After lots of reflection, you are 100% correct. My apologies.

Still think it's rough to have a BO1 but with the amount of teams makes it impossible to set up a viable system.

This entire time I was under the impression that Riot games, the people who said that the fans "WANT TO SEE THE BEST TEAMS MORE", would do just that in the playoffs. YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT THE FIRST ROUND IS SINGLE ELIM? THE BEST 6 TEAMS AND FOR 33% OF THEM THEY GET 1 GAME AND GET BOOTED? What in the flying fuck.

I'm mostly mad for EMEA. Not going to lie, based on the form of AM currently I'd genuinely give Europe the edge in every aspect regionally, but expecially on their likely hood of success with Heretics, Navi and Fut on the global stage (them being who I would mark as the regions top 3 atm). YOU ARE TELLING ME ONE OF THEM IS GETTING OUT THROUGH SINGLE ELIM? What in the fuck Riot. If you're going to make the top teams play upwards of 13 games in 36 days (+travel), then you can give us a damn lower bracket for PLAYOFFS.

I'm still spouting the 13 matches + International travel in 36 days that Sen had to do. 2023 Fnatic had 81 days for their first (official) 13 matches, which was all of lockin and the entire 8 weeks of regional play. This system is just built to destroy top teams in competitive regions. Most of the Madrid teams had rough looking starts to the regional splits. Val as an esport has too much complexity at the top level for teams to stay consistent when given the relatively worst conditions.

I can do the same cross team bowlshit:

Talon 2-1 Secret

Oh wait, nvm. Story over.

Sen played 13 games in 36 days to win masters.
Fnatic in 2023 played 13 games in 82 days, which spaned lock//in and the entire regular season of regional play.

Also, Fnatic's got 23 days between Lock//in and regional play, while Sen got 14 between their win and week 1.

I think that maybe, just maybe, citing overwork may be slightly acceptable.

That's a fair point relating to other teams, but simply those other teams didn't peak then and got a month of prep instead. C9 and Kru both did offseason events to get ready, then got group since they didn't peak at the right time. Now, after a month break, they're playoff teams.

As for the 2023 examples, look at the game density. Fnatic played their first 13 games (5 lock/in and 8 regional games) in a span of 82 days. Sentinels played their first 13 games (7 regional and 6 masters) in a span of 36 days. Fnatic got 23 days between their lock/in win and their first regional game. Sen got 11 days between Kickoff and Masters, and 14 between winning masters their first regional game. It has been 71 days since the season started and Sen have played the same amount of games that was required for fnatic to win lock/in and get to the upper bracket finals of tokyo (which fnatic got 114 days to do). GenG had an easier time since they got more time between Madrid and the end of kickoff, but they still looked shakey the first two weeks of regional play. So, the madrid teams have had to face a lot more this season than Loud and Fnatic had to face last season. I think it's valid to talk about burnout for these guys.

Edit: Clairifing the grinding point: It's more that the teams who had been grinding were able to hit their stride at the right time, and I'm jusf assuming the teams that looked worse in their ideas and fundamentals were just grinding to a lower degree. It's mainly an assumption, but I think if you drop that point there is still enough there to see that the madrid teams are overworked.

Loud consistently does well split 1 and champs, doing relatively poorly for the second tournament of the year. They get sloppy and let the fundamentals slip, then they take champs by storm.

Valorant requires too much micro and prep to keep it up for 6 months straight when you get no breaks when your competition gets a month break.

My take is that basically every team that made Madrid had been grinding that offseason. So, you do the offseason, grind for kickoff, 3/8 teams had to also grind through the lower bracket of kickoff, then grind through Madrid.

I feel like after all that 4 month long grinding you reach your burnout. These teams peaked in kickoff, because they committed to winning the early section of the year. Now, it's time for the teams who lost in kickoff to properly hit their stride in what is their month 3. I wouldn't be surprised AT ALL if the teams who make Shanghai have a rough split 2 because of burnout. Look at loud, after a laughable first 3 games they are hitting their normal form again just now in the second last week of the season. It took them a month to recover from Madrid. Every team has looked off since madrid; it's their fundamentals that have suffered.

Tl;Dr - The teams at Madrid were mostly offseason grinders who hit their peak, now in Split 1 the other teams are hitting their peaks while the madrid teams are burning out; (most of) the madrid teams are screwing up fundamentals while their opponents are hitting form.

Ngl the turks could run our shit.

