Sen will most likely get the 2nd seed if they beat 2G no matter what happens in other games. I think the most like opponent for SEN is C9 if they get 2nd seed. They actually might prefer the 3rd seed because if they go through as 2nd seed and win their 1st match at playoffs, they would have to play G2 and with how shaky Sen's Lotus looks I dont think they can win that game even if they can win one of Split/Pearl

EG vs KRU game might look just another match with a heavy favourite but it might turn out to be the most impostant match in this group for Stage 1.

Firstly, If EG win today they will secure playoffs because LOUD cant get 2 wins, 2G can secure 2-3 score but EG have a head to head tiebreak over 2G.
Secondly, LOUD and 2G are praying for KRU to win otherwise both of them cant get to playoffs.

EG vs KRU game is really important for SEN as well in a case that if KRU win this game there is no possible way for SEN to get the 1st seed. You might say there is gonna be 3-way tie between 100T, KRU and Sen if 100T beats KRU but in that case, there is no possible way for SEN to get a better map diff than 100T

Most weird fact about this game is that 100T need KRU to win because they want to create the 3-way tie for them to have a chance at first seed because they will most likely have the best map differential if they 2-0 KRU last week, otherwise they will tie with Sen and Sen has a H2H tiebreak over 100T.

Also as a neutral fan we want KRU to win because the watching the do or die match between EG vs LOUD for playoffs is gonna be fun.

So overall, all of Brazil, 100T and neutral fans are gonna be cheering for KRU, but only Sen fans are rooting for EG. Have fun watching the games

Why is Zellsis playing with a confidence like he is aspas or smth? He is always running in without any awareness and I think he makes a lot of "run it down" calls Sen are doing in their attack sides. He needs to play with more awareness and bit more respect

Poor NRG have to play prime version of their opponents in their group huh? Furia on Lotus, Regular season C9, Unbeatable G2, Best Brazilian team MIBR and next week Prime LEV. Man, god doesnt want FNS to go to Toronto it seems like

COM singlehandedly lost them 3 huge swing rounds on defense half alone. LEV for sure wouldve won this map if com was just a little bit amarter with his decision making

You gotta factor in reaction time and aiming style as well. Many people in NA have a fast reaction time and burst a lot like Zekken, N4rrate, Oxy, som and so many other ex cs players have bursty aim but they cover it up with quick reset and fast reaction time. In EU you see more of tappy aim especially with Turkish players thats why they have generally higher hsp, you can see that with brazilian players as well. Higher hsp doesnt mean better aimer, quick bursty player might hit their 2nd burst before tappy players adjusts his aim.

Ange1 really found young version of himself huh? Ruxic is always making plays that either win the round or lose the round as a solo smokes which is exactly how Ange1 played smokes. I feel like there is 2 mini-teams within NAVI, Koala, Shao and Hiro are always makjng percentage plays and meanwhile ANGE1 and Ruxic taking every risk possible regardless of their role

Its not gonna happen this year tho, Sen's problem is not talent, its just chemistry. Why would they change their core leader player for another young player who is not experienced to suffer from same problems once again? They should just get better as the year goes on with the current team, bang, narrate and zekken are good enough star fraggers, johnqt and zellsis can hold their own, they dont need another change

They were just running 100T comp from Kickoff at the beginning then they changed their comp to Sen's comp on Split after seeing 100T's comp weaknesses combined with nightz being uncomfortable.

Its crazy how much people underrate Bang as a fragger. I think he is up there in Americas with som, valyn and pancada in terms of controllers who has good aim in general. Some sen fans were upset Sen picked up Bang over zander in off season, so far this season and the 2 matches they played against each other you saw the reason why.

I think the main reason why they switched roles is nightz was uncomfortable on sage on split thats why they put him on Yoru. Also reduxx and skuba are more flexible than 16 year old nightz, they just want to be a better team with more comfort roles on their players, I dont think role swaps on Cubert affects main Sen roster.
Also if there is gonna be any change on Sen roster its not gonna be in near future, its gonna be after Champs 2025 ends because this team was built to improve as the year goes on and peak at champs. I dont think Zellsis is ever getting dropped this year as soon as he keeps his current performance because he is such a valuable leader and flexible player.

