a lot of players just watch some guide on "how to play [sentinel of choice] on [map]" and they just follow that guide like it's gospel.

unironically, i've always said that stuff like that actively makes you worse because it's too predictable and becomes so easy to counter. it's kind of similar to lineups. ever run into a viper or brim that does nothing but bait their team because they insist on their lineups?

when i play cypher i try to have some crazy nonsense trip that no one expects. usually, someone clears the "meta" setup and ends up running knife or util out into the other trip for free.

aspas? not good with raze

As much as I agree no one is going to use it lol, they'll just use whichever number is the lowest. That's why so many people love using K/D as their metric even for IGLs.

i work full time, i just browse vlr if i'm bored or work is slow (like today)

• neon player
• smurf
• currently in silver but peaked ascendant 2 this act
• still manages to go negative on his main agent in silver-plat elo -- https://tracker.gg/valorant/match/c4436b00-72e0-486b-906a-8856a402bdf8

i've seen enough -- this guy has no life

all the TH fans will just flock back to fnatic unfortunately

respect the wolves flair though

Haven't been keeping up with the forum. How are the TH fans coping? This was the "best" team of 2024?

sphynx cats are very underrated! sure they're not as appealing to look at, but they're incredibly social and affectionate

source: cat cafe in my city has a resident sphynx

why must we compare???

both albums are awesome. hypochondriac is one of my favorites OAT, and revengeseekerz is top 2 album this entire year so far

i tend to accidentally leave songs on repeat so my top 5 songs of the month are very skewed, but these were definitely my favorites recently:

• GODSTAINED - Quadeca
• Psychoboost - Jane Remover
• Cancionera - Natalia Lafourcade
• Cornflower Blue - Flower Face
• Magnolia - Deafheaven

psychoboost is SOTY 2025

stop using numbers to justify ability/impact challenge (impossible)

using k/d or acs to discuss a smokes/IGL player is crazy work

W post

SEN 2-1 100T

3 guarantees in life

i'm just betting it'll be here

damn, this was a perfect rundown, thanks for the link

altaria

best mega and it doesn't come close, and its base form is very cute and iconic

i've been touching grass and hadn't logged into this website in a while. anyone wanna explain what on earth happened with s1mon? and lukxo?

remember when teams were allowed to have creativity in their artwork for their bundles? good times

My whole problem with Waylay is that it forces Breach

could've stopped it right there. a character that requires another character to exist in order to be good is inherently bad game design

Hey OP. I hope you haven't been reading these replies. 95% of people on VLR are either 13 years old, stupid, or silver. I know the internet (and also real life) is rough to be open about your identity, but this website is filled with children willing to dehumanize you because they live sad lives and they think that makes them worth something. You are 100x braver than they'll ever be just for making this post.

I hope you are able to find a community where you can watch valorant matches and not experience any hate. I know this probably sounds like a broken record, but I've found Sliggy's watchparties to be pretty good at moderating to make sure you feel included. If you want a place to watchparty, that'd be my first recommendation. As someone that isn't trans but is a minority in other ways, I understand what you're feeling and know you're not alone in that sense.

You are valid and you matter -- don't let the idiots get to your head.

if ascent was never a good map for them, why would they pick it?

ez pa fuego

it's not about what you eat, but who you eat it with

The single smartest statement said on vlr.gg

Anyways steak is a fire choice. I can demolish a ribeye any day

Genuinely curious, is kpopification really a new thing for y'all? I heard the word before for stuff other than valorant lmao

looks fire

It does, but when you compare that to two LAN wins for FNC then G2 has little to work with still. It also begs the question of how much weight a pre-franchise LAN placement/win should have. (I think they count equally, but Val esports before franchising was also the wild west)

If a team misses out it means they weren't good enough, simple as that. The best part about a season with multiple international tournaments is we get to see who adapts and improves vs who gets stuck along the way.

"Best team rarely wins" makes no sense either -- if they win then they were likely the best team that tournament. They might not be the best team THE ENTIRE SEASON (fluke/cinderella runs do exist), but for at least this first part then they are definitely a top team.

