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

Pre-tournament favourites dont always win, remember Acend 2021, LOUD 2022, EG 2023, GENG 2024, EDG 2024 etc.

Throughout the Valorant history pre-tournaments favourites have won the early Masters tournaments. In 2021, Sentinels and FNC were considered pre-tournament favourites, most people giving the edge to FNC but Sentinels won at the end.
In 2022, OPTIC were considered pre-tournament favourites after FPX problem and at the end OPTIC ended up winning the tournament by beating pre-tournament dark horse at the time the Brazilian super-team LOUD.
In 2023, FNC were favourites with LOUD being close 2nd after the roster changes to the championship roster but at the end FNC won in one of the best grand finals in VCT history.
In 2024, Sen and KC were pre-tournament favourites with APAC teams as darkhorses, although KC left the tournament at the swiss stage, Sen won the tournament in a very close grand final against GENG.

Now we come to the present day. Is one of G2 and VIT gonna win the whole thing as usual or does one of the darkhorse teams like Sen and DRX break the tradition? Or will EDG retain the title of being the best team in the world?
I think history might repeat again like 2023 with defending World champions losing to close grand final against EMEA super team. What are your thoughts?

Some players have unusually higher vlr rating than usual and its relatively higher than their impact in the game but Leo was that kind of player that did not die very often and did not make many mistakes and deserved that high vlr rating. You can count by hand how many times he died first in a season, he was the dream player for coaches, great aim, great utility, no overheat, no unforced mistakes, midrounder and very good in clutches.

I am saying the same thing man, bang dont need to be flexible even if he has many agents in his arsenal because every team comp needs a controller and he is gonna be controer every time

I think EDG are the best team Liquid could have asked for, very similar map pool and same scrappy style, they just need to show up tomorrow and shoot better thats it.

I dont know much about bang's history other than Sean Gares talking about how he taught bang how to play omen. What I mean by every player can flex other than bang is not to harp on bang but to highlight rest of the team since you must have a controller on every map so that bang doesnt need to flex to other roles.

I think the first masters is gonna be in LATAM, 2nd Masters in APAC, champs in China. Imo:
Santiago/Rio de janeiro
Jakarta
Hong Kong

Masters Bangkok is about to start and Sen could repeat the last years' story with the tournament win this year. Tournament strength seems really similar maybe bit stronger at the top this year: 1 hyped up team from EMEA, 1 really good team from Americas, 1 structured and 1 scrappy team from APAC but better chinese teams. But is the new Sen as good as Sen last year?

I just rewatched the Madrid games from last year and wanted to compare the last years' peak Sen and this years' early Sen. Here are my overall thoughts

