i mean sen and loud went to madrid...

emea is being carried by turkey and CIS gamers so "EU" might be way too specific, emea in general looks very good though, even the middle of the pack look alright like vitality, m8s, and kc

No one's been looking like clear Masters winners in Stage 1, the whole point is to work out what you need to do to play winning valorant
Many EMEA teams have been innovating and there's some clear improvements in firepower. FUT and NAVI look fantastic right now, and I have high hopes for TH and KC. I wouldn't even be too down on FNC if they can work out a better game plan.

KPI would smurf in VCT

Washed but he's still better than BOROS who just ints. What can you do, not everyone is donk.

they needed to take way more space, you can't play a closed post-plant without a cypher. also they were missing out on every trade since the post plant was so uncomfortable. NRG need quite a bit more time, imo they should've lost sunset much more convincingly, winning both pistols and a bonus but still going even is not really convincing to me.

Not really, people forget that tuyz and cauauzin were challengers players and demon1 went from semifinals in Knights Monthly's to EG. EMEA just ended up making the right moves later and Americas did it earlier. Mechanics at the top aren't really that different, it's really more about working well in the system for a team and having a system that can adapt to a variety of high level opponents, most top tier teams have 3+ cracked aimers, even in Challengers.

tier 1/2 line isn't that clear in valorant, there's teams that play like tier 2 in franchised, and teams that play tier 1 in franchised, KC and TH been playing sublime valorant, not giving them credit and giving them the shot to beat teams like LOUD and NRG is a bit crazy, if you beat FNC you can definitely give LOUD and NRG work

Gotta disagree. By the eye test 100t, LEV and even NRG were making too many mistakes for me to confidently put them above TH, KC, NAVI, they are at best around the same currently and need more time. I would even wager FUT and VIT would post close games with those top 4 americas teams. I wouldn't say the top 10 teams are that different mechanically, it's about making fewer mistakes and punishing mistakes.

we will have to see; i think they are similar in terms of level, LEV were making more way more mistakes but higher ceiling, SEN look far more cohesive but firepower and clutching might go the opposite way

this is true, and we won both ludwig x tarik invitationals, sadly, ap0c and eme0 is finished

this kid is a spirit fan you're cooked katofluke d0nk, ch0pper, zont0x, magshit, sh0r0

aleksib major incoming

they're making a lot of mistakes right now but considering they didn't do anything during the offseason still looks pretty decent and they cooked some stuff up, i think they'll be solid by champs

slavic genes makes you 1v9 demon1, donk...

idek, vitality already look really solid, kicks is already really good. maybe cloud/sayf/cender/nats/keiko. i don't quite understand vitality's roles currently though, seems to vary a lot map to map.

sonofcar obliterates

FUT/VIT/NAVI/TH i think are similar in level, i'd put TL and KC similar in level just below that and GX/KOI/M8s look similar in level and BBL unluckily slot below that

if keoz and isak make the major while dev1ce, blame, stabbi do not... ggs

vlr is your homepage? sad.

google

?

they were watching gamerlegion smack fnatic around in cs2

boaster's been shooting back though. but agree, cs default is good because all the util is nonrenewable, and you have to deny information constantly, maps are bigger, round length is 15s longer as well. i wouldn't say defaulting is bad, it's only bad if you don't get anything out of it, all teams have a default

sayf is a veteran and understands the macro more, can flex more, and can help with secondary calling. duelists are meant to take space and farming kills is a plus. stats don't tell everything esp when the level of aim is really high across all players and they have better setups to trade the first kill.

he's was the best rifler in CSjoe. managed to never win a major tho, always choking in the last moments. very aggro rifler. just as many haters as fans and said to ruin IGLs and even try to IGL himself

yeah but VIT look good, G2 have a super carry awper and 3 of most inconsistent players and hooxi griefing, VIT look pretty well rounded

talked to the fnc staff, we're getting tagging dev1ce in

I'd compare him with more with twistzz or jL in terms of playstyle but yeah he's a top tier player

americas look good too this year, just saying EMEA looks competitive this year and not just on paper

bit rich considering the only team in latam winning anything is LOUD. focus on qualifying instead of hatewatching

I mean I agree that map was particularly bad for them, but I don't think it's normal. I think it made sense for them to not ban it based off of winning against KC, their attack side was a flop though, they need a lurker. My point is that most of their mistakes are fixable (there's some other things I'm worried about like Redgar's agent pool), they had some good ideas, traded well, and it's not a DOA roster early in the season.