It is crazy how hindsighty and biased they are when it comes to Americas especially. Loud vs Sen and MIBR vs NRG should never be guarantees, we have seen MIBR struggle to solve simple problems and get bailed out by clutches and individual takeovers, also Sen are really inconsistent. Also I feel like Loud are team that plays up to opponents level, whether its rock bottom like 2G, or the best team in the group like KRU, so Loud could beat any team

These rage posts are crazy man. Look at her performance vs TH and then her popping off against much weaker NAVI and all of us sudden she is the best aimer the world has ever seen? Also she has an awp ace with 2-3 really good shots and we declare it the best ace of all time? Lets be realistic guys, if you saw those clips or those performances from good players on bad teams(like Meiy, Dep, Vookashu etc) you wouldnt hype them up this much, just look at her as a normal player.

Isnt this same in every region tho? We are seeing crazy skill mismatches in all the regions not only Americas, for example in Pacific Zeta, DFM, GE, PRX, TS all look much worse than top teams.

I know most LOUD fans have lost hope at this point considering they are 0-3 and for sure out of 1-3 playoff spots and most likely even 4th playoff spot, and their next match is also SEN. They should be able to get the 4th spot if they win out but even if they lose to SEN they still have high chance of qualifying. Here it is:
EG's next 2 opponents are KRU and LOUD, 2G's next opponents are 100T and SEN. Both of these teams should lose all of their matches in most scenarios. And if LOUD win the last match of the season against EG and both EG and 2G lose all of their games from this point they will be tied for 4th spot with 1-4 score and most likely will have a better tiebreaker.

GE coaches just opened up Phillipines Split 2 stats page and picked top 3 players huh? (https://www.vlr.gg/event/stats/2083/challengers-league-2024-philippines-split-2)

Jokes side, this team needs more time, their setups dont make sense for their comp, they are always taking not favoured duels and mostly individually, they could be a good team by the end of stage 2

There is a clear narrative between general community and broadcast that Group Omega is much better group than Group Alpha but I think they are overrating NRG and LEV. I honestly think G2 are the best team, MIBR, KRU, SEN, C9 and 100T are all in a same tier and can beat each other at any day(100T might be little overrated). But for other teams tho, I think LOUD, 2G and EG are at least at the similar or even better than LEV and NRG, Furia tho they themself dont know whats going on. So, overall both groups have similar strength but Group Omega have some really bad teams that dont look competetive.

Aspas beating all the baiter allegations in the recent matches. He was sending it solo no matter what against G2 and LEV, now he is doing it against C9 as well. He doesnt care if he dies first and receives all the util, he is just making space for others. Dont ever accuse my goat wrongly again

I am so impressed by how mature the decision making Killua has. He doesnt make that many big mistakes and always going for the safest play possible. Sure, thyy and primmie are getting more kills but Killua's utility always seems on point, especially his breach.

I think this is what you want instead of two really good teams like last year. Almost every team in China right now has a player that can carry games and be in top rosters, 7-8 mid table teams have 2-3 such players. After this year ends, there will be 5-6 international playoff teams after roster shuffles because teams will know who the good players are.

So many pros are talking about how the game is unplayable and gunplay isnt as inportant anymore but what we have seen at vct so far it doesnt matter if you have a better comp if you cant outshoot your opponent. T1 vs G2 grandfinal is prime example of this, also so many games yesterday are just one team outaiming the other team: KC vs KOI, Sen vs EG, Geng vs Dfm, RRQ vs Zeta are all examples of one team just completely outaiming the other. Also in most of the games winning teams are not using tejo comps while losing teams are running beeach tejo.

