i sure hope not

g2 have won 1 series so far in kickoff. 1 match and it was vs c9 who are already eliminated

prx going into shanghai had a huge win streak of matches including wins over drx, gen.g and t1

i like g2 and i think they're great but people need to calm down and let them play first...

based on what i've seen last year in tier 2 (NA and emea) some of the matches only get streamed by 3rd parties. When they have 2 matches going on and one isnt on their "main stream" they just let some content creator/org of the team playing stream it and don't publicly release the raw stream anywhere

yeah true fns going back to playing was a big hit. was sinatra ever a regular watchpartier last year? idk tbh

ah nice i'll check him out if i see him on

compared to last year I feel like there are so few English (language) watchparties on twitch for apac. Did people like curry and others lose watchparty rights? it's only sliggy and 1-2 others like lothar what happened. i get that the overall english speaking viewership may be lower than americas or emea but still this is kinda weird. who you guys watching?

yeah true, some vandals and a few pistols (1 filler gun like bulldog/marshal maybe) then you can afford to have ~2 guys die and recover the rifles and buy up again

I'm actually quite impressed with the AI valorant analysis ngl much appreciated my guy :)

Altho slight error the FPX buy was the alternative (at the time) to the full armour spectre or similar buy. They would opt for a more greedy hybrid approach of like ~2 rifles a pistol and 2 filler slots depending on spike plant

Would very much like to see some competitive balance as you mentioned

I think the below guy has it covered ngl

Talking about pro play only ofc not ranked

Seems like since the outlaw was introduced more and more teams just get bonused and the map snowballs super hard. I don't have the numbers but just as a viewer it really seems to be getting quite common now and tbh it really makes the games worse (unless you're supporting the team I guess). People generally want to see back and forth rounds and competitive maps even if the favourite wins out in the end right? I don't see anyone talking about this so idk if it's just me being wrong or if this is actually true

Team x = won pistol
Team y = lost pistol

Y needs full shield on round 3 in case there is an outlaw in play so they cant buy sheriffs/stingers/marshals/buckys on round 2 (maybe 1)
X feels more free to be greedy on their anti-eco buy with vandal lights instead of the old school heavy shield + spectre (or similar/hybrid buy like old FPX) since they are only vs classics maybe 1 sheriff
Round 3 ends up being only slightly favoured for team Y in terms of guns -> more bonuses won

Of course it could also be that teams just want to be more greedy in general on the round 2 anti-eco buys as a natural evolution from the old fpx buy (2022) and the outlaw's existence is only a minor influence here idk. Nobody wants half the game to be decided by pistol rounds but am I the only one who feels there has been a change here?

who decided today is his prime? he is like 19 years old

The overall level of valorant has just continually improved over time so realistically it's gotta be one of the recent winners. Unless you mean taking all of those players in 2025 form and putting them back on their old rosters? If that is the case then I'd say maybe loud

If you just mean in the form that they won the trophy in then EDG. FNC GenG Sen are close tho. EDG were just incredible

compared to regular sports coaches (football, basketball etc) probably yeah kinda right tbh. the coaching role just hasn't had much time to develop it's mostly just former players who aren't good enough anymore. We've had some excellent coaches and those teams probably would not have won without them (potter, mini, etc) but overall the coaching impact in valorant is probably a lot less than pep guardiola or someone of that level

I wouldn't say frauds just not as impactful as we're used to "coaches" being just because the role hasn't been developed enough yet overall. If esports are still going strong in 20+ years I imagine it will be similar

smokes: pancada 2022
senti: meteor 2024
initiator: leo 2023
flex: shao 2022
duelist: aspas 2023 (yes over 2022)

prime yay was that guy but hard to put chamber on here now

If it's just about who is even allowed into the conversation of goat then I'd throw in tenz + sacy as well.

As much as I personally don't think he's him tenz won in 2 different eras with very different rosters on very different roles. He was absolutely him in the early valo days and proved he can still win and shoot damn well last year

Sacy won a champs then went on to win madrid in a different language while the team he left behind never won again without him. Stats-wise he doesn't always perform but clearly he has some insane impact through other things (util, probably comms, midrounding, shaping team mentality) + insane in the clutch

I would personally take aspas over both but I think they've proven enough with their multiple trophies and impact on different rosters to be in the conversation

Honourable mentions: derke, less

if you mean why are they already at lower bracket final while every other region is many games slower then it's just because they started earlier - they also did last year too. As I recall they played and knew who was going to internationals a few days before everyone else. Why did they start earlier? Maybe just for viewership which would make some sense. First valo games of the new season all CN so of course more people will watch when there's 0 other tier 1 valorant

