Apparently Zekken this year has played against 8/11 Americas teams and Aced against 6 of them. Only teams he didnt ACE against were 2G and EG.

From where do broadcast and content creators get these stats from? Is there any webpage that I can look at that shows who has the most assists or kills? I can understand the fact that broadcasts have a some sort of tracking source that shows them who reached 1000kills or whatever but how did Anderzz tweet about Jonahp reaching 1000asissts in VCT yesterday?

Current VIT struggles really resembles the struggles of early NRG 2024. They dont have pre-planned strats, their midrounding is way too obvious and they are way too slow on their attackside, they dont innovate as much and they are behind the meta and vibes look off from the outside.

Most people point to the SEN game that NRG lost at kickoff as a turning point for the team and some people speculate NRG wouldve met the promises if they went to Madrid. I feel like same thing happened with VIT as well, but they won the game that they shouldve lost against KC at kickoff, I wonder what wouldve happened if KC won that game.

What happens to VIT now? Do they make a roster change if they dont qualify just like NRG last year? If they bomb out of playoffs, they are in serious danger of not making champs as well considering how close EMEA is at points table.

Most of it is just the ragebait and recency bias. Sen should be top 5 team in Toronto no matter what happened in Grand finals tbh. It might be just cope as a SEN fan, but I think this loss and Swiss stage in Toronto helps them, because this team gets better with more reps and losses.

I am not worried for Toronto group stage that much because they should be able to outaim and win games on group stage just like they did against every other team in Americas apart from G2
If they make playoffs next stage they will make Paris, they only need 2 or 3 champs points to secure their spot.

I feel like this series was more on johnqt than narrate, he was making too many readable and bad calls this series even tho his vlr stats look good. Its whole teams fault in reality tho, other players also had to make better calls on 2nd halves and be more composed.
Thats why this loss is so annoying, its not like loss vs G2 first time they played at Kickoff where they were getting diffed in almost every level, but this time when zekken is playing good and when bang is anchoring like a god they have to win these type of series.

Isnt this recency biased tame tho after 1 match? They were playing well as a team so far, for example their game against MIBR, they had a good coordination for most of the time and zellsis's monitor was off. They were just too eager to take fights and rush today for some reason.

I mean even zekken was playing tilted on Pearl, johnqt was making tilted rushed calls on Haven and Split, its a whole team problem. At least zekken doesnt express it that much as others but still it is so noticable.

When leaf and jonahp push out of flank get 3k or when jawg hits a ridiclious clip, or when tre t clutches every postplant or valyn gets 3k on site its "OMGGG what a teamplay and coordination and good macro by G2" and when SEN players do it its " OH they are hero play merchants". Every good team wins big rounds by hero plays in this game

I feel like they lack composure and awareness when they lose maps or rounds. When this years SEN are at their best is when they make quick and decisive calls and execute it calmly, they look horrible when they commit to bad call and rush. For example, SEN lost like 10 rounds this series up a man advantage on attack and they get too excited and stomp away to one site to group up and G2 make a hero stack play to win the round. Honestly, those 10 rounds were difference maker in this series.
Also, their defensive setups are too readable, they are not rotating or flooding as much as they should, they are not proactive enough.

He is so tilted after these two maps, just look at the way he is playing and comming. SEN need to win this map without locked in Zekken it looks like

What are these calls man? How is this so obvious? Oj Haven, the worst player on the roster zellsis is C, and G2 go C every round, we dont change anything up, on Split we always 5 man hit sites with 30s left, like you need to take mid before 1min to have a good attack half, why are we teying to rush everything. They are getting so excited after getting man advantage like do you guys know how to chill a bit?

Its so tilting when you are shooting better than your opponent and you still lose. Double pistol, so many cringe tejo rounds, some thrown rounds by john and his stuns, bang and zellsis some small mistakes on defense. SEN shouldve won this map maaaan, its sooo tilting for the players when they leave the map feeling like they shouldve won it

If SEN wins today, Bang wouldve achieved the same amount of achievements and have qualified for same amount of internationals in 6 months with SEN as he did with 100T in 3 seasons.

