man went +34 while igling and still lost
nt dude

riot removing stuff like replication and the spike defusal/planting practice in the practice range always annoyed me because even if you weren't a fan of those things you didn't have to play them while the people who did enjoy them now have one less reason to play the game
even if you don't think it's a big deal for these things are removed riot still probably has the assets and programming for them so why couldn't they just stay in the game alongside the other stuff they add

LETS GO TYLOO 🐉🐉🐉
Also fire title ✍️🔥🔥🔥

I was always a fan of rebuilds for mediocre or bad teams because it shows me that the teams are really trying to improve and climb the ranks, but I never paid attention to Loud's rebuilds because it seemed that regardless of what they did, they would never become one of the better americas teams again

Today they showed a lot of improvement from their rebuild, as well as the great individual potential of their young roster. I'm not completely sold on them yet due to the fact they have yet to face the likes of Lev and nrg, but I'm greatly impressed with their performance today and am excited to see if this new roster can continue to improve, and hopefully even make champs.

Vamos LOUD 🟩🟩🟩

I thought evil geniuses was an Americas team

If yoru still had two flashes, I believe that it is likely phoenix would not be nearly as popular as he currently is. If riot nerfed phoenix's ult when yoru was still super meta, it would just suck a lot of the fun and viability out of playing an already unpopular pick, which it still partially does. Phoenix doesn't necessarily need a nerf, he needs more competition in his niche. I don't think this is the first time riot has messed up a bit when attempting to balance a duelist

When they nerfed yoru they halved the duration on his teleport anchor, which was a good nerf because it made his fast defensive rotates (his biggest issue in my opinion) much worse while not impacting his attack power too much, but they also removed a charge on his flash, which were quite powerful, but they also enabled creative teamplay and gave phoenix competition in the flash duelist role. Now yoru is one of the least picked agents in vct because riot overnerfed him and i've even heard yoru mains complain about how much less fun he is to play now, while phoenix is also getting nerfed because he is performing to well without any proper competition for his role. If they really thought his flashes were too strong, I think they could have thought of a better way to tone the power down a bit while still allowing him to serve as proper competition for phoenix and use them in creative ways.

Riot also attempted to nerf neon by lowering her run speed when jumping, but that didn't work as proven by leviatan (who played a lot of neon) winning masters london right after the nerf, so if they wanted to tone neon down a peg in vct they failed and discouraged casual players from playing her because she is less fun to play as

On top of all of this, riot still has not properly addressed the issues with the controller class and the high pick rate of omen and viper even though they have been dominating the game for a long time now

TLDR; i think riot needs to look at the bigger picture of the state of the game when balancing agents because their current balancing takes some of the fun out of playing certain agents while either overcompensating nerfs or not properly fixing issues

was thinking about this quote recently and wanted to hear your thoughts on how it aged ~3 years later

Was rooting for tyloo but the better team was shown today

Wishing both teams meet again in playoffs grand finals and hopefully have a deep champs run

two 4-0 teams fighting for the 1st seed with amazing players like swagzor splash slowly and more, should be very entertaining

how do they think it's a good idea to bench one of the better players on their team for a guy who hasnt done anything notable or significant since being carried by leviatan in 2024 and has basically the same agent pool but worse overall play (4th lowest vlr rating in stage 1 btw) like eeiu didnt even play that bad against lev only going negative in the last map

the most noticeable issue with furia right now in my opinion is the genius on the team who thought putting their sentinel main igl on duelist was a good idea, and it showed in the match against lev. if they wanted to still play double duelist they should have thought of that before not signing a duelist player to fill one of their empty player spots, but instead in their infinite wisdom they drop their initiator player for a worse initiator player after the second stage starts.

my crazy conspiracy theory is that furia is trying to gaslight themselves into thinking the players on their team are the problem for some reason, and when their owner was scrolling twitter or something he saw the eeiu abyss drop at santiago, which convinced him that eeiu was the problem with the team so he dropped him for a bum to "improve" the team even though it likely will do the opposite

They were good toward the end of the season but i think based on their player quality the expectations were extremely high, which meant they were very disappointing in the beginning of the season, especially at shanghai
I think their 3rd at champs could also be seen as a little disappointing by fans who expected them to actually win an international based on their roster strength

it may be obvious to some but i have genuinely seen people tell me that this team is easily top 3 in americas, which may say more about the region than the team but i just think generally the expectations of the team are too high for many

I dont get how people can actually gaslight themselves into believing this team is good just because they have some big name players with high mechanical skill
the facts are they havent qualified for a single international vct event and have proven themselves extremely capable of losing to some of the worst teams in their region
this team is literally just 2024 leviatan, not just because they have 3 of the same players, but because they often fell short of the high expectations their roster set. how did mibr see what lev did and think doing it again was a good idea?

