his essay will be released before bedtime today

My flair changes pretty often but I tend to support most teams from LATAM-N because I'm Colombian and this region has pitiful representation in tier 1.

In tier 1 I like SEN because I like a lot of their players from even before they joined SEN (especially zekken. I was a huge zekken fan back in his XSET days)

Honorable mentions are KOI (just because I want to see them succeed for once), and DRX (MaKo deserves an international trophy before he retires please)

The overhyping around Primmie will ultimately lead to Primmie receiving equal or greater levels of hate as Yay/Boaster if he doesn't perform this season. He's a great player and awesome to watch but people are touting him as the GOAT after only a handful of tier 1 games, which I think is delusional and is only going to make things worse if Talon don't make Champions this year.

That's what I was assuming as well. This would make them more quality-of-life changes than actual buffs, since they're changing stuff so the sound cues do their actual job lmao

For those confused with the Gekko changes... I saw them as a nerf overall.

The dizzy flash now hits more reliably (whatever that means) and now affects the minimap (which makes it work more like a normal flash) -- these would be buffs with no other changes, but the .5s active time might be big. It'll be a lot easier to avoid it without having to shoot it, given how short that time was anyway (literally a 33% decrease).

The wingman cone is a buff but we know that concusses only work like 40% of the time anyway so whatever. Not sure what the visual thing is

The thrash orb increase is obviously a nerf. I always felt it was incredibly easy for a solid Gekko to farm ult so this will at least slow them down.

The pickup time nerfs are probably the biggest thing. Not only does it take Gekko longer to pick up his critters, but now they simply don't last as long on the ground. That'll make it easier to punish a Gekko that throws util like candy because there's less time to pick stuff up and also you're vulnerable while picking up for longer.

It's definitely not a giganerf like when they sent chamber to the farm, but I think this is one of those "wait until we see if it actually changes anything" changes.

the kind that uses microsoft stuff (Box, Outlook, etc)

Gmail is allowed but any "online storage" websites like Drive are blacklisted. It's probably a secrecy thing, because then theoretically anyone can access confidential information, screenshot/copy, and then keep on Drive

The flash being his new rechargeable ability makes him a LOT more team oriented now. You can throw a flash to help entry and not worry about "wasting it" assuming you capitalize on it and get two kills.

Still won't be good enough for a solo entry but he'll definitely see more use as a second entry IMO. Might still be the worst duelist but he's a lot better just with that change alone

honestly rewatching the video, it might be the case. reyna overheal would probably function the same way too -- rather than purple health it just becomes temporary shield health. it makes more sense since shields don't actually reduce the damage you take like CS armor/helmet and instead serves more like extra health

I fully thought the new shield was just a UI change for the overheal text, but I have no idea how Phoenix fits into this since he never had an overheal mechanic. Unless the new Phoenix changes allow him to overheal now?

yeah it's annoying at first but i would rather the new users be forced to wait a while between posts vs the trolls/baiters spam the shit out of the website and then just make a new account to spam with if they get banned

Yes to prevent new account spamming

I think for 0 stars you had to wait like two minutes between posting anything

Switching his molly and flash is actually such a simple yet good change honestly

Phoenix flash is often considered one of the best in the game, and a recharge on kills lets you use it more on-the-go without worrying about wasting it. You can throw it to entry sites, get two kills, and use it to stall defuse (example). Meanwhile the molly is easy to avoid and not nearly as useful an entry tool compared to the other duelists.