Tejo players have little bit inflated vlr ratings for sure but its not that far off from their actual impact in the game. You also have to consider number of times they pushoff people out of positions and their teammetes get kills or space because of that, that type of impact is not counted on VLR rating formula so it kinda balances out.

Yeah maybe, I just open up twitter or reddit and everyone is pointing their guns towards artzin, just based off vlr rating and forget it wasnt his fault entirely.

How do you guys put so much hate on a player just because he goes -20 in a match? Do you want artzin to play like mwzera on breach and use breach flash twice the whole game and stay gun out the entire time? He is igling, translating, dropping guns almost every round, he is jumping out of smokes to be the bait and he is playing agents like breach and kay-o, and you expect him to go positive? Get yourself some reality check man, he is currently only good igl in Brazilian scene(apart from Sadhaak maybe) and helped this team to stay consistent and finish top 3 again.

Apparently draws for Stage 2 will be held tomorrow after the Grand finals and we might see some mentally inbalanced groups depending on the draw.
So pots are:

1. SEN, G2
2. MIBR, EG
3. 100T, KRU
4. NRG, C9
5. 2G, LEV
6. LOUD, FURIA

Imagine the group with:
G2, MIBR, 100T, C9, LEV and LOUD
and compare it to
SEN, EG, KRU, NRG, 2G, FURIA

Some totally inbalanced draws might happen considering how high EG placed and how some good teams like C9 and LOUD are on bottom pots.

These performances are exactly what I imagined when this roster was put together at the end of the last year. Zekken with star carry performances, bang and narrate with really important multi-kills and duel wins, john with amazing util and calling, zellsis with inconsistent performances.
This is exactly what we were promised and it took 8 months to get here. Still a lot to improve on especially closing out leads, but this is what you want to see as SEN fan.

This game might look like just the seeding match for 1st seed but its more important than that. Difference for the road for Toronto for the winner and the loser of this match is so big.
Winner of this game just have to win one match against the winner of NAVI/BBL. Loser of FNC vs TH is however about to face the hardest road imaginable: First they have to play FUT in the first round of playoffs. If they win vs FUT they have to win against Liquid who are just getting better, if they lose vs FUT they have to play vs VIT. So, the loser of TH/FNC might just not make it to Toronto considering how hard the road is.

If EG win today, this is about to be the most Mickey Mouse tournament in Valorant history. VIT in lower bracket so probably not gonna make it, new meta with no practice, Sunset coming into the map pool out of nowhere, EMEA playing with less than 3 weeks prep time compared to Americas&China etc. We might have only 4 experienced teams in this event, SEN, GENG and probably TH and FNC.

Technically they both have similar kit. Firstly, very similar drone, skye dog is slightly better for scaling in my opinion. They both have similar "useless" ability which are heal and stun, they are both situational and usually dont make a huge difference in the round. Now they both have a similar signature ability, skye flash is better for scaling and info, tejo missiles are better for post-plants. I dont think you are gonna see non-breach tejo maps or solo tejo maps anymore. Any other thoughts?

Jemkin duelist
Trexx initiator
Chronicle flex
Suygetsu controller
Nats sentinel igl

I think this is better roster than yours. I think Chronicle shines more when he plays kay-o, breach, viper stuff when he is allowed more freedom than normal scan initiator role. Also trexx and suygetsu are on better form than sheydos and shao.

You know almost every org that finished bottom 6 in Americas are making roster moves, especially Brazilian orgs who didnt make playoffs. Funniest thing is every team is playing for only one championship spot because of how top 3 in Americas didnt change this year.
So, MIBR, G2 and Sen finished top 3 in both kickoff and stage 1(assuming G2 wins against EG), so they have a huge Champs points gap between other teams. If all 3 teams do well in Toronto as well, there is probably only 1 spot left for champions in Americas because if one of G2, SEN and MIBR make Grand finals in stage 2, other 2 will automatically qualify.

