not really
based on what we've seen there's noticeable gaps in all 3 regions between the top and the mid teams

EMEA has NaVi and Fnatic atm, Americas have Loud and NRG and Pacific have DRX

The one thing id note is that the brazilian teams (mainly furia) are ahead in terms of meta (and could very well be considered top tier because of it) since they and loud have incorporated harbor well on maps (especially Louds icebox comp being amazing af); but other teams should be able to catch up till the next international in that regard

Talent wise its just impossible to compare the region's teams atm since the tourneys format was only good for finding out who the best team was, with anything below being based on our personal judgement rather than results

? look I agree that they look great atm, but you cant call fnatic, the team thats won nothing, the favorites vs a team thats won and made it to another finals last year

I agree, every team should change their roster after losing to the favorites

In a Bo3 id give fnatic the edge since they def have the talent this split + theyve always excelled when it came to specific map preps (executes etc)
However when you have to prepare 5 maps I just feel like the bigger core + more fundamental based playstyle of NaVi is easier to pull off

Think both teams should do well in terms of anti-strat so I wouldn't know who to give the edge here

Gonna be an amazing series for sure, Navi 3-1

Nille was a beast this season, looking forward to them next split

idk both Fut and BBL looked a lot better than before
id be super interested in a matchup between the 3 to see how they stack up tbh

saying that none of us are even remotely qualified to be calling sick "manic" or saying he "lost his mind" is the reason "why depressive disorders are so massively underdiagnosed"? xD

stop the bs and visit therapy yourself just once to see how they handle stuff; theyre professionals and not even they are gonna diagnose you anywhere as quick as vlr

and neonfreak didnt even suggest that he shouldnt be seeking help

NaVis was hard, since they had to play Lev who many had winning this event based on scrims (rest was easy; vs liquid would have been fun had they lived up to expectations this tourney)
Louds wasnt any easier since they had to play Nrg (rest was easy on paper, though genG impressed)
Drxs seemed pretty easy tbh (BBL was surprisingly good, c9 disappointed with their map-pool and while I love talon doing well they were never contenders to win this event)
Fnatics was hard on paper only. Sen & 100t didn't live up to expectations, but Furia pushed Fnatic with their innovative Haven comp

Id still say DRX was the easiest path this far since c9 was the only team expected to challenge them on paper and then got absolutely trashed

This has been clarified already.
NaVi requested their flags to be changed -> they were changed on Vlr
Other teams didn't -> they weren't changed on Vlr

There's nothing bad about being from Russia/having a Russian flag, this is a complex political conflict that the vaaa[...]aaaast majority individual citizens have nothing to do with

THE CURSE LIVES OOOOON

nah nah they getting top 3, I aint getting stuck supporting Guild 2.0 again

oh trexx is gonna get recognition all right, dude farmed nrg on sova
if thats not a good sign for your season then idk what is

and I'm not worried bout kolda, him + BARBARR make good enough strats to get recognized as franchising goes on

sorta? even after their masters run where they beat optic and almost 2-0d the event winners people didn't exactly give them credit.
but yes lack of international events most definitely is the logical reason... guilds curse of being forgotten is way more fun though ;3

Thats not what I was saying at all?
Im saying people dont rate guild players despite them being the top of emea split after split

a single player from guild has managed to get recognition? From a team that's consistently been top 4 in EMEA since the first masters

(Also youre looking at a player whos team is currently preforming, fnatic choke/start falling off the public perception starts shifting; dont think its leo whos first on the chopping block, but who tf knows)

its the Guild curse, aint that easy to shake off

see, all planned

well fnatic needs to let them get to 10, since they got 2 rounds during the first half

Well basically you shift win % from round 2 into round 3
Its super good but requires you to play a specific way; NaVi have been doing it the longest (that I know of) so they're obviously already super drilled at it and make it look super broken.
Had the stingers not been nerfed right before this tourney I don't think the buy would have looked anywhere near as good, with opposing teams forcing on round 2.

no its "döner kebab" (- sandwich) and just as much of a kebab as whatever you think of when you hear kebab
there's no one true kebab, just look at this monster of a list trying to summarize all of them xD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kebab

currently NaVi and Nrg (most consistent teams the past year) + still looking good this tourney
Loud pretty consistent + most recent winner and current powerhouse
Drx, Lev and Fnatic are currently looking like they are contenders for top spots (with the latter 2 still having to prove themselves since its early on in the tourney for them). Maybe 100t too, hard to judge how good EDG are.

yea remember map 2 is pearl and that looked bad from Vit last time
lets not call this too early

Vit are gonna hard struggle if they cant win pistol rounds... and lev are good at pistols soooooo

Tbf the cage lineups on attack were really good; a weird af comp but NaVi almost wrote fpx there made it work

idk atm drx are looking way better... but we also know how the tourney usually goes for drx so I wouldnt bet a cent on them winning vs loud xD
The interesting matchups would be Furia vs Geng, and MiBR vs T1, couldnt tell ya who would win either of them

yea the punishment is fair, but its definitely not a light punishment since its a round + money
Thats a HUGE momentum shift

