Don't have phone, jewellery or clothes then I guess.

The grouping of South America and North America into one group was just a bad mistake. I think it makes a lot more sense in EMEA or Pacific, because geographically they're a lot more close than, for example Los Angeles and Brazil

This line of reasoning doesn't even make sense.

Your argument is essentially, it's okay to stream snipe streamers because they open themselves up to the risk.

Is it okay to be mugged because you walk alone at night? Is it okay for someone to break into your car if you park it on the street?

Sure streamers are doing something that by nature will attract these people, but that doesn't make what they're doing okay.

2022: OPTC/LOUD for me. Both tied

Making a sustainable profit is a pipedream for most esports orgs.

Hard to justify investing in that to shareholders or investors.

Also, I have a hard time believing this would make a difference for most football teams. The sport has been around for ever, if you were going to be a fan of it, I don't think esports is going to be the thing to get you into it.

I will never get over the fact that Riot put promotional material like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4OyfAbvDtE&pp=ygUQbGFraWEgdmN0IGNoYW1wcw%3D%3D) for him at Champs 2021 only for VS to let him play a grand total of ... 1 map.

GC flairs are criminally underrepresented. APAC has a million random T2 logos, but apparently it's too much to add GC flairs.

I legitimately don’t understand how people watch him. He was already annoying enough when he just screamed and whined all the time, but now with all this stream sniping stuff, I can’t understand how anyone watches him and enjoys it. I’m convinced it’s like 95% hate watchers at this point.

I hate Wardell, but I will always enjoy someone shitting on Leorge.

If the G2 was the same one that won split 1/2 I’d agree, but they lost 2 players to retirement or pursuing a different game. They kept the points because they retained the core of 3. Sure the core is the same, but the difference in the level of performance is almost night and day.

Idk. Maybe it isn’t a point system issue, but the qualifying of G2 after winning 1 game in playoffs is just absurd to me.

For instance, say C9 qualified for champs in 2022 because they were 3rd place in split 1, and then the curry incident happens, and the team is clearly not anywhere near as good as before. It’s not exactly a 1:1 comparison, but imagine how that would feel to teams that do better than C9.

I’d be a lot more sympathetic to G2 if it seemed like this was just an off tournament, if you’re good the entire year and then you just drop a couple matches that you should win that would suck. However, in this situation, they had roster changes (which I get weren’t their fault) and have struggled to perform ever since. It’s clearly not the same team that won those earlier splits.

Chances? Yes. Are they realistic? Probably not.

I also don’t like the fact that NA runs on a points system, I just didn’t mention it because I figured V1 is going to win anyway and the second place would probably be the one that ends up going given how close the competition in second place has been. If EG GC placed second, and Shopify ended up going on points I’d be upset as well, it just hasn’t happened yet.

I don’t think early success should be as impactful as to nearly guarantee you a spot in a championship. The issue I have is that G2 are clearly at the moment not a top 2 team in EMEA GC. Assuming the goal of the tournament is supposed to be getting the top 2 teams of each region, how does that achieve this? Imagine being on the 2nd place team in EMEA, whoever that may be, how would you feel that you climbed all the way to the top, but that the roster that placed lower than you gets to go because they won the last two tournaments.

It’s also important to note that G2 placed 4th, but they qualified after winning their first game in playoffs, no?

Edit: if riot added more slots, say 4 for EMEA, and G2 didn’t place within the top 4 I would have the same issue.

I don’t believe it’s been officially confirmed yet. A lot of people seem to believe they cheated, but some people think otherwise.

I don’t believe T1 have played an official with the starting roster. I believe xcurrate will be starting instead of carpe.

Not to mention that one of the teams that could be screwed over is Falcons from mena, which if I’m correct would be the first LAN appearance for the region as a whole, not just GC.

Anyone else a little annoyed that GC still uses this point system for LAN qualifying. Sure, I get that there’s not really a viable option for a VCT or T2 ascension style system, but surely there’s something better than this right?

G2 automatically qualify because they were good at the start of the year, and then roster changes happen, and while still being a top team have 3 other GC teams place above them, only 1 of which will be able to attend the LAN because of the system.

I get having a system that helps reward actually winning the first split, but surely we can arrange it in a way that a team that has a drop in performance similar to that of G2 doesn’t get free qualification to the most important event for the GC circuit.

I don't think this is a meaningful distinction. I can't believe that the "anti-cheat" team could also be the one that does ban evasion. But it still doesn't answer the question, if they believed the reason to be ban evasion, why would they put out such a vague statement that clearly has a cheating implication?

key part is "Riot Anti-Cheat confirmed..." I can't find the tweet from the jhow incident, but I don't see anything mentioning riot anti-cheat there.

also edit for my 2nd point. That's my point. Why would they put out a message that infers cheating if that wasn't the case? Also, Microsoft and sony not naming hackers isn't the same as Riot not naming cheaters.

I know you're just summarizing but I find it hard to believe that Riot would make a statement that clearly implies cheating if it was just ban evasion. I don't see why 1) why or how anti-cheat is detecting ban evasion, and 2) if Riot has info, and has to come to the decision that it's ban evasion, why word it in a way that would imply it would be something else?

Yeah, I'd agree with you that there are clearly verification issues (especially given the Noot noot situation). I wasn't commenting on what you individually are saying, but the majority of threads that are on this topic.

I'd be more sympathetic if these posts weren't just "I don't think trans people should compete in GC because they aren't women." It's very rare that you see someone who has an actually well-thought-out principled position on the issue.

I don't disagree with this, but I think it goes a lot deeper than that. I think even if parents and society stopped pressuring people, I think you would more or less see a similar distribution. I think people need to start seeing people that are like them competing in this. Which is why I think someone like meL playing in T2/T1 would be really good. Having a role model for girls to believe that they can actually break into a male-dominated scene.

