and kickoff results. So here it is:

1) C9 vs NRG
This match's result depends entirely on what kind of NRG show up because we kind of know what kind of C9 we will get. C9 are contacty, brawly and very proactive team, you need to be ready to stop them from pushing and punish contacting like G2, or just outaim them like MIBR did against C9. 2nd option is highly unlikely for NRG tho, because you might argue verno is a better fragger than brawk but NRG were still getting outaimed in kickoff game.
Maps:
C9 ban Haven
NRG ban Icebox
C9 pick Lotus
NRG pick Pearl (maybe Ascent?)
C9 ban Ascent
NRG ban Split
Fracture remains
This match is either 2-0 for C9 or 2-1 for NRG, because I dont think NRG can win Icebox or Lotus but C9 are not that stable in other maps historically.
Prediction: 55/45 in favour of NRG

2) KRU vs LOUD
Map veto for this match is hard to predict because both of these teams dont like fracture and historically liked to play Icebox. Kru also have a bad Haven and maybe even Pearl because they 2nd banned it in every match at kickoff. I think Pearl and Fracture will get banned by both teams eventually in the draft. All the other maps are tossup, but only advantage I can give to any team is Haven to LOUD.

So my pred is: 51/49 in favour of LOUD

3) G2 vs Furia
This match is not dire for Furia as some people think because I think Furia should be able win Icebox if G2 dont ban it. If Furia are smart they should hard prep for 2 of Fracture, Ascent and Icebox because Fracture has been the worst map for G2 so far this year and they only had 1 week to prep for Ascent and Icebox. With all that being said:

G2 ban Icebox
FUR ban Pearl
G2 pick Lotus
FUR pick Ascent
G2 ban Fracture
FUR ban Split
Haven remains

This series should be an easy win for G2 no matter what because Furia doesnt have a good Haven but I am expecting hard prep win from Furia on Icebox or Ascent. Final pred: 70/30 for G2.

4) MIBR vs LEV

MIBR ban Haven
LEV ban Pearl
MIBR pick Split
LEV pick Lotus
MIBR ban Fracture
LEV ban Ascent
Icebox remains

Both of these teams have similar map pool, they both like slow played maps due to playstyle of the Aspas and Demon1. I think the match will be decided on who is better jett on Icebox but I just think Aspas is better. So my pred: 55/45 for MIBR

5) 2G vs EG
I dont know how to do a map veto for this because 2G looked bad on every map they played and I dont know if they will be able to hang aimwise regardless of the map. They had some cool stuff on Split, Haven and Lotus but their aim let them down regardless of how good their set stuff looked. One thing is for sure tho, EG 1st bans Haven as its a tradition for Potter lead teams. Good luck to 2G, I hope they can find the believe and confidence in them. Pred: 80/20 for EG

6) 100T vs SEN
Sen ban Ascent
100T ban Pearl
Sen pick Split
100T pick Icebox
Sen ban Fracture
100T ban Haven
Lotus remains.

100T should be able beat Sen in Icebox, Ascent and Fracture. But there is a big question mark for 100T on other maps tho, who will be a true sentinel/duelist on this team and will they play any yoru? If so, who is gonna play yoru? I fear Sen might just outclass them on yoru maps like Split, Lotus, Pearl and Haven regardless of who plays yoru because either Cryo or Boostio would have to play uncomfortable role. So my final pred: 55/45 for Sen.

What are your predictions? Will Furia be smart and be able to take a map from potentially unprepared G2? What are your map predictions for Kru vs Loud, because I couldnt come up with reasonable map veto. Who is gonna be surprisingly good team that challenges G2 this stage?

Why are we acting like governor is the worst signing Apeks couldve made? Did you guys forget how he carried Talon last year up until Primmie joined the team? This kickoff was just one-off tournament with the new mefa, also he was sent in as the human drone-bait a lot of the time to just make space thats why he has bad stats. Deciding whether player is good or not on a 2 week tournament with a new meta is just not correct

Tier list is not comparing regions, its only within regions, Americas is so close that 2-9 placed teams can beat each other, I am not saying C9 is definitely better than a team whose expectation is only making playoffs in other regions

We have seen how bad teams can perform if internal dynamic goes wrong, just look at Navi in stage 2 in 2024. It is completely possible that VIT only win against APK in their group and completely fall of which indeed might end being being worse than NRG because of how steep this fall would be, from top 4 in the world to not making playoffs. I just hope this doesnt happen because I love seeing Derke in internationals.

