I think FNC looked really good in some situations, but Gentle Mates also looked really, really bad. In the end you def. need confidence boosts like this to get back on track, so it will probably help Fnatic anyways. Derke used Yoru really well in my eyes... especially on Breeze during retakes. The agent is so insanely powerful when you use it with confidence - like TenZ or marteen. MiniBoo also shows how strong Neon can be when you are good with her. I like the "new" variety for duelists much more than only seeing Jett and Raze in every match.

Recent matches of Sentinels, Fnatic and DRX showed how much the mood of the players has an effect on the matches. I mean in CS you can see it all the time and in Apex you could see it perfectly during the last TSM matches.

So I guess a happy and confident bunch of Leos, Alfajers etc. will def. play for major titles again. Sentinels showed and proved that it's never joever.

aspas is simply the best.

N4RRATE is currently the best Gekko in the world probably... his inventiveness with that agent is insane.

Alfajer still the best rifler and Leo first time on Gekko was cool, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Especially with Derke on Yoru...

But (!) at least they introduced new strats and comps now. As the first match with this heavy change it was okay I guess.

As Boaster recently said: "We just need to keep on grinding."

That is actually the right attitude.

Ehm... lol?!

al0rante MVP. I'm glad he is fit again after his illness... he's the best player in DACH beside of Click and Fizzy. His rifling skills are even better than most Tier 1 players.

Less is so damn good. 11-7 on Demon1 (who had a great game) is actually crazy.

I feel like when LOUD and aspas will reconnect, they will be the best team again. All they are missing is a player like aspas - who does the necessary entries, who can anchor 3 people and still is able to win the duels and who is always able to suppress the opponents. Exactly like aspas did it before or like zekken for Sentinels, marteen for KC, Jinggg for PRX, MiniBoo for Heretics or Click for SK.

aspas still the best duelist in the world, but his team is simply at least one level below him mechanically.
If LEV won't change drastically by tactics, the year won't be fun for them.

marteen and N4RRATE are currently the most exciting new players to watch beside of MiniBoo in EU, imo.

French always were great E-Sport players tbh.

I'm actually angry as a longtime FNC supporter. Always defended Boaster because I thought he was only joking, but they play so damn lazy (except Leo). Boaster got destroyed and he keeps laughing as if he doesn't care. He is one of the best earners in VCT Europe and kept mocking Madrid teams and instead of doing everything to show the world that Fnatic still belongs under the best teams, they keep to 2022/2023 comps and playing much worse than last year - they are not even including Yoru or Gekko. I mean Elmapuddys losing-streak is one of the worst of all VCT coaches (incl. his time before Fnatic at GENG), but that can't be an excuse. As an IGL Boaster should be part of creating new comps and motivating his team.

Also - the difference between Fnatic now and Sentinels at their downfall was that Sentinels actually started in an instant to create new ideas, most didn't work in the beginning, but they changed comps, they played around with agents and stuff - TenZ was humble and never mocked any team (no one of Sentinels did). They watched other majors and payed respect. Boaster is just arrogant and keeps smiling - and especially on Lotus you could see that they stopped playing this 101% Valorant which made them so damn good. They don't even peek every corner anymore. Lazy af.

Leo played well. Otherwise: Yes. They fkd up.

He became arrogant af, but actually he cares more about Instagram than his work. Leo is the only one at that team who wants to win. He should leave.

Leo ist the only FNC player wanting to compete as it seems.

GG, Heretics. You were super strong against Sentinels + Paper Rex and now you destroyed Fnatic. Keep it up!

ANGE1 doing a crazy Ace... never thought I would see that again.

WTF? He was prob. their most ambitious player. G2 Valo section does some really weird things.

I bet when it would still be the Ascension winning team, incl. tex and just no changes they would be much more confident and being dangerous to every team.

Nice signing. Excited to see what he does in VCT...

Cloud is the only constant fragger at GIANTX and nukkye was their smartest player. Maybe the whole team should split up...

There is no hate, tbh. Boaster is befriended with many NA and APAC players and Derke is just baiting as everyone else of us here. In the end people should never mix up trashtalk in Valorant with racist idiots... that's something totally different... but some kiddos sadly don't understand that and think that Derke or whoever might actually mean their trashtalk seriously.

Again: Baiting and trashtalk in E-Sports is absolutely part of the game. Best example is still Boostio trashtalking everyone at Tokyo Masters and then playing PIng-Pong with everyone in the hotel lobby when not playing matches.

There are ups and downs. Who expected the last 3 years to be like that? Who ever expected Sentinels to have such a down and then this big comeback? E-Sport is a quick living sports. EMEA will be back, I'm sure about that. Maybe not in Shanghai, but at some point.

But yeah... NA did a great job in Madrid, Sentinels played well and deserve this absolutely. Every fair enjoyer of Valorant should admit that. No matter what regional fan you are.

Next major soon and then everything starts from scratch.

GG Sentinels

Sentinels carried by EMEA player (johnqt)
PRX carried by EMEA player (something)
NRG carried by EMEA player (Demon1)

I said before the tourney that either Sentinels or GENG will win this. I didn't actually believe that GENG would be THAT crazy against Sentinels, but they play such an amazing style of Valorant.