Gonna assume this is primarily bait but I'll respond to a few bits anyway

1) Meteor wasn't flex on GenG. Idk why people keep saying this. He was senti for 90%+ of the games and occasionally played 2nd duelist on a few maps. That's it. Calling that a flex role is really a bit much

2) Saying APAC is a bad league where GenG had 0 competition then right after that saying that GenG were dropping many matches and maps doesn't make any sense. Pick a lane either they farmed (they didn't) or it was competitive where even the better teams can lose/have close matches

Not gonna bother responding to the other parts because it makes even less sense than the 2 points above which I'm sure you'll use as fuel for "no counter-arguments" feel free. Not sure why your reply is so angry my guy even ignoring the rest you're saying benjy is top 1 I'm saying he's top 3 and somehow that's enough of a difference for you to be genuinely angry

• why apeks clears every emea team

"12. APEKS - pretty much 4v5, if flor becomes great thats cool, but avolva molsi and hype is pretty much the worst core in emea"

am i missing something or is this just an average day on vlr

Meteor is a top 1 senti in the world

Benjy is likely a top 3 along with Less.

Idk why people would strongly say benjy is better but I do think they are at a similar level. I would give the edge to meteor if someone asked who is better but benjy is still up there as a top tier senti player

If heretics managed to win 3-2 instead of going 2-3 in those finals vs edg then most people would probably consider them equal. Would that be fair? Probably not it's only 1 map that made the difference but it's very easy to look back and be biased. Many non-APAC followers (and non-koreans) probably didn't see much of meteor except when he was at masters events compared to benjy - platchat guys follow emea and NA more closely so they will lean that way. If I watch 50 benjy games and 10 meteor games it's not really gonna give fair results

anyone who thinks benjy isn't a top tier senti is on crack but meteor is the best in the world imo

beyn/ardiis/cender/dantedeus/rossy

i prefer ardiis on senti/flex more than duelist tbh hes good but outclassed by the top cracked duelists. still holds up nicely on senti/flex (not sage)

beyn was one of drx's best players last year but had a bad showing at champs (wasn't the only drx guy to do so) but throughout the year he was him ngl

cender great igl took mid vitality roster to top 2 emea + champs qual

dante was a cracked af neon in americas ascension. a bit overheaty and crazy but he was insane

rossy without igl focus but still helping midround could be very helpful while putting up solid consistent numbers too

unfortunately the import rule blah blah whatever but this is my ideal 5 FAs rn. beyn/ardiis/cender/alexiik/starxo for emea +1 import

If you're talking about cases like benjy it's because players might have insider information that the general public does not have which would give them favourable bets compared to normal people.

Scrims, mutual connections, players/coaches having private conversations with trusted close friends or even just straight up asking. You can't remove all potential sources of this kind of betting but at the very least the players and anyone directly involved in esports needs to be held to a certain standard. Of course they could just ask their friends to bet for them or whatever and I'm sure it happens but for the sake of rules anyone who could potentially have non-disclosed information is restricted from betting (to the best of their ability to enforce restrictions)

Many players would probably enjoy betting just for fun and wouldn't try to rig but you have to make rules to prevent (as much as possible) abuse and unfair profits to those who may want to rig the odds. Even moreso now with riot allowing betting sponsors in valorant they want to uphold their credibility and reputation for being fair

based only on the off season games as specified:

1) G2
2) NRG
3) C9
4) FURIA
5) MIBR
6) SEN
7) 2G
8)LOUD
9) KRU
10) EG
11) Lev
12) 100T

(Posting before the final group round of MIBR/Loud/2g/The7)

Not quite sure where to put EG since they looked good but lost all the games anyway + didn't have their real 5th. C9 weird roster moves but their off season performances have been quite good. Maybe some bias with G2 in 1st given that they actually lost to C9 but I feel they've shown a lot and looked good even if some results were a bit iffy. After this Tixinha tournament ends probably one of the BR teams will move up but the tournament is still in groups rn

your last several messages contain you going after me moreso than trying to engage in the topic i was discussing. after being called out on it you've returned to the topic but i no longer have interest in debating that with you if you just resort to going after the other person instead of discussing the thing in question. perhaps expecting that is ridiculous on this site or any forum really but dont cry like this when you made it about me instead of the topic to begin with dude

you chose to engage in the argument of w hat he should have done instead of just laughing at the funny clip but then cant be bothered to engage with "people like me" even though you chose to engage with the conversation to begin with. making it about me when im only talking about the clip then victimise yourself good job bro cya im done. my fault for engaging to this extent to begin with ill cop to that im sorry

