Loud is aim heavy, is that a bad thing tho? That's not to mention, loud only played 3 maps coming into semi-finals, which means their strats and executes on other maps were unknown. Even now, their lotus and heaven are unknown, and their ascent and icebox has only one VOD from semifinals. You cannot recognize set patterns and lurk timings based of off one VOD.

lil bro winning, EZ

What teams need fire power? Actually a lot. Yay also brings in the fan following. I can see only EG signing him up. Apart from that, maybe EU orgs like KC, KOI or Heretics.

It's funny how C9 complained about SEN and 100T having a much larger fanbase, when you do moves like these. Good luck winning anything, when you have dropped the best performing player. I can bet C9 is not coming to champions this year, confirmed if loud doesn't manage a win in lock-in for an additional spot.

Steel is a gigabrain, and probably one of the best IGLs NA has to offer looking at the state of NA teams at Lock-in. DSG clearly has more synergy and team play than most NA and Asian franchised teams. Ever wondered why suddenly players from tier 3 team are performing so good under steel? Obviously the players have improved, but they have such a good IGL and coach to work with.

Steel and Sean Gares are the only giga brains that can save NA. Put some respect on his name.

1 team region meanwhile the last NA team almost lost to an invited chinese team.

Wasn't it clear that RIOT chose orgs based on financial stability and motivation to invest time and money in game rather than previous performances? By your logic, RRQ, GE and other Asian teams should be way behind EMEA and NA orgs/teams in terms of franchise spot. Clearly an L take. Why would someone even consider Bleed when Xerxia and X10 had a better run than them? And The Guard? Same org that disbanded a few days ago?

Word.exe + India

Boaster was the better IGL today, and their mid round calls were really good. Derke hitting shots and Zekken being cold helped too. What's wrong with being a DRX fan? I'm from Pacific and love DRX and PRX.

SEN got anti-strated with a better comp. Viper + Astra means taking mid is really difficult. Fanatic played both Jett and Raze to just burst into site. I would say, boaster was a better IGL today. Zekken struggling just made it worst. GE played the same comp as SEN and lost to VIT with a similar comp as FNC. 4 agents on FNC comp can go a rafters without taking ramp. B becomes a chaos to hold from site too. You NEED to fight for both A main and B main if you are playing the Viper+Astra comp on split, which none of the teams (GE/SEN) did, or held control of.

He knows Cantonese and English.

Well, if he died as an initiator, he did his job well. The AWP showed desperation, but since they are all basically dualists, they can all awp and rotate it when one player dies. I hope that was the basic idea. I was talking more in terms of utility usage and execution timings when I said struggle. Bazzi and Rossi played completely new roles and it showed on stage. I was also unhappy with the amount of LAN jitters they had on stage in 1st map. The other team was playing with 4 rookies too, but their confidence was on another level.

I don't agree. Bazzi struggled as much as rossi. Ofcourse it's the role change which has affected both in terms of performance. This is where 7 man roaster doesn't make sense. They could have had much better practice in scrims if they were a 5 man team, I guess.

Chill out. The nerves on stage on map 1 were obvious. Map 2 and 3 were fine considering this was their 1st official with this team. Vitality has already played against quality opponents in previous tournament. For me, it was still a better showing with a new lineup than team liquid. I guess GE took this opportunity to test the lineup and gauge individual skill. Welp, looks like Monyet and Texture have solidified their place. Meanwhile bazzi and rossi had bad performances. This is where 7 man roaster doesn't make sense. I know they were all dualists, and adapting requires time, but practicing with a 7-man is just not possible.

He is the 6th. Probably not playing once wronski returns.

Stax from Pacific, cNed from Europe, Aspas from Americas. Ez

If GE shuts down Twisten and Molsi, they will win easily. If not, they will probably lose. Will be interesting to see how Aryin IGLs this team of rookie players at international stage.

Nice list, NGL. I wouldn't be surprised if Nats become #1 and yay slips down. The Chamber nerf and Sentinal buffs meta right now makes me think we will see a lot less clips on attack and a lot more successful defense clips.

https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/1347444d

Lets go NA!!!!

Wait till they actually beat GE. GE will probably be with least practice in sao paulo. They just managed to get ayrin in Korea, meanwhile c9 has been practicing since November. They still don't have the whole team there.

Boom almost won the 2nd map. They actually threw at 11-11 on pearl, pushing further in a 3v4 post plant situation. Just sad for them. GGs to zeta. Sadge.

How do you manage the timings when the teams are literally from the opposite sides of the world? they have like exactly 12 hours difference in time zone.

