NT phoenix

no way dawww

phoenix lul

analyst 😹 probably the only one on the coaching staff that is immortal and eligible to play

2-1 Xerxia, still believe in Thailand

Only 2 matches today to wrap up group stage, so the first match is starting later

LFT OXY

vamos kru joly

I would agree, makiba probably needs more experience but he'll be streaming for next year to focus on his schooling so I hope he'll come back stronger and ready to grind next year

Nukkye performed individually but Phoenix just isn't it for him, honestly. It feels like maybe G2 wants him on Phoenix for flashes, but I would even prefer to see him on Reyna on this map, or even better, for someone else on the team to play Skye if he couldn't.

All of the Anubis players are super young too, they definitely have a lot to learn but they will get better with more experience, perhaps with more attention to MENA from Riot the scene could be very competitive

Only rule that limits this is that if you earn any circuit points in one of the regions (CIS, EU, TR, etc.) the team has to continue competing in that region

In the case of Soniqs there's a specific rule that says that OCE region players can play in NA without counting as imports. BBG Trill, for example, doesn't count as an import even though he's from Australia, and the same applies to the Soniqs players

something is crazy

free temperature please

Insane clutch at from Sacy at the end of Ascent!

Sacy in particular really wanted to play pro CS:GO before he went into LoL professional scene

I don't think they'll give up on Korea because Korea could be a massive, massive prospect, but I don't see why they couldn't work on both Korea and Japanese viewership

roca playing not-Reyna, let's goooooo

Riot is turning lower finals into BO5 matches for EU, CIS and Turkey, because 2nd vs. 3rd place decider matches are very key to determining who will qualify to the Challengers Playoffs in these regions

Just as the stats pages for matches track Operator kills specifically so that we can see them apart from kills as a whole, can we get tracking for Judge kills? I just want some concrete stats on the best gun in the game, y'know.

Pretty sure he wasn't dropped for matchfixing ties and more because they wanted both Victor and crashies, with aKis being probably the weakest link on the team and c4lypso just catching the short end of the stick.

Munchkin is a really good player. but V1 pull through, even if it looks a little shaky. I trust that they will feel a little more confident going into the future games with some time on the stage, and I believe they have a day or two until their next match so I think they'll be fine.

Edit: Scratch that, they're playing Liquid tomorrow. I think Liquid will beat V1 in the state that they're in right now. Still, they have a chance at a lower bracket run.

steel's a good player but ultimately sentinels was the team that was able to adapt to the new meta. still on the hopium for 100T to improve for next masters cycle, though

With a 2-group groupt stage and the amount of time that would take, it would probably have to seed into a single elim playoffs bracket, which just sucks. This is a terrible format but with only 7 days available for games and them wanting to be able to broadcast every single game on one stream (basically impossible if they run the group stage ideas that everyone here is suggesting) and there being 19 teams, this is the best they can do. It's still going to be mega-hype, just relax and enjoy the games!

That's certainly an interesting comp!

She's not gonna be signed to a team for years to come, I bet. This is some serious shit she did.

That's about what I was thinking. If Havan Liberty gets 1-2 maps that they are good at into the pool and is able to steal away one of FURIA's map picks it could very well happen

FURIA seems to be another Brazilian team that doesn't want to run Viper on Icebox, or any Astra at all. I don't think it's likely, but I could conceive of a world where Havan Liberty beats FURIA if the map pool goes well for them.

G2 were so far ahead mechanically from every other team before the end of 2020. They haven't been able to evolve since, and it's honestly been heartbreaking seeing them fall so far. All of their players are great players, but something just doesn't seem to be clicking for them in terms of finding an identity and synergizing well to take them to the next level, and with all the rumours of the roster being blown up, it just makes it even sadder to see all these great players potentially get scattered around the scene, with some probably not being able to find success again.

I think his games playing killjoy are making him think a little more smartly about how he positions and moves. And I will say, most of the mad dashes have been on eco/low buys (e.g. the one where he dashes over magnum) where you really need some craziness to win over full rifle buys. He is still quite new to the game and he is going to get better.

Tough for JUP. What a final map!

Some adaptability would be really nice - that could mean Hiko flexing into more agent picks to free up roles for other players on some maps. I also think their attack sides are just kind of bad most of the time. As a top armchair analyst, I think that nitr0 could probably take up a more active calling role on the attacker side if they need to switch things up.

I don't see this team as either needing nor making roster moves for a while, though. They are an amazing roster, their org has trust in them (and pays them a lot), they really like each other, and all of them (except for the 30/31-year-old-boomers) are cracked out of their minds. They probably need structural and strategic change, and that will probably come without the need for roster changes.

They definitely should replace frost with a new coach, though. I don't like him. He needs to do more content for them if he wants to stay in the team 😠

I have confidence in them. Every single one of them has LAN experience of some kind and with close to a month to prepare new stuff, I'm confident that Version1 can continue to adapt.

Turkey is often known for being slower to adapt to new metagame. This feels like that sort of thing in action - they just don't have the experience against a Viper, what with her being very uncommon in Turkish official matches and probably not being used much in scrims.

Oxygen please put up a fight on Ascent. Ascent is one of your better maps!

Sentinels really need to start banning Ascent.

LETSGO

Rise actually kinda pushed them on map 2. Definitely could see Rise getting a lot better too (assuming the ESIC investigation doesn't tear the team apart)

It's that corey osu! diff

Jady is literally from a small Russian town and played with consistently massive ping (if I remember correctly, 70-80 ping in official matches regularly). It was a matter of time and it isn't his fault, and the other teams agreed to play earlier! Have some fucking empathy for the issues that players go through - a good majority of these players who have "magical" technical issues that supposedly never arise in ranked games do have massive issues regularly, and you don't see it because this isn't NA where every pro player streams 20 ranked games daily!

In NA, because the remake feature didn't exist earlier, we have had massive tournament qualifiers where big teams are forced to play out maps 4v5 because their players have had to go to the hospital for serious sudden medical issues. Even then, teams agree to delay the rest of the matches to later and reschedule the exact order to accommodate for these things. If the remake feature existed, they would pause the match and remake once subs are found or issues are resolved. You've never run a tournament before and you've never dealt with these issues before, and Riot and these tournament organizers have - let them fix the issues and stop being salty about things that are out of your control or the player's control.