1. Playstyle and early rounds:
   Old team was really contacty, esp. 3 players took a lot of raw 1v1s at the beginning of the rounds: tenz, zekken and johnqt. New team is bit more execute heavy and play more in a pack rather than last years Sen where they would go for a lot of spread 1 3 1 defaults; this might be because of the new tejo meta and the role changes but only zekken is taking fights at early rounds and sometimes bang when he is anchoring and zellsis when he is lurking but that doesnt happen as much as last year. Johnqt was more aggressive lurker maybe due to cypher/viper he played a lot where he can do his own stuff and zellsis is playing vyse as more of initiator than lurker. We all know how tenz is more agressive than bang is
   Overall, in theory this playstyle at early rounds should result in more consistency of a new team because if old Sen players had a bad game/map, Sen lost their best map 13-5.
2. Midrounds:
   Older Sen was clearly better at 4v4, 3v3, 2v2 situations due to their insane chemistry built over a lot of matches in the offseason and main attacking trio of TenZ, Sacy and Zekken having already played 1 year together. This criteria is also only clear thing G2 is currently better than new Sen but hopefully it improves over time.
3. Flexibility and creativity:
   New Sen is cleay more flexible than last years Sen, every player apart from bang can play any role. You saw the struggle of old Sen when they tried to be creative with the deadlock comp last year but that just didnt fit their defaulty playstyle and at the end they came back to default comps at champs. But with the new Sen they could play any comp with 1-2 practices, you could just see from how they changed up their Lotus against MIBR and Abyss against G2 and won on both maps when they lost on those maps before.
4. Map pool:
   Old Sen had a top heavy map pool, they were really good at raze maps not because zekken's jett was bad but the whole team did not know how to midround on jett maps. New Sen have a wider map pool but we have yet to believe they would have unbeatable maps like last years Sen's Split and Lotus(at Madrid they were the best Lotus team at least).
5. Player form:
   Zekken is at similar level where he was at champs last year, in some maps he is dropping 20+ and Sen is winning comfortably, in some maps he goes missing and Sen struggle to open up rounds. But his form should improve as he gets more comfortable with yoru and team dynamic as we literally saw his improvement on yoru from the game against 100T where a lot of people said "Put him back on raze" to "Wow maybe they need to nerf yoru" after his game against MIBR.
   Zellsis and Johnqt: similar form I think. Johnqt's numbers look much better because he is taking a lot more fights and he is trading a lot whereas last year he was getting kills from anchoring or straight up duels.
   N4rrate: his individual form is a lot worse than his form on KC, still his kill contribution is similar to sacy but hopefully we see his form on KC to show up where he was winning almost every aim duel. If N4rrate and Zekken become a duo like last years tenz&zekken where they would drop combined 50 every map, this Sen should be able at least make Grand finals
   Bang: he might be the most inconsistent player right now on Sen but we know how good he can be. He is still getting a lot of impact kills on defense when he is anchoring but he can be much better player than his showing so far.

Overall, new Sen has much more potential than they are showing right now, I would say they are 2 maybe 3 tiers below their capabilities: they need to improve their midrounding chemistry like 3v3 situations, they can be much better at new comps and we havent seen bang and n4rrate's (you might even include zekken, he could just turn into the best player in the world at Bangkok) peak form yet. So you might say old Sen's peak is still 1 tier above new Sen, but this new Sen could improve 2-3 tiers I think, at least I hope so.

Madrid was the most hype event of all time tho every match hovering around 1m viewers (exc. China ofc) and Grand final reaching 1.6m viewers which is the record for Valorant match to this day (exc. China viewership). Last years Champs grand final reached the peak overall viewership with Chinese auidence so you cant really say there isnt much hype before the event starts because you never know

Bro Liquid qualified from your region and you still think EMEA is the most stacked lmao

You cant say trent and leaf are lan chokers and list kicks, keiko and hyunmin when kicks lost to Trace who had 2 good maps and hyunmin and keiko who never went to an international event. I agree with you on Meteor and Chichoo tho, they shouldve at least made top 10. Also what is wrong with Jawg's and Zekkens current form? They are not losing games like some other duelists, they are just facing better opposition (arguably the best opposition) who runs vyse and doesnt run thru smokes, thats why they have lower vlr rating than some players in other regions who overperformed against glue teams that have 0 teamplay that just peeks 1 by 1 and runs thru all the smokes.

I think the best grandfinal is Sen vs GENG Madrid Grandfinal, EDG vs TH is close 2nd but I didnt feel the grand final vibe first 3 maps whereas in Sen vs Geng every round felt so close, not a single map was stomp also that split game might have been highest quality split we have ever seen.
Best Bo3: It is hard to find good Bo3s where every map was so close and entertaining, Loud vs PRX champs 23, Loud vs NRG Lock in 23, PRX vs NRG Tokyo 23 have all had 2 great maps. But I think I will go with the sleeper pick
XSET vs LEV champs 22, that game is unreal you think you are watching a movie with the amount of crazy plays and clutches in that game

So many teams that qualified for bangkok are abusing the new meta agents especially breach, tejo, yoru and vyse. Was this the reason that Bangkok teams qualified or were they already good enough individually that they were gonna qualify anyway?

