I've been on JP hopium for so long, but unfortunately I gotta agree.

Yea CR are def improving which I love to see, but for example the game between SG and FL just made me want to throw something. How bad do these PAID players have to be to be losing when they have a Russian import going PLUS FUCKING 62.

Sad, just sad.

I am definitely over exaggerating, but there are many instances (especially on attack) where it seems like they don't know what they're doing and they're wasting time putting no pressure anywhere on the map. On Pearl against LEV, they would constantly run down the clock making no progress and then just pray that one of their players hits a couple of heads; which did happen sometime bc their players are mechanically capable.

And then the lack of change, how is that allowed to happen almost every single rifle round for an entire half?

After watching the whole series; i can confidently say that Zeta Division is just plain awful. There is zero adaptation, zero map control, zero awareness, and zero confidence. From 2020 I really wanted Japan to get good at esports: their market is huge and they have so many fans, they should be putting in the hours and the effort to get better. Not to mention some extra personal bias towards them bc i just like japanese culture ig. But despite all of that no, they just continue to disappoint year after year, event after event. In Masters 2, there were flashes of what I thought was Zeta finally learning from their mistakes; which they definitely were, but one common there from their success then, and event now, is that they rely WAY too much on the opponent making mistakes. They are not creating their own opportunities, which makes it trivially easy for any half decent team to just completely annihilate them. What's even sadder, is that it's clear they they have serious talent on their roster. Their players have (for the most part) insane mechanical skill, which is what has allowed them not to get 13-0d on every map.

All of Japan it seems is suffering as well. DNG has so far put on one of the more consistently trash performances I've ever seen, and the Japan Challengers League is full of cracked Russian imports carrying clouted but washed Japanese (who are frankly much worse than what we've seen so far from Japan on the international stage).

In essence, Zeta (and all of Japan) need more brain. They have the aim, but their strats and ability to adapt are criminally lackluster from what should be expected from a top-tier team. Maybe the coaching staff needs to change. Maybe they need to switch out some players. Maybe they need to practice more internationally. I don't know. But they need to change something, or else Masters Tokyo is going to have a really silent crowd.

Damn ok, well i do agree that they need an igl. Then ig dropping stew for empty would make sense, but tbh I think LuZ is more consistent than other sentinel players, although Banger is rly gud. Also I wonder if there are better alternatives to empty for igl; exy has been doing pretty well for DK, even though he's inconsistent aim wise, but that's pretty common among igls and there aren't that many top tier smokes players (this is why I thought maybe stew could try to learn smokes, it seems like hes played many different roles before despite maining duelists recently).

So maybe:

• HANN (duelist)
• LuZ (sentinel)
• yoman (flex)
• Lakia (initiator)
• empty/exy (controller) {IGL}

They still use DK as their acronym tho. They're "DPlus Kia"

There are some players in the Korean Challengers League that I'm surprised aren't in franchising (names like HANN and Lakia), and some new talent that are showing a lot of promise (stew, Banger, etc...). I'd say that right now, the chances of a Korean team winning the Pacific Ascension Tournament are already pretty decent, just looking at some of the competition: only CR from Japan, and APAC teams that have been said to have promise aren't performing up to standards tbh (looking at BLEED), but MiTH looking pretty clean. If an org that is willing to invest, idk maybe DK, and pickup 5 of the best players for the next split, I think that they would have an almost guaranteed spot for franchising next year. Judging from what I've seen from the matches so far, I think that an ideal lineup would be:

• HANN (duelist)
• stew (flex)
• yoman (controller, flex)
• LuZ (sentinel, flex)
• Lakia (initiator)

Thoughts?

aight thanks for the info man, this has genuinely answered a lot of my questions.

cheers!

2 things

Thanks for the info abt what happened on the LoL side, and yea if Riot are hoping to avoid a similar situation, yea this makes a lot of sense. The thing is that it seems like this East Asia grouping has been pulled off before in the form of the 2022 East Asia LCQ, so if they were able to sort things out between themselves, that would be great. But looking at the LoL scene ig China would prefer to keep their players and games on home soil. big sad

Although I feel like maybe the Americas could still be split into the 2 regions; my fear is that Brazil is looking like a 1-teams region (sorry) and LATAM like a 0.5 team region (half the time LEV or KRU do great, or no one does). They will be completely dominated by the NA teams and their supposed best team is being pushed to the limits by GEN.G (admittedly they do look pretty good tho). Similarly, we will probably have to wait at least a year after LOCK//IN before we see Japan on the global stage again. I rly enjoyed the ZETA run from last year, and maybe with split back in the map pool they could do well again, but I don't have that much confidence tbh.

Also there are a bunch of orgs missing from franchising that should be in there in all honesty: many of the T2 Americas league orgs (G2, TSM, GUARD), some prominent korean and APAC orgs (NONGSHIM, BLEED, BOOM, X10(?)), and some BR and LATAM orgs (not so familiar with these im afraid)

Sad that it seems like lots of these things wont be possible either due to politics or financial interest tho.

Thanks for the response :DDD

Fair point honestly, just hope that eventually the weaker regions will eventually have the chance to make it internationally. Thanks :D

Two main issues I've had with franchising so far is the distribution of regions and how China is going to fit into the mix.

