"Can we talk about the geopolitical and economic state of the world right now" type question

As much of an antagonist Kreese is, his backstory is hard. And Johnny's story has always been amazing. Tory is definitely my favourite female character since she feels the most indepth especially in the recent season.

Miguel is goated. Hawk is a solid character

Don't watch the S6E10 💀

Some games will just not be your games. You will do everything right: be ready to trade your teammates, use your util to make it easier for your team to kill, but you will somehow die first or die to weird shots. Don't let these games get to you. Keep building the healthy habits and make sure that there is nothing to blame but yourself and the things you do blame yourself are actual learning experiences rather than repeated low-level errors.

Also, definitely don't take this game so seriously. I won't say it's just a game, but it's not your whole life. Give your mind some rest when it is not a Valorant day. Keep your mind as stress-free as you can and you will find that you will aim smoother and play more fluidly.

edit: Another thing is if you queue with other people in a stack, it's people who you not only get along with but have similar goals and a growing mindset. You will be surprised by how passive people get and then autopilot a round. If your opponent is doing something and you are not trying to actively counter it, you should not be surprised if you lose more rounds because of it

Not the blatant upvote farming 😭

He was chilling. I remember in Sliggy's stream that he commented on how Jinggg was having sips of his drink midround and that he can't do that on Raze lmao. I think his sentinel plays are definitely getting better as well as the sova plays.

Natank has been playing with pretty much all the LEV boys according to Tracker.

Xffero's thrifty round and Jemkin's 4k on the round they invested 3 ults were big. Also, full-buying on round 23 and then having to do no-armour rifle buys without omen flash definitely screwed them over.

No team so far has reached Astralis levels of dominance in tournament results. However, there are brief instances of teams using Astralis style strats like multiple nades to flush out a player. Can't pinpoint 1 team that does it the most, but teams oriented around util-usage are more likely to have this sort of vibe. If anything, this is the one form of evolution that Valorant teams haven't adopted in full effect.

They don't know how to chill out and play simple punishing valorant against ecos. They always try to full send it.

I was trying to curse-speech GenG, but Sliggy was too strong. PRX just need to learn to peek or hold angles together. Be ready to trade. They give so many 1s. Yoman got a sick 4k just getting peeked 1 by 1 from PRX

Can't lie. PRX don't know how to play against ecos (i.e.: chill out with the crazy plays and keep it simple). A lot of their round wins were crazy plays from f0rsaken or something shifting the tides a lot. Jinggg on Split felt kinda useless. Foxy9 had his killtrips in place with no contest whilst Jinggg should be using the nade lineup to disrespect the trips. Overall PRX seem to play more for clips and flashiness rather than to win sensibly. This series was close, but G2 would hardpunish this into a comfortable 2-0.

ABSOLUTE CINEMA

• RRQ looked decent with Kush in their roster. Probably gonna need to level up the strategy to beat the strongest teams.
• DFM is a huge question-mark since they lost against RRQ and ZETA but could beat Talon. Meiy is still amazing, but he cannot solo-carry to anything significant.
• TE: I wouldn't pay too much mind to the coach screaming since he later apologised to his players. Whether they registered that sort of remedial action is behind the scenes, but it's clear the coach has high expectations of them and knows that they could do something shocking. Players in general need to adopt a more professional mindset rather than blocking out everything that discomforts them.
• BLG: They did well in off-season to win a tourney, but I think that BLG's main competition to test them is TE, FPX and EDG. It's difficult to say how good BLG is considering they looked weaker at this champs compared to last year.
• DRX: To beat GENG is a good sign, but they cannot beat Talon for some reason. Could be that they counter DRX's play style or the young players lack the confidence to beat an aggro style that Talon uses.
• PRX: The big mystery of what they are doing - we will have to see at this invitational, but rumour is they should be using more stable roles rather than having odd agent pools. Having said that, Phoenix and Sage just got buffed so that could incentivise Jinggg to go back to these niche agent picks.
• GENG: Really solid, but they need to fine tune some of their stuff on Ascent. Foxy9 is definitely gonna need some time to adapt to the GENG playbook especially since he is a bit below Meteor's mechanical capabilities. Foxy9 is still promising since he is on his comfort pick of sentinel.
• EDG: Nothing much to say other than they should be good, but maybe not nearly as dialled in given 2 of their key players have not played for a while and Haodong is no longer on the team.

