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

im sure theyll do fine^ look at keiko, destructivee and nille after they swapped teams; all of them have huge potential and im sure we'll see more of them

yea even when explicitly asking some players on twitch that seemed to know about this I wasn't able to get any specifics from them (in terms of bonkars role on oxg)
so we'll have to wait for the announcement ig, shouldn't be too long since bonkar already had to leave the team (I assume this is because he officially signed and riot will have rules against competing on 2 teams)

yup
credit to Mortadelo for bringing this up on vlr first https://www.vlr.gg/post/1775325/human-tripwires-vs-bonk-challengers-league-northern-europe-polaris-split-1-r1

since there's been a couple pro players also talking about it, as well as the tag, id say the swap is pretty much 100% at this point

bonkar is (with an incredibly high likelihood) going to oxygen (thats why he was wearing their tag last series too)

ye they ff
there sadly isnt a bonk without bonkar

Shame it ended like this
Hope the bonk youngsters do well next season, they have insane potential

if you wanna shit on a game at least watch it x.x
you forgot the entire first half of streaks

ey ey ey theyre only -51 on rounds atm, they're not doing that bad D:

also they did some role swaps which for whatever reason just works magic for them

oh ye I do agree that they look better now than they did back then^ but its only been turkey vs turkey since they made the change so it doesnt help us with trying to find out how vrl regions compare

its pretty much impossible to tell
Parla lost to (old) bonk, bonk lost to ff, but then parla played worlds better than ff

All we really have to go off atm for how good turkish teams are is scrims (which turkish teams do notoriously well in), and our own judgement (which is at least as bad)
That being said Sliggy has said multiple times on stream that he believes Turkey is probably the strongest vrl region atm, and now boaster with a similar statement, so Id probably go with that till we finally get our international matchup

Edit:
Current interview the coach of Apeks: he said that he thinks FF (based on scrimbux) and Acend are the teams hes most wary of in Ascension

bonk can still end on 4-3, so no team is safe yet^
but ye everyone currently in top 4 has at least 1 game they're very favored in AND bonk would have to win this convincingly

ye, but its not only up to their own performance at this point
I think its wins -> maps -> rounds -> h2h but im not confident in the order
trying to find vrl specific rules is always a nightmare so I hope someone can correct me here cause imma be lazy ;3

lmao they actually looked at their vrl teams already struggling to find orgs, and decided that reducing the org pool for the t3 scene even further was a good idea

Riot yall be hiring some geniuses

Timestamp https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1727030528?t=02h52m37s
This has nothing to do with loud specifically, boaster quite explicitly said they do this for every team during every major tournament
Heck the only region he calls out for doing it is EU

ooooo
actual behind the scenes info here ;3 he's been doing 1 on 1 coaching for a while now so im interested to see what position he takes in their coaching lineup (assuming he's leaving bonk and swapping)

Thank ya for checking for us too

do you have a timestamp/general idea when it was? aint having much luck by just fast forwarding though the vod

Huh swear I've heard this stuff before...

Oh well, at least we know to listen to older generations when it comes to new forms of entertainment, after all those comic books and modern music messed the youth up real bad

Now this is the HTW I was expecting after the roster moves
If they're this prepared for more maps then their rest of the season is gonna be amazing

This is the last chance for bonk pretty much
Win this, get a good round differential and pray

Would be sad to not have them make it to playoffs

Hes doing fine?
He's part of a struggling bonk who went into this season with hardly any practice, losing 2 members right before the start.
Their first game vs VAMONOS he was amazing so that's something ig? other 2 were meh; he doesn't particularly stand out compared to the other talent Polaris has.

I "hate" you so much for losing bonk this game

id agree if it was map 1 vs bonk
bonk and winning map 1 in polaris group stage just dont mix

ok its still crazy

This game very much seems like an anti-strat one so its hard to read too much into it
But gosh dang they're clean, have discipline and firepower to back it up; if the ascension were to be this week there'd be no competition

(well except bonk, but that's unfair for all other teams anyways)

Enzo back on his "imma diff scream and nivera" form, gosh dang
And Keiko is still looking amazing so thats good to see

the problem is that now we cant use any of the results except for who won to tell each other how each others teams/regions suck
32nd place might be better than second because 32nd also lost to the winner

I really dont know
Country wise it has a couple of countries that are still heavily rooted in cs; but to have the league only get slightly more viewership than DACH?! Thats just so weird for SUCH a good scene

In terms of orgs... well considering what we saw with Tundra I feel like thats directly tied to the viewership
It also doesnt help that the VCL format doesnt reward competitive regions since only 1 team moves on

indeed

I'll eat a picture of bonkar regardless; its the best breakfast if you wanna become Gigabrain (and im on vlr so I clearly need it)

Im gonna have to personally see how the roles work out since the loss of Keiko is rough and I dont think Seider is meant to replace 1 for 1; just dont know what role hes gonna end up filling.
Juseu looks like a really good raze but he's also always been forced into a weird flex with Bonk/BDS before so this is gonna be a bit of a change.
Except that they now added the best sentinel in Polaris (heck even in t2 with how consistently he's been carrying even in the VRL finals)

If peeps look good on their roles its gonna be straight to ascension with these players