"How is BLG winning this wtf"

"How is BLG losing this wtf"

Not necessarily for that reason, but yes, because they're underdogs that are performing way above expectations. I wouldn't say "without backlash" though, if you say your team is better you have to be prepared to eat your words.

EG doesn't get the same benefit because they aren't underdogs anymore—they placed 2nd in a major—but they also aren't cool. And the things they're saying are much more insulting and aggressive. BLG saying that they'll beat DRX right before their match is pretty tame.

Never?😬

I actually had a blatant cheater in a ranked game for the first time the other day. Instant headshots jumping, running, full blinded, smoked, stunned, through walls. I hoped maybe he'd get caught by anti-cheat during the game and we wouldn't lose elo but nope. Fuckin sucked

it's a fun fact, no one has to ask

It's possible, since being the best against your region's teams doesn't mean you'll be the best against everyone else, but it's ultimately pointless to wonder and there will never be a meaningful answer.

The point of a crowd is to have fans from each side who will cheer for their team. It's much more interesting to have sides of the crowd that will cheer against each other than it is to have a one-sided crowd that only cares about a couple of teams. Naturally the bias will lean towards wherever the tournament is hosted, but every major has been hosted in Europe, including the only 2 tournaments to have a live audience. Sports don't have teams that are the home team EVERY time. Hopefully there will be some diversity in venues in the coming years.

The bias is fine though, it clearly hasn't made a huge difference in team performance so far. It just feels really dead on the broadcast when their team isn't winning.

Both pretty bad in valorant since hardly any teams stay at the top for long, even from one tournament to the next.

is this a new pasta

5 of the 8 teams in playoffs are from NA and EMEA and 2 of the only 4 matches that have happened with the crowd have been NA vs EMEA, pretty hard not to bring it up. If you didn't want an answer based on what we've seen so far, kind of the wrong time to ask.

They're not just biased, in Fnatic vs XSET they were completely silent any time an XSET player did something significant, and they'd pop off if an EMEA player got even one kill (not an exaggeration). It was only slightly better in Optic vs TL, presumably because Optic has been a top team for a while now and have had great performances this year. I get that Alfa is the only Turkish player in the event, obviously the Turkish crowd will favor him heavily, but having a reason for the bias doesn't really make the crowd experience any better.

It's pretty lame, doesn't really matter if the bias would occur in reverse at an NA venue, which is conjecture. I imagine teams like TL or FNC would definitely get cheers even in NA.

Only upside is XSET leaning into it and antagonizing the crowd, because the crowd would be against them anyway.

Nivera is a much stronger player imo, ScreaM just has insane aim.

The opponent's level of preparation has nothing to do with your own team's level of skill. Playing against prepared opponents is not a separate ability, it just makes things slightly more difficult. FPX has also known for 4 days since losing to XSET that they would have to play DRX if they beat KRU. If they didn't spend any of that time thinking ahead, that is on them.

Since you want to nitpick the differences in circumstances, FPX is in a much more forgiving position than DRX was last tournament because this was an upper bracket match so FPX wasn't facing elimination. Since it's not the same situation as DRX, you don't need to sympathize with them(by your logic).

I'm sure FPX wants to make excuses to save face because losing in round 1 as defending champs looks bad, which is fine, but that's all it is.

I didn't say it was the same situation, I said teams need the skill of playing back-to-back days, and if FPX doesn't have that, it will always be a disadvantage to them. Trust me, one day of preparation would not make any difference for the skill disparity between the two teams on Breeze, and Ascent is already a map FPX is extremely strong on, but they lost anyway. There's nothing that could happen in one day that would have changed the result.

FPX had the opportunity for as much prep time but was cleanly defeated by XSET. If they need the prep time so badly, they have to secure top seed. That's on them, not the tournament organizer.

Being able to play with less prep is a skill you're going to need to compete at this level. The world won't bend over backwards for any team's specific needs. In the EMEA LCQ, Team Liquid lost upper finals and won lower finals with just hours between. Two matches in one day, 6 maps, over 140 rounds total. And the next day they had to BO5 rematch M3C, who they'd just lost to, but somehow managed to defeat them and qualify for Champs. These things are possible.

It's fair to keep the prep difference in mind, but it's not worth making excuses about. Perhaps if every match were one week apart, tournament results would be different. Or maybe every team should have one match per day with no days off, and see what changes then. But we don't live in either of those worlds.

DRX earned this win.