After looking at the games and results so far from LOCK//IN, there are 3 observations I've made (feel free to disagree)

• So many NA teams are looking extremely dominant, with EG being the supposed "worst NA team", and doing amazing against TH, even though they don't look particular good tbh
• The Korean region seem to best of the Pacific League, with DRX beating BBL, who looked like they had lots of potential, and then GEN.G playing extremely well and pushing the Championship-winning core of LOUD (notably LOUD no longer have Sacy and Pancada but cauanzin is looking unpolished but extremely talented)
• Chinese Valorant seems to have the potential to get close, if not to the level of Korean Valorant; although the FPX v KCORP game is not a good one to reference (both teams looked extremely shaky) Looking at the new FGC circuit, there are a lot of new teams entering the scene, with some real talents who were not seen in 2022. Some of these include "You", who returned this year with TOTORO GAMING, and "whz" who has seen to be playing in 2022, but at time too undisciplined and otherwise held back by honestly lackluster teammates (and/or teamplay)

So, even through franchising has just begun, I think a possible solution from a viewer's perspective, maybe (definetely) not from riot's perspectve, would to re-split the regions into 5 groups: the ones that were used during LCQ of 2022.

• North America
• South America (LATAM + Brazil)
• EMEA
• East Asia (Korea + China + Japan)
• South East Asia (including SA and Oceania)

Masters events would feature 2 teams from each region to total up to 10 teams, or alternatively 2 more teams could come from the 2 top performing regions (realistically NA and EMEA, sorry to BR fans), bringing the total up to 12 teams.

Champions would then feature 3 teams from each region, plus the winner of the last masters event before champs, totaling up to 16 teams.

Thoughts?

https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/03c8617a
hopefully not too many repeating matchups and not all emea and na playoffs

JUST WATCHED THIS LIVE HOLYYYYY

'//,

apac playoffs format legit gunna be better than tha actual masters events

i gotchu :D

oh yea forgot abt that

ah ur right thats tru, i can edit

thats true, tbh i rly just didnt know where to put the extra slot

in which part?

also theres an extra br/latam slot so its probs fine

The slot allocation was actually sad, masters needs to be 16 teams, then champions between 20-24. Here's a suggestion:

MASTERS - 16 teams:

PLAYOFFS - 8 teams:

• GROUPS top 8

GROUPS - 16 teams:

• NA - 3
• EMEA - 4
• BR - 1
• LATAM - 1
• BR/ LATAM - 1
• APAC - 3
• KR - 1
• JP - 1
• KR/ JP - 1

CHAMPIONS - 20 teams:

PLAYOFFS - 8 teams:

• GROUPS top 8

GROUPS - 16 teams:

• MASTERS 2 Winner
• NA - 2
• EMEA - 3
• BR - 1
• LATAM - 1
• APAC - 2
• KR - 1
• JP - 1
• PLAY IN top 4

PLAY IN - 10 teams:

• NA LCQ - 2
• EMEA LCQ - 2
• APAC - 2
• KR/ JP - 1
• BR/ LATAM - 1

Any changes/ suggestions?

definitely true, but i don't think that would be enough to bring her into the meta. the stun is rly good tho

yea, or whatever the double phoenix wall ability is called

yea shes definitely really annoying to play against but after the initial hype dies down and people get used to her, shes probs gunna end up being a b or c tier agent

This agent honestly needs some changes, right now neon can't replace any of the actually viable duelists like jett and reyna (sometimes raze as well). Some changes could be:

Make her speed buff a passive, being able to go 30 percent faster is not really that useful especially if she can't have her gun out. There shouldn't be a limited amount of time for the speed buff and she should be able to keep her gun out like normal, and of course the bullet inaccuracy would increase even more with the extra speed as well. If that becomes a bit to oppressive, then only give her the 30 percent speed buff while she's using her ult and lower the passive to around 15 percent.

The slide ability should be a little bit more like jett's dash, while still having a few key differences to differentiate the agents' identities. Something I would like to see is the slide being being the slightly faster in the beginning and it being able to go in more directions, if not backwards, at least left and right. The slide can stay the same speed as it is including the time it takes to pull out your gun again, right before the slide ends, but the very beginning of the slide needs to be around the speed of jett's dash. This would add another duelist which is viable for oping as she slide could act as a dash. The abilities would be different enough because neon's slide is slower overall but she gets her gun back faster.

The ultimate is mostly balanced but i would say maybe buff its damage a bit but make it have a huge distance fall-off as well, as for the ult while jumping, it can stay as it is or increase the accuracy. This would make her ult just a bit better while not being overpowered and more competitive with jett's ult.

Other than that I think that the double wall and stun are good abilities. The stun is currently the best part of her kit and the wall is not the best but pairs very well with the rest of her kit. When taking or retaking a site, the isolated lane created by the wall can allow her and her teammates to position themselves and use util from within the lane before taking over the site.

Thoughts?

yoooo VK won, br lookin strong goddamn

ggs 2 both teams

nt nth T^T

After this masters, it seems like latam and brazil are on kinda silimar levels imo, so maybe the slots should be smth liek how they do it in emea. The top teams from the regions (maybe brazil gets 4, latam north get 2, latam south get 2) could come together for LAN playoffs and fight for 2 or 3 slots at masters?

after this masters, it seems like latam and brazil are on kinda silimar levels imo, so maybe the slots should be smth liek how they do it in emea. the top teams from the regions (maybe brazil get 4, latam north get 2, latam south get 2) come together for LAN playoffs and fight for 2 or 3 slots at masters? idek :p