Paper Rex

Loud has changed head coaches every year since they began. Doesn't make much sense to rate them #1 does it?

edit: Also, you've seen 2 bo3s from the new 100thieves which also has EG's igl and that alone makes you ready to conclude their assistant coach was a bigger factor in EG's success than their actual head coach? Very interesting.

1. Chet
2. Mini
3. Potter
4. Alecks
5. Erik

Historical*

Did Saadhak grow up in Brazil? I was under the impression he only came to Brazil after becoming an adult and starting his pro career.

That's not how it works. We've already seen how playoff bracket is decided in pacific. Random draw to determine who plays who in playoffs. Only restriction is play-in winner can't play the team that came from their group. So just to correct your first example, NRG could play Loud OR C1.

Fnatic would have definitely lost lotus. Re-watch the tournament. Eg had the best lotus in the world at champions.

Fnatic were playing worse at champions. EG got better. 9 round differential in that 3 map series, pretty close. They would have lost.

??

Sure. Doesn't change that they still would have lost at champions to EG/PRX.

Probably wont. They switched ppl doing intros between series last week.

I'm not convinced DRX is better than T1/Geng anymore. So honestly, it's probably not much of a problem if they get PRX.

lol perhaps. Bren/sideshow said something once on platchat about them not choosing what they wear. Just assumed it was the same in emea.

Lmao. I'm not 100% sure but I think production chooses what their wardrobe will be on broadcast. They might have some influence but it's not all their fault.

I think you're a bit delusional if you're saying that and truly think it's a certainty. Lol. I wouldn't make this statement about ANY team in Americas. All a team has to do is be top 4 by the end of the year to make it champions. Any of the 11 teams are capable of this.

Honestly. I wouldn't even be that surprised if this happened.

So you're calling him racist when you have absolutely no idea what he said or what his intentions were whatsoever? I won't pretend whatever he said didn't cross a line but Zellsis is a jokester, we all know that. And you're making a whole lot of assumptions with ABSOLUTELY 0 FACTS. You're being so uncharitable with your assumptions and being so fucking transparent with your agenda, it's fucking laughable

Also, since this involves riot staff I can't even trust that whatever he said was truly that severe but rather over-sensitivity on the riot staff's part. In 2018, certain riot staff working in the LCS pressured Golden guardians into firing Locodoco (And essentially blacklisted him from the scene) after he made what was deemed "an innapropriate remark" to a female staff member. You know what that remark was? He made a joke about a foam microphone looking like a condom he saw in Korea. Is that a fucking stupid and immature thing to say in a professional setting? Absolutely. But does that make you a POS who deserves people brigading together to get you fired while doing their absolute best to assassinate your public image? Absolutely not.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if Zellsis said some stupid, immature shit with 0 malice that was ultimately innocuous and then Riot chose to blow it out of proportion.

Fut played poorly
Heretics played decent
Giants played decent
KC played well, looks like they have good potential

Seems like all these teams would currently get destroyed by the Americas teams but I'm sure they'll improve as the season goes.

A lot of esports, not all.

I think tomaszy is the duelist. Marteen i'm not sure. Could have that backwards, not sure.

He's flex i believe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwKRLA1Ow2k

Not dickriding. Simply repeating a statement of someone that I know is very knowledgeable, sliggy, with him having vod reviewed and analyzed thousands of hours of Valorant (and coached team liquid himself previously). Same with people echoing FNS, someone who's played CS/Valorant for years professionally and been at times called the goat IGL in the valorant.

If if it bothers you so much, fuck off the site cunt.

Sliggy said multiple times during the series that it was really high level play we were seeing, Sen and 100T are pretty good. This group was tragic.

Mental health issues? what do you mean? (idk his cs history)

In NA T2

You're just biased. 100T looked good. There is no guarantee they'd be better with Nzr.

Pretty sure sacy carrying is completely irrelevant to benching pancada.

Of course they look lost. Never seen or dreamed of that comp. Playing against things you've never seen on the fly is extremely hard. Especially if your opponents are well drilled against a very set meta.

Apothecary diaries or Vinland saga

What people don't understand is that riot is and has never been motivated by what is absolutely best for their esports scenes from a competitive perspective (Anyone who's followed league of legends for the last decade should know this). They're a large company with many priorities with the top of their hierarchy of priorities being $$$. They may(and always do) claim otherwise but this is the truth. I'm not gonna pretend to know exactly how riot is thinking at all times(no one can) but they've chosen to invest more in GC because they believe it will ultimately benefit them more as a company.