Wont you be disappointed if they dont make Toronto?

Everyone is doing Power ranking content on youtube right now, but those ranking doesnt really represent the difference between teams because they are usually just ranking from 1-12. So I decided to make a tier-list based on expectations on teams basen on general public pov. So bere it is:

Americas:
Aim is to win the stage: G2

Anything but Toronto is a disappointment:
SEN, NRG, 100T, KRU, LOUD, MIBR, LEV, C9 (Lev and C9 might be a little bit of stretch but they have player quality to do so)

At least make playoffs: EG, Furia
Good luck: 2G

EMEA:
Goal is to win the stage: TH, VIT

Anything but Toronto is a disappointment:
TL, FUT, FNC, KC, BBL, NAVI, GX

At least make playoffs:
M8, KOI

Good luck: APEKS

Pacific:
Goal is to win the stage: T1, DRX, GENG

Anything but Toronto is a disappointment:
PRX, TLN, RRQ, NS

At least make playoffs:
TS, GE, DFM, BOOM, ZETA

(APAC has less teams on first two tiers but I think there will be a gap between top half and bottom half of the league just like last year)

China:

Goal is to win the stage: EDG

Anything but Toronto is a disappointment:
TE, FPX, BLG, XLG, DRG, WOL

At least make playoffs:
NOVA, JDG

Good luck: TEC, TYLOO, AG

What is your tier list look like? What other kind of tier list format better represent how close the teams are within each league?

It just feels like NRG 2024 all over again. Supposed "superteam" play like a super team until they lose, but as soon as they lost there is a huge ego clash and team turmoil. Rumours about sayf and trexx having an argument over game view just seem weird to me, especially between these 2 players cuz they played together for 2 years. If they dont win first 2-3 matches in stage 1, this team might just blow up, idk this all seems weird, they have a tough group tho good luck

G2 miss out on Toronto.

Reasoning: their group has teams with really high ceilings (honestly in any given day C9, MIBR, Lev and Furia might just outshoot them you never know) that can win against any opponent in any given day so they will drop 2 matches and miss out on the 1st seed bye. And they draw some on form 2nd seed from the other group and their run will be harder.

Yeah but we saw mostly consistent 100T throughout the kickoff tho, either opponent hard anti ed them (both Bind games against Sen and NRG) or outcomped them (both Pearl games against Sen and NRG). They seem like they settled on set playstyle and players seem consistent. They might have higher peeks for sure, like Asuna, Cryo and eeiu in the past showed that they could drop 25+ in every map in the series but the overall team average seems consistent.

I had to take risks on some regions and teams so I took on Americas and Pacific cuz they are more competetive and interesting regions. I feel like both Americas and Pacific have 8-9 teams that are really close to each other but only 1-2 maps, comps or player pop-off games seperating from one another. I think people are overrating Bangkok teams and dont remember how close DRX and T1 games were in Pacific. My take on G2 is more of a bias tho because I think they beat most of the teams by surprise factor and comp diff but it wont be the case in stage 1 and the difference between G2 and other teams will be smaller.

They are not a surprise team to go to internationals from Americas tho. What I mean by honeymooning surprise teams were mostly EG, C9 and Lev. Those teams have players with really high peaks but they are bit inconsistent so as the result the teams have honeymoon periods.

Yeah probably, my whole Americas preds are more of a hopium and teams that I like to watch in internationals more than anything, but you dont know anything could happen in valorant, G2 might just have an off 2-3 days and lose. Also with the new format teams are setup for lower bracket runs in playoffs so we might see surprise team go on a honeymoon period like C9, EG, Kru or Lev. (Kru are not a surprise if they make Toronto but you know what I mean)

VCT Regular Season Stage 1 is about to start this weekend in most of the regions. I just wanted to make see what the community's general predictions are for which teams to go to the next international event which is Masters Bangkok.

