Most colleges are "bottom feeder colleges" no? You have to take the average college. What I mean is in the sense that even if you have only 3-4 hours of lectures per day, you're not doing it back to back so you're spending 6ish hours atleast on campus, and you're doing it every day. I am aware of how intensive(or lack thereof) the other degrees are, but it's time burned on campus regardless.

not going to comment on the work ethic of passion professions, although I will agree it's never given priority from the top down.

the cracked players that can make it in high school will already be making waves in the vcl qualifiers/directly qualifying to VCL. The point is the vast majority of players don't make it. Collegiate is a system that can sustain them. Collegiate esports is the future, look at the way it's setup in NA(likely will never get to this point in India unfortunately). Not sure on how EMEA does it. The reason it works is that if you join college after school, your first two years of uni are relatively stable, you can find time to compete(18-20).

SA and SEA is the same, however the uni hours in NA/EMEA are generally shorter(some STEM degrees are fucked), and more flexible(class timings can be picked and chosen, you get to build your own schedule).
Why would people look towards an unconventional system in India, when the conventional pipeline to success exists(our opinions on how good those pipelines are aside).
And collegiate has been successful in NA, players like Jakee have come from collegiate. Half of t2 is in/was in collegiate (a lot of the unsigned teams contain collegiate players/cores).
The collegiate pipeline is important not because it will necessarily produce the best players, but because that competitive playerbase provides good competition. The issue is that a lot of the comp players rn in the new gen come from middle to upper middle class backgrounds, and they will just tend to stick to the uni path(typically going overseas if possible). Any people interested from lower middle class are involved in mobile esports, not pc esports.

VCL SA is quite literally paying good salaries to play from home. You do not need indian players on GE in order to get people to play. if VCL SA didn't have stability you might have had a point.

You cannot force that, a 75k min salary will not turn enough heads. You need to build up a collegiate system, that's the best path to pro for India.

Uni in India is basically like school, 9-5 every weekday on campus(stem atleast). So unless you're willing to come home and prac post uni work, it's not worth it. Most just don't consider it a good time investment.

Blue Otters win 2-1 I believe!!!

Fuck I'm torn on who to support here AAAAAAAA

Erm...

Both things can be true. There are the classic transphobic mfs here, but it's also true that SRN has a history of being toxic. They have used gendered insults against other female players in ranked. That upset a lot of peeps in the BR gc com iirc cause gc is supposed to be a safe space. I could be wrong but I even think there was some bad blood between them and TLGC.

Don't care ab them shooting bodies and t-bagging, all part of the game.

I wasn't comparing their capabilities nor achievements, Soulcas is far ahead in that regard, I just meant in general. They're ranked and scrim clip demons who are flex players, and often have underwhelming performances in their biggest games.

Sarahcat is the Soulcas of GC

Bob and Zoestol revenge arc??

Sae is Long

GE but good

The rest are APAC players, so yes.

Not sure on Jemkin, but I'm reasonably certain that something was classified as a import for PRX.

Since they are an english speaking roster, they can basically pickup any english speaking player in Pacific if they do qualify. Not to mention, Lumo and Tixx are their imports. However, if they make it to APAC, then Tixx would not be considered a import, since OCE is a part of APAC. they technically don't have to drop anyone.

https://youtu.be/Pxet1WWcEHY?t=156
you got that bob shoutout

There are only positives from a PR perspective for GE if they had Indian player(s) in the their roster, I'm sure they must have trialled the top prospects from the scene. If they were good enough as of right now they would be on the roster. The fans don't even realise that VCSA has one of the best formats from a player experience perspective, the tops teams will get to play in THREE LANs(split 1 cup 1, split 1 cup 2, and split 2 playoffs). For upcoming players it's the best place to grow.

I've never understood that second option. If the Indian players are not up to snuff, nothing good will come off it. what experience do they get that they won't get in VCSA? 12 stage matches? If you're playing in GE you're the type of player that is going to make VCSA playoffs anyways, you will get LAN practice. the only real argument is they may get better quality scrims against other APAC teams on lower ping in KR. the downsides? they are going to get fucking battered by people across all the social media platforms. Their confidence will be fucking wiped by the end of the season. It's going worse than the average team by virtue of all the noise surrounding GE.

My understanding is it was a budget issue. That previous team would not have been cheap at all, and regardless of the unfortunate circumstances, did not have the required results.

quite frankly that's all they need to do right now anyways, there's so much interest from unis themselves and a huge presence of 3rd party collegiate events anyways. They just need to keep an eye out on some bad actors(see NECC's recent controversy), so that the more prestigious academic unis don't get dissuaded from running more than just club teams.

I didn't think the terrible NACL OQ seeding could be topped, but GC proves me wrong

1337 the new SQN

the real question is why did SR, NBG and TG let icebox through against what seems to be a pug team

We can now forget the LG incident(s)

1

It only took someone from the Soniqs core 3 years to make NA challengers, but it was worth the wait.

He can't go any lower than this

Jsung is on fraud watch for this 13-0

Katsumi playing for Burgerville tho, plus Sad vs QoR will get streamed anyway

No she's based out of NA, OCE players don't really even do trials much anymore to NA, the ping is insane.

Ngl rly wondering where a lot of the gc fa teams are, only see a handful which is is disappointing given that there seem to be a lot of open spots. Is it a premier contender issue?

Yeah, I'm not sure why invites aren't based on whether the core stick together, like in NA. Sounds like VCB is a mess right now.

Yeah, I had a look, I recognize xand and ntk, they might be a bit tough, but it seems as though TL beat a bottom challengers squad like you said. A little bit of luck and they can definitely make it.

Do TL have a actual shot at main event? there are only two spots, and I imagine a lot of teams in closed quals must be made up of ex challenger players?

2-0 for SaD Bob masterclass

Ez for Bob

Naija putting in the shift for the sq peeps

Challengers teams invited are based on the core of team staying together iirc, so the current team wouldn't qualify for the invite. However there will likely be 4+ challenger spots up for grabs in the open quals, so they've got a solid shot.

traitor

If it's bench it doesn't matter, and they may have them on the team for now, like with RNG. RNG so far isn't in the league, so they need to go through ascension. it's a worthwhile investment.

Probs cause CN league will have only 1 import slot, apparently Weibo is locked for the league. So guess they went with pl1xx

If you had a history of consistently dc-ing in games, it carries over. I think they do wipe the slate clean, although it depends on how egregious your dc-ing used to be.

deadass, the rerouting threw me off

I was under the assumption that the core 3 rule was still in place. Since exalt was part of the original squad, he can be subbed in. yay and nerve are two replacements, they wouldn't be able to replace steel with anyone else but the original squad(so exalt xxif or riku).
Unless the core 3 rule gets reset going into split 2

Exalt is likely playing due to roster lock restrictions.

X0tek botfragged as predicted 😞

Seen the SA leaks, this one is first set i've seen for china. makes sense with the amount of players of chinese origin in the region.

pl1xx and maple to move to weibo. oce taking over slowly. https://blix.gg/news/weibo-report