I better not see "Harbor's cove leaves a 15s smoke up after it's destroyed."

bro that's what I said

Watch it be all 2nd and 3rd seeds that qualify and no 1st seeds.

I'm curious to see the post

How they gonna be homophobic when a gay man saved them from the Germans

Chinese fans are busy celebrating the actual win while EMEA and Americas fans are still thinking Chinese teams are shit

Viper's not really a mess anymore. She's now like the Breach of controllers where yeah if you're running double controller she's very strong but that's a lot of investment since she now doesn't replace the sentinel anchor role as well.

Clove isn't the worst. They might use a buff in pro play but it's kinda a Reyna situation where they're so much better in ranked that it's tricky to balance. I think it's fine to just have a couple ranked demon agents that get picked as gimmicks in pro.

Brim is just mid yeah. He's really not a necessity on Bind anymore with how many pros are running Omen instead (and I've been saying Omen is better in ranked anyway). Not sure how to buff him. Triple the duration of stim maybe?

They stepped up their gameplay a lot I'll give em props

Good point. A coach's ability to help their team adapt feels like one of the only consistent qualities of a team lately.

• decrease all of Astra's cooldowns to 20s and make the ult 6 points OR just give the 5th star back

• decrease Omen smoke duration to 12s or whatever Clove's are, reduce travel distance of paranoia

• give Harbor the ability to offset the start of high tide with alt fire so that he can send it out farther, make its cooldown 30s, and slightly increase the effect of the slow to enemies only

ezpz

Their recent match against Heretics was closer than GenG's was too

That and also the logic that Team A beat B who beat C who beat D, so obviously A beats D. All while totally failing to talk about their playstyles and how they might counter one another differently or how they might have changed since previous matchups.

The G2 thing is so true too it feels like it took forever for people to accept that they're better than, for example, NRG, just because of the preconceived impression people have of the teams as being good or bad.

Tbh swap GenG and Heretics and it's a fine list, assuming it's not ordered within tiers.

C and D could be swapped entirely but there's not much of a gap between all six of those teams.

Respectfully I'm glad you were wrong

I'm normally an EMEA hater but FNC is looking really good too. Gotta give them credit.

I hope these five all make top 6.

It's annoying how many people see power levels so linearly and how predictable they think every match is.

Trace beating VIT and EDG beating FUT shouldn't have been surprises at all but people act like every European team is better than every Chinese team.

If LOUD had put tuyz on duelist just one month earlier they would've been a great Americas rep and tbh champs doesn't feel the same without them there.

I think tuyz can do well on duelist with more time to practice but yeah it would be cool to see LOUD consistently running no duelist just as their playstyle.

FPX has potential to upset GenG but Heretics definitely won't.

Nah. Clearly KRÜ are underperforming, but so are most Americas teams.

100T and EG wouldn't be doing much better if at all, the Brazilian teams have gone through too many roster changes recently to be consistent right now, and C9 and NRG are just not competitive.

KRÜ made it to champs fair and square and it's pointless to complain about it. G2 and LEV are good enough representation for the region anyway.

The thing that makes valyn one of a kind though is how hard he helps the team counter whoever they play against.

It's like they don't even have a playstyle because they're disciplined and studious enough to simply exploit whatever mistakes the enemy team is making.

People still underrating G2 is crazy.

The shit people say on this site is so dumb I can't assume anything is a joke anymore my b

It's like everytime this map gets picked the game is a banger. Teams cook the coolest shit and it's an iconic map for so many of them too.

Why is it going to leave the pool when boring ass maps like Ascent and Split that have been in countless tournaments are going to stick around?

We the people deserve G2 vs FNC on Lotus

Groups A and B have the EMEA and APAC teams progressing to winners, while Group C has the Americas and Chinese teams winning.

So does the script say G2 and EDG win 👀

3-1 versus 3-2 doesn't mean shit. How they're actually playing looks a lot better with S1mon igl and new coaching. It'll show in this matchup.

