But the children yearn for the mines.

What happens to their roster if they win Ascension? Do they get an exception for the age requirement or does the org ascend and then drop the three underaged players? Seems kinda messed up not to make an exception.

Put him on smokes since Astra just got buffed.

Zekken: Raze/Neon/Sova

N4rrate: Initiator/Jett

Zellsis: Flex

Demon1: Smokes

JohnQT: Sentinel

That’s true and yet plenty of compositions and tech are taken from the T2 scene and used by VCT teams.

You just run it on every map smh. The Brazilian team 777 nearly qualified to Americas Ascension doing just that with their mechanical prodigy on full time Iso. I’m sure NRG could pull it off with better players and a better IGL.

People keep discounting him as a duelist but forget that Iso is proven viable. Run the FNC Haven comp (or some variation) on every map and the sheer firepower and midrounding finesse should be enough no?

Ethan - Yoru
Demon1 - Iso
Verno - Sova/Fade
s0m - Omen
FNS - Cypher

Dantedeu5 is looking like the best Argentinian player rn. He’s only playing against T2 teams in Ascension but he passes the eye test as a potential top tier 1 Duelist.

Do G2 trial Derke while at Redbull Homegrounds? I’ve also seen a rumor that Leaf might leave and Yay could be a replacement.

N4rrate when he returns to Americas maybe?

EMEA for sure fosters the best initiator talent though: Leo, Riens, Chronicle, Trexx, Cloud, and Shao.

Oh he’s definitely world class but he’s also got one of the strongest supportive systems in the scene. His individual performance could be matched by more than just two other players if they had that same privilege, dude.

Jawgemo and Demon1 proved their peaks with the former refuting those consistency allegations this year. Oxy literally diffed Derke at Redbull Homegrounds and his team has been a mess since despite his attempts to hard carry.

Derke has never been in the conversation for best Jett, always a step behind Aspas and now T3xture while still lacking in the OP department compared to Cryo and cNed. His raze is also a step below Zekken, Jawgemo and Jingg’s. He’s for sure one of the most consistent world class duelists but he’s never been the best at any specific agent.

Even his Yoru which has the best argument is contested by Meteor.

I mean their stats are pretty similar but Derke has a larger sample size of matches. I’d also argue that it’s impressive that he’s usually on the main entry role as Yoru while Meteor acts as a secondary, trading off T3xture. I’d give Derke a slight edge.

I don’t think he clears Aspas, Zekken, Jawgemo, Demon1, or Oxy. He definitely has the longest history on the T1 stage though.

His Yoru is likely the best itw rn but his Raze falls behind Zekken and Jawgemo while his Jett is weaker than Aspas, Cryo, and Demon1’s. He was arguably not even the best duelist on FNC with Alfajer having a superior Raze and Iso. Not to mention that he doesn’t play Neon which is proven to be a top pick on Sunset and Haven with viability on Lotus and Icebox.

I think the only teams that would heavily improve from his pick up would be G2 or NRG simply because they lack star entries.

I could see M80 making a LAN but only because their core was highly competitive to TGRD — they also picked up neT. They’re super innovative, running Yoru on Ascent and Sunset as well as no-duelist Icebox and a triple Sentinel Lotus. They’re not EMEA though.

Edit: was supposed to be a reply to #8 D:

Yoru, Gekko, Harbor, Astra, KJ

If VIT dont pick up Hiro then they should consider this Suygetsu guy.

NA has two standouts that aren’t Ascending but should get picked up: Mada and Verno. The whole M80 roster is good too and could easily slot into the middle of the T1 league. Not super familiar with Brazil but Sato and Ghoul33 have high potential.

N4rrate, Derke, and Jawgemo are probably the hottest T1 commodities.

I was actually considering Lukxo since he’s a Viper main with decent showings on Sentinels but Fizzy is also a good choice! I’m not too familiar with Portuguese players but he looks decent.

I think NRG would benefit from having N4rrate because of his Raze. My only concern is how they fix the roles between Demon1 and s0m for those maps. Maybe throw in some role swaps and have Demon1 play Sentinel while FNS picks up Fade?

Because Cryo has been picking up smokes while Bang shifted to Viper whom he’s been looking mediocre on. 100T lacks a star entry and Asuna has been shifting to Flash/Flex — he could definitely pick up Viper when needed.

Mada - Duelist
Asuna - Flex
Eeiu - Recon
Cryo - Smokes
Boostio - Sentinel

Ah I totally didn’t catch his age. I was thinking they’d run FNC Iso comps with Tomaszy on primary entry. Any thoughts on who’d fit that slot for Mibr instead?

My Ideal roster for 2025.

• SEN: Zekken | Tenz | Zellsis | JohnQT | Verno

• NRG: Demon1 | Ethan | S0m | FNS | N4rrate

• G2: Valyn | JonahP | Trent | Leaf | Derke

• 100T: Boostio | Cryo | Asuna | eeiu | Mada

• EG: Jawgemo | Derrek | Supamen | Flyuh | Aproto

• C9: Oxy | Moose | Seven | Skuba | Mitch

• M80: Koalanoob | Nismo | BCJ | Zander | neT

• LEV: Aspas | Kingg | Mazino | c0m | Tex

• KRU: Keznit | Shyy | Melser | Heat | Nzr

• LOUD: Saadhak | Cauanzin | Less | Pancada | Sato

• FUR: mwzera | Khalil | Havoc | Sacy | Urango

• MIBR: Artzin | Rich | Tuyz | ghoul33 | tomaszy

Thoughts?