TLDR; mibr is a great team on paper, but nothing they've done so far in practice has convinced me that they actually are a great team, let alone reaching the expectations the fans put on the roster

i think it's fair to not entirely write them off yet, but they have to start proving themselves very soon, especially considering the teams they have to play in stage 2
tops mibr miraculously gets 3rd at champs like 2024 lev, at worst i could easily see this team not even qualifying for stage 2 playoffs

want the community's opinion mostly cuz i didnt watch it and also want to hear some general takes on the tournament's quality

completely unrelated note but remember when everyone thought that paper rex was a trash team in 2025 and then they won their first international

i get it from the perspective of the people who say they look unmotivated or mentally broken or that they're chokers or whatever because losing two grand finals in a row would do that especially when the offseason isnt here yet for them to mentally reset, but it's a little difficult to count them out when some of the best things they accomplished came when most people doubted them, especially with champs typically being won by an underdog/random team out of nowhere

or they could make the grand finals of champions and lose again and become the buffalo bills (1991-1994) of the vct which would be pretty funny

Looking more like all w's with their kickoff performance

LETS GO ALL GAMERS GAMING ALL THE WAY TO AN INTERNATIONAL

yeah most likely riot would not give free skins

ive been getting these valorant ads that talk about celebrating their 5 year anniversary with a promotional giveaway or something and tells you to scan a qr code or go to this website: valorant-celebration.com
the website takes you to a page that claims that you can get one of two skins for free in a limited promotion period, but this seems kind of sketchy to me and im not seeing anyone else talk about it or it being mentioned by any official riot news so i wanted to ask if anyone else has gotten these ads or knows what's up with this situation

I thought with bind coming back yoru would be played on it more because it used to be his best map and he is becoming a more relevant agent but I barely see any teams playing him. Did the tejo nerf discourage teams from playing yoru?

Since the franchising era of vct, 5 of the 8 international tournament winners (6 if you count johnqt/sentinels) had a rookie on the team that just came from the tier 2 scene/was a new name nobody heard of

And that doesn't even mention the great rookies that haven't won anything yet

Edit: I do realize now that my title statement is quite obvious, but my goal with this post was to bring attention to the increasing skill level of new valorant players and how teams taking a risk on newcomers instead of signing a potentially washed veteran can be extremely valuable for the team and exciting for the community

Lot of options but I want to hear your honest take

Extra challenge if you can name one for each region and why you think it's them

Players get a lot of attention, but coaches sometimes blend in with the team even though they are a big part of the team

I'm not very familiar with a lot of coaches, so I want to hear which coaches you would consider as the best and worst in the current vct

Now that the event is over, I want to hear what the general community thinks of the EWC event. What did you not like about it and what do you think was good?

Me personally I wasn't a very big fan of the format. Best of 1s and no lower bracket in playoffs (except consolation 3rd place match) wasn't as fun as normal vct events

I know paper rex's 4th place finish at the EWC was a bit disappointing for a lot of fans, but is the future still bright for them if they just shake off this tournament and prepare for stage 2 and champions?

Because people expect the most recent winners to continue winning so when they don't people act like they completely fell off

And what team deserved their international trophy the most/least

Kru and cloud9 not doing very well in playoffs
Mibr is mostly inexperienced and aspas is starting to play worse
Loud went 0-5 and revamped their roster with Europeans and lukxo to try and recover
Furia and 2G are some of the worst teams in vct right now and are unlikely to become contenders this year (spike may give hope though)
Leviatan's roster is imploding, desperately signing a bunch of big names just to throw them away after playing below average while also not signing any players from their home to represent their country
100 thieves, evil geniuses, and nrg have been mostly mediocre despite showing some promise occasionally (yet I do believe that they have some potential and are getting better, especially considering eg's 4th place finish in stage 1, 100t's reverse sweep against mibr and qualification in the EWC, and nrg's overall performance in the EWC so far)
Sentinels are not performing well at internationals
G2 can't win an international even though they tend to be one of the favorites every time
Second lowest average placement at masters Toronto (only ahead of emea) and also marks the lowest the highest placing americas team has been at an international so far (I think) (4th)

I think that what is going to have to happen is that one of the top teams (G2, sen, etc.) start playing really well after a disappointing international for them, or a new team with some potential (ex. Nrg/evil geniuses/100t) makes a big push to win

I think he is a fine actor, but he is constantly thrust into roles he's not suited well for (ex. mario and garfield)

As someone who is not very involved with drx, what do you think is the factor that is preventing them from reaching higher placements /grand finals at internationals despite the promise they tend to show?