History of VCT up to this point just shows that it is really hard to keep up the form for a long time in this game and there is a high possibility that none of the teams that went to Bangkok might returun to Toronto in some regions, especially in Americas and APAC with how good the middle of the pack teams are in those regions. Also with T1 winning Bangkok, it just shows that the team that shows up and shoots better on the day might just go on a run, and the better strategy and composition just might not matter. So with all that being said here are my bold predictions:

Pacific:

1. PRX
2. GENG
3. Talon

Americas:

1. NRG
2. LOUD
3. SEN

EMEA:

1. TH
2. VIT
3. KC

China:

1. EDG
2. FPX
3. XLG

PS: I have some unexpected teams going to Toronto, especially from Americas and Pacific. So the reason why I dropped G2 for Loud and NRG is that I think leaf and trent have been in life form in kickoff and that might just dropoff in stage 1. Also some solo yoru compositions migbt get exposed in a long term with them struggling on attack and having the same executes as we saw on maps 4 and 5 against T1 etc. NRG and LOUD being good is just hopium and I like the players and playstyle on those teams tbh. When it comes to Pacific, I think DRX will get outperformed by GENG and PRX in their group and play harder opponent from the other group like T1 or TLN. Also I am expecting T1 to drop off on form like Sen last year and come back to form for champs, also they only have 1 week to prep for 2 new maps and a new agent so they might lose some matches early on and I am predicting TLN to come off strong and to win this group.

What are your preds and why are you expecting those teams to qualify to Toronto?

How is okeanos getting 0.94 and ion2x getting 1.34 rating for that Abyss game? They need to fix the rating system to not give high ratings for players that die less to better reflect the player impact in the game because okeanos felt like match mvp when you look at how many important kills he got but when you only look at the stats you will think he had a bad game

Ascent is in really interesting spot with the addition of 3 new agents and yoru and deadlock being used more in pro play. There are so many comp archatypes but most teams tend to play double initiator on this map. I was thinking of a new comp that could replace the meta comp:
Omen, Vyse, Tejo, Fade, Yoru.
You have pretty much everything with this comp. First, you have really good main takes on both attack and defense with prowlers and tejo missiles. You have a really good mid take with fade eye+tejo missiles for early mid, fade prowlers+tejo drones for deep mid like market and tree. You have a really good site hits as well, you might get away with just 5 man rushing mains with double prowlers to clear main, tejo and yoru utils for site, vyse thorns for flood, omen paranoia to counter the retake, tejo missiles for post plants etc. Also you have 4 round winning power ults to win rounds on attack and retakes.
Mains will be very hard to contest against this comp, because they might early round to hold on for main, they might push thru mains, they might reclear mains, you have so much flexibility. Also you might get away wuth playing 4-1 on defense with vyse on her own, because you have a fazt rotate with yoru tp and good stall with vyse. You can play 5v5 retake if you want because this comp has so much good util for retakes, omen paranoia, double prawler, fade eye, vyse flash, yoru flashes, tejo missiles and stun etc. The only thing I can think the meta comp does better than this comp might be tree hold with kay-o but even for that you might wanna set up one trap play with vyse+tejo util and attackers will be scared to just walk up to tree.

I think his roles were never suited for the definition that I am seeking which is agressive anchor on weak site. Demon1 either played jett on strong site with the pack or played astra/brim which are agents that never allowed him to be really agressive because how important the controller is on defense, he usually played rotator with ipad open or in astral mode

There are so many different teams with so many different playstyles that won championships in Valorant's history but one thing was common in all teams: their weak sites on defense felt like strong sites. If you count teams from Optic 2022, you didnt really want to go to yay's site(technically weaker site, usually he is alone or has only 1 people alongside), same with Suygetsu and Less that year, they always got 2+ when they had to or they played retake when they had to.
It was same with Alfajer in 2023, he aggro peeked in 1/4 rounds on defense and all the opponents were conditioned to overuse utility when they hit Alfa's site and FNC had always easier retakes. EG might be the only exception because Boostio was sentinel igl and he didnt frag as heavy as other players but their floods and set retakes offset that slight weakness.
But all the other teams continue with this trend, Tenz played agressive anchor on Sen, same with Meteor in Geng/T1 and smoggy/chichoo in EDG. You might even wanna add TH benjyfishy to this list with how successful and consistent year TH had and how hard it was to hit benjy's sites.
So overall, with how naturally good equal man post-plants are for attackers, you need agressive fragging anchor to have good defense half to win tournaments. Do you think any other team without agressive anchors will succeed again like EG did in 2023 or will this trend continue?