They literally do this every time. They're a super hard attack sided team on Lotus, expecially versus America's teams.
10/2 attack vs Loud
9/3 attack vs 100T
9/3 attack vs Lev (4-2 on attack during OT)

Plus, if I had a nickel for a champs winning raze that has a life game vs Sen on Lotus, I'd have 2 nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice right?

This is an NRG off day? At least on a Sen off day they lose by 2 rounds each map, against a life game from the best player in the world. I just saw Ethan dry walk out showers, what the fuck is this.

Offday kekw.

Anyways, that's why C9 is the best team in the world.

Why not Demon1 good, and Aspas good, and Zekken good? Simple.

Many words, few braincells.

The best player in the history of the game had a life game to beat your squad in an off day. And, the Lev that lost to C9 looked wayyy different than the one that beat Sen. Solid bait tho.

I see your game. Underrate sen so we can glaze them all again even though they're still top 3 in the world. Try your best king.

Also wtf C9 clears all, best in the world.

Sorry for anything I've said about any EU team, those mfs clear AM in this form. What am I looking at.

But V1 had the goat Vanity on the roster, so if anything it was harder for Asuna.

But 48 is insane, which Asuna was able to get with more first bloods than Aspas got so really I'm unimpressed.

I'm so sorry brother, but they're my damn flair and it's on 3rd monitor duty.

I used to be a Prx fan, but then I started to watch more Japanese Val and my allegiance went to wherever the fuck Meteor ends up. Similar for Stew, I watched Korea a bit and recognized him when watching China. Can't turn on those mfs.

I cannot have anything.

I'm a damn Gen.G, JDG, and Vitality fan. All I have is saying "How in the hell did we lose that" and feeling endless deflation.

My theory is that Gen.G were prepping with him as Clove, but then they got banned for the bug and everything. But Omen does work better as an Op-er so this could have been their original strat.

If a team decides to go out third, they basically lose 1 point to the 2nd place team and 3 points to the 1st place team. It's better to tryhard and get the points before split 2 so you can save more strats and have more prep time before champs.

In AM it's basically just wheather or not NRG can win masters AND the split to overtake Sen, but in all the other regions it's still likely that you can overtake your peak team for the free slot. I mean, KC lost today - Navi and Fut have a huge opportunity to overtake them.

Btw I'm saying this with the ideology that if a team has the free champs slot 100% locked up, they'll kinda stop caring about split 2 so they can be their peak for champs.

Unironically, I'd love to see either Tenz on Yoru + Zekken on Kayo or Zekken on Neon for breeze. It already not the best map for them, and not the best agent for Zekken, so using a weird pace change might give them some spark.

As for ascent, I think they could run the DFM comp or legit just insert Raze. But, I think going Zekken Kayo + Zellsis Breach + Sacy Sova + Tenz Clove would be wacky.

Zekken isn't a bad jett, he's just a noticeably worse Jett than Raze. Just relative to a top 3 raze in the world, his Jett isn't impressive, so I'd love to see some different entry agents.

I'll call almost anyone my young goat, but Jingg never got there - even when I was at my peak PRX love back in 2022.

I have a lot of young goats of the game, but Jingg is not one of them. Monster, but no goat.

At this point just buy monyet to play fucking anything, he a young goat of the game.

Fuck that shit, can we talk about this FengF guy? Actual monster. One of my many young goats of the Video game.

Actual note: bad game from Gov and Talon still won. That's rough. My other young goat bounces back stronger.

These are just a bunch of tiny points I have the relate to nothing

• EMEA is going to be so much stronger in Stage 1, since Fnatic actually have to prove something, and Trexx + Wo0t coming into their teams. Gonna be scary.
• Do people talk about how mid the Zekken Jett is? 25% FK, with a 25% FD. It's like a 1.05 rating, 236 ACS compared to his insane Raze with a 1.16, 269 ACS. Regionally his Jett was even worse (0.91, 223 ACS) and his Raze was similar (1.25, 260 ACS). Like he's won a total of 3 maps on jett out of 12 over kickoff and madrid. On raze? 23-6. I just wanted to mention that.
• Can we get f's for RRQ? They were so close to beating Gen.G TWICE. Them and 100T got so snubbed.
• The funniest plot point in stage 1 isn't another Sen vs 100T game, it's the garbage bowl of Bleed vs DFM ON 04/20/24. That is too funny to me.

I said this like months ago, but GF map bans are still too strong. I'm fine with winner getting 2 bans, but the fact they can remove the opponents strongest and their own weakest maps is too strong, I think a way better system is:

Team 1 Ban -> Team 1 Pick -> Team 2 Pick -> Team 1 Ban -> Team 1 Pick -> Team 2 Pick -> Decider.

