keep anthem and get young japanese talents, nerd

Unfortunately the grand final goes to KRÜ

Idk about that, their midrounding is awful, and that's not something a cracked duelist could fix. They have some of the best gameplans and set plays, but are so drilled on those, and so inflexible that they completely crumble whenever any detail of the plan goes wrong. That's why they always look amazing at the start of tournaments and then seemingly fall apart.

I think -Taco + keznit would make them better, but something else has to change in the team to fix their issues before they can genuinely be a top contender.

Yay would just be a 1:1 replacement for Cryo, who is the only one on that team that has been performing recently. Doesn't seem worth the risk tbh

Yeah it's definitely not impossible. TS, GE, RRQ and the likes are all pretty inconsistent, and then one BO3 against a team like T1 might be good enough to secure third place for masters. It'll be tough though.

I mean KRÜ vs FUR was at an acceptable time for EMEA. A lot of EMEA viewers like watching NA (almost more than EMEA itself lol). I think a significant part of NA viewership comes from Europe. Not a majority or anything, but it's not negligible.

I reckon if the games were switched, 100T vs SEN would have gotten more views.

Bro thinks he trembo 💀

They are going all the way

I have the most hope for The Guard, they've been together for a long time, have previously won NA, they've shown they can compete, they could easily make playoffs and maybe even make it to masters next year.

Bleed probably won't make any LANs, but they could certainly take some wins in the league. There's a couple teams in APAC that are within their reach.

M8 I honestly doubt are gonna do much. I mean it depends on how TH, KC, Vit and KOI rebuild for next year, those should all be beatable opponents, but if they get their shit together they should still be way ahead of M8.

Three French orgs partnered by Riot and KC is somehow the fourth best French org in the league

Optic won a Mickey Mouse tournament lol you call that a major?? Only the tournaments where my favourite teams win are majors, idiot

Welcome Team Heretics heat

Personal lessons for stuff like piano from professional teachers are like 30-50. Trent is not a trained coach.

jollz is literally a scammer lmao, his most specific personalised advice is like "go with team and look at the minimap sometimes"

Compare any of his coaching videos to for example a woohoojin vod review, and consider that woohoojin does this for free, it's night and day. Honestly you learn more from watching Woohoojin coach other people than from getting personal coaching from jollz

Tuyz is the best Harbour in the world and has been pretty solid on Omen and Brim all year (his Astra is not great tbf). He's not the best player on Loud, but if you look at all three international leagues, he's easily above average

If Optic worked together to become a really good team, AND had the best players in almost every role, the expectation should be much higher than an "artificially" created superteam, no?

In terms of individual prestige, 2022 Optic was on par with 2023 FNC, maybe even higher. Nobody really considered Alfa for best sentinel in the world before this year, and very few considered Derke to be the best duelist in the world before this year. Leo had a few more advocates I guess, and Chronicle was at least in the conversation in 2021. Yay was considered the best player in the world period, and Marved was on everyone's global top 3 list. Crashies was also always in the conversation for top 3 initiators.

The old FNC roster was basically a tier 2 roster apart from Derke. Magnum and Enzo are literally tier 2 players. Technically I guess so is yay, but I think we can agree that that's a very different situation. Doma is not even good enough for tier 2. Getting second with those guys on your team is a lot more impressive than getting second with yay and Marved on your team.

Obviously S0m and Ardiis are much worse than Marved and yay. The only comparison that makes sense is old Optic with new FNC and new NRG with old FNC. And that's lenient towards FNS honestly, S0m and Ardiis clear Magnum, Doma and Mistic in a 2v3 with their eyes closed. In that comparison, old Optic loses to new FNC (1/5 wins vs 2/2 wins) and new NRG is about on par with old FNC (some decent placements, top 4 internationally)

If you think Optic was not a superteam comparable to FNC currently, who would you have replaced in 2022 to make them better? I honestly can't think of a single player in NA.

Obviously S0m and Ardiis are worse than Marved and yay. The point is that FNS did have Marved and yay on his team for 5 international LANs, of which he only won a single one. He then had some good placements with S0m and Ardiis.

Similarly, FNC had some good placements with the old rosters, but now with the current roster won 2/2 LANs. I'm comparing old FNC to new NRG and new FNC to old Optic.

Derke and Alfajer were not superstars before joining FNC. Boaster had his part in making them the players they are today.

He also made top 2 with Mistic, Magnum (tier 2) and Doma (not even tier 2), and top 4 with Mistic and Enzo.

Optic last year had arguably the best player in NA in every role (aside from Victor, but he was such a good fit for the team and played his role so well that he might as well be) and they still only won one title.

Boaster has had bad games in terms of calling for sure (the Lotus and Split attack sides Vs Loud at Lock//in were pretty lousy tbh) but he's a good IGL.

Mistic really wants to go back to tier 1 huh

SAW logo kinda slaps. Apeks is mid

I mean apart from Victor every Optic player was in contention for best in their role in NA. And Victor was a perfect fit for that team and slotted in perfectly.

FNS absolutely had the best of NA around him. Not saying he's bad at all, but that argument is kind of weak imo. Boaster made top 2 with Mistic, Magnum and Doma (two tier 2 players and Doma not even good enough for tier 2), and made top 4 with Enzo and Mistic (both tier 2 as well).

S0m and Ardiis are without a doubt much better than any of those (no disrespect to Mistic or Enzo, they have their strengths, but they were never anywhere close to best in their roles in EU)

Arrogant? Bro what? Have you ever heard him say a single word?

Coping with what? The two LAN wins in a row? Yeah Boaster fans must be in shambles right now

Idk sounds like you're just not very good at thinking of metrics

who?

