"Superteam" and theres asuna and zander

xset

"major"
https://imgur.com/a/2678hSf

by that logic g2 has no worth, loud 2023 has no worth, heretics have no worth, mako has no worth

meteor on top, only player with 2 trophies and 2 mvps
mako next if u think of all time, consistently jailed but was the best smokes in the world for multiple time periods, just cant get international success because of the rosters he's on
kk, mvpd an international, was really good and finally broke through, but after the break through they didn't keep that level of success even when bringing the same roster into 2025, missed toronto
saadhak, champs trophy + lock in finals + champs top 3 to the eventual winners, took down the unbeatable fnatic twice in one bracket and sent them home, and brought a completely new loud to an international in 2024
zellsis 5th, trophy but not the best fragger, good for team culture but even on V1 he was never the best player on his team

if i was a forsaken advocate (i think alfa > forsaken), my argument would be:
forsaken has played in a system with benkai, then transitioned into a system without an igl, then transitioned into a new team with monyet, then transitioned into igling all within the same team, whereas alfa has played sentinel his entire career, and has not switched in his system massively other than playing duelist in a very minimal capacity where he's not really changing how he's playing, since he's 2nd entry anyways on haven at least

he is obviously comparing skill in game when making this list, look at the names

cryo "redemption" 💔💔💔

yall do not know ball if u think he needs redemption, he's just jailed. was top 4 at an international when his team wasn't crypto throwing, and still looks insane even when zander asuna and boostio are throwing games

yeah, but you can't mix and match timelines, so i think the best optic ever looked was at iceland with a 80% yay smurfing on everyone + marved playing like iceman

people coming back and realizing yay was 1v5ing that tournament and took his team to an international final is so funny

when people say champs optic was prime optic they genuinely don't know what they're saying lmao, it was just a yay trying to hard carry when his teammates were doing decent at best

watch back iceland and compare vic crashies and marved to champs and its so insane the difference there was, if optic had those 3 playing at an iceland level they were winning 2 trophies that year (still almost took it to a map 5 if crashies doesnt miss the right click)

a devil's advocate case for every player on that list

leo - had 1.2 years of actual dominance (2023-2024 regionally), the only trophies he won were on one meta, never achieved anything internationally away from fnatic and doesn't even have the best peak of all time (yay)
chronicle - won 1 trophy in a plumber era where he wasn't the best on his team, and then fell off in 2022. In 2023 he was the worst player on that team not named boaster when winning
alfa - has never played in a system that's not boasters, only had 2 years of dominance and recently came back to do good in a final where he lost
t3xture - shouldn't have to make a devil's advocate case here, he just doesn't have the longevity to match forsaken
spring - shouldn't have to make a devil's advocate case here, he just doesn't have the longevity to match forsaken
YOU - shouldn't have to make a devil's advocate case here, he just doesn't have the longevity to match forsaken
leaf - never achieved real international success outside g2 (c9 doesnt count, that team got blasted at champs), hasn't even won a trophy
kk - had one incredible run at champs where he looked like the best player in the world for 4 matches, can't match the longevity of forsaken
chichoo - had one incredible run at champs where he looked like the 2nd best player in the world for 4 matches, can't match the longevity of forsaken
trent - he was only really good for 1 regional split in 2022, in 2024-2025 he looks good but the longevity forsaken has is not matched + no trophies

again, i'm not saying i agree (putting forsaken above alfa or chron is a war crime), but if you're looking in the sense of a "greatest" of all time list, then this is the arguments i can think of

vlr users try to actually watch the episode and consider the reasoning of the list challenge (impossible)

same guy who'll say nats is in the top 10 LOL

2022 in "plumber era" 💔💔💔

holy newgen take

mako is insane

and having less and not sacy has to be a crime

Cryo is just demon1 but better atp yall
Honestly, just buy c0m after he leaves lev, buy potter after eg leaves vct, replace ethan with eeiu from the sg roster, you have boostio, and keep cryo for demon1 role