I think it's a really tough discussion. I don't think at the present time, trans people demonstrate an advantage that I would consider unfair. The top trans competitors seem to benefit from things that a biological woman could also benefit from, i.e., experience in T2 or starting to play fps from a young age. However, if in the future the league became like 80% trans, then it would most likely be too late to make any reform to prevent trans people from being as prevalent as they would be. I think the real key is that Riot needs to seriously monitor the issue. I don't think it's in anybody's best interest to just write off any criticism as transphobia or to ban trans people entirely. I also think Riot needs to decide what they want GC to be, they've stated they want it to be a developmental league for people who are marginalized, but I worry about how much they'll stick to that, or if GC will just be a place where some people spend their entire career.

Hopefully, he can regain some of his former glory. Not going to keep my expectations too high considering we're going into a meta where the agents he's known for are not great, but it would be great to see him do well.

I think crow to coach is a great move. I believe I saw some interviews where the newer players respected him a lot as a leader figure in the team. Let's him maintain that leader role, while making space for someone who might bring more firepower.

be careful guys, avoid playing val for more than 10 hours a day if you guys date

fixed it for you

If they have an anime pfp, there's a non-zero chance they're either a pedo or a nazi.

Jason, stop posting on your alt

Mistic easily, bro's flash single-handedly won a major.

In my opinion, you need to say that a word causes harm to prevent someone from using it. What you've given me is a perfectly valid reason for not using a hard R, something I agree with. The issue with this is that -a doesn't carry that same meaning with it. To say that a black person could use the word, and it has a positive connotation, but someone who isn't black using it automatically gives it a negative intention doesn't make sense to me. If we assume that the reason it's harmful is that it brings back memories of that oppression, why would hearing it from another black person not also bring up those memories, especially given the case that some black people can be racist against black people?

It seems a much more plausible answer to me that the intention behind the use of the word is the most important factor. I doubt anyone saying that a white person rapping along to a song that uses the n-word is racist, but that wouldn't make sense with your reasoning. If she was sending the message to a black person, with the intent of belittling their opinion with the word, I'd agree that she was being racist, but it seems much more likely that she is using it in a similar way to what you described in your 2nd paragraph.

Also a little bit of a separate topic, I don't know why the fact that she's Asian is an important distinction. My history isn't great, but there isn't a history of Asian oppression against black people. Wouldn't that make her use of the word neutral, since the race she's from doesn't have a history of oppression against black people?

tl;dr: The important factor isn't the history of the word, but the context and intention behind it's use. There are many situations in which I believe a majority of people would find the use of the word acceptable, so clearly, it's not intrinsically bad but requires a certain state of mind to be bad. People who aren't black using the world is cringy, but not inherently racist.

Fair about the first part mb, but why should it not be said in a context like that? I think it's fine to be in favor of banning the word entirely, but it doesn't make sense to me to say that it's okay in some contexts (unless that was like an academic-only context), but that's she's being a little racist by using it (even though not 100%) in that way? Her SS, based on the context would be nearly identical to hearing it in a song, except for the race.

How could you deduce a negative connotation from that SS of the word? It's 5 months before the first image, doesn't use hard R, and there's no surrounding messages that give a hateful context.

Did Riot suspend Sinatraa for committing SA, or did they suspend him for not complying with an investigation? From what has been made public, Sinatraa is allowed to compete now, it's just that no one wants to pick up a player with the allegations lingering around them, who if we're being honest, isn't an upgrade for any teams. The only difference is that The Union decided that they would pick up a player with a bad history because it might give them a chance of winning (Which I disagree with btw).

I mean, in the Sinatraa situation, Riot did their own investigation and punished him for not complying. They never punished him for being guilty. There's also no evidence that he's been blacklisted from the league, just speculation. The only thing stopping Sinatraa from competing right now is that no team wants to pick up a player, who is realistically not an upgrade for any team, with as much baggage as he does.

On the other hand, Pancc's situation happened while he was playing in CS, so Riot had no reason to investigate there. I think it's fair to say Riot shouldn't let a pedo into the league, and I'd definitely agree with you. However, there's really no inconsistency between the two situations, they were temporarily suspended (Pancc in his former game) and then allowed to compete. The Union just chose to pick up Pancc.

Create obvious bait clip
farm impressions
repeat

Shroud the GOAT

This fennel roster is very underrated.

I legitimately can't think of a take in VAL history worse than this.

Getting good feedback on VLR or ValComp seems like wading through a sea of shit baits just to find one good piece. As a player, I'd imagine it's much better for your mindset to just ignore the subreddit and forums entirely.

To be fair, a part of the reason why sports/esports salaries are so high is because no one really plays for their entire life. You normally sacrifice a lot, whether it be educational or professional connections, by dedicating the amount of time it takes to get to the top. People might only play Valorant for 5 years, but they usually forgo going to college or starting their careers. If you try to go to college after that, your savings from a lower salary are going to start going away pretty fast.

denial <---- You are Here
anger
bargaining
depression
acceptance

I feel like people have said this every year so far. Valorant has a huge viewer/player base all around the world. I don't think it's going anyway for a while.

his dreams

LOUD don't fall off that hard if no other changes happen.

I won't miss his opinions or his attitude, but I think I will miss his leaks. He was one of, if not the biggest, reporter in the early stages of Val.

Obligatory last Leorge Leddes tho.

We can only hope

What are BR fans opinion on Askia who played for The Union? Iirc, he played pretty well until their last game.

It is worth noting that he says he speaks English and Portuguese, so ZETA aspas hopium might be gone.

Asuna's reyna was really good in 2021

Oh cool, w org for that. T1 is still a little odd, guess they were one of the only teams willing to do it.