They honestly don't look that bad, you're exaggerating; GX is pretty middle of the pack in terms of pure firepower.

TH is young and built from scratch, TL is about as young as NRG having 3 imports and they're all former tier 2. VIT is also built from scratch. Other than NAVI/FNC they're pretty much new teams. You're coping.

VIT look good. So do TH. FUT could qual too and be a really strong dark horse as well. EMEA look extremely good and could give any other region's teams a run for their money, just depends on who shows up to play. I'm gonna be honest that all the icebox games looked really bad, most of them were running some odd off meta comp like TL and G2 who usually plays harbor/viper, 100T played an odd double initiator... I haven't seen a game look not scrappy on icebox. I think teams are closer together than you might think and anyone can win.

boo and miniboo in the pacific rim robot about to body FNC and LOUD

You're waffling, EMEA looks like a competitive region

it's happening at the same time as the counterstrike PGL major RMR qualifiers (pretty big for euros) and fewer people from americas/apac can watch due to it being morning on a weekday for americas. EMEA viewership has never been that great for VCT though, biggest growth areas have been in APAC/CN.

pixelbots (aim assist w/ spoofed peripherals) are actually relatively speaking common in high ranks, tough to ban
to wall you need to have some pretty sophisticated or niche exploits, like a modded OS or a second computer and a DMA card
in valorant is still much better than CS and apex though

steel a G for taking this event right after IEM Katowice brother needs the bag bad

n4rrate would absolutely be t1 NA though, KC got legs because half their squad are tier 1 duelists

brother has not seen a female in years

actually optimistic for this region this year, last year was grim though

I don't find that it's all that different, but I think his confidence has been affected since other players have improved and they've gotten a bit more aware. yay was at his best when he was solo anchor holding the angle or flanking on chamber and a similar scenario with jett, where victor/yay shared some role on the T side playmaking. Now solo holding the angle is a lot tougher since they might throw util/jump peek you for info and then double swing you, esp if they've done their homework, which GE did.

I don't really think he's rated that highly anymore but for some reason the haters just love to hate even though the expectations have dampened a lot, certainly don't need to clown on him constantly.
The GE game should be a wakeup call for everyone on their team though, imo they should practice as much as possible and build better protocols and clean up their decisionmaking. Sometimes yay was at fault but sometimes the round was over after GE got a lurk off or suddenly upped the tempo of the game and caught a player off, it's a team game there's some culpability with all players to not be sloppy.

You play a VCT event at elimination on a role you're not comfortable with? Isn't that yay got worse, it's more of yay stayed the same and the rest of the field improved/adapted in terms of mechanics. His team overall played sloppy, including yay; sometimes his decisionmaking is very questionable, regardless of which role he was playing. You can't just get lurked on constantly and run directly into set plays and expect yay to get 3 everytime.

maybe, CS competition can be quite brutal and it's quite saturated though, but i'm sure some of the talents in valorant would've gotten picked up by academy teams, making it from there can be extremely brutal. trying to make it as a mix is extremely rough in CS right now too. if you're a great player it would still probably take you 5-6 years of developing in the pro scene before you're in the conversation for tier 1 teams, prodigies like donk or jimpphat took about 3 years still (both were invited to FPL around 15). that being said they probably would be fine in cs if they could keep themselves motivated to grind (for instance, leo/sayf used to play on t3/4 mix teams prior to val)

valorant and cs are not that mechanically demanding, it's not even the main point of the game, it's a tactical FPS, yes you do need to be mechanically skilled and have your crosshair placement on point to be at the very top but the whole point of the game is to be a team shooter where you use tactics to create a disadvantageous fight for your opponent

quake/UT, even games like TF2 and OW are much more about the mechanical aspect of the game but UT/quake are just prime examples because you need to be good at everything, you don't just "main widowmaker or sniper". from projectiles to hitscan (both tracking and flicking), movement, including projectile boosting and trick/circlestrafing and if you play duel you also need to time at least 2 items (red armor and megahealth) in your head while you're fighting and repositioning on the map

Bro really said go next to an entire game engine

everyone was crying about csgo being shit in the beta too it's not new people hate change, cs2 obv won't kill valulrant though it might poach a few pros/amateurs if rito really wants to continue making such a steep cliff between t2/3 and t1 and also hold such concentrated events

imo the shooting feels better in CS2 but the movement does feel significantly worse and i really like the smoke changes and accessibility changes like selling, camera mode for lineups, improved visibility, enough so that i'm optimistic for the game without it affecting valorant crowd negatively