It’s power levels extrapolated from regional and international records. All of the Americas teams from 3rd - 8th were competitive during stage 1 and could easily have placed as well as LEV at Shanghai. By contrast EMEA and Pacific are intra-regionally very top heavy.

Teams to consider in Pacific are T1, DRX, TS and Talon. DRX was the most dominant in stage 1 but lost to PRX and GenG in playoffs (unlucky). The others are too inconsistent for me to accurately rank.

In EMEA, only NAVI and KC have a case from which the former was eliminated by peak TH in playoffs despite looking dominant all of stage 1. KC has a severe adaptability issue that would result in them being slapped around internationally once their non-standard comps have some footage out there.

China only has FPX who nearly beat both GenG and TH in BO3s. I have no faith in EDG.

Sen famously choked their match against EG but I contribute that mostly to burnout. They’re proven to win international LANs and beat both PRX and GenG at Madrid. Give them time to recover and they should be Playoff ready for Champs.

DRX had a great record in Pacific but they just benched their igl and I’m uncertain about how their roster would look internationally despite how consistently they place regionally.

Regions are competitive at the top but everyone except Americas lacks depth.

1. 100T
2. GenG
3. TH (Full roster)
4. G2
5. FNC
6. PRX
7. Sen
8. FPX
9. NAVI
10. DRX
11. LEV
12. KRU
13. FUT
14. LOUD
15. EG/C9

Don’t have the luxury to follow every game. Help me understand what I’m watching.
Credit to AngryLesbian50 on Reddit for original post.

I’m hoping for an upset. Valyn in Stage 1 form and Trent in Ascension form makes it a genuine possibility. Won’t deny that PRX are heavy favorites though.

Americas: G2
Pacific: PRX
EMEA: TH
China: FPX

I’m hoping for maximum drama and silent crowds

https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/fd47c939

He’s a great fragger but LEV definitely struggles to coordinate as a team and has weaker protocols than the other two Americas teams going to Shanghai. He’s much more like a Bang-like player than a proper smokes igl.

I chose these according to their optimal roles.

Duelist: Scream
Flash Initiator/Flex: Saadhak
Recon Initiator: Ange1
Smokes: Valyn
Sentinel: JohnQT
Coach: Potter

All of them speak English so it should be legitimately possible.

Didn’t FNC loses to Loud twice in a row in Champs? I doubt Sen references those frauds.

The term flex came about as the meta shifted from double initiator to double smokes. Generally the flasher shifted to Viper while recon would play Skye — this resulted in Chronicle becoming the “Flex” icon. From there, a lot people just started calling every Flash initiator who played a second role the flex player because apparently every team has to have a dedicated one. It’s bandwagoning at best

Go back two years and flex just meant the fifth agent in the composition that would change between maps depending on whether teams played double smokes, initiator, or duelist. This usually meant the fifth player would jump between a flash initiator, Viper, or Raze.

Once teams started investing in multi-role players, we got a lot more flexibility like with EG and PRX. Common dual-role archetypes emerged and resulted in two different players swapping roles, resulting in less active True-Flex (3 roles+) players.

Common archetypes:
Raze/Flash Initiator
Recon/Viper
Primary Op/Dome Smoker

Relevant True-Flex:
Forsaken
Zellsis

Historic True-Flex:
Victor
Chronicle
Saadhak
Rb

It’s one thing to say that the tournament might not be truly representative of the best teams in the world and another to insist that its outcome is a “fluke”. You’ve got your head so far up your ass thinking that people are defending single Elim that you don’t realize that you’re implying that the whole tournament is moot because they fumbled the qualifier’s format due to scheduling issues. By your logic, we should scrap the whole tournament results and invalidate the efforts of every team because of the off-chance that they might not be facing the best opposition or even worse — shouldn’t be there because they stole the slot from another team from KickOff.

We all agree that Double Elim should be standard for qualifiers. What you seem to be missing is that every team during qualifiers had the exact same stakes and were on even ground. Hell, the 1st seeds at Madrid from all regions but China had to go through Play-ins and reveal all of their compositions and, putting them at a disadvantage.

It’s clear you don’t care to give good criticism on the format but instead want to write off Madrid as a whole; which is why everyone is giving you downvotes because it’s straight up disrespectful to the teams, staff, and audiences that produced this event for your viewing pleasure.