To know how important igl to a team is you just have to look at the difference between LCQ Sen 2023 and Sen 2024. You might even argue LCQ Sen 2023 had better firepower with Marved&Pancada duo being better mechanical players than Johnqt&Zellsis duo but the difference between these teams cant be more huge. Sen literally went from being one of the worst teams in Americas(literally 8-9) to the best team in the world. Some people might argue actual difference is tenz' role change but he still played initiator role in some maps and his fragging improved significantly from last year.

You need to have a good direction and leadership to let your star players shine as this was the case for Sen: tenz&zekken always carried the team's fragging and other 3 just had to clutch or get the trade kills.

Every time I watch the grand finals in valorant, or in any high stakes game in general, winners are willing to take risks, losing teams crumble when they start getting afraid of losing. You could see it in every grand final last few years, PRX played like they were afraid to lose and lost to EG, same with GENG in Madrid:remember the player cams of geng players on icebox and split, they were relieved after every round win, same thing again with TH against GENG, they did not know what to do in map 5 and just sat on bombsites waiting to get execed on split, same thing again with TH against EDG etc.
Today I felt the same thing again, G2 are the team who usually plays Pearl with agressive lurks thru mid with Jonahp and leaf, but we barely saw that in their 15 attack rounds on that last map. Instead they were 5 man hitting sites a lot and getting spammed or flooded every time, it felt like they were afraid to make a miscall. Once G2 lost against the semi-buy round on 12-10, it was always T1 trying to win and making plays and G2 trying to avoid mistakes with being afraid to lose. I guess the takeaway is always play to win no matter the scoreline and the opponent, even the team who were playing "perfect" valorant can crumble under the pressure if they are afraid to lose. GGs to T1 and G2, what a grandfinal nonetheless.

Bias towards the Americas is kind of reasonable tho, they were ahead of the meta(every other team in Bangkok copied comps from Sen and G2) and they looked the least scrappy. Pacific teams are always wrongly rated because the region's playstyle depends on player form so heavily that you cant predict any teams performance at all. I agree with you on calling every team bad narrative tho, almost every team has made at least 2 roster changes, there was a meta change 2 weeks before the kickoff and kickoff format is so punishing that you cant judge any team with 2 losses but they called every team glue apart from G2 and VIT this kickoff and its just disrespectful towards players who are just trying to survive in this new teams and metas. Every team is trying to find their identity, testing new roles and comps and trying to instill confidence early on the season thats why there were so many overpeeks and scrappy games this year but thats not enough to call them glue.

What a run by T1 and what a turnaround from their sloppy form in Pacific. Now we have come to Grand finals now lets see what is at stake now:
This is gonna be 1st international grand final for 8(9) players on the server, 3rd grand final for both Jawgemo and Meteor with both having won 1 each so far.
This is gonna be curse-break grand final, because both G2/Guard core and T1/DRX core players had choker narrative on their shoulders, being unable to perfom in the biggest stages.
This is the 3rd time NA team is facing Pacific team in the grand finals, so far score is 2-0 for Americas and T1 are the 1st Pacific team to reach grand finals from lower bracket.

Map pool:
Map pool in this grand final is a little bit weird because both teams like the same maps except Abyss for T1. This grandfinal map pool feels a lot more like GENG vs TH grandfinal where both teams didnt play each other entire tournament, both teams have similar map pool, lower bracket team has a perma ban(Ascent for TH) but the team from lowers have been improving throughout the tournament and feel dominant in every other map.
T1 maps ranking in my opinion:

1. Haven
2. Lotus
3. Pearl
4. Split
5. Bind
6. Fracture
7. Abyss

G2 maps:

1. Pearl
2. Abyss
3. Lotus
4. Haven
5. Split
6. Bind
7. Fracture

G2 are heavily favoured only on Abyss but you never know with these aim-heavy big brawly maps, one team could just outshoot the other team and strategy doesnt matter. Both of these teams love Pearl, Lotus and Haven and kinda ok at Split and Bind. It is hard to know which map G2 is gonna ban other than Fracture so its hard for T1, they have to prep for 6 maps this night.