i literally asked you what you wanted him to do and responded to that... but yeah consider this a successful bait you got me. you have 0 intention of trying to understand just wanna post a haha clip which is fine but then dont defend it by elaborating on what you think he shoulda done instead which makes 0 sense. just say it's a dumb clip and move on

you want him to not take the only out he had but instead either save or grab the rifle try to win the 1v3 postplant while smoked off with 0 util and location known. if he's able to kill brim and yoru it's super winnable but with your "get 1 and get out" nonsense yeah you get your 1 good scoreboard but it's basically impossible to win wym

wtf you mean get 1 and get out it's a 1v4 and hes stuck lamps on skye. he can grab yoru's gun and save running spawn (maybe but tbh very unlikely) but at that point it's 6-12 he played the 1 low chance out to win the round and not be down 6-12. 10% chance to save a rifle vs ~2% chance to win the round and potentially only chance at a comeback. enjoy your stats king but he went for the only chance to not basically lose the map lol

you want him to spray transfer from the brim that far away onto yoru with a 20 bullet stinger? he took the out that he saw

not really his fault tbh it's good target selection if he's somehow able to kill the brim quickly

probably americas (not NA) aspas jaw zekken as a top 3 clears any other top 3 pretty easily

yeah it looks pretty fire ngl

anyway the EG lineup is almost certainly: Icy, Yay, Derrek, Supa, Nature. There is a chance they decide to not go with Icy though idk who they would get at this point. Icy seems like a good fit and a prime candidate for a big bounce with some Potter coaching (imo) given his improvement last season throughout

Icy is strongly linked if not already signed just not announced, Yay is pretty much confirmed and the other 3 on the roster are 100% confirmed

Also the first 3 on that list are on mini Sen next year anyway

The off season 1 match vs Trust in Plug doesn't sway me at all really. Off season events are great fun and good for trying things out but from everything i've seen the correlation is very weak between dominating the off-season and actually winning. Sen did it last year I suppose but there aren't many examples. The literal #1 team in the world EDG have been getting spanked this off-ssn. If they bombed out of a double elimination off-season tournament or went 0-2 in a round robin maybe a little but it really was just 1 random bo3 and not even on LAN while putting cryo on cypher

For EMEA without FUT I would probably edge FNC into my top 3. I think they're on the decline (or maybe everyone else is on the up + learned how to beat them) but they are still a great team with cracked players who know how to stay calm and win

TS imo stylistically match up very well with the hyper-aggressive APAC style. Even though they don't really have any star players they slow the game down and punish the aggression from most other APAC teams and play fundamentally sound valorant. A bit like DRX only with less firepower but a bit more creativity and spark on attack.

I think FPX had one of the harshest years last year basically always matching up with teams like GenG, Heretics, Sen (not just at champs but masters as well) so probably Wolves won't overtake them. If anything I can see FPX maybe making a deep run at one of the masters events and Wolves may qualify for 1 of them

Your replies in this thread are very positive and encouraging it's refreshing to see people with this kind of energy online

Americas:100t, Kru
100T: Looked very up and down last season but in the ups they were looking like a genuine world class top team. Addition of Zander I imagine will help a lot with some mid-round calls and generally lift the burden on Boostio to hard IGL everything. Bit of weird drama with salaries and the off season loss but based on what I saw from them in real matches last year they will be going to at least 1 international this year or better

Kru: Not really a keznit fan tbh but they dominated a good portion of the regular season domestically in Americas. Now that he doesn't have a brazilian to hate maybe he will be a little happier and bring the team vibes up idk but overall solid players and the addition of Mazino from Lev should be fire since he really was not the problem on Lev

--

EMEA:
KC - I struggled to pick a dark horse from EMEA really - my only real "dark horse" would have been FUT but you listed them already. KC seem like a really cool roster with one of the best IGLs ever relocating from Americas to EMEA just for this team. Couple it with ol' reliable Suygetsu the cracked aimer and some other cool prospects and they could fry. Though their off season performances thus far have been very lackluster so I'm really not sure but they should be fun to watch at least
--

APAC: TS, DFM
TS: Big underdog pick here but they were a top 3 regular season APAC team and have consistently been one of APAC's better teams. They lost to Talon in the single-elim portion of the playoffs right after they got Primmie. I think they're due for making an international they are genuinely a very good underdog team who always perform well in APAC - they even beat GenG and PRX last year domestically

DFM: Very cool new roster with a lot more firepower building around Meiy. Saw a glimpse of them recently in this off season event where they got some great results over PRX, EDG, Trace and RRQ (Lost rematch to PRX grand final) 10/10 would recommend
--