We mighy look back at these roster changes and improvements other teams made, but they might just not matter and only one team will break into top 4. In a nutshell, other 9 teams in Americas pretty much have no chance of qualifying to champs via points, they must make a run to Grand finals. So good luck to all 9 teams.

I am not worried about their map pool, I am just worried indviduals just not showing up sometimes, they can lose or win any map purely based on their form at this point. You can just see at the G2 game, they can lose even their best map when they are nervous.

Even as a SEN fan I dont think there is a favourite in this match, in their kickoff game MIBR got totally outclassed in macro and comps thats why it wasnt even close. This time MIBR is playing similar comps, upgraded firepower and midrounding and more confidence. I would be really surprised if its a 2-0 for either side.

SEN vs MIBR is gonna be soo good because both teams have very similar playstyle. They have a playstyle like somewhere between G2 and 100T, they open rounds according to set call by their igl, they are disciplined to an extent in a midround like G2, but they also allow for individual plays and hero plays like C9/100T.
Its actually the best valorant to watch, you get set rounds, cool execs and util combos sometimes but you also get insane hero and indvidual rounds by all 10 players in these teams. I expect a really good game full of highlights this time, just cant wait to watch.

What is with South American orgs being obsessed with Gentle M8 players of all teams? Even if he is performing well in scrims, he is gonna be a focus point whenever LOUD loses games and he will be the first to be replaced just like how Natank was kicked out of LEV even though he wasnt the reason why LEV was losing games. Robbie isnt young promising guy or hard fragger that comes in and carries the team, he is just gonna another Natank, who is just solid, but not the fix.
I really dont understand how some Brazilian orgs dont scout talent well considering how good that region is, this year alone we found out about xenom, cortezia and lukxo, they came out of nowhere basically, maybe lukxo was more famous for the people who followed Ascension but still its impressive how some Brazilian orgs refuse to bring up tier 2 talent.

I think Sen will still pick Split despite their 13-5 loss because I think MIBR will ban Pearl against them. Kaplan was asked about why they picked Pearl against C9 even though C9 are very good at Pearl and he answered that they thought they could exploit C9's non-meta double duelist comp. So thats why I think they will pick Split because Jett shouldnt be good at this map and its exploitable, also Sen dont lose confidence on Split based on one off games, they also lost 13-5 against GENG before Madrid Grandfinals and they won it in Grand finals anyway. I think G2 game on Split was just nerves, good anti by G2 and some late round throws by SEN.
I think MIBR picks Lotus against SEN nonstop, they saw LOUD and KRU beat SEN with similar comp, so it should give them confidence to pick Lotus, also I think SEN definitely 1st bans Icebox

We are pretty sure Americas top 3 this stage is gonna be G2, SEN and MIBR. G2 are like at least 70-80% favourite against EG, so analysis below is gonna assume G2 makes it to Toronto.
Firepowerwise:
I think Firepowerwise it should be MIBR, SEN and G2 in given order and its very close and it could change in any day. All of these teams have 3-4 players with A or S tier aim and star duelist that can drop 30 against any opponent in any given day and take over matches.
Map pool:
All of these teams hate playing fracture, so Americas Grand final map veto advantage shouldnt be that big of an advantage. All the other maps ranked:
I think MIBR has the best Icebox, G2 has the best Lotus, Sen has the best Haven and in every other map any team could beat each other in any day. I think all 3 teams have equally good Split, Pearl and Ascent and it just depends on who shows up on the given day. Some people might say G2 beat Sen 13-5 on Split and say G2 has the best split but I think it was just nerves by Sen players and some really good ults + late round clutches that snowballed that game.

Its really nice to see we have 3 good teams with 6/7 good maps going into Toronto and I wont be surprised if we see Americas Grandfinals in Toronto. I honestly thought at the beginning of the stage we would be 1 team region whole year thru.

So who do you think wins the Americas split 1? Also who is gonna perform the best in Toronto?

