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

We love ChickenJoe all my homies love ChickenJoe

I doubt it, fantasy has never been monetary on the actual dev side (unless it's a gambling site I suppose). In every sports fantasy league I've done any bets are done between the players (such as an entry pool, last place doing a punishment at the end of the season, etc)

Unless the plan is to have an "entry fee" where the funds go to the top X players at the end of the season, which is just the entry pool I described earlier but with extra steps

addiction is very powerful.

why do people smoke cigarettes knowing it's severely bad for their health?

why do people play valorant knowing it's severely bad for their health?

It's a fun game, but it gets stale VERY quick once you reach the current end-game. With the amount of content that's out there now a new player would be occupied for months. The worldbuilding and music are fantastic (I unironically listen to the OST pretty often). It's really just the combat (and the English VAs if you play on English) that can get repetitive really quick unless you actively seek a challenge or a new team comp.

A lot of my enjoyment came from competing with my friends to see who could deal the most damage to an enemy in a single attack. I would farm the best artifacts and level up entire teamcomps to level 90 to get that damage up. But, I farmed so hard that I was cruising through the story and eventually I was done doing nothing but Abyss and wait for the next patch.

I would recommend since there's a lot of content. Just, take care not to spend much (or even better, don't spend at all). I played Genshin for a long time but I never spent a penny.

Arsenal

Current favorite: Myles Lewis-Skelly
All-time favorite: Santi Cazorla

this might be the worst website to ask for their opinion on women

Yeah the only times you'd be seeing your own skin in Valorant are in the agent select screen, the one Champs 2024 Phantom emote (if you don't have it, you're SOL), and your corpse if you have corpses on. You'd only be seeing the hands holding the gun while you're alive. Maaaybe some voice lines are changed or sound different.

In Overwatch skins are very visible -- hero select, the in-game weapon, voicelines and sounds, and the million emotes and POTG highlight intros each character has.

what no derke does to a mf

real talk BBL did great, hope they go far this season

Poland is an FPS powerhouse. A lot of good Polish players in CS past and present. Thinking of the old Virtus Pro days as an example

There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and SEN vs 100T in every regional tournament

bro is internet explorer

sorry this is VLR, logical thinking is something that isn't used here often

ascent shouldn't come back for at least 6 months.

you're telling me pearl and fracture were sent to the shadow realm for over a year but ascent only gets a couple of months? cringe

it's only been two weeks and this is already a frontrunner for The Worst Fucking Post On This Website In 2025.

i'm impressed

2G

though i know later down the line i will switch so it may also be a Colombian challenger team (likely EXL if they keep their core, which i like), or Flyquest RED since they're my favorite GC team

Will likely not be anything else

i have not touched valorant or overwatch since december

and it'll probably take another month of hela dominance (if the health nerf doesn't change her at all) before i consider playing another game lol

I hope you're finding peace with what happened. Losing a pet sucks.

I will say it's more common than you think. Pets obviously can't communicate explicitly what they're feeling, and so something they've been fighting might come as a surprise. Furthermore, the older the pet, the more likely they'll develop health conditions. Hell, even humans sometimes don't realize they have cancer until it's too late to treat. What I do hope is that your dog lived a happy and fulfilling life and that they passed peacefully.

As for moving on -- like the others have said, everyone moves on at their own pace, but no one moves on completely -- we just grow as people. My dad is nearing 60 and still talks about his childhood dog and how much he misses him, and I imagine I'll be the same when my 12 year-old schnauzer passes too. What helps people ease their pain is the memories they've had, and that always includes pets too. Grief helps us remember who and what it is that we love.

favorite player seems a little much, but two flairs i could definitely get behind. i'm usually switching between the teams i'm supporting on VCT or GC or Challengers so being able to rep 2 at once would be great

This isn't to say that Tejo won't actually be broken on release, because you never really know.

It's just very annoying to see people immediately jump on the hate train for an agent that hasn't been released yet just because their kit looks OP. I thought we'd learn by now that kit reveals don't mean shit until the character's actually out.

When Deadlock was revealed everyone thought she'd be busted because the wall looked strong and the ult looked busted. When Vyse was revealed everyone thought she'd be busted because the wall looked strong and the ult looked busted. Turns out they were both relatively underwhelming. And, very few thought Chamber was going to be busted and he ended up being the most busted of all.

I thought it was kind of clear that Rito prefers to release agents in slightly weaker states, so they don't break the meta, and later buff them (if needed). Neither Neon or Iso were considered gamebreaking on release, but imagine if they had been released in their gigabuffed states from last year. Gigabuffed Neon was what got me closest from genuinely quitting the game forever.