Tombizz said it perfectly man, when Chronicle is in his A game, it feels impossible to beat him, every decision he makes works out, every spam and every spray connects, every timing he hits. What a legendary player honestly +4 years of consistency

I think they are scared of running into setplays and trap plays against breach tejo, also they want to run the timer of yoru tp thats why they were defaulting a lot. In hindsight they shouldve tried more fast splits or mid takes but it seemed like their pre game plan was just defaulting to counter yoru and they didnt have other game plans prepped

He literally had 4.5s to plant, chill you wouldve shit your pants if you were in his position

Did they lose the acces to all the pro games footage or did they just just learn how to play valorant? Agents are meta on the map for a reason guys, there is a reason why people are playing some agents on maps for 4+ years. Why is BBL running triple initiator on Ascent, FUT triple initiator on Icebox, so many teams running astra on fracture + so much more. Its like they are asking to lose with these comps, you dont need to play the game on hard mode, there is a reason why people pick info sentinel on Icebox and Ascent, so that 3 of your 5 players dont have to watch mid all the time. Its so frustrating to see these comps man

You cant play to hold both sites with smokes on fracture, you just get run down or get split on your weaksite everytime om your weak site. Astra util is just not enough to cover 3 lanes on both sites

How are so many EMEA teams are still playing astra on Fracture? We saw astra from KC, BBL, TH, FUT and some other teams so far. Their attacking potential just goes down heavily, they cant fast go A through A main because they need 3 smokes to do that, they cant fast split B because they lack the molly that flashes out the tower, their afterplant is far worse on the most post-plant heavy map, astra ult is basically useless when everyone flanks on this map. Like its been 3 years since fracture has been released and even my ranked teammates know brim is the best smoker on fracture

Its weird how both of these teams are at the bottom of their group but have completely different problems. You might argue both teams have same issue in a sense that they messed up the roster construction but one of them have 4 baiters and other one has 5 scrimmers. In LEV only tex has agressive playstyle but he is playing sentinel and he is good at it, but everyone else on the team is naturally not an agressive player, kingg who was an amazing fragging igl controller is being forced to play duelist because their supposed star player is not a good entry. In every attack round of LEV same things happens: tex goes 1 for 1 on the lurk, kingg sends in alone and dies, com trying to flank with his full kit, demon1 and rossy are behind the smoke just baiting.
Furia on the other hand have completely different problem, they dont have enough chill players. Havoc sends in alone most of the time without waiting for util, mwzera is always 2nd one in with his full kit as initiator (I guess pryze is a good replacement so far because he is actually playing like an initiator and using his util), khalil sits down in every smoke he throws in even tho he is only anchor on site on 5v4 and he needs to live to win the round, raafa sends it down mid every round and have 10+ first engagements every game as an igl flash initiator, heat takes every first timing and every duel he can.
I am not trying to flame players and calling them bad, its just that their team is just not it, their roster just doesnt mesh together. I swear if you swapped two players on these rosters you would have 2 better teams, it just goes to show you cant build a good team with 5 good players, you need a good mix of agressive and passive players.

Whole roster just doesnt make sense I think. They dont have enough agressive players, everytime kingg is going in alone, demon1 and rossy are behind the smoke just baiting, com is trying to flank with his whole kit, tex is already dead on the lurk.

Its just sad to see what happened to PRX. You see sheriff shots and Marshal shots something hits and you immediately say "Why isnt he on Jett?", you see Jingg peeking everyone on fracture and just killing everybody and think "Oh my god why isnt he our entry?" and then they play jett raze everymap and when they lose everyone says "Why are they playing these bad comps they are just getting oututiled". Its really sad how these meta changes caused this much problems. Maybe you gotta die by the sword and play double duelist every map since they cant play the normal comps normally anyway. I dont know man, it must be rough for players and Alecks right now, what should they do? Man, I dont want this 5 to split and break their playstyle.

It feels like night and day with caster energies compared to yesterday's Uber&Wyatt casting in Sen vs Kru game. I dont know why this cast seem so boring because its not the caster problem, I ve seen babybay and doug with some banger casts in some big games (all the casts in Shanghai for instance), game isnt that boring either, 6-6 half, some ecoes, some close rounds, somw incredible shots. I dont know whats wrong but the energy seems so low

Nah, I think you are interpreting kap's interview wrongly. Because on their defense they were really proactive, they were reclearing front B a lot, if they lost info on both A and C, they were reclearing one of them, they were always on a pack, they always had the right read on where Kru was going. They just rushed their retakes in a lot of the time and they couldve won 9-3 on defense if they won their B retakes they were supposed to win. On attack their calling and midrounding mightve fell asleep but their defense was okay. They just need to relax a bit, they are just playing to outaim their opponent every round and its not consistent win con if you have zellsis on your team and bang&narrate having inconsistent form.