CN:
Wolves - Looked good in the off season events and picked up some promising players - including now Juicy? which is a little weird but whatever works

Yup losing to one of the best teams in the world (no not the best relax) in a bo1 off season event with a new roster is pretty embarrassing time to rebuild

sym was always a temporary pickup bro never even removed TSM from his profile while at the event. maybe if it went well they would have kept him but clearly it didn't and likely there could have been other issues we didnt see like comms and general team chemistry etc

personally i would have preferred someone like icy given that he actually improved a lot last year and it was his debut rookie year and he really didn't do as badly as some ppl think + tier 1 experience he is surely a player trending up with the right system

tho tbh at this point potter has earned the trust/confidence of anyone who is interested in EG's roster so if she does decide to sign flor or icy or sym or whoever i'm pretty sure she thought it through a lot. people are over-glazing flor for owning GC the logical next step would be for her to try challengers or something rather than skipping over tier 2 and jumping right into tier 1 but if potter backs it honestly i'd wager it'll work well given her history of scouting and developing talent

I do think leaf is a great player but to put him on a goat list seems a stretch too far (for now) to me. During 2022 he achieved nothing relevant internationally, 2023 the first year of franchising the same. A great player domestically in Americas but he has only just started qualifying for internationals. Personally I love the roster and I think they can make a very deep tournament run but with current achievements I don't see it for leaf

Scream fell off hard and frankly in present day he's only spoken about because he is/was popular. 2021 he was great but never even made a final and this was his peak. 2022 worse results and then fell down to average duelist level individual stats only slightly above jampii, 2023 worse still.

Needless to say it's your list not mine and for leaf I do kinda get it since he has been doing consistently quite well for a long time but for scream idk man he just has always seemed overhyped to me. Nothing post-2021 is particularly impressive about him no disrespect and in 2021 he never made a final either

(Almost) anything pasta-related is generally very easy and more importantly cheap and you can pretty much just throw whatever meat + veg in there. You can buy relatively cheap pasta sauces pre-made (pesto or tomato-base) or you can make your own. It requires a few ingredients but all are fairly cheap and it isn't very difficult (tomatoes, puree, olive oil, garlic, onions). The pasta itself is a few mins just needs some salt very simple

As a bonus if you make your own tomato sauce for pasta you can use it for homemade pizza which is actually surprisingly easy

Somewhat similar but noodles for a stir fry with any leftovers you may have pretty fire

If you like oven-roasted potatoes (you're british so I assume you must) they're actually very easy to make

If money is tight then buying whole chickens is much cheaper than pre-cut chicken breast and google can tell you how to cook + carve it. A little intimidating but more delicious + cheaper and will probably help your confidence in the kitchen

Experiment with eggs. Cheap and very nutritious. Good breakfast option with bread/meat or cereal or whatever else

Sorry none of these are hard recipes or anything but the good people on google search probably would write it out far better than I can on vlr. Personally I just have a bunch of meat things and carb things I can cook and I'll just add A to B at random but the more you try the more you'll hone in on what you want to make and maybe even enjoy making

Sacy up to S imo. Won on 2 different teams in 2 different languages, completely different meta etc. Only guy to win a champs and a masters and was very pivotal on both teams. As good as Loud were they never won any international after they split the roster but Sacy went on to win again without them. Very smart player and from every credible source I've heard is vocal with mid-round calls which doesn't really reflect much in stats but certainly does with results

Suygetsu over ange1. My goat IGL and truly iconic but suy was FPX's best player consistently throughout Copenhagen, before and after really. Shao got deserved shine as the clutch king but Suy is him and always was for that team

Jaw up he was legit insane at champs and throughout that year for EG, should be same tier as c0m for sure. Demon1 gets all the credit for being a frag demon on that EG team but jaw was right up there with him

Not sure what scream is doing here tbh, same for leaf who is a great player but what did he ever win? Or even make a final outside of domestic league. Future contender for the list 100% but at present i dont think so

My understanding is that GC is for all "marginalised genders" not just anyone who falls under women. So trans dudes I believe can also compete as can non binary. Probably just anyone who isn't a cis dude I would assume. It just so happens that cis women make up the vast majority of GC because trans people are like 1% of the population or less idk but cis women are obviously around half

Anyone know where (former) DRX Beyn is gonna end up? I haven't heard or seen anything. DRX moved on without him, foxy9 is on GenG and they no longer have a roster slot available. He was definitely one of DRX's better players after they picked him up and that's even with him being a rookie. But now he seems to be going nowhere?