I don't even have to think very hard to see why they believe this to be true:

1. Call it cynical thinking if you want, but the reality is that the health of the T2 ecosystem does not matter from a $$$ perspective. As long as the game remains popular enough, prospective talent will continue to enter and compete in the T2 scene with aspirations of one day reaching VCT
2. The vast majority of fans can not differentiate in the levels of play/performance as the highest levels of play are approached(this is true in all esports) so even if the level of pro play declines, it will have almost 0 impact on viewership and not affect the game's popularity.
3. Running and funding the GC circuit, the largest and best funded women's scene in all of esports, buys riot goodwill from the valorant audience and the wider gaming audience. This might not seem important but it is, it's the same logic/reasoning the rich use when engaging in/advertising their philanthropic endeavors. It's never completely selfless, that goodwill ultimately leads to a return on investment in other ways and eventually more $$$
4. Bragging rights. Sounds dumb right? But that's the reality. In the last 10 years+ riot have shown that they want to be unique. They like being trend setters at the forefront when it comes to esports and that's exactly what a well run/funded global women/marginalized gender's circuit is in esports, which is extremely male dominated.
5. Your definition of a healthy valorant eco-system may simply not align with their definition. They may just value eventually having women competing in the T1 scene to be the most healthy state of affairs and see prioritizing that as more important than T2.

It's probably mostly reasons 1-4. I'm sure there also plenty of individuals who feel 5 is true as well but with riot being riot, proud and profit oriented, those other points are probably the prevalent reasons as to why things are the way they are. Ultimately, companies and orgs will invest where they want to invest and there is no changing that.

I think it was mostly to spend more time with his daughters but yea, the insubordination surely didn't help things.

Did I ever say that? No I didn't. The OP asked why they kept failing over and over again. There are a couple reasons why including their level of skill (which is at where it's at for them/women in general for many reasons) AND stereotype threat. It's really not that hard to understand.

They, or some other female team, may one day qualify into challengers. Hell, maybe it'll be this very year in premier. Regardless, they'(or whoever it is) are gonna have to overcome a lot of stuff that their male peers will never have to deal with. That's a fact. And nothing new to anyone that's been following esports.

I think most of what you said is pretty irrelevant to what I mentioned. It gives them confidence.That great. But that's not gonna magically remove the psychological effects of stereotype threat. It just isn't lol.

Google stereotype threat. Not copium actually. Pretty well documented and studied. Their level of success in GC is irrelevant and doesn't realistically change anything about this effect. Not saying they would definitely qualify if this wasn't a factor but it does make it harder.

Yes. The Fnatic that lost to Loud twice, a team that lost to both EG and PRX, would totally smash both of them. Totally rational take. Totally.

Apparently one of the players on TAMU Maroon had an irl emergency of some kind.

Lol. He definitely is hating. His response was to someone who was clearly joking. It was completely unnecessary.

He's correct. Plat chat guys, sliggy and tmv have also said the same.

Honestly, had 1337 not thrown icebox, they'd be qualified too.

Women in general are not competitive in sports compared to men

Not quite sure what that has to do with what I said as there's really no comparing esports to physical sports. The inherent physiological differences between men/women is what disqualifies the vast majority of physical sports from being co-ed, not sex-related behavioral tendencies.

This is essentially the reason. The only thing I'll add(which is also extremely important) is that men, in general, have a far higher proclivity to take part in competitive activities. This is exactly what gaming is as you approach higher levels of play. Social barriers alone would not cause the discrepancy we see between men and women in most esports (where 99-100% of the T1 scene is biological men).

This is why, in my opinion, even if/when the social barriers around gaming are completely removed, you'll still see professional scenes that are majority biological male with a minority composed of truly exceptional biological females(which is hopefully there consistently across most titles). As a big GC fan and a long time fan of women in esports in general, that's the most I can realistically ever hope for.

unfortunately not

Uhh no, this is misinfo. I can't recall who but someone said she had been denied from teams because she was a girl, it blew up on reddit. Then she clarified things in a long tweet where she said it had been like one team where she was denied scrims(after they initially wanted to try her in a scrim).

Mel has never claimed to be at the level of a T1 player.

She has said:

1. One day a GC team/players could get to that level
2. Her dream was to accomplish #1 in some way, preferably with any teammates she's had at the time or individually

Not speculation. Several members have talked about it in interviews/press conferences during VCT in 2023 or on their personal streams.

Here's a Youtube short with boostio talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1Nu7RGkuFxc
And the full video it's from, short is from ~33mins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwNxZ5IBKww

They had a 10man roster. The reserve team would constantly imitate certain strats that they saw other teams use in previous matches(both commonly used and special ones as well) and drill those strats literally dozens of time in a row against the main EG team to help prep for upcoming opponents.

So, it basically is anti-strating but not primarily in the form of discussion, which is what most players think when they hear anti-strating.

Shopify in NA

Wow, they really have no idea how to play D on icebox. Pretty worrying with the challenger qualifier only 4 days away.

Never said it was random seeding. Team seeds are based on 2023 performance as you said and put into pools based on those seeds. Then teams are RANDOMLY drawn from those seeded pools.

The format announcement said teams(other than seed 1) are randomly drawn from their seeded pools. So that definitely isn't guaranteed.

Where are you watching?