Imagine ascending to tier 1 and your first game is against a LOUD team that's had over half the year to cook up the most bizarre team comp you've ever seen

I started watching VALORANT esports near the end of the 2023 season, but I only really started following it in 2024. I'm a fan mostly because they're the only Americas team willing to innovate (new Abyss comps and whatever NRG was doing doesn't count), but also because I love the majority of the players. Also I may or may not be biased becausd they're somehow the only org in franchising with a green logo

My rent is $1500 a month and I don't pay for hydro nor water. You just gotta know where to look, man

100% agree

Tbf who else is he meant to ask

Dude the suburban town I live in has more people than Tonga

Of course he's fake flagging bro nobody's from hecking Tonga
(If you're from Tonga and you're reading this I'm sorry, but the point still stands)

He doesn't even watch Xipto 😭

What the hell did I just read

nAts, vo0kashu, and chiwa my Russian sentinel goats

Tonga

You're also quite skilled in the department of sarcasm detection

Yes, you're very terrifying

It's a double-edged sword. When more games are played, committed fans are a lot happier because they get more action. However, more casual fans of the esport (i.e. the majority of people) will just lose interest if a tournament goes on for more than a few weeks, especially if there are multiday pauses in play. I agree that more games are needed, but Riot does have to be mindful of how many games are played so that they make the maximum number of people happy.

Imagine if Potter randomly decides to apply

Has it occured to you that this is the exact reason people are disrespecting you?

I'm not approaching this from a population perspective but fair point

Got it ty

Yeah yeah whatever

You should come up here, then. It's really nice :)

Nice edit

"If you try to play ranked with a logical mindset, you will lose more than you win" is exactly why I'm stuck in low silver but I don't know how to play the game any other way :(

How's life down in South Canada, btw?

Why would you think that?

aspas' contract with Leviatán extends through 2025

He's really good but I have to admit I've seen better from s0m. Maybe s0m on Jett and N4RRATE on Raze on Split

I like the idea of NRG N4RRATE. They'd have so many players capable of playing so many agents. You could have s0m play Jett and Neon, N4RRATE play Raze, and Ethan play Yoru, and the roles would still be completely fine

Oh ok

We got our "drop icy" thread of the day! Yayyyyyyy 😐

icy's underrated as hell, but zekken's objectively better than he is right now

Is it really gaslighting if the information is true?

I did too. Was hoping for a KAY/O or Breach competitor, like Fade was to Sova

Yup. I think it was confirmed yesterday morning

...que?

THEY ADDED RIDDLE ORDER FLAIR!!

https://www.vlr.gg/299021/all-in-favor/#10
https://www.vlr.gg/327158/woke-up-to-y0y-losing/#8
https://www.vlr.gg/322869/is-tenz-the-goat/#25
https://www.vlr.gg/304517/yall-really-gave-us-n4rrate/#16
https://www.vlr.gg/303151/midyet/#7

There, that's better

Probably fear of the same situation as last year, where all the players are stuck in contracts, but more importantly we have no idea if they want to even stay a partnered organization

I fully agree with this. Riot have shown they're open to constructive criticism and that they're willing to be a lot more open and public about these kinds of processes, so I genuinely hope they'll improve upon their system and keep us updated on what they're doing to improve the esport

Pretty safe to say that won't be for a long while, but I'm excited for that kind of thing as well. The regions that come to mind are South America and CIS, which would leave more teams available for both NA and SA, plus give EMEA more leniency to allow MENA representation.

Also we'd probably need more teams for each Masters, and... this is a bit of a stretch, but I'd really really wanna see an international LCQ, kind of like the international playoffs you see for the FIFA World Cup. No idea how that would be feasible but I'd love to witness it

That's true, and that's a valid point for Madrid over any other tournament this year. But then the argument of "Riot has the money, why don't they host every game in an arena?" comes about for tournaments next year—because we can't realistically guarantee every game at Masters Bangkok will be in an arena.

That could work, actually. A straight-to-playoffs double elimination bracket style tournament is a neat idea.

Another way they could potentially go about it, which I've seen in a few sports but never in esports, is if they have round robin groups purely for seeding. All 8 teams qualify, but playoffs end up being 1v4 2v3 3v2 4v1 between teams coming from two groups (in a Masters you'd have one team from each region in each group).

No idea, but if it is that kind of thing then I really hope it isn't uncounterable

...thank you? Not sure why that's relevant

People have reached a general consensus that less teams = mickey mouse tournament, which I don't agree with (like you said, Madrid was hype), so I just thought I'd call that out

That's a fair argument. In my opinion, though, all that really means is that every game counts, which is true in the vast majority of sporting and esporting events

Because I'm a viewer, I agree. But it's the same story here. Less teams doesn't make it inherently worse or less legitimate or anything of the sort. At the end of the day, all it means is it's harder for teams to qualify and we have less games to watch.

VALORANT Masters Bangkok
48 teams in qualifying ÷ 8 teams attending ≈ 16% of teams competing

FIFA World Cup 2022
211 teams in qualifying ÷ 32 teams ≈ 15% of teams competing

Pretty far-fetched comparison but the point is maybe only 8 teams isn't really a stretch. Sure, it's more fun with more teams, but that doesn't make 8 teams inherently bad or illegitimate, especially when every team has a realistic shot at qualification.

Someone wants a shoutout on the main broadcast

yUNDEFINEDy?

He's a very fun agent