The only thing I agree with you on is that 8 teams for a Masters is too small. It should be 12 or 16, with maybe an LCQ.

As it stands, and if we're only talking about the "big" esports, Fnatic. They're the only team off the top of my head that has had success in all three "big money" esports (CS, Val, and LoL).

FNC had that dominant era in CS. In Val, they had a really dominant year (2023) as well as having qualified for every tournament until recently. And in LoL, an esport obviously dominated by Asian teams, they've at least qualified to every Worlds except for 2 (2012 and 2016). They even won the first Worlds and got runner-up in 2018.

I think the next closest is G2, which is only really held back because of the lack of Valorant accolades. By most accounts they're a relatively new team, since the org was originally stuck in t2 before acquiring the old Guard core when TGRD won ascension.

A lot of other orgs have also had a lot of success in other esports that I don't really watch or care for, so it really depends on which esports you're basing your comparisons off of. If you want to include Fortnite (random example), suddenly SEN has a lot of accolades because of Bugha.

edit because I misread and thought FNC only got runner-up in a Worlds when they actually won the first one

Surprised language hasn't also been mentioned. A full KR roster means the team can speak just Korean and not worry about anything else. Unless whoever they're importing already knows Korean, importing someone means either switching comms languages or having the import take a bunch of Korean classes. Either way there'll be a barrier and a learning curve until everyone's comfortable, which might be too long to be of value.

This is correct. The moment I realized I no longer cared for my rank or RR and just wanted to play with my friends and 5 stack was when I started having a lot more fun in Valorant. I might've quit the game entirely if I was genuinely trying to grind to a higher rank.

When I was learning English as a kid in the American South I had no accent, because American TV didn't usually use heavy accents. I was also in a city, and American cities (apart from like, NYC and LA, I guess) don't have a discernable accent. The early Youtube age also had a lot of American Youtubers with basic, easy-to-understand accents.

It was much later when I moved away from the city to the suburbs with my parents that a Southern drawl began to sneak into my speaking style, lol. Sometimes it takes over when I'm road raging.

edit since i realized i never mentioned this: i immigrated to the US with my parents when i was around 5. i only knew Spanish at that time.

it's been a "work in progress" since like 2022 lmao, no one takes the rankings seriously.

The ranking system in this website also leans heavily towards games played and if you win a lot of games, regardless (usually) of the "level" of that game, the team climbs in ranking. It also heavily skews how much the team climbs based on their opponent's own ranking. So theoretically, G2 beating FNC in RBHG or some other off-season tournament gets them as many points as G2 beating FNC in Champs.

Because of that, it's easy for t2 teams, most of which already have a higher rank, to farm each other and skyrocket up the rankings. RANKERS is a big example since they're undefeated (for now), and Apeks in 2023-2024 while they were still in EMEA t2 were always like top 3 in the website rankings

Oops, I misread the table for the Challengers page. Thought for some reason that the entire bottom half went into "relegation," lol

If it's anything like last year, those bottom 3 teams will go through a promotion/relegation bracket with teams that aren't in Stage 1 (probably some of the teams that didn't get in through Closed Qualifier, I guess). Otherwise, if they really are getting chopped this early, that's just unlucky

Relegation seems a little quick, though...

I know that's what it says on VLR but previous years at least had a "promotion/relegation" bracket. Is that no longer a thing?

It makes little sense to axe half the teams in Challengers after one stage

2nd weirdest, imo

1st is 100T axing ec1s and inspire after a whole two (2) matches, including a 13-0 loss against The Guard.

It's been three years and I'm still puzzled by that. Any rational team would've kept them around at least a few more matches.

I agree, but I'm just showing that orgs can be real stupid with some of their decisions. My guess is if they're axing someone this early, something is terribly, deeply, irrepairably wrong with the team chemistry that nothing can fix it without axing SOMEONE.

Except, I guess, for whatever happened with ec1s and inspire. They only played two matches for 100T before getting axed -- no preseason or anything like that. That was three years ago now and I'm still puzzled by that.