Edit: Switched Mitch and Flyuh since it makes more sense that Mitch would pair up with Skuba since they’ve got synergy from OXG. They’re both Flash/Flex IGLs with similar value.

This is the best idea I’ve heard for the G2 fix in a while. I could see them winning two trophies with Derke next year if they make this roster move.

Derke | JonahP | Trent | Valyn | Leaf

Damn that’s a spicy roster

There’s a super niche smoke tech that teams have started picking up where they insert omen smokes into the wall to create little niches to hide from default recons. I know it’s been used in Ascent mid to insert a Jett Operator and on Haven on A main and C-main to hide gamble stacks but I don’t remember the specific matches or rounds. Does anyone know them?

Aspas, Derke, Zekken, Jawgemo, KK, T3xture, and Sayf are all better than Jinggg.

Edit: forgot T3xture

TH look really damn good. Hoping EDG shake off those nerves and give us a good series.

No. Nobody is going to listen to what you have to say if your delivery is toxic. They'll either get defensive or mute you — neither of which is good in a team environment.

1. Derke
2. KK
3. Zekken
4. T3xture
5. Aspas

HM: Miniboo, BuzZ

Fraudwatch: Icy, Jingg

Aren’t they playing in a different tier? Last year I rooted for TGRD, EG and TL. Two different regions and a team from T2. You’re allowed to supported multiple teams as long as you’re don’t change allegiances after a loss mid tournament. I’m still repping G2 despite their catastrophic losses and I support individual players still in the tournament like c0m and Chichoo — you’d never find me rushing to shit talk other regions had Sen/Lev won though.

Bandwagon is switching to other teams in your region when yours main one loses. Supporting a single team outside of your own region is kinda the opposite of a bandwagon my guy.

Isn’t it better taste to glaze your team after a win instead of using it as an opportunity to shit on the loser? I’m not seeing anything about how Riens looks like the second-coming of Leo or how Miniboo is in red hot form. Just comments about LEV and Americas — even stuff about CS when it’s a Valo forum. Maybe it’s a culture difference but it’s just gross to me.

Edit: grammar

Yeah, I’m supporting Chichoo myself. Crazy to see his journey and I don’t think he gets his flowers since he’s on the same team as KK and Smoggy.

Oh I wholly agree. I’m just noticing that the majority of posts aren’t from actual TH fans — just bandwagons.

Yeah, that’s probably more accurate. They’re probably over-represented by brain rot like Sentinelmain377 though.

It’s such a shame their fans suck.

Boaster vs. Florescent

Top 3 ordered by storyline:

• EG 2023 | Underdog Villains

• LOUD 2022 | El Classico and Redemption

• FNC 2023 | EMEA’s Last Hope

If Sen win Champs they’ll have the same story line as LOUD 2022 except that they’ll have actually won the first masters of the year.

If TH win they’ll have the same narrative as EG last year.

The new schedule separates the Split records but if it still uses groups then you could get screwed if you place 5th in a harder group when you could have placed 3rd-4th in the easier one — disqualifying you from playoffs.

Why doesn’t Riot run full round robins for each split and just have the teams play two matches a week? If that’s too dense, just add in two more weeks to the Split and run matches 4/7 days instead of just the weekend. I know there’s limitations with having to maintain the venue and paying for casters/production but it sucks that some teams basically have their season over by the end of the first Split. Super week proves it’s viable.

I’m just not convinced that the base minimum of only 12 matches per year is enough for the bottom 8 teams of each league to accrue experience or a community base. You might say they should have just won more but it’s crazy to me that Jawgemo, Demon1, Ethan and all of LOUD practically ended their seasons by early July after 10-15 total matches.

Something more needs to change.

A3 rn and I don’t play any Duelists

Ascent: KJ, Clove/Omen
Bind: Clove, Cypher, Chamber
Sunset: Cypher, Clove/Omen
Lotus: KJ, Omen
Icebox: Clove, Viper, Sage
Abyss: Astra, Viper
Haven: KJ, Omen

My Omen stats are horrendous for some reason so I’ve been trying to switch over to Clove where my individual performance improves dramatically. Think it’s because I care less about utility coordination and so my mechs get my full attention.

Breeze is the worst by far.

Icebox mid need a heavy rework.

Ascent is stale with paper thin walls.

Ranked:

1. Fracture
2. Lotus
3. Bind

Pro:

1. Fracture
2. Split
3. Lotus

Use Valoplant

Note buys, ultimates, and loss bonus (swing round or no).

Record initial positions for defaults and sentinel/viper setup.

Break round into phases: Opening defaults, Midround adjustments, and Postplant positions.

Look for patterns in how a team prefers to setup and the shortcomings of their comp.

Figured it’d be fun to look back at all the top 4 teams since the start of VCT and see all the teams that had a chance to be champions. It’s incredible that Loud is the only org that appears twice.

2021: TL | KRU | Gambit | Acend

2022: FPX | DRX | OpTic | LOUD

2023: FNC | LOUD | PRX | EG

2024: SEN | EDG | TH | LEV

Bump

Oh FNC as a team is fine. Its worse fans mostly deserve the hate though.

I have no idea why I wrote Haven. Must be watching too much FNC.

JohnQT +11 on Haven and carrying SEN to map 2.
Good to see EMEA on top!

Hope vitality picks him up.

Sayf | Trexx | Patitek | Hiro | Cender is the hardest roster EMEA will have seen since 2023 FNC.

catNmouse seems like a decent person

It’s funny because you’ll cheer for Sen after both EMEA teams get eliminated because of their “EMEA” Igl you pathetic bandwagon.