Less should be in top 5, FNS and Ethan should be at least HM.

I would probably drop Nats from HM and replace him with Ardiis. Even if he's not doing craziness lately, he has been a mention since 2020 when he was with old G2. Nats has only really been a mention during the Gambit heyday.

Aspas, Chronicle, Forsaken and Saadhak are practically assured top 5s tho. Not sure if Leo should be on top 5 for one dominant year.

So don't come here. We don't want you anyway.

To quote my favourite ex-colony: Fuck off we're full.

Copium imo.

Valorant pro scene just moves too quickly with meta changes and events are so far between that nobody is ever going to have something like an era. Closest atm seems to be LOUD, Optic and Fnatic's various runs or high placements. But 2-4 events isn't really a long period of consistency, especially if you look weak in a any of them.

I don't know anyone who watches VCT outside of Masters and Champs.

I doubt it has much an effect.

I can't see Valorant being popular in Russia/East Europe because of the cartoon graphics style. It's the main complaint I hear in general as to why people won't try it

She's on PlatChat, do you expect her to actually have good takes? They're right about as often as I win the lottery.

17479 x 1 minute means you've wasted at least 12 full days of your life posting on this forum.

I hope those players see you man.

I still remember first Reykjavik when NA coined the term Bronzil now they constantly pretend that Brazil the same region all because they got included in Americas.

FNC players have an identity. That's pretty much the only thing I care much about. Boaster has always given me a bit of a laugh and I've been following Derke since he was called Derkeps in KOVA tier 4 CS.

NaVi, Liquid and Gambit all had identities too but NaVi is the only team that still exists in the same kind of format and ANGE1 is either funny as fuck to watch or depressing as fuck.

TH had more of an identity with Nukkye as their long standing work horse than with this current lineup. Heck, G2 when they were shit were still interesting because of the players being interesting outside of the game.

If I cared entirely about gameplay I'd pretty much only watch PRX because W gaming is flashy.

Ngl without Fnatic I haven't really bothered watching. KC and TH aren't exactly interesting teams to follow.

Anyone saying pain 0-3 was a brainlet. They've regularly managed upsets and knocked out tier 1 teams from tournaments. Pain are probably more reliable than Imperial against non Brazilian teams.

Lynn Vision and Legacy would have been my 0-3 picks.

Anybody who was saying that hasn't been following CS in a long time. Ecstatic we're a surprise but Pain and Imperial doing well isn't really surprising in the challenger portion if the major.

You're being a nutable tier autist making laugh threads

When did PRX fans become cringe?

I swear PRX used to have the most chill fans like a year ago.

On topic I think EMEA is already dialing down on Val. a fair few big prolific names already went back to tier 2-3 CS or coaching positions. Unless Fnatic had continued sweeping I don't think the hype will be there to encourage more players. Most of the other EMEA teams have been torn apart and don't really have an identity anymore outside of NaVi but they're not really the most popular.

The game is likely going to skew more and more towards Asia as it goes on I think as popularity for the game is still increasing there.

I don't recall it being a thing in OWL, CS, LoL or Dota really. Maybe in R6 or COD? But from what of CDL I've followed its basically all NA anyway, I think there is 1 EU team. Definitely not a common one over here.

I don't think they tend to exist in the same spaces tbh. CS, LoL & Dota are probably the only ones previously where I've seen both and I don't really notice any EU vs NA vibes there.

I'm pretty sure COD is only big in NA, I've never heard anyone mention it in EU and I only just realised there is even an EU based team. I think NA tends to focus on more console oriented games than EU does, typically UK is like that as well.

Honestly, I blame the 1st Reykjavik. They leaned pretty hard into the whole NA vs EMEA idea to build hype. Never really seen there be an NA vs EMEA focus in any other eSports.

You're being deliberately obtuse. I meant as in the umbrella group of "Native Americans" are pretty specific to the USA. The Canadian groups are predominantly Inuit, Mexico has Nahua, Maya, Mixtec, USA had the Algonquin, Great Plains, Pueblo, Apache and such.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1837_Great_Plains_smallpox_epidemic

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecumseh's_confederacy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

Yes really looks like Spain and Britain did it all. You forget how little of the USA we even colonised before it became the independent 13 colonies.

1837 really sounds like us yeah.

In all fairness native Americans are pretty specific to the USA. The Canadians have Inuits and First People's and Mexico has their own names.

No I mean the ones you gave smallpox blankets to and lost a literal pitched battle against.