What I'm trying to say is, stop using 30 seconds of video and streamers' day 1 opinions as the indicator of how good a character is going to be. You have to give it a week or two or three. You need to let people find the bugs and exploits and techs to see if they are actually good, because a strong-looking character could be underwhelming and a weak-looking character could be gamebreaking.

You forgot:

Vyse release -- what?!?!??!!? her ult makes your primary weapon useless???? actually gamebreaking??? rito wtf

Ngl I think you're correct. It would fall in line with existing trail abilities like Skye/Fade dog and Skye ult

My question is whether you can destroy the missiles like you would a Skye ult or old Skye bird. If not then I agree that the ability with the common opinion that it might be busted. Otherwise it might be ok.

I swear I've played in the exact place he played in! It looks super familiar. Great video I agree

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet -- been off VLR for a while and searching the forum doesn't show anything.

Tejo's name is also the name of a sport that is very popular in Colombia!

Tejo is a sport that uses a metal or stone puck (called a tejo) that you chuck at a small board full of clay and some small targets made with gunpowder (called mechas). It's an old sport with links to the aboriginal people of the region. Points are scored based on where the tejo lands in the clay, with extra points depending on if a mecha is popped. For the Americans, think of it as cornhole but with more kaboom. It's a lot of fun to play and it's the second most played sport in Colombia after football. In my family it's quite common for a group of us to go play tejo and drink beer just for funsies on any given afternoon.

I think the name fits the agent quite well considering that three of his abilities are explosive related (two grenades and one explosive airstrike). And of course, bringing a little attention to a sport I love is more than welcome.

Wikipedia
A random youtube showcase of the sport

I dislike HenBabyH

Iirc in Korea you don't have to officially enlist for your military service until you're 27 (you have to enlist before you're 28). so assuming they haven't completed their service yet, they still have a couple more years

cloudberry being a constant positive presence makes this website bearable

yeah just don't start failing courses. do enough that keeps your grades and GPA respectable but you don't have to be perfect anymore. big congrats and welcome to the MechE world!

It's going to sound weird but I argue it's due to the difference in the pressure you feel.

I played a few collegiate games but my team was nothing serious. Our highest-ranked player was immo1 at the time (imm2 now i think) and we were facing teams that had multiple radiants, so we obviously weren't expected to play well and just tried to have fun. My diamond ass would sometimes go crazy against these immortals though, which I know wouldn't happen in ranked. We'd obviously never win, but I'd have my moments. I have a clip somewhere in a Discord server with me 1v4 clutching post-plant against one of the top-ranked teams (we lost the map 13-2)

In customs with friends (10mans) I usually instalock a character I really want to play and try to play them in a silly way. I never touch Yoru in ranked but I always play Yoru in customs because I want to cheese and annoy my friends.

if you play ranked (soloq, stacking, whatever), there's something you can lose -- your RR. in customs or tournament play, assuming it's not a SERIOUS serious tournament with big money on the line and you having an actual shot of winning, you don't have anything to lose, really. so, you don't feel that same amount of pressure IMO.

sen city invitational...

seriously?

Harbor's in a tough spot because if you buff him he'll just become a staple in double wall meta which everyone collectively thought was boring and annoying. But none of his abilities function that well as solo smokes. I thought Abyss would be an okay solo smokes map for him but I ended up just playing Astra again (biased because Astra's been my main since 2022).

I fully see (maybe even expect) a potential rework to remove his waterfall ability and replace it with some different thing. Maybe something like a stim beacon/damage amp. A flash wouldn't make sense and neither would a molly, and the stim beacon effect is only seen in two characters (brim and reyna empress giving the faster firing and reload). We also already have enough "space-creating" offensive walls (pheonix, neon, iso)

Harbor just needs something that makes him even appetizing to play as solo smokes and when all of your abilities are smoke abilities you feel kinda useless. That's why I think the waterfall is the most expendable. The orb is a good concept and the wall is fine even if it's just so Viper isn't the only one.

-xeppaa

complete the cycle

one by one they are all replaced by runi and vanity

C9 dropped moose, and you know what that means

time to call him back from retirement

+vanity incoming

an actual outrageous take! i don't agree with it one bit, but you understood the assignment

NRG is definitely a Top 10 Americas team this year

i just like LATAM/BR ascension teams and want them to succeed

not an outrageous take because this is true for any new esport.

if Marvel Rivals ever goes that way and tries to become an esport I bet you half of the rosters will be ex-Overwatch pros

there are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and NRG vs BLG in the lower bracket