more or Less

Have we ever seen him IGL before? I'm seeing that he is gonna be the IGL of this new superteam version of Vit. Personally I would take Cender 5th and have him IGL he actually did well with them last season. Particularly as they now have insane firepower and Cender would just have to figure out how to play flex/flash initiator for a well balanced team with insane individual talent and experienced leadership

More importantly this team is without question insanely stacked even by superteam standards but if Sayf isnt up to the IGL task at top tier 1 level then they'll crumble regardless so I feel like I should ask

Does anyone have any educated opinions or info about his IGL experience? He does strike me as an intelligent player but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a good IGL

twitch.tv to react to KC owning without him with this wild superteam they got rn

(honestly i do think he is okay being a content creator/streamer though ngl)

Aim: Less
IQ: ANGELLL
Util: s1mon
Clutch: Mako
Leadership: Needless to say my GOAT ANGEL. Probably could put him for aim too

What I don't get is why everyone is so set on knowing he is the reason why they arent a top tier team. They literally performed well last season as a team. Look for other talent to recruit and even suggest jessie should leave is fine and reasonable. But why do people hate him and only him? What about the other guys or the coaches. Why does nobody appreciate that TS actually played really well overall last season and think they deserve to be fighting for a masters trophy when the management/ownership clearly is not investing to match that intent. For a low investment team representing purely PH and no imports or mixed-APAC talent they're doing amazingly imo

I do agree invy and jremy are doing great and you could absolutely argue that with a different IGL/coach they could be even better. That's entirely fair even if i don't quite agree but why is jessie the 1 guy singled out as a terrible problem

I can say with full confidence he performed better than benkai last season yes. He also had a much better team which he was more comfortable and familiar with so I got no shade to throw on benkai but I don't understand why we're accusing jessie of being bad for not winning a trophy when TS actually are performing well

They played great in the regular season finishing 3rd above GenG and got fucked by bad playoff format being single elimination for the first 1 set of matches, similar to NAVI. Could they have done better and won those single elim matches? Sure absolutely but I haven't seen a single mention of it anywhere in this thread so that can't be what you're referring to

what's the relevance of the 36 if he's still performing at a high level? unless you want a full rebuild with new young players in all roles which is quite a risk especially without an experienced player like jessie to help guide them

TS are not a top tier team. Okay great but have they ever really tried to be? Did they try to build a superteam and recruit top talent? Not really no they just stayed in their lane, developed their guys and played. Despite that they actually placed consistently well domestically. When exactly did they try to build a top team that could compete for a trophy?

I don't get the hate they were literally a top 3 APAC team in the regular season last year despite never really trying to build a stacked roster at all. If anything they are OVERperforming and yet people unhappy. It's not 1 player's fault if the org doesnt wanna invest in top talent to compete for a trophy

What's the reasoning behind the uncle vash hate? He generally performs quite well/adequately in terms of individual stats and i believe he is going to be their IGL next season too. Experienced, positive vibes/impact on the team and making calls. TS have been one of the better APAC teams both franchise years I genuinely don't see the problem here. Are they GenG level? no of course not but that's not on 1 player least of all someone who performs quite well. Even with aspas over jessie they don't reach GenG level is there something behind the scenes I'm not aware of?

flyuh out, he's in emea now

i would say skuba, brawk, okeanos, for sure.

nismo underperformed in ascension but overall he's a very solid pick similar to bcj and net but i would be inclined to select 2 of the tsm dawgs since they really stepped up towards the important end of the season

skuba brawk okeanos sym seven would be my 5 from that list

It's definitely a very harsh system with very little room for error or an adjustment period (particularly for newer players). But in fairness both net and bcj had good opportunity to perform and didn't. They weren't dropped from g2/eg at random and both teams performed considerably better after making the changes. I do feel bad for bcj more because he was a huge part of why XSET were so good pre-franchising and then EG went from bottom tier to champs after replacing him for demon1. It's really tough and it was awesome to see him go after it again for m80.

But... both teams genuinely did improve considerably after making the changes. Even with icy gone now they still were one of the best americas teams and even looked solid internationally. Not winning of course but they got 3rd in shanghai and made it out of groups at champs.

bcj was on the starting roster for about 2 months on EG during the season and probably a fair bit longer pre-season as well. They had many scrims, lock in and also the start of the regional circuit to see if he could perform to the level they needed in that role and he couldn't. It's not a lot of time but it is a reasonable chance for a non-new player.

It's a very harsh system but within that system I don't think they were massively screwed by huge unfairness, just a tight margin with little room for error or learning. They were given good opportunity and were underperforming. It's not like the door is closed on either of them anyway, people know their names and respect that their experience could be a good addition and I imagine they will both be competing in NA challengers next season