I thought NA was meant to be better than EMEA? So why would you not want 1st seed to play against EU teams?

This will be hilarious if they get 100T or VS and get knocked out. Envy might even do it.

Done so dirty. But goddamn that made me laugh. Poor guy.

Lmao as if anyone takes Zellsis seriously. This dude was a tier 3 CS player who moved to Valorant. Not even for a top team either.

Its a phrase calling Americans fat, for obvious reasons.

Turkey is EMEA, not EU. They are not European but they are pretty closely affiliated, its basically a holiday destination for Western Europeans. Plus loads of Turks live in Germany, Netherlands and UK.

I like a clean logo like Envy's.

The hardest agree, Faker and S1mple are players who you hear about without even playing the games they dominate in because of dominant they are.

Honestly until Acend, G2 or Gambit are actually knocked out of Berlin I'm pretty sure they can come back.

Gambit choked/100T looked more present in the 3rd map.
Acend clearly weren't feeling it on the day against VS and simply got caught off guard. I think them still clapping while losing Map 1 is evidence of that.
G2 have honestly looked better than expected.

SMB seem more like a fluke at the moment just because of going from slapping Acend in Challengers to being absolutely dominated by them on LAN.

Not wrong tbf, they seem to be streaming all day at the moment.

Only game I'm sure will be a 2 map affair is GMB - 100T.

Wouldn't be shocked to see G2 have focused all their prep on the game against SEN considering the rivalry that's developing.
KRU is good and we haven't seen Zeta internationally so not sure how they will match up against each other.

tbf matchup wise I think Gambit will struggle more against 100T than they would against SEN.

I would say EU/CIS/TR are more sibling regions rather than one whole region. Then again as long as we have to share the same slots we share credit imo because its a joint funnel to get the best teams through. I don't for a second believe Gambit would play as well if they didn't play against decent EU/TR teams regularly as NaVi is the only real competition for them in CS.

I don't know a single person outside of VLR that watched challengers whereas a fair few of my friends will be watching Berlin.

Also, LAN > Online for Masters 1s relevance. As someone who didnt play Val at the time I didnt even know it was occuring unlike when LoL tournaments are going on when I dont even play the game.

Bruh its NaVi vs ENCE. Its literally 1 sided as fuck, no point watching it unless it makes it to map 3.

Also, CS has had like 8 decent tournaments already this year, this is the 2nd LAN for Valorant. Scarcity more than anything imo.

This conference is boring compared to the Boaster moments in Iceland. Carlos should be attending instead of Nukkye, just because he's louder.

Definitely SEN fans. Double for Indian SEN fans.

Also anyone who uses the term "Ratio".

I know that TR loves Ascent too.

I feel like EU is transitioning to Breeze being the map lately.

Literally me with Boaster. I like Fnatic more than Liquid purely because he makes me laugh. Otherwise Liquid and Tenstar are the Brit core teams.

That's mostly because of the game being new and the fact there is actually competition because international games are so rare that we can't figure out if any region truly holds any semblence of dominance. In comparison, CS has always be EU dominant. Occasionally teams come through for other regions like SK/Liquid/EG/100T but the top 10 normally features mostly EU/CIS teams all the time.

If NA completely dominates in Berlin however, that'd change the situation but as of currently we have Sentinels winning a tournament and an EU team coming 2nd by taking every map the distance. I'm curious if Sentinels will do anywhere near as well this tournament as the competition from EU/KR/JPN all seems to have increased and even the other NA teams are a cut above V1 from last time.

Imo SMB just for the hilarious Turk fanaticism you'll get involved in.

I'm the same. I dislike Ascent more than any other map. It's boring as all fuck.

If that's the case I think merging other regions like KR/JPN at least should be done too just for consistency. At the moment KR and JPN seems about as internally competitive as TR.

Clearly you can't read because I was saying that if the focus is on competition then you would merge every region that can be merged without it being logistically unfeasable (ping).

