Well, considering that China is very likely to be getting its' own franchise league next, I think it makes some sense for them to invite their best teams to all the internationals this year. Also keep in mind that Tencent fully owns Riot which has made them partial to China in the past(along with the obscene amount of money they make over their with LoL). Makes me believe that they will do this, even if it isn't completely fair.

Do we have confirmation somewhere of the exact number of teams making it? Without any info besides extra slot from winning lock-in, I'd assume it would be 3/3/4/2 (with 2 Chinese teams receiving invites). Same with champions. Do we know anything?

Reading is hard it seems

go ahead then

She was literally playing on EG until she became coach. You didn't notice?

We haven't seen Sentinels play in over a month, and when they did, they had only practiced for a few days. You have no idea what their level is atm. No one does.

They weren't a month ago at the ludwig x tarik tournament. But they had only been practicing for a few days. Now that they've had over a month, they very well could be the best. No way of knowing until we see them play. I don't think it's crazy at all to believe they could be the best. With Sacy/Pancada and the x-set player/coach additions, it's hard to see a world where this team isn't eventually one of the best in the world.

edit: spelling

"USA" is not an ethnicity, unlike all the other categories you've listed.

I find that hard to believe but anything's possible i suppose.

No texthttps://twitter.com/Tombizz/status/1625942612904402944
We can see a good portion of the arena in this vid, no one in the upper stands. There definitely aren't 1500 ppl there, not even 500.

Doesn't even look like it's up to 200 people tbh. Idk how you can believe that there's close to 1500 people.

Only 3

Rosters might have shuffled, but it's still the same region. Americas has merged NA, BR and LATAM.

And the crowd is still dead with two Brazilian teams playing....this event is doomed.

i doubt

mitch and tom are personally my least favorite of these three duos (panpoc #1)

big disagree

Not over yet, it's a heavy defense-sided map anyway.

It shouldn't be anymore. No more restrictions on cheering.

Honestly, I think even that might be optimism. Looks too empty, even if no BR teams are playing.

Yea, wasn't a throw. NRG just played attack really well.

The requirement of all the challenger leagues is ascendant. Tell me, how does it make sense to require game-changers to be immortal+?

If the chinese player-base grows rapidly, which is definitely possible, then they'll have more than enough of a player base to sustain their own franchise league + challenger league.

LoL=JDG
Apex=TSM
CSGO=G2
Valorant=NRG
Rainbow 6=w7m

The DRX roster blew up after worlds, what ya smoking there?

Is he supposed to lie about his reasoning and say they aren't shady? If he thinks they're shady, he thinks that. No reason to lie, not that serious.

lol. Sorry bro, it's not trash talk. It's truth. Relative to most other countries(especially western ones), Brazil is super nationalistic when it comes to sports.

how so?

Considering how nationalistic Brazilians are; not too surprising to think they'd leak info to their country men.

2 from each

It's 2.

First two weeks of NA challengers still have them in. Idk about other challenger leagues.

To ascension? 2 from each of the Americas challenger leagues(NA, BR, LATAM south, LATAM north).

Sacy isn't a slave to Brazilian valorant. There was nothing to manipulate and he did do absolutely nothing wrong. If he wanted off loud, for whatever reason, then it is the right decision. He doesn't owe you, the fans or anybody else anything. Fuck off.

Sounds like you may seriously have a brain injury.

They did it! Lets go Katsumi!

There are no bo1s, it's all bo3

Not that hard if you don't watch interviews. I rarely watch interviews myself but they were talking about it on an episode of plat chat that I caught.

yep, it is well known,

You either misunderstood trent or he's just wrong.
texthttps://valorantesports.com/news/introducing-the-valorant-challengers-23/en-us
Here's the article explaining the entire challengers format.

edit: And a link to the overall VCT format texthttps://valorantesports.com/vct-overview

No, they cant. The challengers leagues are all about qualifying for the ascension tournaments at the end of the year. Winner of those( 3 ascension tournaments for the 3 international leagues) qualify for a franchising spot for the following two years. None of the challenger league teams can go to masters or champions this year.

Oh didn't know that. Still, more so talking about the teams that represent em. They have a European team in valo but their CSGO and league teams are north american. And I think they have the most popularity in league.

Nah. Other e-sports exist. The biggest/well-known orgs in NA are C9, 100T, TSM, Team liquid and EG. Sentinels is only popular/successful in valorant.

Mimi on plat chat(and Tarik on his stream) said that it would just be a basic 4 team double elimination tournament. So 6 series total. Guessing all Bo3 since it only runs 2 days.

Sorry but you're kinda wrong. Toast only had the idea to build a roster to try to get into challengers in October, but the core of XXif and Exalt were already playing together on the former knights team since near the beginning of 2021. Gengsta then also joined them near the beginning of 2022. So while Ocean was scouting the players individually, saying that the team was built from scratch is ridiculous.

edit: spelling

lol, not that easy. If I put you and 4 other randoms on salary, would it make sense that I expect the lot you to qualify to ascension? Obviously, that isn't what toast did but regardless, there are plenty of org-less teams going into this with plenty of talent/skill and just as much prep/practice time as salaried/org teams.

It's unfortunate that C9 didn't have the resources to keep the roster together. I personally really wanted to see them stick it out and find redemption at next year's game changers championship. But they do not belong anywhere near franchising. That's a brain dead take. They would literally lose every single one of their matches.

Atheist

Ascent has been Shopify's perma ban. Not too surprising they're getting destroyed.

They will. Rosters change. That's e-sports. Of course they'll lose fans but plenty will remain.