The wall change is also a good change. Overall, big W for Phoenix players

The spreadsheet can confirm this (I can't access it myself because of my work blacklisting Google Drive links)

If I were to guess he's considered an NA import considering he is Korean-American and he played in NA until this year.

edit oops mortadelo beat me to it

It was maybe my favorite final that entire year, especially seeing PRX pull out Astra-Breach-Yoru-Neon on Breeze, which at the time had almost never been seen on the pro stage since the meta was (and still probably is) Viper-Sova-Jett-Cypher

Knowing Rito they're actually going to make this happen for the 5 year anniversary. Except it won't be map art and instead a capsule of sprays and buddies and maybe a mid gun skin. And it'll cost $50 USD. Oh and you can't buy anything individually you HAVE to buy the whole bundle

Either that or trembo vs keznit

I'm glad you mentioned this. I work at a company that builds CT machines and clear imagery is incredibly important. There's a tradeoff when it comes to getting scanned: either you keep the radiation dose low and have a noisy image, or you up the dose and make the image clearer. Of course, too much radiation is bad for you, so we want the dosage to be low. But a noisy image can make a doctor completely miss something, which is bad if not even worse.

During training I was given two images of the same organ that had different noise levels. The clearer one showed some stuff that would indicate a tumor, and the noisy one did not. Image quality can literally determine whether you will find cancer in your system or if it will stay hidden until it's too late.

The benefit of AI here is that it's allowing us to improve the image quality through training the AI while not having to increase the dosage. The AI can read the noisy image and basically fill in the gaps to make the resolution better.

It's super interesting stuff.

You're basically describing 2G

only Zap and pryze have any semblance of T1 experience (both were on Keyd Stars for a few months pre-franchising). The rest are having a true rookie season I'm pretty sure

this is usually my go to actually, or at least having the waffles with fruit, but i was in such a hurry i could only grab the waffles and leave lmao

i'd kill for an everything bagel rn. slept through my alarm so my breakfast was two toaster waffles

unfortunately the two mods are probably sleeping

this happens in literally every sport. you have a bad match and everyone calls for the manager/coach/player's head. it's not serious

Wingman would be here if she had more nuclear devices

Image -- Magdalena Bay

It's not racist. It can definitely be said as like an insult (it's one of those words where the context defines whether it's said in a good or bad way), but it's definitely not racist.

OP is just like me

had girlfriend before joining VLR

is now single

The amount of anti-Indian hate I see on Instagram nowadays is actually shocking. I know VLR is banter like 75% of the time but outside of it I've seen a huge uptick in the racism it's crazy. I'm sorry y'all have to go through this often now. People let the bad apples define an entire culture and it sucks a lot.

gekko fully snubbed lmao

play aram

or preferably, uninstall the game

I agree with the teams you picked for this top 5. However I argue this in terms of placements:

1. OpTic 2022. didn't win Champs but the team they lost to are literally number 3 on this list.
2. FNC 2023. Not much else to be said there
3. LOUD 2022. Same thing you said. I put them above EG because apart from Copenhagen they were very consistent all year with OpTic being the only "true" rival.
4. GEN.G 2024, for exactly the same thing you said.
5. EG 2023. Their end of the season was insane, but many forget that the start of their season was pretty putrid and they almost didn't even qualify. Easily the flukiest team on the list, though they deserve their accolades given what they achieved in the end.

HM for SEN 2021. Though I argue that was an entirely different era and is much more debatable to put in Top 5. Top 10 for sure.

not even, the answer is yes if either kid in the relationship sends or receives nudes. like full stop.

doesn't matter how old you are, having illicit photos of a minor is called possession of cp.

i can understand getting stomped and getting 0 ACS in a 0-13 sweep. But in 23 rounds...? Bewildering

I'm curious how this works. What does it rank you by -- upvotes? other users' opinions of you? some ratio of everything?

not saying I agree or disagree with you, but you're never going to win this argument. not because you're wrong (or right), but because people are never consistent with their arguments lmao

they'll point at numbers and stats if it helps their argument, then go "numbers aren't everything" if the numbers don't help their argument. they'll say a player's bad aim is forgiven because "he has good util/comms/etc," but then they'll say the exact opposite for another player. so on and so forth.

you are probably right and people on this website exaggerate so so much. in my opinion, if zellsis really were that bad as this website likes to claim, SEN would've replaced him long ago. i don't see why kaplan or drewspark would've kept him if they're looking at JUST numbers like vlr frogs do.

edit: looking at the chain above my comment... oh ma lawd

apart from Cloudberry's one, 2022-2023 had multiple World Cup posts appear per month and they always said the same thing. At least now with China and Ascension teams being more prevalent there's more variety

pre-emptive edit: i just saw that WC posts was top of the list. i am dyslexic

I like all the primmie hype and I loved watching primmie play but I do think people are overrating him a ton. Just because he had a few strong games in T1 off rip doesn't mean he's going to keep that level of performance forever. It's very commonly said on this website that ranked demon =/= tier 1 pro demon. Doesn't matter how long you're top 1 in ranked, it's still a different world between ranked and pro.