I like watching this team and their playstyle but they have to give better answers for losing maps than "They just got away with hero plays even tho we were the better team". You cant say that when Jawgemo is taking every risky entry possible, leaf and jonahp are taking every lurk timing possible and trent is clutching every postplant. They also get a lot of hero rounds in, altho they are the better team macro wise most of the time.

I think people are annoyed just because they are too good, so they fall back on hating them. To be fair this years' G2 is more flashier, they take more individual risks and fights, its only tejo stuff people hate.

You never know, they might just go on a run. But I think they have less chance now after seeing yesterdays Lotus, even if Shyy and Keznit have peak performances and still they couldnt win that map? They will find very hard to get rounds against G2 if they dont step it up.

I think thats just not true. Who is stronger than 100T and KRU in bracket? Sure they didnt get G2 or SEN in their bracket, but still they are not below top 3.

In Masters Toronto there will be at most 4 but most likely 2 non-english comming teams out of 12. They are: GENG, winner of EDG/BLG, and another potential Korean team and KRU if they qualify. Every other team that has qualified or about to qualify comms in English.

I think Sen needs to target yoru maps to take advantage of Aspas not playing yoru. If Sen get 2 of Haven, Pearl and Split they should be able to win against MIBR.

I watch a lot of zekken's streams and I think I know since when SEN has been working on the new Icebox. Zekken did stream on April 3rd and played only omen, about 4 games on stream (https://tracker.gg/valorant/match/d3622c11-039d-475e-ab78-dd6df84d6aac). After they lost to KRU, it looks like they have been working on Icebox with Omen for a months now, I now zekken bottomfragged that map today but his util was pretty good (need to work on some paranoia lines), especially his smokes were confusing G2 a lot.

The best thing about this win is SEN overcame all of their demons. They lost on their best map Split due to nerves and won on their 2 worst maps historically Ascent and Icebox purely based on prep, setups and teamwork. We didnt need the crazy good form from N4RRATE, zekken and johnqt to take this win, although they had some important rounds. Bang being in a really good form and zellsis making some clutch plays definitely helped. Maaaan what a day to be a Sen fan.

They are playing so scared and midrounding is so bad right now, they just need to wake up and communicate to each other. John and bang are playing so scared especially, they are waiting out every smoke like its undestructable wall

SEN players are so nervous man, why are they so slow on making decisions? They are so disconnected its insane, zekken wants to flood, bang and john are waiting behind smokes everytime, zellsis looks like only player who has confidence but he is so isolated every time. Just be together, mpre confident and decisive man

Am I wrong in saying that he doesnt know how to properly peek? Watch kaajak or Alfa peek angles and compare it to boaster, are you saying they are at the same level? He is getting a lot of his kills from anchoring or lurking, not from taking 1v1s.

You are kinda right he doesnt know how to jiggle out angles like duelists or crouch peek but he wide swings a lot and it helps him to get more frags and get traded easier than the players I mentioned.

I think one of the main reasons why so many igls and some initiator players who get clowned on for not being able to shoot back is because of their movement and the way they peek angles, basically they are easier to kill.
For instance, you see players like boaster, FNS, boostio get insta headshotted when they peek players but its usually them not peeking correctly instead of other player being cracked. Usually their gun barrel or their body's edge sticks out before they fully peek angles or they swing extra wide not expecting to see a player on an off angle.
I think you can see this difference when you watch GC as well, you can only spot 3-4 players in entire server who knows how to peek, but in tier 1 its usually around 1-2 players in the server who doesnt know how to peek.

When is NRG players are just gonna admit they are just bad? So far this for every loss this season in the interviews, podcast and other public responses, there is always a some sort of excuse. So I decided to list a collection of all of them below:
1) vs C9: Xeppa life series, they are abusing tejo
2) KRU: just got unlucky with bad starts, got spammed thru smokes, Verno isnt communicating well enough
3) C9: another Xeppa life series, its just Brawks first game
4) G2: just got unlucky at the start of Lotus, G2 cringe post-plant meta abusers, Jawgemo life series
5) MIBR: FNS did well to get to sites but just threw post-plants and nothing else wrong, oh dont forget another Verno life series
6) 100T: Asuna so lucky in his entries and neon abusing, shouldve won Haven but 100T just snowballed on their defense, aaaaand Zander life series.