Future of Valorant (2-3 years) but NA. EMEA got Sayonara, but he looks like a monster with his current tracker stats.

Yeah, it's looking like PatrickWho has a high ceiling potential, but he might be overextending on rounds where he should be regrouping with the team. UdoTan has some great timings, but he needs to probably communicate to the team what he can notice. The sentinel role is essentially made to inform whether they should rotate or not. Whilst Papi is underperforming, I think the whole team is a bit disjointed and needs time to cooperate on timings and strategy.

zeek just joined a roster with starxo.

NAOS lost Sunset, but I think GE just prepped better for that map. On another note, JA looking like John Wick on the Iso and Jett. Fried this series even if it is just an Off-Season. He would be a sick option for Tier 1, but I don't think TS will make changes anytime soon. Honestly, you could have the NAOS roster in TS and swap Mojer for Jremy or Invy, then put JA as primary duelist. It seems like a random decision given either player is filling in for secondary duelist/flex, but damn. I'm actually enjoying some Filipino Valorant when I'm watching JA and Xavi8k fry.

Damn. Good he's focusing on studies at least. And I feel rich could have played flash initiator with cauanzin calling (cauanzin is secondary caller in Loud currently). Nevertheless o7 for Rich. Shortlived but did well especially on XIT.

This is my headcanon of that argument.

Oh don't mistake what I say with undermining Dgzin's value. I think Loud should have picked him up instead of Qck. A non-duelist playing duelist especially with the weird picks Saadhak concocted in the early months of the season was bound to fail.

Palla and rich were not given a whole lot of time either. I think they could probably go back to Tier 2, but it sucks that they got 4 games of franchise before the overhaul.

No EG Sym. Probably for the best. Sym needs some more time to harden his mental if he wants to be Tier 1 worthy. I guess this opens the way for EG Florescent unless they completely blindside everyone and pick up someone else like Okeanos, Virty, etc.

1 feature in a mixed gender off-season tournament and then 2 Bo1s against a uni team and another GC team in 2023. NOTHING SIGNIFICANT. It's a stretch to call Funhaver Tier 2 especially since the match she played was Open Qual. She got beat in both VCL open quals this year at Ro32. She's a decent player especially in the GC scene, but she has nothing in Tier 2 and her best in Tier 3 (Open qual into Challenger) is getting beat by pick-up teams.

For a decent amount of these GC players, this is their first FPS or first tac-FPS.

A Tier 1/2 team can pick up a female/trans/nb player. Bob, a nonbinary player, played for SaD esports last year in Tier 2 NA. It's up to them whether they think the player(s) are good enough in the current talent pool.

Serious question, what Tier 2 results has mel given? Last I checked, they got dropped by a pick-up team in open quals. This year, they can't even play Challengers since the deadline is the same day as GC finals (today).

There are two ways to look at your question: it's either they simply can't keep up or they don't want to keep up. The latter is more down to them being comfortable where they are whilst the former is kind of a question of what factors hold them back. It's definitely not mechanical potential since the sources point to there basically being no significant difference in reaction-time.

Now to your 3 points: No, why dissolve the league before it's actually had a chance to get within a notable range of Tier 2. There's still a considerable gap between GC and Tier 2 - and the whole point of GC is to bring that ecosystem closer to Tier 2. Point 2 is what Riot will always do, but the gap will only get larger if women don't feel the need to improve themselves be it mechanics or strats. And then last point makes no sense both from a logistics standpoint (like you said, what's the point in separating more?) as well as a scheduling standpoint. Additionally, the market audience that would watch nonbinary/trans players exclusively is still very small and not fully invested.

😂 Fair play. I won't stop you enjoyment if that's what you enjoy seeing. Suzu Neon hands was pretty iconic. I was hoping for a better run from Falcons since Madv is a great aimer and Mary return looked promising. Xipto are the female PRX so watching them is like 100% stress, but when they win, it feels like a win for the more fun side of Valorant.

Of course GC doesn't incentivise this. Your own personal drive and/or your org's aspirations incentivise the desire to improve. GC only incentivises women and marginalised genders to be represented to boost confidence and increase numbers in some of the untapped markets/audiences.