The only thing is you'll be missing jawg, but if you have potter i have confidence that she can make find someone to make a decent jawg replacement for that eg 2023 roster

Final roster:
eeiu
boostio
cryo (on demon1 roles)
c0m
find a jawg replacement/buy out jawg
Potter
Zikz on AC

BALL KNOWERS

im gonna cry what happened to faker
why does he look like the worst mid at the tourney ;-;

Shanks is fucking frying idk what ur talking about

If they stop trolling like they did in game 1 AL could easily finalist MSI

I think the domination actually made the map even more impressive to me, because of how bad sen should have been compared to GenG on that map, but im biased and wanted sen to win so take allat with a grain of salt

EU PHORIA BABY LETS FUCKING GOOOOO

CAPS IS THE GREATEST MIDLANER THE WEST HAS EVER PRODUCED

bro likes coc 😭

i think s1mon hate is the litmus test for if you know what you're talking about or not, this guy clearly failed

the saudi cucks downvoting anyone who calls the 5 day tournament with bo1s as a format fraudulent will never not be funny

Bro does not have 4 dollars

That zekken got into an argument with rob moore, and john and zekken left sen for 100t, and 100t dropped boostio and asuna for john and zekken and cryo and zekken were reunited and they won masters that year

Then i woke up and realized i needed to detox valorant

vro prolly thinks plat is a good rank 😭😭😭

its so weird that NA crowd is dead cuz i lowkey think its just a canada thing

like champs 23 was legit a fucking monster crowd, best ive seen in valo to this date, even tho people love to bring up sao paulo (also NA bias coming in with that take)
also, in other esports other than cs NA can have a nuts crowd, i think its just production that fucking nerfed it

cryo will prove you wrong and come 4th but drop 120 over 4 maps while asuna falls asleep entrying and nades zander trying to put a smoke on bomb😤😤😤😤

Sgares said hes not coming back

Hot take: If 100T had sgares since 22 this team would have gotten finalist at least once at an international

its genuinely impressive how incompetent T1s management tries to be

tried to bench the LITERAL best adc in the world in league for no reason because "the coach says the other guy is better!111!!!"

now in valorant autbum is somehow getting a paycheck, god knows how or why, and is ruining a roster that won, not because of him, but in spite of him

o7 T1

LMAO

ON 100shitters cryo will never be as successful as he could be, as long as asuna keeps sucking nadeshots dick and zander keeps crypto throwing

Yes, ewc does not count for a "trophy"

I weight it the same as like afreecatv, its an offszn

ice cream man but the cream comes from ALL of us

yeah but marved's the real goat so like do we really care about any of these guys

This argument is so recency biased its insane. People watch 3 series if alfa playing well and call him better than leo when he was a completely liability on maps prior

Respect leo's name

1. Leo pipedream
2. Nats calls WAYYY too much around his own ability for this to be as dominant as fnc 23

LMAO

That's my point, is that it is now, but the way that we're trending, it might not be the case that every international winner is treated equally. Perhaps I am reading into this a bit too deep, but I want to be extremely wary on the messaging that gets put out, because I already see a difference in community sentiment between Champs vs Master winners, even though both should be the same, and both went against the toughest competition they had available and won.

Makes sense why you're against the 20 teams champs idea, and I can understand that sentiment, it was a spicy take

My main complaint is not with teams like Heretics who "should" be regarded as better than EDG, but the idea that a team winning Champs makes them better in some way than a team that wins Masters 2. I could argue that there is a harder gauntlet in a Swiss system where you actually have to play the teams that are the best in THAT current patch, rather than teams who have been ordered based on a previous patch (ex: look at RRQ, insane in Tejo meta, horrid without it), and that leading to some pretty easy groups to get out of.