I didnt believe this fact and I just checked it is actually true. Even in the 1st game where they stomped MIBR or recent games against 2G and EG he had gone negative. Thats honetly impressive and disappointing at the same time, even FNS and boostio have at least 2 matches they have gone postive this season.

Is this years 100T definiton of mid? They beat bottom table teams convincingly but might have some close maps, but lose to top teams convincingly but might have a close map. They are like picture perfect 6-7 team this year.

Yesterday, I was able to predict 5/6 maps in the matches (https://www.vlr.gg/477830/americas-playoffs-preds-with-maps/#1) so I hope I can predict todays matches.

1) 100T vs NRG
Mid off you banger you didnt expect to get at the start of the season. 100T on paper showed a better form in group stages, also they should have a better firepower but their map pool matchup is very hard to predict against NRG from their perspective considering the prep time difference.

100T ban Lotus
NRG ban Split
100T pick Haven
NRG pick Pearl
100T ban Icebox
NRG ban Ascent
Fracture remains

I am not confident at either team to be consistently good at any map, so only thing to go off is firepower and I favor 100T 55/45

2) EG vs C9
Although EG are heavy underdogs, its quite hard to predict their map veto as well, because they have been banning their opponents best map so far so its quite rough prep day for Immi. One thing good from SEN game to take away is though, C9 are leaning into their strengh which is 7-map pool and banning their opponents good maps even tho they are quite good at it, for example Haven and Split bans yesterday. So I expect C9 to ban Lotus which looks like EG's best map:

C9 ban Lotus
EG ban Ascent
C9 pick Haven
EG pick Fracture
C9 ban Icebox
EG ban Pearl
Split remains

One of EG's biggest weaknesses is I think their defensive sides on maps like Lotus, Haven and Pearl and I dont think they have fixed this issue so far and this might be the difference maker even if individual form is close today. I wont be surprised if EG get less than 7-8 rounds in defense this entire series. So my pred: 70/30 for C9

You can lose even with the best aimers in the league, just look at some Talon or T1 games this year, or even Vitality this split, it is not all about shooting, you need to have a good gameplan to beat other teams in VCT. Talon for example, didnt respect Zeta as much and thought we can just outaim them and win but they got destroyed, but next week they came hard prepped against the team with arguably the best aimers in the world and they won.

Just rewatched the split game vs 100T and I am not gonna lie MIBR won at least 6-7 rounds from prep and early half gameplans.
MIBR on attackside abused the fact that Astra is not as good of an anchor against fast bursts on B and got the 6-1 start based on solely abusing Zander on B.
MIBR on defense had a gameplan to play verno solo hold A line and they 4 stacked B every round at the start of the half and won 4 out of first 6 rounds because of it. It wasnt until 100T started doing hard execs MIBR started losing rounds.
Really impressed by how good of prep MIBR has and how fRoD has such a series changing impact because by watching MIBR early on I thought they were just 5 aimers.

How do you feel about this match in general. It feels nice to get the win in playoffs but I dont know how to feel about their chances against G2 still.
Player formwise, Sen basically won of heroics from Zekken and Bang, and 1v1 clutches from Zellsis, johnqt and N4RRATE didnt show their form aimwise in group stages but their util was still good. Gameplanwise, I was satisfied with Ascent and Pearl Attack gameplan but their Pearl defense still looks rough against good opponents, this game awfully resembled their kickoff Pearl defense halves against G2 and MIBR, i dont if it was nerves and C9 just snowballing but some rounds they did some really bad mistakes.
MIBR still look better than SEN so far but they should secure top 3 if they keep up this form. I have little bit more hope now against G2 with how good their Ascent looked and zekken looking like one of the top 5 players in the world again, but other people need to step it up to beat G2, especially N4RRATE.