Of course compared to other competitive games Valorant is gonna proportionally have not only more trans and nonbinary players, but also more women in the community because it is visually a lot more easy to relate to and be appealed by.

If we're going back to Harapan845's original question, at least in the pro scene, there are not as many trans/nb players compared to women; however, it's much easier to notice these players when they put up massive performances and get deeper in tournament runs compared to the women.

Women will be represented at the top level if they continue to improve their mechanics, fundamentals, strategy, etc. Frankly, the vast majority are still not good enough to compete in Tier 1/2. They'll make occasional correct decisions, plays and win rounds, but the depth in the playbook and consistency to pull this off is not on the same level as Tier 1/2.

Strawmanning trans/nonbinary players in a developmental league designed to be dissolved and merged with the Tier 2 ecosystem isn't productive because women are eventually gonna have to play men. There's no avoiding it and if anything, it's about embracing the challenge. There are several social factors which play a part in why not as many women pursue high Radiant (800-1000+ RR) which are not straightforward to resolve.

It's not about women being crowded out by trans/nonbinary players, but whether women are willing to keep up with the growing level of skill.

Anybody can reach their mechanical ceiling - in Valorant's case, that is Radiant ranked. This requires not only being mechanically strong and have good game sense, but being consistent with it and having the stamina to grind out ranked for hours. Whilst there is no difference between men and women in these areas, there are probably social factors at play which might deter women from pushing themselves as far as possible to reach Radiant and even high Radiant (800-1000+ RR).

Gaming in general is quite male dominated and women tend to receive additional toxicity just because of their sex. This can be demotivating to play for longer periods which means less chances of hitting Radiant and pushing your mechanical potential. Now, I can't speak on behalf of trans people, but given that voice comms is audio-based, if a trans-woman who has started transition or nonbinary person (Assigned Male At Birth) were to speak over the mic, other plays around them might think they're just another guy and therefore there isn't a jump to potentially say sexist/misogynistic comments alongside general toxicity. This isn't always the case, but I feel like women have a higher chance to receive unwarranted comments regardless of if they play good or bad.

Mechanical skill isn't the be-all, end-all, but in this tournament, it has been evident that the finalists are better than other teams in this department and that just comes from grinding the game to the very top in ranked - it helps to keep this result consistent.

Romano has said it's provisional, but teams rarely will make the money to get out of this situation. Sucks to see one of the big teams in France lose their way.

They allegedly don't have a lot of money to be spending. Although it was known this move would happen for a while now, it would have been nice to see Palla or richzin signed given MIBR are gonna be blowing up their roster.

Lmao dawg didn't even register 2Game. Honestly, they looked decent in Ascension, but without spikezin, they might struggle. G2 has made a great upgrade in the duelist department and can cook harder. As much as I disliked Valyn for dismantling PRX, he is a great caller at his best and he can frag to boot. I think NRG is ahead of SEN especially if FNS can maintain his performance throughout the season.

I'm a fish and I'm taking it. <insert patrick cheese hook gif>

First, putting zeek in there is insane. I know he might be a bit washed and GoNext trolled their ascension run, but zeek has the capability to play for a Tier 1 team. The other players have hit radiant and gone well above the minimum threshold at their peak. They look mediocre because they're outplayed by better teams, systems, strats.

You're overrating mimi quite a lot to say she could replace players who have truly grinded out ranked and refined their mechanical ability a lot. I'm not saying this to be rude about mimi, but if she doesn't have her calling, she is basically worth nothing to a Tier 2 team given there are more mechanically proven players who can learn how to play to a stratbook. And even then, her calling is probably not as fast or precise on the micro details and decisions to make midround compared to Tier 2 IGLs. She might do some stuff right, but it is a bigger gamble taking her if I'm being honest.

Most people would cry, be frustrated, disappointed, etc. if they lost a chance to win a trophy despite being so close. It takes a lot to put up a calm, honest front in a press conference after a huge loss regardless of competitive tier, what game or even discipline you partake in. When you care to be the best at something that's within your reach, the emotions hit harder.

I like mimi as much as the next person, but "easily play for a top tier-2 team"? You must be cooked. She's a good caller in GC, but during the Spotlight Offseason tournament, she even said that she was learning IGL stuff from Valyn like quicker calls. Mechanically though, she is still immortal 3 (check her tracker) which is a notable difference at the highest level of competitive Valorant. Her decision-making would get exposed hard in Tier 1/2.