You still get 2 bans, first map, and a clear advantage. You can just remove a 2nd best (opponent) map or one of your weaker maps.

I legit just instalock Iso whenever I get on Lotus because I dislike the map so much. 4 out of my last 10 games, with 0 ascent and 0 icebox. Such a bad fucking map.
I do not want a Riot map rotation, at least let the players vote on our pool if we aren't able to choose our maps.

They should suspect test a multitude of different options, dome of my ideas are (all would just be the solo nerf to her):

1) Not being to have Orb and Wall up at the same time
2) Making Snakebite's use 25 fuel when shot
3) Increasing the fuel usage rate while viper is moving (forces her to be a lot less proactive)

I recently started (Microsoft) Edging, simply because my CPU is a fucking wonder of man and gets fucky wucky when I have too many chrome tabs open (literally 1) which crashes my pc due to some cpu and ram error that, the error code, says is cpu sided. Also tried Opera and it still crashed my PC with 1 tab open.

Yes, this is a cry for help.

But Edge has been solid so far, it feels the exact same as chrome but with lower ram usage.

At this point, Sen and Gen.G should go all out to win. Having 6 championship points going into split 1 basically guarantees making champs, so you can go the entire year with 0 worries.

The more controlled a team is, the harder it is for them to beat PRX. China is very lose, very chaotic, they match well playstyle wise to PRX - They are used to punishing the exact same style of play regionally. Emea, however, is a lot more rigid. They have a much harder time dealling with shit that PRX throws at them. They're used to facing teams like Fnatic who are insanely controlled, so when they face the opposite it's way harder. Even though KC is probably the most loose EMEA team, it's still a mentality diff. Not an excuse btw, just an explanation. Just how EMEA used to farm NA teams in 2021, it was just an advantagous style of play between the regions.

The hardest route possible for every, single, match.

From 1 team region to 1 group win region.

Don't make fun of w0ot, the last time the western world didn't take an angry european seriously was the 30s. Let's keep an eye out, I'm sure he's big man.

Drawn into pool of death, first match vs the other top team in in AM, qualifier match vs the 3rd best team in the region, round 1 of internation vs the 3rd best team and ROUND 2 VS THE OTHER TEAM RANKED AS TOP 2 IN THE WORLD.

To be fair, Karmine corp got the same thing just without the hard first round at the international event. Both teams 100% had the two hardest schedules. Actually really funny.

17 year old in the most stressful moment of his career, help me god, is emotional. Fucking boil him in a vat of motor oil.

They may not have won, but genuinely showed that they're one of, if not, the single most prepared team at Madrid. Their set plays and combos are second to none, imo. Sen and KC just edge them out when it comes to their mid-round play and looseness, but that will only get stronger for Heretics. Bright, bright future.

Shoutout to Zekken, finally got a kill with his ult.

It feels like everytime these guys shoot a smoke it gets a kill, it's so insane. Any other team I would call lucky, but the amount of understanding of the maps that Heretics has shown leads me to believe it's calculated. They just have a huge read on the positioning of teams, it's impressive.

If I'm going to give EMEA anything that they gap the world on, it's the anti-strats and Set items. These concrete ideas that they got are fucking insane.

1) Yeah the Sen map-pool is week.
2) We're acting like Heretics isn't a top 3 team in the tournament.

Those mothefuckers looked like aimers and nothing more regionally. You'd think it's a different team with the ideas they showed vs loud.

My top 3 was KC, Sen, and Heretics. People doubting Heretics is still insane to me. They aren't the guard, they aren't just onliners.

The only thing I thought about them was (at lan) maybe Miniboo would regress without the online peakers advantage, but riens would do better SINCE HE ACTUALLY GETS TO PLAY WITH THE TEAM.

I only put them lower than Sen since I thought their set plays would be countered more, but they just tripled their fucking playbook.

I'm a Gen.G fan. Those motherfuckers looked like half the team regionally that they showed against loud. And we were acting like Heretics weren't a top 3 team at this tourney. The global scene is really close at the top-top level.

Genuinely, what fucking european propaganda was spread to for the analysts to say Sen 1 and Heretics were like 5 or 6. I HAD THOSE MFS 2-3. WHAT THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE ON TO NOT SEE THESE TEAMS AS NECK AND NECK ON THIS 3RD MAP. EVERYTHING IS DOWN TO 1 OR 2 GUNFIGHTS.

Heretics are insane and the fact everyone was down on them is fucking braindead.