For instance, in NA only G2 and Sen embrased those 4 agents and they qualified without any opposition really. But could they have qualified in the off-season meta? Were NRG's wins just fluke or did they fall behind the meta? Could any LATAM teams have defeated G2 or Sen with the same comps?
Same with APAC and EMEA. I know texture didnt have his best tournament and Munchkin's calling was little bit off in some games but is it just form issue or the comps issue?
Could DRX have qualified without tejo? Are liquid just lucky that FNC didnt catch up with meta and TH were not shooting at all or is their innovations in maps were the reason behind them qualifying?

I think everyone gets tilted in his situation, he was getting timing ed mid or getting spammed thru smokes like 6 rounds in a row and wasnt getting any fair gunfight. I feel like every pro sighs in his situation but their tilt doesnt get as much attention as n4rrate.

Constant routine and high game iq are the biggest 2 reasons why they are so consistent I think. Pros also take mostly favorable fights and dont swing alone most of the time. Also their aim is consistent for 70-80% of the time. Even the best players of recent time like aspas, zekken, zmijkk have maps where they go -10 or something.

I feel like they lost confidence after the 1st 2 games and they are tilting a lot and not adjusting their setups. Today I only watched haven and QoR cypher was walking up to everywhere whether its garage window, through B, all the way through C or A short, they were not holding off angles or holding with judges when they have shown they were capable of doing that in GC. I dont know this looks like a mental problem more than anything else, we are seeing hard fraggers like Noia, Sarah and dodonut whiff easy shots when they win a lot of gunfights against even better players in ranked.

.

Split Sen 2024
Fracture EG 2023
Icebox Lev 2024
Abyss EDG 2024
Bind 100T 2024
Breeze GENG 2024
Ascent Loud 2022
Haven Fnatic 2023/2024
Lotus Fnatic 2023
Pearl PRX 2023
Sunset TH 2024

I started watching VCT consistently since Lock in 2023 so I am slightly biased but also level of gameplay and agent pool is so high that if any team dominates and changes the meta on a map after 2023 they should be considered better than previous dominant teams.

I dont know why everybody is glazing G2 and jawgemo like they are unbeatable and playing perfect valorant like whaaat? Did you not see the bs rounds they were getting away against LEV because everybody on LEV team whiffed in so many rounds and they still couldve won fracture. Also nobody in this G2 roster has been to international Grand final yet apart from Jawg, they all choke in big pressure games and all of us sudden Jawg joins the team and everybody thinks they are gonna win everything. People are so funny its crazy.

17/20 players in top 4 are Korean in Pacific kickoff, if you take top 6 to the consideration, 24/30 players are Korean. Korean teams didnt lose to any non-Korean team apart from NS losing to Talon today. Although we had some close matches for RRQ games and PRX losing to T1, Korean teams basically busted through the whole bracket. What does this mean for the whole region? Is tier 2 in SEA that far behind compared to Korean tier 2?

You cant make the tejo excuse because none of these teams played tejo in all 3 maps and NRG deserved to lose all 3 maps.

This is giving me 2024 kickoff vibes again, Sen barely go through against the better opponents in harder matches, NRG went flawless against easier opponents and everyone thought NRG was the best team itw and was gonna smoke Sen but we all know what happened. I am not saying G2 is gonna be as bad as NRG, but they are not heavy favourites against SEN like some people think they are, it is a 55/45 game for me in a favor of G2 but I think Sen has more clutch/big game players that might push them over in these big matches.

I feel like more than any team Sen was teamwork based last year, even this year. You barely saw people going for individual peaks or risky plays apart from tenz and zekken like 10-20% rounds. If they replace zellsis with a better fragger they will fall apart in their best aspect which is teamwork and midrounding. You can just see how Sen plays defense on every map, they never anchor sites with 1 or 2 people where as you might see from people like leaf, pancada/tuyz, benjyfishy go for hero plays when they are in a weak anchor site but sen always plays full set retake. Firepower upgrade removes the whole team identity which is the most important thing for Sen.