She makes good money at G2 with the Red Bull sponsorships, but she also is content with pursuing GC trophies because if she goes to Tier 1/2, there is no guarantee that she can even play at an international. You're risking starting from the bottom and being at the mercy of harsh waves of criticism and potential misogyny due to her being the only female in the scene when there are radiant ranked grinders who wanna go pro.

Low bait, but I'll give you the honesty you don't care about so others can read it: EMEA has 3 slots because the region has multiple invested orgs into GC compared to NA who have 3 orgs and the rest are pick-ups. Brazil definitely deserves another slot, but it's in Riot's best interest to ensure actual orgs have a chance to play on stage and keep them invested. That's why EMEA has more slots.

Dawg is mopping the floors at TSM headquarters

If a GC team didn't tryhard in challengers to get a whiff of Tier 2, they didn't deserve it in the first place. Also, Riot's mission objective for GC, a development league, is to literally bring it closer in line with Tier 2 and maybe even Tier 1 if possible.

Some of these guys start as regular guys, but with more money, the more you realise that the things you can get don't satisfy your wants. At least in the case of people like Diddy, Epstein and Weinstein. Perhaps they had these dark interests the whole time and money enabled their position to act upon these interests.

In instances like KSI, the Pauls, Mr Beast and YouTubers on a wide scope, they venture into some weird stuff sometimes because they don't do their research properly and think the money they make in these crypto or dodgy business deals will be quickly made and they can forget about it. Stuff like Lunchly, Prime and Feastables are heavily marketed to kids which is overall jarring to watch. Just loud ads from your favourite youtuber running on their own hype.

It's almost like famous people got thousands, if not millions of people watching their lives nearly 24/7 whilst your average person with weird interests is probably memorable as far as their social group.

Paper Rex's crazy plays especially when they signed something and overcame their rivals DRX to win VCT Pacific 2023 in a reverse sweep.

Yep. Same goes for their ranked play. It's less important compared to their pro-play, but if they don't pursue higher challenges in ranked, they won't learn how to overcome it. It's all a very tough learning experience especially given that women in ranked can receive hostility and toxicity no matter how good they are or how high they place.

It's a lose-lose for them if there were to be a new league for trans/nonbinary players. When they play in GC, haters will call it "men beating women" and then if they play in Tier 3 (their own hypothetical league), they'll get clowned on for not being good enough for Tier 2. Viewership will be a myth and if anything, there will be a more apparent air of toxicity from stream chat haters and such. There is pretty much no time in the schedule for another tournament so understandably trans/nonbinary players are part of the GC scene.

Look, I understand you probably feel sad for teams like ZETA GC, XIPTO or FALCONS VEGA, but you got to understand that quite a few of these GC players haven't even hit radiant. They worked hard and I respect that, but there is still work to improve upon to get your mechanics up. The strats is down to the coaching and IGLing which comes with experience and scrimming.

If the whole long-term goal is to bring GC in line with Tier 2, they are gonna be playing against men, trans, nonbinary players eventually so they can't be bubble-wrapped forever. Really, it's about embracing the challenge and focusing on supporting the teams you like than hating the teams you don't like.

• Khabib Nurmagomedov definitely got to be one of the most chill goats. He's definitely a traditional man which some people might not relate to, but he is a down-to-earth and humble guy with good morals. Only downside is he didn't go 30-0, but he is up there.
• Jordan, I agree is goated in everything except his tragic attempt at a baseball career and his poor gambling habits.
• Ronaldo and Messi are both goated. Messi definitely has a bit of that NPC awkward vibe. Ronaldo is pretty good personality-wise, but some might say he is arrogant or self-absorbed at times. I think he's just very competitive to win.
• Djokovic/Federer/Nadal are the goats of tennis and I can say that Federer is the most chill personality-wise and Djokovic has been perceived as arrogant especially on health matters. Nadal falls in the middle with his vibe being closer to Federer.

Generational wealth is always worth it because the moment your contract is done with that team, you can use that money to fit your personal beliefs and objectives. Some people might see this as completely wrong because if you get dirty money and use it for a good cause, it tarnishes the intent to do good. But personally, if you can finance and fund the things you truly believe in, that contract is worth it.