The extra level of competition you are saying would be lost needs to be introduced for other regions such as East Asia otherwise EMEA is simply being treated differently. If TR and CIS have to be forced to be competitive to qualify for big events, so does KR and JPN which have their own slots.

If we continued with that logic we would merge every region that won't experience significant ping differences.

That being said EMEA doesn't make sense already based on ping differences as ME or A to EU is as big as Eastern NA to EU.

This I'm okay with. Just want something consistent across all regions rather than making EMEA some sort of mega filter but having easier Quals for less competitive regions.

Only to the same degree Korea and Japan do. CIS and TR only make sense being part of EMEA if JPN and KR got merged into an NEA group.

As I said, needs to be consistent worldwide rather than favouring Asia and South America by splitting up the continents but not splitting up a continent with a larger player base in the form of EMEA.

Exactly, you either favour competition and merge or you allow regions to have their poster teams. Imo I think the former is better for the eSport, latter is better for growing an audience as you'll have have the esport getting more recognition in home regions because of a consistent top performer.

Consistency imo. Either EMEA is split up or KR/JPN/SEA are merged and potentially LATAM/BR is merged.

As it is, it feels arbitrary that Korea and Japan get their own slots but Turkey and CIS don't.

I love 100T mostly because of Nitr0 and Ethan. But in all honestly I think Hiko is washed and that's the biggest issue they face to actually progress in the tournament. Also, Steel needs to perform so hopefully his Kay/0 in Playoffs wasn't a temporary adjustment.

Truly the most likely scenario imo. Personally I think KR is really good, but their pool is so much smaller in every respect to EU and NA. Vivo Keyd seems like the Brazil comeback too.

SEA/KR might upset though because G2 probably will invest so much time in prepping for SEN that they might choke against Bren or F4Q.

I would like to believe that as I fucking love Boaster, but I hate Single Elim brackets for a reason. I think a lot of better teams got caught off guard but didn't have the 2nd attempt to adjust and prove themselves more adaptable. Its pretty much the reason I hate Single Elims because they really do reward sniping enemy teams.

Tbh G2 is petty enough to prep for Sentinels and only Sentinels this tournament.

Looking forward to a lot of potential upsets this masters.

100T are my favourite NA team but tbf Envy is the best looking at the moment. I reckon Sentinels aren't going to be dominant anymore with the way that team is looking.

With EU I think things are finally starting to settle, Gambit and SMB are regional super teams that are finding consistency and G2/Acend are both finding themselves after significant roster changes.

Berlin is probably going to be different to Iceland considering EMEA has the actual top teams representing them (Even though I love Fnatic and Liquid) and so does Korea/Japan. Brazil seem to have an upcoming team that seems to have learnt from Iceland. The only thing that is the same this time around is that Sentinels are representing NA and an unexpected NA team has shot through qualifiers looking dangerous (Envy) much like V1 did.

The way aim punch works its very rare for the Vandal to be more effective than a Phantom imo.

That being said I use the Vandal more often because I find I use the spray better than the Phantom's.

Haven. Literally not even a debate for me. Split, Ascent and Breeze are boring, Bind and Icebox always has issues with observer not being able to catch everything.

I don't really understand how Vanity can be described as likeable. He's the same as he was in CS, condescending and pretty boring.

Boaster is refreshingly funny, him and Jamppi are the only Valorant players I could actually watch stream if they did it.

Honestly, Fnatic seems the better team in general. Liquid in the Grand Finals of the EMEA Playoffs was a case of just being better on the day in my opinion. Boaster is ready for a lower bracket run I'm sure.

Even though I think Derke is better you're right here.

Bruh you're reading way too hard into that Vlog. That being said, Ethan is right about the 3 rounds thing.

I expect when LANs come in 100T will start dominating NA. No other NA team has more than 2 people that have consistently played LAN events in a tactical shooter as far as I can tell, compared to 4 people in 100T who have performed at the highest tier of CS at LANs.