In my opinion, G2 will ban Haven and Fracture and try to outcomp T1's remaining maps. A lot gonna be on Buzz's shoulders to entry against Breach-Tejo comps G2 run and the match might just be decided on FK/FD stats of Buzz.
So my preds:
G2 ban Fracture
G2 ban Haven
G2 pick Pearl
T1 pick Lotus
G2 pick Abyss
T1 pick Bind
Split remains

I think G2 is gonna 1st pick Pearl because they will have a clear game plan against Killjoy and try to execute it and play Abyss as the 3rd map to try to avoid 1st map gitters and shock/curveball value of T1's Abyss. My prediction is 3-2 for G2 and the banger map 5 Split, what are your predictions? Who are you rooting for?

G2 won 2 Bo3s against TH and Lev won 1 BO3 against TH as well. TH pulled off in the most important games but still rematching an opponent is always tough and TH were just better at rematch days in general. I dont know if I am gonna use the word rolled for TH's performance against Americas last year.

There were 2 teams from Americas at every international events' top 4 last year

It is hard to agree how to rank regions by their international performance, there is always the questions like do you only count the winners or do you count top 4 finishes or do you count playoff teams. I wanted to create a point system that rewards every team for their every win since the tournament formats have been the same since Masters Madrid: Swiss in Masters, Groups at champs. Basically:
0-2 Teams = get 0 point
1-2 teams = get only 1 point
7-8 th = 3 points
5-6th = 4 points
4th = 5 points
3rd = 6 points
2nd = 8 points
1st = 10 points.

So the rankings for each tournament
Masters Madrid:
Americas = 15
Pacific= 14
EMEA= 7
China= 7

Masters Shanghai:
Americas: 12
Pacific: 14
EMEA: 15
China: 4

Champs Seoul:
Americas: 15
Pacific: 6
EMEA: 13
China: 13

Masters Bangkok:
If we assume the favourites win from this point on and G2 wins it all against EDG in grand finals here are the points:
Americas: 13
Pacific: 10
EMEA: 9
China: 11

So overall:
Americas: 55
Pacific: 44
EMEA: 44
China: 35

To sum it up, if you count the points for the whole last year, Americas is by far the best and China is the weakest region but if you are only counting the last event, Americas is still the best but EMEA is the weakest region according to this point distribution system.

P.s: Masters Bangkok and Masters Madrid points might be little inflated with only 8 teams, but still these 8 teams most likely wouldve been in top 8 if the tournament was larger.

Duelist: Buzz
Initiator: Kushy
Controller: Karon
Sentinel: Meteor
Flex: Forsaken

I feel like overall map comfortability can be just seen by looking at bind and pearl against G2 if you ignore pistol and ecoes as the factor. You can clearly see EDG are good bind team by how they were defending long B, flooding and denying plant on A etc, but on Pearl it took lots of ults, hero plays and mistakes from G2 to win rounds.

Its more that other teams dont like playing split in this tournament apart from VIT. Most of the teams who love split DRX, Sen and TL got eliminated, EDG never pick it cuz they have better maps, T1 have a chamber comp and they 2nd ban split if they have a chance to ban split, G2 in Americas always had split as the 3rd map but never went to split until grand finals(so they think they have a good split from prac) but loss to SEN was more of a nerves and Sen just being better than them and I think they will beat T1's chamber comp on split with yoru+tejo

Double pistol + hero rounds helped them a lot, otherwise it would ve been like 13-9 for G2

You need to be better than your opponent at 4 maps to win an event, thats why some teams like TE, TL and Sen got knocked out of the tournamnet early on because they had only 2 or 3 good maps. Now, we only have 4 teams at the tournament, I ranked the teams on each map:
Rankings go from left to right, 1st team written being the best, last team being the worst

Abyss: G2, Vit, EDG, T1
Bind: Vit, EDG, T1, G2
Fracture: EDG, Vit, T1, G2
Haven: EDG, T1, G2, VIT
Lotus: T1, G2, VIT, EDG
Pearl: G2, T1, EDG, VIT
Split: Vit, EDG, G2, T1

Haven and Lotus rankings could change a lot, since none of these teams played against each other on those maps yet and these maps might be the deciding maps in all the matches and no one 1st bans these maps. So based on the rankings, 4 points for the best teams, 1 point for the worst team, here are the overall rankings:
EDG: 19
VIT: 18
G2: 17
T1: 16

What are your rankings for these teams? Who has the best map pool?