This loss is different from other losses, it is not like they are just sitting without any plans like the game vs DRX, nor the loss vs TL where they lost trust in each other and made bunch of solo plays. This time they are on the same page on what to do but they are rushing it bit too much.
1) They had like 3-4 B retakes on Lotus where they had 2 players C link, 2-3 players B heaven and B heaven players just tried to flood out without waiting for C link players, if they waited for 2 more seconds, it is just the won round, B site on Lotus is one of the easiest sites to retake in the game.
2) They are rushing too much on Lotus attack side, it is the 3 site map just chill you can work the map and exec on 40s mark. Enemy only has tejo drone to reclear why are we not pressuring all 3 sites at the same time? Like B-C default with Viper lurking A wouldve been really good call.
3) They are way too hectic on retakes on Icebox, everyone is just flooding out haven and not scaling together to one site, everytime 2 players are facing belt from top site and just getting sprayed down. Like come on we can use the viper wall to clear the site first and face the belt, deep jail angles together as a team.

PS. To be fair they lost 2 pistols and 1 bonus, 6 clutches on Icebox, so I am not too mad about that map, also Bang had an unusally quiet Icebox which is rare for him. People complaining about zellsis's performance, they just need to stop and rethink, zellsis is not meant to be fragger of this team. N4rrates lotus performance is also not that bad considering Lotus was lost due to macro calls on attack side largely. Even if N4rrate had like 10 more kills on Lotus, result wouldve been the same, because the approach and gameplan on attack side was wrong from the beginning.

Why are we rushing every round on attack? You dont have to hit the bombsite within 30secs, just chill, wait for breach tejo to sho themself and go break the vyse util then you still have more than 1 minute to call and midround. They outaimed 100T in one match and think they can outaim everyone now and hit 5 man to sites every round. Just chill, you should have a better macro than KRU, if you just wait they will make a play brooooo

Diamond/Ascendant. Lots of pros/radiants queue with their friend in ascendant in their alt account and drop 30 every game with igling. It feels like you are playing against aimbot when you play against these smurfs because you usually have to hit your first shot/burst otherwise you are just dead. Also when they get an awp we all get farmed because no one knows how to properly play against good awpers.

I always felt like Sen players have mental block on that map and thats why they didnt practice that much and their stratbook always looked small. I think they lost Icebox in praccs a lot, or maybe its just players hate that map with a passion, esp. zekken and Tenz last year. This year at least, bang have always played well on Icebox, idk much about n4rrate but technically this year's icebox should be better.

I think you are underestimating Lotus and Pearl quite a bit. Johnqt's calling style on Lotus have always been good, they just need to get more comfortable with the new comp they are running, remember rhe loud game when they were team flashing, getting hit by every cypher trip, not scalkng into sites and all that stuff? It was happening with similar comp earlier on Split as well but now they look like one of the best split teams again. So I think they can fix their Lotus if they go back to G2's Lotus comp.
I think their Pearl and Haven looks alright, in the games they lost on these maps, they lost a lot of pistols and bonuses, it shouldnt happen again if they prep well, also give some time for N4RRATE to get more comfortable on Iso on Haven.
As for new maps tho, they never knew how to play Ascent against good teams but they could beat good Icebox teams if they are shooting well. Even tho Icebox is historically viewed as one of the worst Sen maps, they never got blown out by anybody, they got at least 8-9 rounds if they lost, they even won against some good Icebox teams.

Do EMEA players know tejo missiles do damage and could kill you? Why is everyone from VIT and GX are standing on tejo mollies even though they are not stunned or anything? No wonder why sayf and Derke were complaining about tejo, they dont understand what this character does.

G2 has only one thing that is clearly better than every other team in the league which is they only take good fights and they take them together. All South American teams make too many individual hero plays thats why you see them being inconsistent from map to map, they are way too reliant on player form. All NA teams kinda do the similar thing but they have a lot of team overheat moments, they call for the double swing when they dont have to, they get agressive even in 5v4s, they try to exec onto sites with 4 people stacks because they think they just will outaim their opponent etc.

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?