Where are you in Shanghai?

That was very original, I haven't heard that one before.

Depends on the weapon. Texture Op accuracy is crazy. OXY seems scariest with knives lately. If we're talking rifling I still find Scream the craziest aimer we've seen in Val, shame the rest of his game couldn't keep up, similarly to his CS career I guess.

Who cares, neither are going to qualify

Patitek honestly just proved he isn't washed and it's just he's not had a reliable team prior. Mad respect for the guy.

Whoever wins it's a good storyline imo. Final culmination if all KR effort into the first APAC trophy or the Heretics Cinderella run with a sub and a chokey start

FUT were unprepared as hell for them and then PRX's match came down to 1 clutch saving 100T. PRX didn't exactly look at their best this tourney so I can't assume a 100T that scraped by was looking great either. Plus, I watched that clownfiesta

Definitely the best in China. Probably a top 6 placement though with how shit PRX, Fnatic, FUT, EDG and 100T looked.

The largest part of EMEA doesn't even have widespread internet what are you on.

Quit crying just because NA got humbled

Yay and TenZ are just copium. Next you'll be saying Wardell.

The quality of players is generally just improving.

Both finalists have their last 2 matches against NA without dropping a single map. Could go either way

Imagine taking Tarik seriously

So does NA

Fnatic is not a UK team. UK based as an org but it's EU as a team.

Not even a debate. G2 is improving, 100T is static

Why would anyone care about if its Fnatic or not? They're still an EMEA team, any splitting of hairs is just copium

Tbf patitek may be the best sub there has been in Val

This list is delulu. Aspas, f0rsaken, Saadhak all belong, the rest were only really top of the game for a year or so before disappearing.

Lakia, Sacy and probably cNed should be on the list.

Of course it is, this is VLR and it's the law of Transitive Property. But it's all we've got to go off of.

Pretty much this. That being said I feel like EMEA has been hemorrhaging a serious player base since early 2023, I think the lack of high budget EU orgs willing to gamble on Valorant franchising drove a lot of younger players and mid budget orgs back to CS.

It feels like the scene is regularly cycling through older names and occasionally adding 1 or 2 young guns to a roster and assuming that will fix things. There doesn't seem to be enough players for regular complete roster overhauls.

I know statswise Valorant has supposedly dropped a lot of player count since 2023 July, although cant be certain in reliability of that considering Riot don't share info. If the figures are true though I can see a lot of those falling numbers being from EMEA as CS2 was slowly getting fixed and the Valorant hype has died down.

Tldr, it might be a player base size issue and if so I fully expect it to get worse.

I look forward to seeing if I'm wrong. So far I'd definitely put my money on G2 in their next encounter.

Flag and flair

G2 looked way better against PRX when they beat them than when 100T did.

100T broke down against GenG whereas G2 went down horrifically against TH and some other team and both times made a full comeback and eventual victory.

Just comparing their achievements this tournament and the resilience each team has had to show is clear to me.

G2 are better than 100T. I feel like that's been made clear this tournament.

If GenG don't win I reckon it'll be a dark horse G2 or something wild like FUT storming through. This timeline hates logical consistency

VLR has cemented itself as the retarded younger sibling of HLTV. I never thought I'd see a worse forum but here we are.

Rainbow six siege eSports

Flair

I get this, even the close scoreline matches are just big comebacks and chokes rather than scrappy matches.

I feel like the best matches have been GenG ones so far as they're not really choking or having crazy comebacks often, they're just winning streaks, dropping a few rounds then counter playing and getting streaks again.

Ironic that Boostio needs a Booster seat

Top 5 KOVA Derkeps has to become a meme

Genuine worst bait I've ever seen on VLR. As soon as he called Dallas a major everyone knows he's trolling.

I think Starladder Berlin 2019 was pretty dead too, there was no way Astralis weren't getting that trophy. Only fun part was the Avangar Cinderella run with the selfless Sanji winning my heart

Yeah, but NiKo and Nexa have both a long history of IGLing too, in fact Nexa was previously IGL for G2.

Hooxi feels like you just have an assistant coach in the server because he won't hit shots but he'll be mid rounding decently enough that NiKo, Hunter and M0nesy will hit their shots easily.

Yeah I know, I'm not really talking to him, just the people who will end up reading the thread potentially.

You can't really talk to fake flaggers

I don't remember that major much but I think it's because it was so clear who was winning from the start. Not many highlight storylines as a result for me

I would like to believe it's bait, but VLR is the single stupidest place I've visited on the internet.

This shit is the Tumblr of eSports forums.

I think it's the game being different too, OXY is a Val duelist, his role is to hunt and kill people in straight up duels, he is not expected to do a lot with his Util other than create immediate space/damage.

M0nesy is a CS awp so he has to plan out his rotations and util a lot so that he can get the most chances at firing off a shot without getting caught out, he's more likely to be independent on the map rather than surrounded by supporting util.

I didn't even realise it's the old The Guard core and it shines through now with their resiliency. Truly a case of rebranding making people forget who they are, The Guard always felt pretty respected.

My guy hasn't watched CS tournaments before. PGL Stockholm had the most insanely hyped crowd. IEM Sydney's we're fucking hilarious to with fans chanting and randomly doing a shoey

Somehow G2 keeps being slept on, especially by NA I'm noticing. They look better than 100T. It feels like people only give G2 their flowers when they have already win rather than when they're going into a game.

In all fairness he probably is the closest though. He just has to keep up the level of play for a decent length of time.

The trouble with repeating M0nesy's career is you have to be a prodigy at 13 and be groomed for 5 years to replace the best player in the world then play for another team because the worlds best just refused to retire or fall off.

People forget that Stewie was so shit EG rebuilt a team around Nealan instead of keeping Stewie.

Nealan being a Tier 3/4 EU IGL playing in shit like Malta Vibes and CCT.

The tournament has just highlighted how insane allowing an org to have M0nesy and NiKo play together is.

Considering the only tier 1 CS player who came to Valorant was Ethan and the guy won a Champs I think you're a little bit retarded.

Every other CS pro who came to Valorant was washed in CS. Stewie included is washed, he was subbing for Hooxi, a guy who doesn't even have to go even on KD and the team wins because NiKo ans M0nesy are that damn good.

Tldr, with NiKo, Hunter and M0nesy's performance this tournament even SkRossi could have won a trophy.

He was subbing for a team with 2 top 10 players. They could have won with Hooxi too and he's literally a block of wood with a gun attached.

Definitely some nuance to it, he didn't get the nickname Ratzam for no reason. But people did just keep on at him forever. Kind of excessive

I want the hilarity of Heretics winning with a sub or PRX finally claiming a trophy tbh.

A FUT Cinderella run would be great too

I just checked and damn you weren't kidding. Other than World's and MSI LoL viewership is crazy low. It's lower than Tier 3 CS tournaments somehow.

I guess I just always assumed LoL had insane viewership in general but it's more extreme peaks and troughs.

I'm living for a FUT Cinderella arc tbh

FUT are chaos made flesh. If they should win they will lose, if they should have no chance in hell they will somehow eke out a victory.

TH in all fairness looked great last match.