Pretty much anyone whos ever been on the bonk (/tundra/finest) team; whoever tf did their scouting just "found" cracked youngster after youngster
Nille, Kicks, Juseu, Keiko, dESTRUCTIVEE (i think... dont know his age)

yea pretty much any sub makes a huge difference, only to a lesser extend here since they're still a 10 man roster so they know and have played with each other, but its still a difference
Don't think they would have won, fundamentals were still way too lackluster, but I could see some of their setups being more comfortable

its also c9, so wait till they make an announcement; they'd troll us every chance they get
cough yay igl cough

ey look, at least they're further than liquid already

Decent showing if you forget map 1 existed
Looking forward to GE in the future once they get more adjusted to each other as a team; the skill is definitely there

don't even need to ask NA to find people
a 10 man roster probably isn't a good idea this early on, but if its what it takes for the Australian region to at least get some player slots then we need some more 10 man rosters

well the first map was less about them getting away and more that they did good anti-strats for it, so I wouldnt exactly say that c9 are "new map abusers"
sliggy had talked about it before the map started how he'd expect to counter drx on the map and c9 pulled that off SO well

and the other maps idk... like... drx are gooood (and vanity was REALY slow to adapt on icebox)

you underestimate my ability to bring up MILF manor in every conversation

Talon - People are down on MIBR after that game but Talon played some good valorant there too. Theyve always been a team that looked really good, while falling just short of winning their upsets, so seeing them get a bit further this tourney is nice and I do hope they continue to play like this.

I disagree that they have no "clout"; individually I would agree, theyre youngsters from t2 , however newzera and shin have been with KC for an entire season. Those matches were getting serious views, so the french valo fanbase already has connection to them. But that's not exactly what I was on about.

Your second point is what I ment. As you said KC is known for making amazing french rosters, its something they built their fanbase around. That, in turn, very much is picking up players for fanbase instead of purely trying to make the best roster possible; you do not make a better roster by limiting the pool of possible players in a fashion that has nothing to do with their skill/performance.

(I also wanna clarify that I'm not saying they intentionally made a bad roster. Im saying that fanbase was a motivation for their team decisions instead of it being PURELY competitively oriented)

Yea I think its gonna get better as the season goes on; orgs just went with existing t1 players from last season + t2 players they already had signed, instead of properly scouting. As teams get more time I do trust the coaches to be able to spot their weak links/synergy problems and look for suitable replacements in the t2 pool.
A few of the current teams also seem motivated by fanbase instead of being the best competitively (i.e. the Spanish TH just so happening to sign mixwell, the French org KC just randomly making a full french speaking roster). And then the eternal Turkey being part of emea but struggling to "import/export" players, due to language, problem.

no, that's just as two faced as what PRX is being accused of
If you shout/trash talk you'll get trash talked back, end of the story. If you get upset by it then take the high road and don't trash talk in the first place.
At least you'd have a point calling out other people then

Second map was upsetting ngl, KC just refusing to swap how they handle defense and having their cypher retake pretty much every round was rough.

The C9 PRX game is gonna be amazing
And Kcrop FPX is gonna be interesting in the sense that I REALY need to see some of KC former tier 2 players farm
Preds arent unreasonable tbh

vlr would implode
aint no way the t2 french team is gonna be going far just cause the have the brothers

yup its his first time IGL'ing on LPB^
its one of the reasons why the team is improving SO rapidly imo, lots of peeps in a new team with new roles

oh 100% this felt like it was just a content piece for liquid and not their actual ranking
there was quite a bit of EMEA flaming though so that was entertaining at least

its vlr we hate on everything that moves

ofc chet has a point, but its also "cringe comps" dude so everything he say is automatically bad

at least finish the video xD

faze looking decent; still duel heavy but actually clean with trades etc

and oml add3r is insane

I doubt it, other pros been acting weird when it came to bonk making it to playoffs for a while now
100% not proof but at least makes it seems like theres been talk about it

Yea no shot
Our t2 scene is super talented, but there's no way we have enough talent to make 64 teams to the same quality as the 12 NA teams (who also have more ex t1 players in that pool since they have less franchise spots), especially with the BS restrictions;
we for sure have great ones, apex, ff, parla all look good atm, but that's just not the same as to NA where you can expect all the teams to reach that level.
Add to that that we have a (luckily still insignificant) talent drain in EMEA since its not profitable enough for orgs here compared to NA

(side note since you wanna ask coaches, go into sliggys chat tonight and ask him; you wont like the answer xD)

as with every issue theres idiots who take it too far, you cant discredit an entire group of people because of it

J.K. Rowling has publicly said, multiple times, that every dollar she gets in royalties goes to anti-trans programs.
No you're not a transphobe for buying the game, however you're directly giving money to programs that support her TERF believes

And yes its gonna suck for devs, but that's just such a small minority compared to the trans people who you're directly harming if you were to pretend that Rowling wasn't attached to the title. Its just a lose lose either way and you'll have to pick what of the 2 you think is the lesser evil.

theyll let brave play skye again and he's gonna 1v5 them all game