GENG deserve to win Madrid by 101%. They play amazing. And it would be Pacifics first major, so... would be actually a milestone win.

I only know ingame points doesn't work anymore. I had a Smurf account made in Turkey and I could buy points for a very low € amount compared to my German main account. But at some point it stopped working... :X I think they will check your IP (...).

Will be tough, but Sentinels will win 2-1 imo.

He said EMEA would not give Africa it's own "representation", which is the most stupid thing someone ever wrote. First because it's no regional, but a Riot decision and second because it's a basic longitude directed arrangement. It always have been like that. EMEA is actually a very important economical region for any kinds of sea- and airfreight. It's no "E-Sports thing". But I don't expect people like him to understand or know that...

You mean like NA with Americas and not giving Brazil etc. their own regional area? Would be the same logic when you look on the map. But you probably don't even know what a map is.

It must really hurt some people that their region got dominated by EU for years and years.

GENG is a fresh team, but almost all of those players have been around in Tier 1 for a while.
Heretics and KC are literally made out of 2023 Tier 2 / Tier 3 players. marteen f.e. had around 500 rounds of Tier 2 in 2023... which is not a lot.

EMEA still won the most majors / trophies in this game (which probably will be leveled after Madrid) and that def. shows the region can't be that trashy. Also when you look at Counter-Strike, which is dominated by Europe for 20 years, you can see that EU players def. love FPS and are good in those games.

But yeah, the year started bad for Europe... showing up with unexperienced teams is no good excuse, since those teams beat Fnatic, NAVI and Liquid. So it's actually no excuse to say that they have no experience. Also - PRX actually got a lot (!) of fans in Europe, just as Sentinels. Sentinels and PRX might be more popular than Heretics in Europe.

It actually sucks that the regional duels keep on appearing so early in majors. I mean it should be random, but maybe it would make sense to give it a higher chance that teams would face other regions teams in the first stage of upper brackets.

Anyways... I like both teams, but I think Sentinels will do it 2-1.

Excited for this one. I'm actually looking forward to see Zander, koala and nitr0.

Verno and Reduxx will diff!

5 majors region vs. 0 majors region

Americas will win this tourney anyways.

Actually sadge for KC. They played better than this result.

I didn't doubt him, but his performance today was insane anyways. Keep it up, brother!

Destruction.

LOUD are so good.

Yep, they are amazing and they always smile and keep the fun up. Great team!

Oxygen is simply amazing to watch. Btw.: Verno will soon be one of the best players in the world. Mark my words. :P

Sadge. TH is actually rreally good... I'd love to see more of them. MiniBoo, benjy and RieNs are fun to watch and def. have a greta future ahead of them.

GG to PRX, though. Always great to watch them as well.

Honestly, why not?! But it won't happen. Derke is with Fnatic for 3 years now... I think he will stay. Also... Derke is mechanically one of the best players, but recently he def. made way too many individual mistakes. So this heavy issue with his FD's is avoidable. Alfajer could play Jett and Raze, too. Everyone who watched aspas and Alfajer streaming together several times, knows how scary he is on Raze and Jett. But in the current constellation it makes no sense to change roles.

But in the end I think Fnatics one big problem are not the players. It's the same problem that NRG has... too unorganized "on the pitch" and a certain overestimation of the own abilities when playing without a lot of scrimming / prac time (Zellsis adressed the same thing for NRG). mini said that the FNC boys almost never practiced before Champions 2023 and they just scrimmed 5 days between Champions and facing Cloud9... that's ridiculous.

Sorry for using your thread for my thoughts, but this actually just annoys me so much. When you see how insanely good Fnatic played in Tokyo... especially on Lotus and also during the regional season - and then compare it with Champions or recent games... it's like watching 2 different teams. In recent games they didn't bother to do all those extra peeks, extra spotting, extra work overall which made them so insanely good. Maybe it's some kind of arrogance, which would be super sad. But probably it's just when everyone tells you that you're the best at some point you change. Look at Demon1... he became so arrogant so quick and got humbled by zekken.

Very true. One of the best OPers in Valo.

Sentinels, LOUD, Paper Rex, Heretics, Oxygen, SK Gaming, EG Champions 2023, Fnatic Tokyo 2023

SEN 2-1 KC

But it will be very thrilling anyways.

Actually idgaf which is the strongest or weakest region. I support teams and like / dislike teams from any region. For Madrid I support Sentinels and KC the most, but I also like LOUD and PRX. As a FNC fan it's sadge anyways, so I just enjoy good Valorant.

And overall I think right now there is no real worst or best region... top teams from all regions failed in the last weeks.

Less and Alfajer are the best riflers in this game.

What I love about Less is that he never goes "crazy", he is always calm... doesn't matter if it's 1v1 or 1v5. His aim is so relaxed and accurate.

musashi so good.

Yeah, KC def. played amazing. They also have 50+ won scrims in a row for a reason. FNC def. need to work in the meantime now.

Maybe I have just the orange FNC glasses on, could be. I'm not saying I'm right objectively.

Wish KC just the best.

I feel so sorry for al0rante. FOKUS had an insane team with Lime, al0, Fizzy... they beat Heretics!!!!

I hope so much that al0 will play VCT by 2025 and if I'd be him, I'd leave DACH.

PRX 2-1 EDG