For example for the Champs groups being really weird: Ex: Champs 2024 Group A with DRX FNC wiping the other 2, Champs 2023 Group B with EG and FUT destroying the other 2, whereas some groups just end up as really hard due to random luck. Ex: 2023 Champs Group D with DRX, Loud, NAVI with 3 teams who could have easily made it through in any other group, or 2024 Champs Group B with the famous FPX GenG Heretics SEN, and even Champs 2024 Group D with EDG, G2, PRX, and FUT, all 4 of whom were really solid teams who could have definitely made it out if they were placed in a different group

I agree with you that there should be a 4th international, that seems like a great way to remove a lot of the "lull" that valorant feels like it goes through

Yeah I agree it does come off as a bit conspiracy theoristy, but I the only reason I think it's plausible to be true is because we literally heard Leo Faria be like "we want to build up to Champs at the end of the year" which to me feels like them trying to nerf Masters to make champs feel better

Apart from that I don't think I gave the most perfect suggestions, but I feel like Riot has to do something about the bracket, because 3/4 of the top 4 teams at Masters Bangkok not being at Toronto, including the winners, makes the event feel kinda whatever

aint he the guy that did some stupid shit with his sponsorship with spyware or something

could be talking outta my ass but i know theres a reason i unsubbed from him

holy yapper stfu lil bro no one asked 0/8 ragebait

I got the idea for this rant from this: https://www.vlr.gg/508532/theres-no-point-in-winning-a-masters-anymore

The main context is from this image: https://imgur.com/a/0LSqI45 , where they call Master winners "WINNERS of Masters xyz", but they call Champs winners "World Champions"

In case you don't know, Riot has this game called League of Legends! You might've heard of it, and their esport is quite large. One of the biggest things that we see in LoL esports is this idea that the only win that really matters is Worlds, which you'll see permeate throughout the community.

For example, one of the recent players who got inducted into the "Hall of Legends", Uzi, has never actually won a Worlds trophy, but he has won an MSI, which you could compare to a Masters, as it's near the middle of the season, after one of the splits, and the top 3 teams from every region go to fight for the trophy. Even though you might say that he HAS won a trophy, and an international trophy, they still call him the "crownless king" on official pages, because the League community doesn't recognize wins other than Worlds as ACTUAL wins at Internationals. You can see a similar sentiment for T1 and GenG last year, where although GenG won the MSI, and looked like the most dominant team in the world for literally 90% of the year, they weren't the team that won Worlds, so they ended up having their year being extremely heavily downgraded by most everyone in the community. On the other hand, even though T1 looked alright for most of the year, and REALLY bad in the qualifiers to Worlds that year, they ended up being called the "best team" because they won Worlds. I am a T1 fan, and have a ton of bias for them, but GenG was absolutely the better team throughout the year. The reason that this attitude even exists in league is due to the fact that MSI was introduced fairly later on into the esport as a tourney, so people already viewed it as something new and not to aspire for, but that leads me to my complaint with how Riot is handling Valorant.

Valorant is NOT League of Legends, and I think Riot would do really well to understand that. The ecosystem around Prestige and the Meaning of winning an International is COMPLETELY different from League of Legends, and I think Riot is either trying to act like it isn't, or push the idea that it isn't so much that we end up treating Masters as a downgrade to Champs. Valorant, at the start of the game, came with Masters. Masters Reykjavik, Berlin, Reykjavik 2, Copenhagen, even the Regional Masters in 2020, were all there from the start of the game. Since these events and internationals were there from the start of the game, and also were our first ever taste at International competition, it's ended up becoming a really big honor to win a Masters trophy. Think back to 2021, if you were around, and remember how insane it was when Gambit won their trophy over Envy, or Sen winning the first ever international. The HONOR in lifting that trophy was something that is truly special to this game, and I think it is absolutely awesome that the community kept the same attitude to FPX winning Copenhagen as Loud winning Istanbul. When all of these trophies mean something, it really brings viewers in to every single international, and makes them want to stay in touch with the game, at least for internationals, and keeps viewers watching. When I compare this to watching MSI compared to Worlds, there's literally an idea that some League watchers are "just Worlds" watchers, and don't really care for the esport as a whole, but care about Worlds because it means something.