If he performs next year the way he did for those few games (which I hope he does), then I'll 100% join the hype train. Otherwise all this glazing is just going to make primmie be more disliked if and when he starts performing worse. When you set the bar this high you better hope that person can reach it.

It's been a while since the events have been announced and I know it's still a long way out, but based on previous Masters, when can we expect tickets to go on sale?

I live pretty close to Toronto so I'm hoping to snag a ticket as soon as they go on sale so I can get that locked in and plan accordingly...

by that logic shroud was the face of valorant when he played those two games for sentinels

real

my dyslexic ass actually read that and thought leverkusen signed son. got my hopes up

they should make that photo his official LAN photo, it's too clean to not use it everywhere lmao

I do agree and I'd love to see that but I think my suggestion is more realistic to what Rito would actually do. You know how they are. They'd probably make those cool agent skins you mentioned but instead throw them in a bundle and sell them for $60 lol. At least with the achievements they can use scrapped art that wouldn't see the light of day otherwise

not to mention that he would technically be T3, considering his team in T2 got RELEGATED

real ones know that bang has always been good since he joined 100T. just because 100T hasn't seen much success until recently doesn't mean that bang isn't good. he's a good pickup for most teams including SEN and those that are flaming don't know ball. if bang performs at SEN like he did at 100T SEN are going to be just fine IMO

one VLR post would probably give a small victorian child a seizure

yeah i was fully expecting him to say tomaszy honestly. he and narrate were the standouts from the few m8 games i watched

EMEA: KC (I just want to see them do well for once please)
AMER: LEV
APAC: DRX, so long as MaKo stays there
CN: DRG, the 2025 Champs winners

Rather than an agent battle pass I'd rather see an achievement system kinda like that in Overwatch where you get fun little rewards depending on the achievement. Like for each agent achievement you get you get like a spray or a basic skin or a charm gun buddy.

Used an Astra suck to get someone off bomb and win a round? Here's a spray. Got an ace using only Chamber's headhunter? Here's a cute little sheriff skin. Won a 1v5 clutch? Here's a charmgun buddy.

Apart from that I do want to see more rewards just for playing the game. Playing just for RR gets stale.

power supply unit! the LTT video has a section on picking one iirc. A big mistake you could make is getting a PSU that's too weak to power something. (For example, a 500W PSU wouldn't be able to power my GPU, but I have a 1 kW so it's fine). If you use pcpartspicker you can see how much power you'd need too

When I built my PC in September I almost exclusively used the Linus Tech Tips building guide video. It's pretty general and doesn't cover everything (since every PC is different), but it was more than enough to get me going and helping me troubleshoot if I was stuck/nervous about something. I highly HIGHLY recommend it.

In terms of cooling the CPU, it's just dependent on the cooler you buy (air cooler vs AIO liquid). I use an air cooler and it's dirt easy to install assuming you use the right amount of paste (the LTT guide will lyk how much). AIO I'm not experienced with but I heard it's a little more complicated, but a guide/review of that cooler will get you to the right spot anyway.

The most important thing is that you do your research so that you get parts that work well together (the last thing you want is to realize that a part you bought isn't compatible with the mobo or psu you got) and to make sure you have a clean environment to build (no dirt/dust/grime and a way to get rid of static electricity so you don't cook something by touching it on accident). Otherwise, it's really not that hard, and if you just take your time it's very hard to get something wrong IMO.

Best of luck!