You mean you thought NA had the slot? No. 2nd place from all the Americas regions (Latam/NA/Brazil) will compete for it.

Amazing run. Truly.

TL were not good. The only group they could have made it out of if they switched was maybe A.

You forgot about Heretics Law

Actually a coach diff. Not bait, Kaplan looks like a hobo compared to bonkar lol

I know right, they just fluke every match xD

They're 11-1 on ascent this year. Could go either way but G2 is definitely a great ascent team. (rrq is 6-7)

Some of the players can go sure, but this one is primarily on the coaches. Such dog shit prep going into the biggest tournament of the year. Actually embarrassing with some of their looks on these maps when demos of their opponents are out there.

Sometimes when you laugh early, someone else gets to laugh last.

Out of all the ones you mentioned, I think the only one as bad or worse is ignite (imo).

People need to relax. He was still playing tier 2 and very good mechanically late into 2023. It's hasn't been THAT long.

Ehh, not really. The lower teams drag them down and RRQ/Talon haven't been the most consistent (not so much talon as of late).

I don't know much about the org. Team is good tho.

Mid? No, no they are not. lol

Top 2 in champs points, besides them, go. (so not necessarily 3rd/4th place)

Canezerra will be able to play stage 2 next year

Watch any interview with either. It's pretty clear.

Tex and Okeanos. They're repping their ethnic flags on VLR but they were both raised in NA.

LEV is 3/5 NA

You're already up, might as well stay up

Just seems like there might be a massive tier gap between the top 4-5 teams and everyone else. We'll have to see how the following weeks play out.

95% of "fans" being overly critical of players/teams don't actually have any idea what they're talking about. They're just being negative and regurgitating stuff they've heard personalities/streamers say at some point. All while they genuinely couldn't analyze a single valorant round accurately to save their lives.

2nd place one event into winning the next event.

lol

no

Heretics

LETS GO SHOPIFY!!!!

The loss of the Tenz-Zekken synergy doesn't help either. And Tenz just by himself had really impactful rounds pretty regularly.

Dumbass take. Pretty sure Jawg was born and raised in the states. Demon1 has spent the majority of his life in NA too.

Uhh yes. Esports is ridiculously huge over there. You should go in person one day if you can, it'll make sense. You should have seen how people reacted in 2021 when EDG won LoL worlds, it was insane.

Correct me if I'm wrong. But now that MIBR has crashed out of Toronto, aren't G2 officially locked in at champions? I think only MIBR and Sen could pass them in champions points with an extremely good placement this tournament.

Congrats to them.

It's kinda crazy looking at the stats. Verno is top 10 with all 4 of his teammates literally bottom 4 of the tournament thus far. Just crazy.

It seems to be the majority that did that but yea, I really don't understand that lol. 2/2 gang atm for me.

Everyone has a chance, those chances may not be perfectly equal but they exist

It was a good signing with a lot of potential, which we got to see. No way for them to know all this stuff about her.

It's really not subjective whatsoever. Any pro or analyst would tell you that the level of play has risen in general. In fact, many pros and analysts say that all the time actually. Just look at the way most teams abuse and snowball ult economy today. That was only being done by a few top teams in 2023.

Definitely not true. Teams in 2025 across the board are significantly better than they were in 2023.

huh?

G2 has been in every Americas final since stage 1 of last year. Tejo or not, they'll be just fine.

It's not. The format has changed. Groups are re-drawn.

So? Boom were the 2nd place ascension team and Bleed got removed. What exactly were they expecting riot to do? lol. Very strange.

Lol what? Why??

They all knew the ruleset before stage 1 started and how important H2H was in 2way, 3way and potentially 4way ties. Pretty silly to complain about things once everything has already played out.

Wouldn't it be crazy if none of them made it? And It actually looks like 3/4 not making it is the most likely outcome atm. Crazy.

Compared to expectations? Sure. Still 4th internationally. That is a good team.

Forgetting G2/100T in 2024. They still placed 3rd/4th at Shanghai (4th for NRG at 2023 Tokyo too).

sure why not

Definitely not a caster. Do like his videos but his game knowledge isn't there. He could manage as a host probably.

Talon may have already locked in 2nd even if RRQ loses 0-2 but not sure. It depends on exactly how the 4 way tie works. If you go to 3-way tiebreaker rule as soon as 1 teams comes out in first in the 4-way, talon is 2nd no matter what. If you have to see through all criteria of the 4-way tie before seeing if any ties remain, they'd get 4th in that case. I would have thought it was the latter based on the tiebreaker rules displayed on liquipedia but they have em locked at 2nd.

Hot takes? Solar flare takes more accurate.

Not sure what's going on here but the scoreline was:
13-6
11-13
13-6

With Xi Lai taking it in 3 maps

Too much results based analysis. You need to look at how the teams are actually playing. C9 is easily top 4 at the very least and maybe higher based on what we've seen so far in stage 1.