You’re incredibly disingenuous.

If you were just upset with the format you would have framed it as “Every International Qualification should be Double Elimination to Guarantee that only the Top Seeds from their Region Qualify”. What you’re doing is casting doubt on the legitimacy of the winners of Madrid (who happen to be Sentinels) AFTER they’ve won. You’re either tone deaf or a bad actor and I can’t decide which it is.

You’re misrepresenting me.

I never once advocated for single Elim. I’ve been literally doing the opposite, which is why you claiming that against anyone who responds to you is ridiculous.

Wrap your head around the fact that Kickoff and Madrid are two different events.
The only reason you take issue with Kickoff is because you think there are teams from playoffs that would have changed the outcome of Madrid.

There are 8 Options:
Americas: NRG and EG
EMEA: FNC and NAVI
Pacific: T1 and DRX
China: DRG and Trace

Now which of these teams have a realistic chance of changing the outcome of Madrid, thus making it a “fluke”? In my opinion, only NRG and FNC have a non-zero chance to compete for top 4 and even then they wouldn’t have survived the gauntlet that SEN did given their current form. Stop being so pathetic by strawmanning and take the L with class.

Both Kickoff groups and playoffs should have been double Elim. Double Elim is better for competitive integrity than single.

Madrid itself doesn’t have any issues with format.

Again. There’s nothing fraudulent about Madrid’s format. Double Elimination is standard in all major international tournaments to get more accurate placements of the top teams — it’d suck to be the second best team and get eliminated early because you matched against the best team first. This allows for rematches for the GF (BO5 instead of BO3) that’s balanced by giving the upper seed double map veto. That means you eliminate your competitor’s two best maps and/or force them onto their worst maps.

You’re mixing up the Kick Off Playoff with Master’s Madrid itself in terms of format. They’re two different events buddy. Even then, Kick off is less egregious than regions automatically getting an extra qualification slot for Champs simply because their best team won the last Masters — I.e. NAVI riding on the coattails of FNC. Nobody here is fooled by the undertone of post. FNC wouldn’t have won with their current form and Sentinels earned this trophy.

So Madrid’s format itself is completely fine.

You’re upset about Kickoff regional qualification. I agree it should have been double Elim.

I still think if you eye test though, the only other teams that could have upset the ones that qualified would have been NRG over LOUD and possibly FNC over TH (unlikely given form at the time). GenG and PRX are definite top favorites from APAC and China isn’t even competitive.

I think your attempt to diminish Sen’s win is pretty sad. They undoubtably took the hardest route through both Kickoff and Madrid with the most rounds played and most competitive matchups. They ran an absolute gauntlet of teams and it’s disingenuous to consider it a fluke.

Kickoff: LOUD, 100T, LEV, MIBR, G2, NRG, LOUD
Madrid: KC, TH, LOUD, GENG, PRX, and finally GENG grand final.

The only reason why you’d call it a fluke is if you think there are teams that didn’t qualify but would have won instead. I think that’s bollocks. Only FNC would have a chance and I don’t see how they’d survive running that gauntlet given how terrible their form has been since they last placed 4th at Champs.

Your take is weird.

Madrid had an objectively more competitive format than Lock/in. You can be upset with how KickOff qualification wasn’t double elim but that doesn’t take away from Madrid as a tournament format itself. I’ll take Swiss Groups and Double Elim over Single Elim without Seeding every day of the week.

Future tournament performances also don’t reinforce past success/failures because teams can both improve or fall apart over time. It’s like saying Tokyo FNC win was a “fluke” because they didn’t win Champs. “Proving whether fluke or not” narrative is garbage. The only way to make sure something is competitively sound is through format, not by reinforcing your bias.

I already bought the Sen bundle. Why would I want the runner up’s??

It’s an objective fact that you don’t know what objective means.

Ah yes, 2020 in North Africa’s First Strike.

He’s surely an EMEA player.

Icebox requires a sentinel for mid-coverage (Even Loud succumbed and played KJ). Also, it’s been established that you don’t need a duelist because the chokes are so wide and varied that you can literally contact in with a drone.

I think they should keep Sacy on Gekko, Zellsis on Viper, and Johnqt on Killjoy. Switch Zekken to Sova, and have Tenz flex to one of three agents. Have him play Kayo for flashes/suppress, Omen for verticality/op’ing, or Harbor for smokes/plant and defuse support.