Nice ragebait but aint nobody is benching their 2nd best player in their team

I think they are struggling to find the balance, there are either too many cooks or no cooks at all. Sometimes they are trying to make plays when they dont need to(remember 1v3 nats clutch or the amount of times zellsis tried to flash out of smokes in Abyss) or not doing anything decisive at all (whole of bind and some post plants on Abyss). I think its the team issue more than anything, bang and narrate are not meant to be midrounders (neither was tenz and sacy, sacy might ve done some midrounding but not as much as zellsis), zellsis and johnqt need to step up more to build the chemistry, trying to flame bang and narrate when they are mostly doing their job is unfair to the players.

It is weird how both of teams have the same issue: team chemistry. 2023 Sen did not have much chemistry because they didnt have much time in the off-season and played the musical chairs with the roster during the regular season and suffered from too many inflexible players. 2025 SEN on the other hand had time in the off-season and wasted their time playing musical chairs with the player roles this time with too many flexible players. I think the new SEN suffers from success, basically their players are too flexible and play on every role and they win most of the scrims with any comp but they lack the match chemistry. This must be the worst thing happened to Kaplan, their team is incredible at scrims, everyone is playing their role perfectly in scrims but when it comes to matches everything drops off, all the chemistry, calling, decisiveness and even the aim. They are finding their mistakes by hard way but I have faith in the players and Kaplan to fix them at least by stage 2, cuz they might not have enough time to get refined for stage 1.

I think you are reading the situation wrong, he is making a lot of solo plays than last year which I think is due to lack of chemistry with others. It still frustrates me how they played musical chairs with the roles in the off-season and lost the curical time to build the chemistry between zekken, bang and n4rrate. Zekken is either going into the site alone and dying without any chance(you saw that a lot in Abyss attack) or he is retaking in a man disadvantage situation. Then he feels like he needs to take more risks and thats why you saw him swing alone in a lot of situations where he wouldnt have last year, maybe he doesnt trust his teammates as much and he feels like he needs to take over idk.

You can only count the 2v4 they threw on OT and the thrifty they lost on round 12 as the true throw rounds by liquid, every other round Sen won were usually well played by Sen

They've thrown 5 gun rounds when they were in a man advantage(that includes double fall off too cuz site hit was too strong if they didnt do thaf) and a pistol which counts as 2 (honestly you might even count pistol rounds as 3 or 4 with how ult economy works in this game) and lost 2 thrifties in regulation alone. They also threw 2 advantageous postplants on attack and 2v1 on the last round in overtime. And I didnt even talk about some horrendous 5man rush calls on attack and some overswings on defense.

Sure nats 1v5 ed them on bind, but if they had a some level of awareness and teamplay, or if one of them holds the smoke in the post plant for their life they would win that attack half. Oh man I dont know how to help this roster man, they remind of 2023 Sen, a lot of good players but no chemistry whatsoever. They need to take time of for at least 2 weeks and mentally reset because the team chemistry is the reason teams like EDG and G2 are good right now, its the reason why Sen won Madrid in the 1st place, they cant just play like they would win every aim duel if they wanna win.

I felt that with Bren too this event weirdly, he seems little bit out of the zone. He is running out of words in the most hype moments I feel like maybe its the first few days after the long flight affecting him idk. Pansy and Achilios are still doing an amazing play by play cast. I hope the casting quality goes back to normal for playoff matches with other casters too.

Which map would they pick then? Split might be an option considering how G2 looked on split but EDG only won hero rounds on defense of split even though their attack was amazing. I am not sure they are comfortable on Split as much as they are on Haven. Also solo jett might get countered because she is not as flexible as raze and yoru if teams know how to play against it.

1. DRX vs VIT
   DRX have the best map veto against VIT out of all the #1 seeds. Both teams hate Pearl but VIT have never played it and 1st banned almost every game. DRX on the other hand played Pearl once and looked horrible but with them showing how fast they can fix their Lotus they should be able to float Pearl and ban VIT's best map which I think is bind. So:
   DRX ban Bind
   VIT ban Pearl
   DRX pick Abyss
   Vit pick Split
   DRX ban Haven
   Vit ban Lotus
   Fracture 3rd map

DRX have a high chance of 2-0 this series but I think they lose in case this goes to 3rd map and VIT should win if it is Fracture. DRX have higher chance of winning if the 3rd map is Haven or Lotus. Overall 55/45 in favor of VIT

2. EDG vs G2
   EDG ban Abyss
   G2 ban Bind
   EDG pick Haven
   G2 pick Lotus
   EDG ban Fracture
   G2 ban Split
   Pearl remains

Honestly this series is very hard to predict for map veto and who is better at the remaining 5 maps. EDG should be better on Haven and Split, G2 should be little bit better at Lotus and Fracture. Pearl is 50/50 but I think G2 has more experience of playing Pearl and I am gonna favour G2 by 52/48. Every map should be close in this series.

