might actually happen for me (its 5:20) https://i.imgur.com/xXFmaAX.png

furthermore, yay on astra??? welcome NRG yay

dort cooking??

trembo rn

I think she'll be a good pick but not a must pick, I can see teams sticking with omen except on maybe Pearl and Abyss

knights arena, theyre the TO for VCL NA

ascension americas is coming for the tech pause trophy

mf making it sound like leo faria made him a supervillain hellbent on revenge

o7
he was very good for KRU, surprised this happened
defo a good pickup for whoever gets him

Damn I wonder who said that

???? no way lol
source or it didnt happen

throw vs throw but actually lowkey a banger towards the end

30%????? bro thats like not even amazing

symulator

the end of this map has been a banger

whoever gets him better not waste him or i will riot

to sym vs sato

nah mostly tech pauses and throw v throw

but the end of this map has been pretty entertaining

Sato go buy OP, sit on B and kill all 5 of them

how do you comeback in apex?
like a 1vall ?

biased but DRX

hs% has got basically no correlation to aim or skill for ranked players so bro is just yapping

yup

I don't speak a word of Portuguese but I understand every word of what you said lol

https://x.com/vctstruggles/status/1833606890997141545

shit is too funny

wow thats impressive

I agree mostly but I can see her being played on sunset, and maybe it will be more like 60/40 on split

I think thats a separate issue with regards to bundle revenue, since orgs like MIBR or KOI are also suffering from it.

But compare it to now, what are TSM making? They are probably making a massive loss, with NA salaries they are easily losing 1M a year, say they go on to get sponsors and 600k from bundles they might even break even, or even go on to make a profit even if they had just invested that 1M into buying a slot

There should be diversity yes, but it shouldn't be artificial (my opinion). If you promote it this way you will attract investors who don't actually care about the game and only care about their own appearances to the public.
The best way to achieve this is as you say more visibility, the way to do this is to advertise and promote challengers more, make it so new VCT fans aren't exclusively in to tier 1 only

let's look at teams like M80 APEKS and TSM, they are already paying money for pros to ascend, but they don't have any bundles or tier 1 stipends. If they were to invest into the situation above I think they would still end up making money due to bundle sales.

As for academy teams being picked apart maybe they shouldn't allow roster changes once ascension begins, or at least 3/5 of the players have to be sold or something, the point being I think that issue can be easily fixed by adding a rule

I would allow academy teams to play in ascension and ascend
(This would mean that the team can be sold, which can be a good thing if done correctly as I pointed above and in £26)

These academy orgs are also the ones who're most likely to try and field GC eligible players in the first place. But more importantly it means that external orgs looking for t1 only don't have to take any of the risk for investing in to tier 2. Over time this would give the ascension slot a value, then there will be 2 ways for an org to qualify, either you take the risk in tier 2 and get the slot for relatively cheap or you drop the bag and guarantee yourself into tier 1. The higher the value of the ascension slot becomes, the more the teams who take the first option will be willing to pay.

But you are right in saying there needs to be more visibility, VCL's greatest strength is being able to tap into the regional market but it simply doesn't do enough as of now.

Yeah I'm aware you don't mean a full team, but even then I think it'll be some time before we see them in ascension, I discussed something similar in a thread yesterday but I think before we fix GC we should be fixing the t2 system. If we have a good t2 system GC players and maybe even teams will naturally follow, maybe even without having to artificially promote marginalised groups through GC (this is very optimistic yes, but I think its possible within the next 4-5 years if they manage t2 correctly)

You make valid points, but I think perhaps the academy system can actually be good for org investment. Think of an org like optic, who have no interest in investing in a tier 2 roster. Now imagine an academy team comes along and wins ascension, now optic have an entry point into tier 1, I think many other orgs would be happy to invest into that kind of team as it mitigates all the financial risk from tier 2

Yeah I think it is a fundamental issue that riot wants to stay away from 'selling slots', while I can see why its advantageous I think the downsides are too great. The main issue in LoL is that the orgs hold too much power over riot, but in valorant 10/12 teams are dependant on riot, so I think if it's only 2 slots per region it's actually possible to give some leverage, as it means the t2 scene becomes more competitive

If we can have tier 1 orgs sustain academy teams, it might actually be better for the scene for there to be less orgs in t2 (many reasons like stability, guaranteed investment, less org owners waking up randomly and deciding that they dont want to do esports anymore). This would mean the entry point for some orgs becomes after ascension, instead of at the start of the season which mitigates the risk of not qualifying, meaning that perhaps orgs which wouldn't field a tier 2 team would actually end up investing in valorant.

I think we're pretty far from seeing GC players in tier 1, tier 2 I can see soon but until we see GC players in ascension I think it's not a conversation to have yet

thats a good point, they kind of screwed them selves with two different visions. In theory the academy teams and the relegation system are good individually, but if you have them both it can cause issues

really where? I was under the impression they can't qualify for ascension at all.

I think there should be demand, at least from the outside it seems val is one of the games (if not the only game) which can be sustainable long term for orgs

neilzinho said on stream that one of the main reasons they arent considering an academy team is because they can't play in ascension, and academy teams would basically just screw the players they pick up over.

I think its fine if they play in ascension, but if they win they would have to be sold to an org which could get promoted. This has the flaw of 'selling slots' but we're already destined to have another 'the guard' situation if an unfavourable org qualifies anyway

wtf

heeeees right behind me isnt he

ok this one is a bit far tbf
but comparisons are a good thing to make, it helps both games improve

yay is so back

I like vansilli as a personality but something about his casting I just don't enjoy subjectively
If I had to try and describe it its that whenever theres a hype moment he does raise his voice, but it feels like the sort of enthusiasm you would hear in a board meeting

i used to write my name as AayanZ then tenz rose to popularity and people thought i was a tenz clone

yeah im pretty much in the same situation
idk part of me is super excited to meet new people, and im not the only one in my friend group moving away so I think we'll still stay in touch

hes gotta be baiting surely thats too obvious

its da sound of da police

I think its fine either way ngl

think of it this way, ill set out an example

1. C9 buy out a cheap t2 player for a season, show he's pretty good
2. Rich CN teams come along willing to buy that player for a good amount of money
3. C9 sell the player, and with the money they just received, they buy 2 more players from tier 2 who can now be developed and given experience
4. repeat

now apply that to the overall scene and I think you sort of have a healthy ecosystem
But again as I touched on above, there's a limit to how much CN teams will pay and to the number of imports, so a team can't just become an effective academy team for china

oh I had no idea
probably not going for the russian speaking roster then unless westside can speak it
yeah its unlikely for it to fall through, but it is possible. But if it's the direction they wanna go in I'd still be down

without thinking about roles I would say

Derke (he uses the Finland flag, but he's also Russian)
Purp0
Cloud
Suygetsu
Shao/nAts/Sheydos

at least thats for talent that's already in tier 1, and someone like nAts would be difficult to pry away from liquid