I'm sure the Native Americans would disagree my G

Personally PRX. They're honestly the best team to watch, normally I get bored unless I support a team or there is some drama but those guys make it interesting considering the rate of 2v4s and shit they win.

2021 was best imo. Each region finding their place and style. 2022 was ass, every tournament it felt like teams weren't complete because of whatever global event. This year has been okay but not really any good storylines except the new back to back record. PRX winning will be a good storyline too tho.

Probably start watching when one team is down 2 maps. Cba watching a bo5 no matter who's playing. This match just feels like a formality, PRX beat EG already and now they have a map pool advantage. 0 hype on rematches within the same tournament for me.

Dude don't let it get to you. Half of VLR is fake flaggers doing the whole "trust me bro"

I'm convinced there can't be more than 50 unique users on this site at this point.

He's from Vladivostok I think so hes just used to player Asian servers most likely.

Suygetsu and Shao had to move out of Russia to stay on the team iirc. NaVi has been heavily cutting ties with Russia as an org since the war started.

Used to play a lot. Got bored as fuck when they kept releasing shit maps and more annoying agents. I feel like riot focus on making agents that aren't necessarily good but are annoying to play against these days.

Maybe for individuals but not for a solid team so you're probably never going to get a Cinderella run that works for a whole premier team, no matter how much work they put in.

Only rivalries imo were G2 vs SEN and Zombs Vs Brazil. SEN vs 100T too.

No other teams have seemed to have a big issue with any other specific team imo. Wouldn't call anything a rivalry for specific teams, it's always regions annoyingly.

My guy you have no idea on playerbase numbers. APAC is 2.4 million, EMEA is 1.9 million, Americas is 1.7 million.

USA accounts for almost 900k of the Americas total alone. The largest playerbase in EMEA is Turkey followed by France. The English speaking contingent of the playerbase is probably only about 300k tops.

Game seems to be dropping off hard in Europe because around end of 2021/beginning of 2022 there were almost 3 million players in EMEA.

I wouldn't worry about them losing my guy. LOUD always play best when their back is against the wall. Remember the Lockin finals they were down 0-2 then almost took the series.

I doubt it tbh. Most of EU probably aren't even watching due to time and just not caring much about this match. Also BO5s are way too long.

Finals should be a banger no matter what tho.

True. I really do think Fallen should have quit while he was ahead at one point tho. Dude could have been a mad good academy team builder for BR talent.

Pretty sure it's a case of it being expected in game but there is an assumption that pros are meant to have a sense of sportsmanship. Kind of the same as not expect pro footballers to tell each other to fuck off when that'd be pretty standard at a Sunday league.

Wouldn't be shocked if that's a riot behaviour terms and condition for pros tho. They put mad amounts of restrictions on players.

He's had a couple, he accused Leaf, Xeppaa and a couple of others in Chaos of cheating leading to Gaules causing death threats sent to Leaf who was 16 at the time iirc.

Fallen had a huge drama with Furia where they were given rollback rounds by Furia out of good sportsmanship that they didn't have to give and Fallen and his team acted like it was a necessity and that Furia didn't do anything special.

Also people started calling him Two Faced Toledo around the time he left MIBR because apparently there was some bad blood but I don't really know much on that one. I think TACO and Boltz had the bigger fallout there.

Boaster I think feels the pressure more and it haunts him a little. He's the kinda guy to go through his own VODs and nitpick every fuckup he made.

Calling it now, I bet he's a Rum guy. Just gives off that energy

Better than Fallen imo. Saadhak never had controversy like Fallen.

Honestly he just seems like a good guy to go to the pub with.

I like how michaelisupset doesn't realize that all vlr users are me on different accounts. Dont believe me? watch me post this on my other accounts

I hadn't noticed actually but EG actually aren't all Asian-Americans like a lot of previous big NA teams.

I swear 1st champs was 2 EMEA teams?

Everything about Riots system is to make it harder and harder to have a team to do well for long because they'll just get players poached by franchising.

It seems kinda pointless to take it too seriously. Probably fun with a group of friends though.

I love Tarik as a player but every time I've seen his watch parties it's been so dead. Same with Shroud. I wish there were English speaking hosts that brought either BR or Asian energy

Only on the factor of population. Language barriers is way way bigger an issue considering of 1.9 million no more than 200-250k probably speaks English at a decent level for Comms, and every language after that is going to drop into lower percentages.

You're making the dumbest argument going entirely off of numbers of a region when there are breakdowns even within that figure to identify how big of a pool you have for team combinations.

Ironic you didn't include Brazil but claim them as Americas.

Almost like you're a glory hunter 😉