3. T1 vs TE:
   T1 ban Abyss
   TE ban Fracture
   T1 pick Haven
   TE pick Bind
   T1 ban Split
   TE ban Pearl
   Lotus remains

TE have the best veto against T1 out of #2 seeds. Both of these teams dont like Split and Abyss, both of them love Lotus and Bind, both of them are uncomfortable on Pearl. I think whoever just shows up that day wins this series but I think TE will for sure win Bind and scrape 1 of the other 2 maps. So 60/40 for Trace

4. Sen vs TL
   Sen ban Fracture
   TL ban Pearl
   Sen pick Lotus
   TL pick Abyss
   Sen ban Haven
   TL ban Bind
   Split 3rd map.

I think TL has to win in 2 because if Sen is in a form that can win a map, they should be able beat any team in their best map as their 3rd map. This game more than any game comes down to form at the day, because if both of these teams play like they played in round 1 TL should win. I feel like Keiko, Kamo and Nats were on form against EDG, but only Bang was on form in the 2nd map against DRX, johnqt was shooting ok for an igl but his calling was way off. If sen show their form from their games against MIBR and G2 they should win comfortably because they have much higher peak than TL but if any other SEN shows up they are cooked. Overall, 55/45 for Sen, I just have faith Sen will bounce back.

Why is the valorant community so recency biased and hate great players when they have a bad game/period? They only play 2-3 matches per months after scrimming 6-7 hours every day and every fan wants to drop them from the team when they have a bad game? So many people hating on TL and Sen players when they had one off day, heck they made it top 8 in the world chill they just had an unlucky day. Everyone on vlr and reddit are already discussing replacements for patitek, zellsis, zekken etc, are you guys serious? Just have some respect for the players man, they are the reason why we watch and love VCT.

Changing roles is an overreaction. You will never have a good solution because if they go back to the off-season roles with n4rrate on senti and zellsis as flex they would lack firepower and trading on the pack as you saw in the off season 3-pack didnt know what to do if zekken died first when n4rrate is lurking. With the current roles, it makes much more sense because their pack has so much trading potential but zellsis has to hold his own when he is lurking. I think Sen straight up lost 4-5 rounds on haven just from Zellsis's mistakes. I hope he can get his form back because we know how good he can be in high pressure games, today was just not the day

It didnt feel like we were playing the perfect team who is gonna win the the whole thing but Sen just didnt show up thats the frustrating part about it. They were losing so many gunfights they should not lose, they were making too many mistakes on defense halves and were too hesitant on attack.

They dont look confident at their swings at all and giving DRX too much respect at their executes. People like zellsis, n4rrate and zekken who wide swing when anyone is alone are just jiggle peeking and getting prefired and they are getting tilted after that as you can see from player cams.
Solo yoru composition should struggle to get out of choke points as you saw when Sen string some rounds on defence on haven and only lost hero rounds. Instead they are giving up sites a lot. Amount of rounds on C they lost with viper, vyse raze comp is unacceptable. DRX did not make a single mid-round pivot entire game just like in their games in pacific and still they didnt overrotate as much as they should have.
Also zekken and zellsis had an off day today which might happen but they need to be more consistent if they wanna go deep in the tournament.
Out of the both teams they look more nervous than DRX which is shocking considering the experience gap.
Overall, DRX did not look like world-beaters more so Sen just did not show up, DRX did whatever they wanted on Lotus(Mako double tp ing everywhere and still not getting punished was tough to watch) and Sen lost haven due to their mistakes.

I said at the end I think EMEA superteam is gonna win against defending champions just like 2023.

I mean a darkhorse as a team that could level up in a tournament and could just win it all (Sen, T1, DRX). TE and TL are clear underdogs more than darkhorse I think