Loud picks haven 80%/ split maybe 20%
I think Sen picks either Bind or Lotus
Abyss and Fracture might get 1st banned by the teams
Pearl 3rd map.

I think Sen wins. Loud need a hot start to win because this iteration Sen roster showed tendencies towards tilting/slow starts, if the first half of the first map is any less than 7-5 for loud, I think Sen outclasses them over the course of the series.

I dont think Loud can win raze maps against Sen because I dont trust dgzin's rifling as much. Even in jett maps I think loud need to get a hot start to get the awp early. Also I wasnt convinced by their attack sides in all 3 maps so far. Split attack side looked lacklaster, they just went mid and waited for opponent mistakes, They won hero/walking around rounds on haven against KRU as well. Their pearl attack looked bit better. I feel like they won a lot of aftack rounds by opponents mistakes in general, I dont know how they are gonna deal with retake heavy team like SEN.

I think in terms of teams that could win I see all 4 regions as equal so far. I think even in China there are some really good teams this year, FPX, XLG, BLG, NOVA and Trace all look capable of International event playoffs, I am bit disappointed with the level of gameplay I ve seen in Americas and APAC so far, but I havent seen all the teams yet, also they usually tend to perform better in big games. EMEA looked leagues above everyone else in last years kickoff, this years' kickoff also looks like that but I am not sure with their consistency yet.

Saying anything other than duelist is just trolling bro. Everybody knows about aspas, tenz (ex duelist), zekken, Derke, Jingg and something. If you just enter NA or APAC ranked even in radiant they dont know shit about Riens, s1mom, nobody and Trexx's of the world. Even in ranked, vct match or even interviews you can see how much duelists have by the way players peek them. You will rarely see a non-duelist player just dry peek aspas or zekken in a VCT match. They will always double swing or swing with flashes.

If they go for bit more experienced players they go for Net or Inspire. If they just want to pick up a straight up shooter, there are lots of options but I wont be shocked if they pick up random cracked ranked player out of nowhere. But at the end of the day we all know they will add vanity and runi back after kickoff, so honestly it doesnt matter who they pick up.

Did you guys just forget how good these 5 players are? They were getting good defense halves in attack sided maps but struggled on attack just because zekken wasnt having his best day and they werent getting entries. Just chill out, this team is gonna win tournaments this upcoming year, thinking about roster changes just becaude they had bad attacks half in an offseason tournament is stupid. We are not C9.

I wanted to make a best players list in a chained order according to time period since Masters Rejkavik 2021(it is too hard to identify the singular best player in the world before that). To what extent do you agree? (Regional playoffs and International success weighted heavily)

Tenz - Nats - Cned - yay - Shao - yay/Less - Leo - Alfajer - Demon1/Jingg - zekken - texture - aspas/Zmijkk.

If Zellsis played well Sen have always on against GENG. Lets see what happens, N4rrate and zekken might just 2v5 them but you never know. Sen should be a favourite in this match by like 60/40 considering the map pool as well. GENG is better than Sen only in Ascent I think and maybe Abyss, in any other map Sen should be a favourite. Bind might be a tossup, but still I would be surprised if GENG win Split or any neon maps like Haven, Sunset and Pearl against Sen.

If you have seen the zekken's recent APAC streams or took a look at his tracker of APAC account ( https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/SEN%20zekken%23eProd/overview?playlist=competitive&seasonId=dcde7346-4085-de4f-c463-2489ed47983b), he has been instalocking sova almost every game. I know zekken plays sova in NA ranked a lot as well, but usually he fills for initiator if the duelist is already taken. Is SEN role swapping again putting by N4rrate on duelist, johnqt on sentinel and zekken on initiator? If that is true what do you think will happen in a long run? I dont have any worries about zekken's performance, I think he lowkey might the best sova on the team but can N4rrate carry this team as zekken on duelist?