| Flag: | Wales |
| Registered: | March 18, 2022 |
| Last post: | September 6, 2025 at 5:43 PM |
| Posts: | 10318 |
I just can't see it as a good long term decision, especially with partnership contracts up in 2026.
Ideally, long term you would want both GentleMates and Koi in the ecosystem.
The way this all went down makes me think there is a good chance Koi might not be involved in the next partnership cycle.
No, only 8 teams qualify for ascension.
The rest of the tournament will only affect the seeding for the ascension event.
Without anyone coming out and saying what they actually breached, the reasoning could be so arbitrary.
If some of the rumours i've heard over the years have been correct, i would probably say others orgs have probably been in violation of the partnership agreement.
Unless there is some egregious breach of the partnership agreement, I think this sets a bad precedent about how riot views the partnered organisation as dispensable considering there was only 1 year left in the agreement.
Feels like to me, that they dropped Koi because they feared that they would be losing the bigger fish in GentleMates.
In spanish, with english captions.
https://x.com/i/status/1964325222460322276
Summary:
A meeting was scheduled yesterday with riot, in which they were told that they would be kicked.
He attempted to outline their plans and suggested ways in which they could help skin sales, such as Ibai being more involved with costreaming.
However the decision was final.
Ibai does understand that Koi has been underperforming on the server and in other metrics. Such as poor skin sales.
They've already signed a coach, yaba, in preparation for next year.
Koi had been in transition, due to things behind the scenes, and he finally felt in 2026 this could be their year.
He belives riot were trying to find a reason to kick a team to retain the Gentlemates.
As he understands how important m8 were for emea.
He was self critical and understands that koi would be deemed as the worst peforming team in EMEA vct in most metrics.
However, he feels like riot did not give them enough notice or any warnings.
2025? Sounds like it could be about tejo, although 2022 chamber would work.
The game was meaningless, they had secured 1st seed, and it was close.
I would only consider a rough patch being a period of underperformance that results in failing to make a deep run / qualify for something.
Okay maybe plain sailing was an exaggeration, but they were still able to grind wins and ultimately win emea.
Normally the issues with problematic players will emerge in periods of struggle.
I don't think hes problematic but so far his time in Liquid appears to be pretty plain sailing.
90 minutes at the Riot Games Arena Berlin is a very long time.
It seems like its a blessing and a curse.
Only 5 players have played at every champions event:
Currently, only Boaster has qualified to Champions 2025.
How many of the remaining 4 will qualify?
Who will keep the streak up for the longest?
gentlemates bowing out in the most gentlemates way possible
The team has completely collapsed since going 5-0 in stage 1.
They have won 1 single map (vs zeta) in their last 7 VCT games.
They will be playing in Ascension unless one of the following happens:
Player ratings over the season:
| PLAYER | KICK//OFF | SPLIT 1 | PLAYOFFS | SPLIT 2 |
|-----------|-----------|---------|----------|---------|
| DOS9 | 1 | 1.25 | 0.99 | 1.06 |
| FAMOUZ | 1.04 | 1.12 | 0.53 | 0.82 |
| NcSlasher | 0.73 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.78 |
| BerserX | 1.14 | 1.07 | 0.82 | 0.92 |
| Shiro | 0.92 | 1 | 0.68 | 0.91 |Will BOOM make a roster move in preparation for Ascension?
Vitality's CS team getting sponsored by stake.
A lot to do with the morality of having a gambling sponsor, as well as stake as a company. (You can't even use stake in France because it's restricted)
Two years grinding in tier 2 and its gone like that.
I mean its not surprising but they really went out without a whimper.
If Comeback and Minny end up at "Koi" something has gone terribly wrong in EMEA.
Based on the 2025 Valorant Official Competition ruleset (as of 27/06/2025)
There are three outcomes for the two "Ascension teams": Extend their stay, Fight in Ascension, Relegate automatically
Extend
Only 1 "Ascension team" may extend their term.
You can extend your term by being the only "Ascension team" in your region to qualify to champions.
Fight
The "Ascension team" will be required to requalify via the Ascension tournament
If a team loses a tiebreaker as defined in the Extend conditions.
If a team qualifies for the Stage 2 Playoffs, but fail to qualify to champs.
If a team finishes in the top 8 in their regions Championship Point Standings, but fail to qualify to champs.
Relegate
If a team fails to reach the Stage 2 Playoffs and is outside of the top 8 in the Championship point standing, they will be relegated to the Challengers League from which they qualified from.
Well it's not a great argument when you consider Ibai hasnt streamed a single vct game this year.
But the overall point about providing security to the most popular teams in correct.
Vit, BBL and GX are all winnable games.
They've been looking decent but results are all that matter now.
And that choke versus FUT might come back to haunt them.
In that round he got more kills than what boostio got in his last sunset match.
Jamyoung was so generational he had me on KICK watching him cook Astralis.
smeaging on the big stage, vct americas will never be the same again.
Would rrq even beat Gopal esports?
Watching him use the satchel for displacement is so satisfying.
He is frying on raze.
I can understand the complaints about the format.
However, the "patch issues" was way bigger at Toronto.
It doesn't really move the needle for any of the top players.
Although lets say.. BBL make the final, i'm now thinking jamppi has what it takes to be a top igl in the region.
Well according to Esports Charts:
For Pacific Stage 1 there was a Japanese language peak of 162,611 viewers. [1]
At the most recent VCL Japan split, 2025 split 2, there was a viewership peak of 180,493 viewers. [2]
VCT Japanese viewership is waning due to DFM and Zeta having weak performances.
Murash gaming, owned by a large Japanese content creator [3], has helped the VCL viewership remain strong.
As a league, VCT Pacific is still a lot more popular.
[1] https://escharts.com/news/vct-2025-stage-1-global-viewership
[2] https://escharts.com/tournaments/valorant/valorant-challengers-2025-japan-split-2
[3] https://www.twitch.tv/kato_junichi0817, currently live playing Mario Kart with 45k viewers
https://x.com/anonimotum/status/1940457700787474715
AHHHHH 🦅🦅🦅 what a crazy move.
It's nice because it actually feels like the teams are taking it pretty seriously.
Would be cool to see this type of format replicated in spain & france.
Unusually I haven't seen Lev announce his departure. Although his departure has been heavily remoured.
https://x.com/riotgames/status/1938282007148253261
We’re opening up betting sponsorship opportunities for Tier 1 LoL and VALORANT teams in the Americas and EMEA with safeguards to protect competitive integrity and the fan experience.
Key takeaways
[1] https://grid.gg/get-league-of-legends/ , riot's data platform, that requires a paid license for gambling services
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