Thanks, man. GL to FUT 🇹🇷

Thank you!

It is what it is, at the end of the day. FPX are super snowbally. GL to FUT for match 2 ✌️

100% agree with this. FUT won map 2 entirely on momentum—and props to them, it was a super fun map to watch. People just aren't realizing that Icebox was just the inverse of that story.

VALORANT is SUPER snowbally. This map was super similar to LOUD vs. FNATIC at LOCK//IN in how it played out... they won one round, they won another, and then they just kept doing it. But I digress.

That aside, I 100% agree. Every team has strengths and weaknesses, and some rosters just have things that exploit others, regardless of whether they're considered "better" or "worse". It's one of the reasons this esport is so fun to watch :)

Not qRaxs' best day, for sure. He usually drops numbers. Hopefully he shows up for match 2 ✌️

Ty, means a lot :)

My takes on maplesy

1. Super overreactionary
2. Lowkey needs to chill lol

Hope y'all make it to playoffs 💪

I'm seeing a lot of bs being thrown around right now, so I just wanna give a few of my takes on this:

1. FPX beat FUT completely fairly, and both teams played well
2. FUT is not a disappointment. They played well, FPX just played a little better
3. FUT did not throw. The way I see it, FPX won the bonus, then the first buy, then the win momentum + home crowd buff took over
4. NAVI do not deserve to be at Shanghai just because FUT lost to FPX
5. FPX is a good hecking team
6. EMEA is not the worst region just because one EMEA team narrowly lost to one CN team
7. cNed played well
8. BiliBili upsetting NRG has nothing to do with this match whatsoever

You can disagree if you want, but I stand by all these takes.

All that aside, this was a super fun game to watch. I love silly comp vs. silly comp, would love to see more of that :>

I genuinely don't think NAVI would've beat FPX. They played really well today

Idk maybe FPX is just a good team or something

It was a close game, yea.

Well, yeah. It's the first round of the swiss stage, after all. The most viewed maps are almost certainly all gonna be from playoffs.

Marved isn't getting benched because he's bad. He's getting benched because they probably want to bring in s0m and it just so happens that Marved plays the same role

They said in their most recent Dev Diaries video that the game is meant to be a balance between gunplay, abilities, and map macro

None of these are frauds. In fact, no pro VALORANT player is a fraud. This isn't open to debate

I've noticed the one thing everyone's Shanghai team tierlists have in common is they have G2 in 8th. And I really don't agree with that

Love to hear it. Jack of all trades, master of some?

Don't be like that. There's nothing wrong with it. Hell, I was iron 1 0 rr at one point. Happens to the best of us

cauanzin was lowkey their best opper this year ngl

I'm mainly worried about maps like Icebox. I love seeing LOUD play Harbor, and tuyz is easily the best Harbor in Americas, but I don't see pAncada or saadhak playing Harbor well.

What I'm honestly hoping happens is they merge the Harbor Viper comp with the new Gekko KAY/O one. Would be super fun to watch:
Gekko: saadhak
KAY/O: cauanzin
Harbor: tuyZ
Viper: Less
Killjoy: pAncada

I kinda get that. All the maps are can be fun, but I don't necessarily like playing all of them. Just the ones I'm good on

No one says it but s0m played that round really well. It's just kinda unfortunate

The first pistol on Ascent in the DRX vs. LOUD game at Champions 2023 comes to mind. Such an intense way to start a map.
https://youtu.be/wxerKh6ezHM?t=1302

Wrong kiwi

They definitely have mentality issues. Don't know if three coaches and two performance coaches are enough to help with that, tbh. They probably need at least 5 more staff members

To be completely fair, if they didn't get obliterated by KOI they would've most likely topped their group

WHAT ARE YOU DOING GET BACK TO WORK

Wolverhampton: Wolves

I nominate chickenjoe

The hell is that for?

They ran Chamber Killjoy on Haven at one point, didn't they?

Everyone in Ontario and Québec has Illinois or Virginia as their closest. It's painful. Playing VALORANT on 60 ping at 60 fps on a 60 Hz monitor is a common reality

True. Sad, but true.

Oh, right, forgot they played in Kickoff

Honestly feel like 100T vs. G2 and LOUD vs. EG are gonna be more exciting games to watch. Kinda sad we won't see KRU until week 2, though

I feel like a matchup has to happen at least a few times a year for it to be considered a rivalry. I'll be surprised if we get SEN vs. NRG more than once this year

That's perfectly fine. Just take it one step at a time.

I mean... to be completely fair, his Jett wasn't half bad

This point was made on Plat Chat, but I'm gonna relay it here because I think it deserves mentioning. yay definitely isn't happy with his current team—you can hear it in the comms. We don't know if he was trialed at all before joining the team and moving to APAC, and we don't know if there was even any reason for BLEED to pick him up besides the attention. In fact, we don't even know if yay was happy playing on DSG—there's a real possibility he hasn't been on a roster he enjoys playing on since OpTic, and there's a chance that it's affecting his mental and therefore his performance.

That being said, I do believe yay's already hit his peak. That's not to say he's a bad player by any means, but I just don't think he's the world breaker he used to be.

Definitely possible. fl1pzjder is pretty talented (I don't care that he had a 0 kill map one time, it happens, move on, he's still a good player and deserves to be on a tier 1 roster)

A few of them, yea.

They don't have player cards because orgs didn't have time to make any before the Masters Shanghai deadline. They'll get player cards + sprays later in the year for sure

Gekko's Mosh Pit is absolutely MASSIVE. The only reason it can be that big without being broken is the fact that it only explodes after a few seconds. Otherwise it's just insane

They addressed this in today's Dev Diaries video. Do suggest watching it

Try to stay conscious of only one mistake at a time. If you have several problems, then focus on only one of them while you're playing. For example, if you don't pay attention to minimap, then your primary focus for that entire game should be awareness of when to look at your minimap

So what now?

Based. DFM supporters rise up, we're winning another series this year

NIP played the Deadlock double senti comp way before Turtle Troop did, but I digress. Either way, though, I was talking about individual agents, not team comps.