All three of those variations are viable with Omen having the most flexibility. He has a strong flash for trap plays and retakes, coverage as a secondary smoker, and can abuse verticality similarly to a Jett to Op on defense or secure space aggressively on attack — not to mention the opportunity for lurks.

It’s Icebox. They don’t need a duelist.
Put Zekken on Sova and run triple initiator, moving the Op around on defense so teams can’t make hard reads based off seeing utility.

Allez Les Bleus.

FNC loses 0-2 to KC in their sloppiest performance since the roster rebuild.
No new strats or adaptations and being anti-stratted on Lotus by a team that showed off 6x more footage than them. It seems I was right.

It looks like I was right.

KC 2-0 FNC and continue onto Madrid

I hope so.

I hope it means that those saved strats aren’t wholly untested like LOUD’s during Tokyo too

This first chart illustrates FNC’s poor trading habits — mostly due to slow defaults on attack. They struggle with large team fights that’d you’d see when teams scrap for heavily contested space.

[Trading Stats] (https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/818683218747195412/1210806401400832081/IMG_0163.png?ex=65ebe655&is=65d97155&hm=1d473eab4d12862a62bd0d1a05a1dc257a8562706545ad3ef4a0b3f2feae7d5a)

This second chart illustrates the amount of rounds each player nets their team when they have an above average amount of kills. Essentially how much each team relies on a player to pop-off each map. Note how low the EG players are, signifying how balanced their impact is regardless of individual under/over performance. The best way to read it is the average amount of rounds Lost when a player gets less than 16 kills a map.

[Round Differential] (https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/818683218747195412/1210806530388000849/IMG_0166.png?ex=65ebe674&is=65d97174&hm=6c5d8840eba9d6f770acca2de2f30ad42cd5fff556f975b7a54e3d40fd597d7d)

I think a FNC with EG stats would be the undisputed best in the world — they’re just not there yet and the numbers don’t lie.

Credit to Platoon

You don’t get it.

LOUD dropped out of Tokyo because of their bad Neon comps. So they CHANGED and performed better in champs.

FNC changed nothing and went from Winning Tokyo to coming FOURTH in champs.

Other teams get better and if you don’t improve yourself or compensate for potential anti-strats then you get left behind.

You’re insisting that it’s rock paper scissors. I’m saying it’s not because teams actually have to perform to reach their projected “power level”. FNC didn’t perform, twice. All three of the others did and the finalists did it better than LOUD who did it better than FNC. Watch some analysis on those matches and how every team picked up on anti-stratting FNC – LOUD just had the pleasure of sending them home.

Yo, how am I still getting downvoted while saying that I hope FNC wins another trophy? Y’all weird fr

I actually really love your take.

Perhaps “overrated” is too harsh of a term to use and reflects more so on the “Stans” that I’ve had the displeasure of running into than the actual potential of the team.

FNC has an immense ceiling and I wanted to emphasize how they squandered it leading up to champs because I don’t want that to happen again. I’m mostly worried that the lack of competition in EMEA will make them lax. I’m from NA but I a massive fan of Chronicle and I hope they take another trophy this year.

Cheers to unforgiving competition!

I’m not trying to invalidate their year friend. I’m saying they need to evolve because their champs results weren’t a fluke. Anyone saying otherwise is coping. It’s not just “1 bad event.” They were absolutely picked apart by the third best team twice.

Lmao that’s not an accusation. I’m literally saying it’s okay to extrapolate because it’s a skill based game. No top team wins a map based on luck — if you win, you are better. It’s not rock paper scissors.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying, especially in the case of Lotus.

LOUD beat FNC 13-6 and lost against EG 4-13. You think that’s not a good enough indicator of the respective teams’ strategies and protocols?? FNC literally ban it in the rematch.

Bind isn’t as clean but after losing 1-13 to DRX, I have zero faith in Champs FNC to win on that map against better teams.

Is it possible that EG could magically beat Loud and PRX in close games but absolutely fumble against FNC?

Yes.

But given how Loud crushed FNC on the maps I referenced I’d say it’s unlikely. Teams don’t win maps with luck. They create strong protocols and strats and PERFORM.