What is blud waffling about

Oh look, a specimen has escaped from the lab

Wet Leg

Meanwhile saya was the second highest rated duelist in the Pacific league and made it to masters.

what's the difference?

I reckon G2 are planning to pick up the Guard roster if the rumours are true that the org will not hang on to them for next year

In this tweet he isn't talking about aimblabs though, he is talking about the Ghost in Valorant. If he wants to be judged by his Aimlabs skills, maybe he should be tweeting about Aimlabs and not Valorant.

Zander, eeiu and koalanoob are Canadian. The country flag is always the majority of players, not the org location. TL's Brazilian GC team is also listed as Brazilian even though the org is Dutch.

I don't think sentinels are necessarily better to IGL on than smokes. Arguably the best role to IGL on is (flash) initiator, but smokes are also pretty common. Boaster IGLs on smokes, Ange1 plays just about everything, but I'd say he's mostly known for his Omen, Redgar plays smokes, etc. Sure you have people like FNS or Stellar who IGL on sentinel, but it's definitely not unambiguously better.

I saw the play ins mostly as a bit of a taste for how the regions might match up roughly. Apeks should sweep this now

I mean yeah, it's obvious that lock//in had lower priority than masters, and it was primarily done to introduce the audience to the teams, and to give the orgs more time to apply for visas for the VCLs. The format was mostly due to organisational concerns (rito doesn't like parallel games, and didn't want to do bo1s either).

Sure, the format decreases the competitive integrity compared to masters or champions, but that doesn't mean there's no competitive integrity at all, the semis being bo5s does kind of mitigate the single elim format a little bit. It's not like Reykjavík 2021 was the pinnacle of competitive integrity, the format was also very weird with seemingly arbitrary byes and a bo3 LBF. It was early days valorant and it was a bit scrappy. Lock//in was early days franchise era and also a bit weird in that regard.

I just don't think that disqualifies it as a major. Rito considers it as a part of the VCT. You can argue that the lock//in title is less meaningful than masters/champs, but masters is also less meaningful than champs (or at least rito wants it to be) and we still lump them together as majors and nobody really has a problem with it.

I mean if you just write 6/(3(1+2)) or (6/3)(1+2) (or even better, use fractions, which makes it much easier to read), there is simply no doubt about what is meant. No mathematician would write an expression like this, everyone would use fractions. If you have to rely on arbitrary conventions like pemdas or whatever to get your point across, your point just wasn't clear enough

https://www.vlr.gg/34979/envy-vs-gambit-esports-valorant-champions-tour-stage-3-masters-berlin-gf
https://www.vlr.gg/51268/acend-vs-envy-valorant-champions-winners-a
https://www.vlr.gg/51274/team-liquid-vs-sentinels-valorant-champions-winners-b
https://www.vlr.gg/51291/team-liquid-vs-cloud9-valorant-champions-qf
https://www.vlr.gg/112282/optic-gaming-vs-guild-esports-valorant-champions-tour-stage-2-masters-copenhagen-opening-a
https://www.vlr.gg/112334/optic-gaming-vs-funplus-phoenix-valorant-champions-tour-stage-2-masters-copenhagen-lbf
https://www.vlr.gg/130688/xset-vs-funplus-phoenix-valorant-champions-2022-lr2

Whatever helps you sleep at night buddy. NA's best team has more losses to EU than NA has trophies. They literally lost to Guild with Russ and Koldamenta 💀💀

And FNC won as many international trophies as all of NA combined

Anyway Brazil is EU's bitch
https://www.vlr.gg/19086/team-vikings-vs-team-liquid-valorant-champions-tour-stage-2-masters-reykjavik-main-event-lr3
https://www.vlr.gg/51266/acend-vs-keyd-stars-valorant-champions-opening-a
https://www.vlr.gg/51279/gambit-esports-vs-team-vikings-valorant-champions-winners-c
https://www.vlr.gg/130635/furia-vs-fnatic-valorant-champions-2022-group-stage-elim-d
https://www.vlr.gg/167373/fnatic-vs-furia-champions-tour-2023-lock-in-s-o-paulo-omega-qf
https://www.vlr.gg/167393/loud-vs-fnatic-champions-tour-2023-lock-in-s-o-paulo-gf

I mean let's be real, sure FPX or FNC would have had good chances to win if they'd been there, but Optic was not a fluke, they were a top team all year

bro says "we" like it's his money

1) similar (albeit a little bit lower) prizepool compared to masters Reykjavík and Berlin 2021
2)

Barely any teams

Same number of teams as masters and champs this year
3) Masters Berlin and Champions 2021 were single elim as well
4) I mean yeah, the point of the tournament was to introduce the franchised teams. The point of all riot organised tournaments is to promote their products. They're a video game company, not a nonprofit tournament organiser.
5) Source?

So Masters Berlin and Champions 2021 were not majors then?

Not an official tournament organised by Riot that is officially part of the VCT.

Yeah I loved watching SEN destroy everyone at masters Tokyo, can't wait for champs 🔥

Bro made an account just to call Boaster gay 💀

Stay mad bro

No way Fnatic take Ascent. It'll be 3-1 if FNC win Split, or 3-2 otherwise.

For me his comment about Potter was primarily just really weird. Maybe it was the wording, but it just felt a bit like he was singling out Potter while EG were definitely not the only team that looked kinda bad. And with all the other stuff going on around George at the time, it definitely made it seem like it was motivated by sexism, even if not consciously. I don't think he's a bad person for making that comment or anything, but he could have also defused the situation pretty easily and chose not to. Eh.

rare qwerttyy w