I know it's still too early to confirm whether the leaks are real or total bait, but even if they were real, but this wouldn't be the first time this has happened.

Some notable examples:

• C9 and the constant runi/vanity signing and releasing
• 100T axing ec1s and inspire after getting 13-0'd by TGRD

the entire valorant pro scene would seize to exist before April

got a link? i don't like touching twitter unless it's with a direct link to the tweet

Big if true

This makes no sense unless something is deeply wrong with the team chemistry. Does anyone know if the source is at all reliable?

This is true -- even when I watched pro valorant a lot more I almost never watched CN league (mostly due to timezone problems on my end). I know people underestimate them very often.

For some reason though, I still think EDG get grouped here, lol but they'll wake up and lock in in the next couple tournaments. That's usually what happens for them anyway, I think, especially last Champs. But like I said, anything can happen

He's still very good but not near his old ceiling. I argue FPX suygetsu was comparable (if not better at times) to LOUD Less, but that's been a while now.

Again, no one disagrees that suygetsu is still insanely good. Less has simply been consistently better for a while now.

Context: I've seen no matches; my thoughts are mostly on stats/data/highlights/general roster strengths. Note this is for Bangkok so I've only looked at Kickoff stuff, nothing from pre-season or even last season. I welcome actual conversation and thoughts

Likely favorites to win the whole thing: G2 (I don't think I need much reasoning here; everyone agrees they look very strong right now regardless of whether you like them or not)

Likely favorites to advance to playoffs: SEN, DRX, VIT (All very strong teams, I think they each beat the bottom four teams in a vacuum except maybe T1.)

Not favored to advance to playoffs, but don't ever count them out: T1, EDG (T1 is good and could be switched with anyone from the row above, I just think they might be a little outgunned tit-for-tat, and unfortunately only 4 teams can advance. EDG either lose out in groups or make deep runs, and for this first tournament I feel like it's the latter.)

Dark horses, but anything can happen: Trace, TL (Trace is a total mystery to me as always. TL had a bit of a Cinderella run in Kickoff, beating former favorite TH, but will that translate to Masters?)

i understand, the penn state culture is everywhere. spent some years in the Trenton/Princeton area and I'd see almost as much Penn State heads as I would Rutgers or Rider or TCNJ heads

i was not into the pro scene at that point. i was out of my CS phase and was playing a ton of other games, notably HOI4 and LoL (yuck). i did see the WarOwl video on that Vertigo match and I thought that was cool, but that's about the extent of my knowledge of Astralis.

if i were still into the scene, i'd probably have rooted against them. would seem hypocritical not to

It's a little petty, simply put I disliked them because of how dominant they were. I hate any sort of dynasty in any sport and when I was really into CS:GO, FNC were the closest thing to a dynasty. I also wasn't a fan of the players, I thought they were a little too egotistical for me to like them even if they hadn't been a dynasty. The Overpass boost comes to mind too, though my opinion on that has mellowed out over time, mostly.

Thankfully Valorant has yet to have any sort of dynasty. FNC came close in 2023 and I really did not want a repeat of CSGO which is why I always rooted against them, but if they're average now then I won't be so harsh on them. Once a dynasty comes around though, you'll see me root against them all the time, regardless of which org it is

FNC, because I really disliked the org when they were good in CS:GO. Nothing against the players, though. If they were under a different banner I'd probably root for them

I think you can make an argument for both, but it's probably ceiling being lowered first.

Floor MIGHT be lowered because of what you said -- the average APAC teams underperforming, especially with current meta. The thing is we can't really check... they may have improved relative to other regions but the same teams qualify to intl's every time so we can't know for sure.

Ceiling is definitely lowered because the most consistently good teams (namely DRX and PRX) have gone from being considered a favorite every tournament to being more dark-horse picks. And while GenG has improved drastically they aren't as dominant as they probably should be (and also they have really bad showings sometimes... GenG was a Champs favorite that got grouped, that's never a good look)

GX believers in shambles