went 1-2 in kickoff
people call them washed, call for big changes
start 0-3 in stage 1
barely make playoffs
go on a run against precedingly big teams (t1, boom, drx)
enter masters toronto as third seed
almost makes the biggest choke in vct vs liquid
starts undefeated through playoffs, beating both americas teams who they normally struggle against
beats a strong fnatic team who plays a slow style that could easily counter them
wins their first international trophy after 5 years of struggle and disappointment

crazy story. gonna be talked about as one of the best

If paper rex is confident in their ascent, I could see them banning icebox or pearl instead, but alfajer's chamber is scary to go against and ascent is typically a weaker paper rex map

I predict that paper rex will use their double map ban to ban ascent and haven, two very strong fnatic maps.
If they can tidy up their sunset and pearl, paper rex has two very strong maps that are typically on fnatic's less comfortable side.
Icebox, lotus, and split are decent for paper rex, but it is still not going to be easy facing fnatic on those maps.

I think that for paper rex to win, they need to be prepared and sharp with their aim. Alfajer looks to be ready to win the whole tournament by himself, and paper rex needs to be on their A game to make sure fnatic's mechanically sharp players don't run them over. They also need to make sure they are ready for those tougher maps and fnatic's playstyle.

Most importantly, paper rex has to play confidently and coolly. They have been through enough to the point where they are absolutely capable of winning a grand final. But if they start tilting, the game is just going to be over before it even finishes.

Paper rex has a good chance at taking the trophy, but they have to prove in the match that they want it more than fnatic does.

lol furia got
l l I
ll l _

When the camera was on him i noticed he blinks really hard is that some kind of eye issue or does he just blink hard

sucks such a great young player is being ruined because of his own mental and work ethic

It makes so much more sense why the team is playing without him now. I totally understand why edg would bench a player like him. It's just sad that such a talented guy is wasting his talent by being problematic.

Prx have neglected to put jingg on raze even for the maps where raze is a good pick despite raze being jingg's most comfortable agent. I know their probably trying to experiment with jingg's agent pool but not allowing him to play his best agent on the maps where it is acceptable seems a bit weird.

What are your thoughts on the seemingly new style paper rex is going for? (I personally can't provide input because I didn't see the match)

I think masters Bangkok might be the worst VCT international so far.
Not because I didn't like the teams or I was mad a certain team didn't win but I feel like this was some of the worst professional tier 1 valorant play I've seen.
You could probably take any series in the tournament and find one outrageously stupid choice/play for each one. The overall gameplay from every team also did not feel like the normal level they play at.

I'll give some examples:

Team liquid vs edg on split had an atrocious gravity well fail from kamyk
Jawgemo's ult fail on the last round of the g2 vs edg Swiss stage series
Drx vs vitality split had drx mess up a 4v2 against less's stinger because they tried to dry peak out of a smoke and flashback could not hold down his site because he kept on getting revealed
Trace picked lotus against t1 even though it was probably t1's best map, and it showed that they were totally unprepared on the map when the scoreline was 13-3

This tournament had every team looking like they just came from tier 2 at some point and will probably be the worst international tournament in VCT history. Hopefully it isn't a pattern the rest of the year will follow.

My guy found out his idol got eliminated and is taking his anger out on everyone else
If they play g2 again he gonna drop 150 for eliminating nats

What combo of abilities would be the best (can only put an ability in the slot it currently is in (C, Q, E, ultimate))?

what does drx stand for

tenz catching strays he's not even a duelist player in 2024

Arguable, but although demon1 has played both astra and brimstone, tenz playing just omen works because omen is vital on almost every map except icebox and bind, which tenz plays different agents for. Demon1 not being able to play omen is a huge hit to his viability as a controller player because of how viable omen is.
Also, just because demon1 was the best controller player "at some point" does not mean they still are. Replacing tenz on sentinels would most likely not be a good idea, as they would have a disadvantage on omen maps (most maps in the game), and his duelist play is covered by zekken.
Even if astra became meta with the newer buffs, double controller would become super powerful, meaning they still would probably need an omen player, something nobody else on sentinels has shown they can do.

That's cool. Might be better than apeks

1. 2G - I think the purple and astronaut theme could be cool if they go with that

2. Apeks - I think fnatic might outclass them in terms of orange team bundles, so it will probably come down to the card or team preference

3. Xi Lai gaming - bland colors, cool logo

Pacific ascension isn't done, but sin prisa or full sense bundle would be the coolest in my opinion.

I don't know why but watching leviatan play after stage 1 was so boring even though they have multiple good players

There are some emea teams (giantx, koi) that could become contenders if they picked up one of them despite their underwhelming season on global esports

Which member joins a trophy winning team this time?

ok so does TMV make a sen video now
(TMV: How EDG DESTROYED Sentinels on Sunset! (I promise I'm not a sentinels hater))

oops