You’re allowed to make extrapolations about how teams might perform against others when you get significant scoreline differences. There’s a reason why FNC banned Fracture against EG after seeing them perform against others in Tokyo.

You’re basically saying “my team aren’t champions because they were unlucky with the bracket.”

FNC placed 4th because they lost twice to the 3rd place team who lost to both the 2nd and 1st placed teams, in a BO3 and BO5 respectively.

Yeah, I mistakenly put down Breeze instead of Haven but it plays out the same. The map breakdown is valuable because it illuminates a team’s weaknesses when they’re forced into a BO5 and are forced to adapt after their playbooks are exhausted/countered.

They innovate a lot less than their international counterparts. You won’t convince me that both their losses to LOUD weren’t a result of heavy anti-stratting — something that Potter is renowned for.

EG hard fixed their Lotus and took the map against both Loud and PRX (latter beat Loud). LOUD crushed FNC on that map during champs.

Split is much closer given that both times they played the scoreline was 13-11.

I did make a mistake of marking EG’s map ban as Breeze but you’re right that Haven was in rotation during champs and FNC would take it.

That means with FNC map ban of Fracture and Pearl, EG takes Ascent, Bind, and potentially Lotus while FNC takes Haven. The rest are a toss up. I’d still give EG odds there.

Let’s not pretend like Lock-In was a competitive tournament given that there was no Double Elim and almost every roster was new — they still almost lost.

Your perspective on Tokyo is narrow. FNC played 4 matches total that tournament and 3 of them were against the two teams I mentioned had disadvantages. Even then, EG nearly won upper finals and map ban advantage.

They lost against two teams but finished 4th in champs. The one team they lost to at champs lost to two other teams (thats not a matter of luck).

I’m not insisting that FNC isn’t a top 4 team. I’m saying they’ll be at the bottom of those four if they don’t innovate. It means nothing to “dominate” your region when your goal is supposed to be the best.

FNC definitely earned those two trophies but not nearly as dominantly as many remember.

Lock-In ended with a comeback from a 3-11 score line on the final map. It easily could have gone LOUD’s way.

Tokyo featured a PRX with a substitute that still placed 3rd and an EG with no practice with their primary duelist due to Visa issues — still managing two close maps.

I think FNC are a phenomenal team with at least three players in the top 3 of their respective roles. I’m worried that very strength will make them complacent as a team as it did during Champs.

Look at EG’s conversion rate after losing a first blood, where no loss of any single player had a significant impact on their round wins — they had the best protocols and mid rounding of any team. Platoon’s video on the best player in the world illustrates this.

If FNC wants to maintain global dominance, they need to compensate for their immense mechanical advantage over their competition by innovating. The mindset to relentlessly refine their “basics” instead of pushing the needle is going to punish them when they run into international teams that can match them mechanically.

I keep seeing cope about how FNC would have won champs if they didn’t run into LOUD — perhaps even having the mental edge against EG. With an eye test though, you could tell FNC was becoming readable and had issues with spacing for trades properly. Even with their most recent match they looked sloppy against Vitality on Lotus.

Here’s the map pool break down of the hypothetical champs matchup by comparing the respective teams’ performances against LOUD and accounting for each other’s bans.

EG Take: Pearl, Fracture, Lotus, and Bind.

FNC Take: Haven.

Toss Up: Split and Ascent

It’s clear that FNC has 4 mechanical superstars (sorry boaster, Boostio and Saadhak clear), but there’s too much cope about hiding strats — It was the same last year when they took the exact same comps from Tokyo to Champs. EG did the opposite and experimented until they fixed their Lotus, Bind, and Split.

I’m praying that the Gekko and Yoru rumors are true because seeing FNC has been stale and I firmly believe that they’re becoming complacent because of weaker competition in their region.

Edit: Changed Breeze to Haven as I mistook which map was in the pool.

Hard to argue that Jinggg is the best Raze when he’s lost the head to head against Jawgemo in both Tokyo and Champions. Re-watch the Champs finals and peeps their stats. You could say that Jinggg is more consistent but Jawgemo has a higher ceiling.

EG lower bracket run to beat all of the top 5 teams before finishing it out with a revenge match against LOUD. Final map will be a 13-0. Boostio tournament MVP and best IGL.

https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/8b90507d