SA is being conservative TBH. Most players know each other internally. Given that there have been cheating accusations, with 1 player getting banned last year (xhade) and one player already destroying the whole CS scene for the country, I would say most teams are going for known names, rarely adding new names to their teams, which is just fine for now. But two years down the line with nothing to achieve, audience will eventually give up and maybe then, we can either have our own forsaken(jason) or our own forsaken(nikhil), once again.

Let them try something new. Amaterasu hits insane shots when he does start hitting them. He played kayo next and went with the highest ADR.

It's something which is not in TO's hands as far as I know. I'm not sure but Riot has different prize pool slabs after which TOs require Riot's permission to organize and invite teams. As Valorant already has a busy schedule (qualifiers, LCQ, masters, champions and game changers), I think there's a ruling for the scale of tournament that could be held between those tournaments.

Moreover, SA teams more or less don't care anymore, because of franchise system coming up. Most of these teams will probably end up playing these small tournaments all year long now, given only GE as reached to interview stage.

They got one, but their salary couldn't be paid on time from India to Singapore, so they chose to leave, which is expected.

rather, can't beat them even if they are there.

agree

All I want to say is, they had us in the 1st half, not gonna lie.

GE was looking shaky in SA qualifiers, another 2-0 series for SA, similar to enigma. Top 8 is too far.

want to win in a dominating fashion against enigma? just eco sheriff every round.

GodspeedXD

SA ready to win 1 match in entire series again 🙂

I disagree. The 2nd seed is in same group with Boom esports, and the 1st seed is in same group with Xerxia. I have low hopes TBH. Then again, I would love an upset against other teams.

OG 2-1 EG.

OG will win this if Persia and Tesseract come to play. OG's wins always depend on how Persia and Tessaract played in the series. Tessaract is a monster, but stuck with an agent which is a hit or a miss (sova). He can be the cracked chamber every other team is playing.

I just hope Tessaract is feeling good after that skin condition of his he is suffering from right now. Every member on OG is extremely talented and I want to see them face SEA.

Kuch samay ke liye VLT ke gote muhh mein aa gye ty, sach bolu toh (eng translation for mods - fpg had us in the first half, ngl).

FPG played really well, their spacing and trade game has really improved. The difference maker was that their hard carry agents (chamber and dualists) didn't shine.

Isn't that expected tho? Even mathematically. The probability of a SA team making it to the finals is pretty low. The competition is pretty fierce, and look at the number of team and the seats they get. Apart from OCE, and HK/TW which are arguably as good/bad as SA, every other region has 3 seats, even Vietnam. Funnily half of these teams will get eroded once franchise system comes to play. You need to understand that a few of these teams are there just to upset the results and play as underdogs. I personally see SA, HK/TW and Vietnam as upset regions.

GOAT pickem - https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/a2ad7374

It wasn't only about harsh. Badlove came to bootcamp after the loss from VLT. There can be circumstances which are totally reasonable, but I hope that players from teams other than VLT and GE will take their career seriously and play from bootcamp if available. We need teams like Revenant and Reckoning to come up and give challenge to EG, VLT and GE. We need more competition in SA to achieve better results in SEA.

They will qualify with ease. 3 teams from each group will qualify and don’t think full power is good enough

Kya matlab bootcamp hone ke baad bhi harsh bhai ghar se khel rhe ty. Kya mtlab scs is the most important Indian tournament, but ghar se khelna is convenient. SCS ke liye bootcamp nhi aa sakte wo players ki bhi utni hi galti hai.

Not to hate, but what did you like about his yoru? Out of all the teleports caught on stream, none of them were based on lineups. He had 0 first kills being a dualist, and gave 6 first deaths. I know yoru is a distraction, but it was more like bad comms by t69 rather than good plays by yoru. He was not punished for those random teleports, which just shows how bad t69 played/plays. They aint qualifying for sure, and any semi-decent team in India (reckoning/revenant) will defeat them.

Loud has some insane aimers tbh. Just look at the g2 vs loud ascent. That sova guy acted like a turret, g2 couldn’t clear him on multiple occasions.

Jamppi actually saved the day for liquid on map 3. Those entries on attack from a short were insane. Also his ult was so good, getting two frags on ult every time. If not for him, liquid would have lost for sure.

Told you, bonkers looking good, but they had only 2 weeks of practice with a stand-in.

Ez : https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/705d4729

Not gonna be easy. Bonkers have a stand-in.

Such hate, why tho?

They have a pop up bootcamp from a gaming cafe in another city. They are getting 35ms from singapore with packet loss. Don't have any idea about the backup ISP they got.

You can't send them back, they already playing from home.