A lot has changed since then

Because that's not convincing proof the team is better for it. What good is winning off of hero plays in one game if they bomb out of groups as soon as they qualify anyway due to the same issues they've always had?

Again I see that he has potential but I don't understand why we're assuming that Kru qualifying is proof that he'll stick around. They could be planning anything.

But he hard bot frags with negative FK-FD in most other games. He might not have needed to clutch so badly if Kru weren't down so hard to begin with by having a comfortable and experienced initiator.

I get that he's still new to the scene and needs time to cook, but if they make changes at all it seems like such a gamble to keep him instead of signing someone like nzr

Exactly. So how can you claim mta is the reason they're in champs? I'll believe it if they make playoffs but right now it seems like they win by raw frags against less-than-top-tier teams.

Are they really any better with mta though?

They had to beat a washed 100T to qualify this time instead of G2 or LEV at Shanghai. I think they would've qualified with Klaus too.

mta doesn't fix their biggest problem which is that they struggle to adapt and keep strong mental after losing momentum

Yeah and this recent Lotus game took actual miracles from Heretics to pull through, as opposed to Shangai's Icebox game where there were way more misplays from FPX imo

It's fucked up that all masters finalists ended up in the same group.

I wish he would play her on other maps than just Breeze. Maybe if Omen gets nerfed ig

Is unironically a very good ability. The fact that it completely halts enemies from running away so they just get cooked by util or double peeks brings so much value.

If Deadlock's sonic sensors get reworked she could absolutely be meta on some Raze maps. Maybe if they worked like remotely detonated flashes instead?

I feel like riot should lean into her half-initiator potential in double sentinel comps.

It's just eurocentric viewers who didn't watch China's stage 2 games underrated Chinese teams.

FPX lost to Heretics by a hair (imo it was a lot closer this time) and EDG is looking a lot better too. They shouldn't be counted out.

Aren't Talon Bind merchants tho? And Lev has always been kinda mediocre on Bind.

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/honduras-ordered-to-track-lgbt-hate-crimes-idUSKCN2E52HP/

https://www.advocate.com/crime/2022/2/07/three-lgbtq-people-were-killed-honduras-same-day

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/07/interview-lgbt-people-flee-violence-el-salvador-guatemala-honduras

https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/honduras/

Unironically would go hard if he could speak Spanish. This team's biggest weakness is that they have worse mental than a plat ranked lobby but they do have 4 aimers.

If only there was a 5th man in LATAM with passable initiator util, good vibes, and no pressure to shoot back... wait...

so it's "political shit" when trans people in the US try to live a happy life but not when people in your country murder them?

This is true but I think people are really underestimating new EDG with S1mon as IGL and new coaches. They might play a lot better now at champs than they have earlier in the year.

Lotus is a much better map for triple controller than Bind is at least

??? the Benjy sheriff play was literally a 1/100 chance. Any other team loses that too if they didn't happen to already be triple stacked holding the door as it opens.

I agree FPX needs more discipline but come on it's their only weakness and it's stupid to act like they're terrible after bringing GenG and TH to a close game 3 three times this year.

It was literally just that miracle 2v5 round by benjy. And you really can't even blame them, like what are the odds even the best player in the world hits 4 headshots on different targets back to back in like 2 seconds?

I feel like the only person on this site who likes the official casters. They do a good job and they actually know what they're talking about.

Fracture is my favorite map because it rewards getting aggressive on defense and I'm very impatient.

My real complaint is that Ascent has never left the rotation after more than 4 years even though it's by far the most boring map. The meta hasn't changed since 2022 and half the fights are wallbang/smokes spam.

riot is doing fine aside from the map pool y'all are just babies

It takes time for a brand new roster to develop chemistry and also Nature and Apoth were not carrying their weight unfortunately.

What? Supamen and Derrek are good. Do you even watch these teams play before making a post like this?

China already has cracked aimers. You should know this as an FPX fan. What they need is just better coaching and decision-making in-game

Natus Vincere, Loud, Furia, and Leviatán are the only good names in tier 1 tbh