Imagine that in Valorant, for a second. Imagine a SIGNIFICANT portion of viewers coming to Valorant only for Champs, and not watching anything else in the sport for the rest of the year. Sen's win over GenG in Madrid, GenG's insane dominance at Shanghai going into champs, all means nothing. All that matters is that EDG won Champs, so they're the best team. Fnatic's literally GOD RUN through Tokyo and Sao Paolo? Means nothing, because they didn't win Champs so who really cares. T1's Cinderella run, and PRX's FIRST EVER TROPHY? Won't matter if they don't win at Champs. This idea is so unhealthy for the sport, not only in terms of viewer numbers decreasing as a whole, since no one would care about Masters, but also for the sport as a whole. We already saw Loud 2 years ago literally not try at all at Masters Tokyo and bomb out, because they were "saving strats for champs". Who would want to watch a product for 9 8 months of the year if it's meaningless?

Now this brings me to what Riot has been doing, and how they should FUCKING FIX IT, because you have a special kind of attitude here in Valorant, and you're slowly burning it away because you "want it to be like league!".

Dear Riot Games:
Why do you have an 8 team masters at the start of the year? Who is benefitting from this? Please explain to me why we can't have 2 Masters with 12 teams each, or even better, a Masters with 12 teams --> 16 teams --> Champs with 20 teams (I'll explain the format later). The only possible explanation for making Masters 1 feel like a tournament that means less is so that you artificially make Champs feel like more, which is just such a stupid way to approach this issue. Why the fuck would you intentionally degrade your own product, lose viewers because of it in the long run, likely, and make teams care less about a tournament so you can boost the other tournament. You are only hurting the game when you do this, and by not valuing the achievements of Masters winners and using language to act like Champs winners are some "incredible team" compared to them, when they both won an international with a double elim bracket, is just dishonest. Please, if you want events to "ramp up", instead of killing your own product, improve everything else!
Proposal:
Masters 1 is a 12 team bracket, same as Masters 2 right now and every "normal" masters we've had, and keep the Swiss stage, it's so good for viewership
Masters 2 is a 16 team bracket, with the Champs brackets instead as their format, and the same double elim bracket like normal.
Champs ends up becoming a 20 team event. You get more fans engaged in the sport, more revenue from skin sales, and a longer tournament for more viewers. For the format, if you want to be like League so bad, just steal it! Make a part of the Champs bracket be a Play-In bracket, and take the 4th and 5th seeds from each region and put them in a Play-In bracket to find the best 4 teams, then take the 16 teams you have, and fix your groups system. We already saw last year how horribly that can go with GenG, TH, SEN, and FPX being in the same group, so instead make it like League AGAIN!!!! Take their idea of having a 3 game swiss system, where you need 3 wins to progress, and end up with 8 teams to run a bracket with. If you end up with low time because of how long this might take, just have the Swiss stage be to 2 wins, and have it be the top 4 teams in a Double elim bracket to win it all, which would all be in the new venue.

Even if you disagree with the way that I've proposed a change in the system, I hope that we would all be in agreement that disvaluing Masters trophies to make Champs seem like a "premiere" event is a really bad thing for the scene as a whole in the long run, and I do hope Riot addresses this in the future, because it seems really easy to just revert back to 2 Masters with 12 teams if they wanted to, even if they don't want to change the Champs format at all.

hali denied ts

TH IN A LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

should've been geng, either at champs or madrid, but they lost to their kryptonite both times

bro had a whole ass argument, realized that the argument didn't work, and edited it all away XD

smh i was gonna respond to it too before I realized it was bait

what the fuck? since when did you decide to have good takes?

also nice bias of TL over sen even tho placement wise they shouldn't be XD
they probably are about even or lower than TL tho so fair

is it? I thought it was the shanghai one

edit: no ur right it was the madrid one

theres so much region bias in this its lowk insane looking at it

like i genuinely could not give less of a shit whether you won your regional trophy if you bombed out of the event or never made it to the event, why is this even being taken into account