Super fun game, ggs

Ngl we need to talk about some of these pricing xD
Also 20 is way too much. It doesnt force you to make decisions between players

Smokes/IGL: Boaster
Initiator: Cloud
Duelist: Derke
Flex: Wo0t
Sentinel: suygestsu

Neil coach

Yea as #6 says its for the transition.
People who have been vegan for years will rarely offer you some burger supplement when they invite you over for dinner. Theyll make normal food. They know enough recipes by now that they just dont need meat anymore.

Im not vegan but I will, by pure chance, often go a week+ without using meat when cooking for my flatmates and myself. Its cheaper and theres just SO MUCH food to make and choose from.

No ones gonna choose that horribly seasoned shit once they know how and what to properly cook. People who are so hung up on their meat that they actually NEED these supplements arent going to stick to being vegan. Its just not for them and thats fine.

SGE looking scary
Sebe timeouts op apparently

edit: and map 2 was even more insane

and thats fine
but even if you only care about t1 this is still beneficial to you - we need t2 to survive for t1 to work

Definitely few matches per week
As #3 pointed out there needs to be time for t2 too

Theoretically should also increase the level of the games since teams have time to prepare
idk if the extra prep time actually increases it, hard to tell whats anti (and if anti even increases the perceived level, since it makes teams look worse)

cant overlap with league since both are in the Riot Games Arena

ggs to Mouz
having the madman that is Bipo just makes a team instant fun

Wait bowek is Z10s manager
Nice to see him be able to stick with valo

ez for ianto

Yup Jas is still unfair in t2

it was before they even played xD

hes also doing off server prep and helps with the midrounding
we dont know their exact system, but fnatic have been very clear that he helps patch up a lot of stuff for them

What a banger

Ngl I feel like shes just trying to get a more emotional cast out of Mini
Sorta like how she was baiting Steel nonstop last year

only fair tbh

o
I havent seen any scrim screenshots with Batjunax for around a week before kickoff started (but not exactly good information since very few people have him on their friend list from what I can tell)
there were a couple from time to time before

nah they were practicing with him
had a bootcamp with the whole team already

EMEA:
-GX (half of yall forgot they even existed with all the liquid hate xD)
+BIG (Berlin based) / Focus (Biggest DACH fanbase in valo afaik)
Americas:
-C9
+MxS
Pacific:
-T1
+Mindfreak (OCE org)
China:
no clue about their orgs

What a couple of months for GC
Congrats to SR GC

Gotta agree with HS% as a stat. Though I dont agree that its a bad sign; it just isnt a positive one either. As long as the player preforms otherwise then theres no harm in their playstyle resulting in a high HS%. If you can consistently hit the ghost/sheriff 1 taps then its fine that you dont get the classic (for the right click) for example.

The other stat that I find pretty useless is KMax. Should be obvious why its not practical in a game with variable game length, but its just a "for fun" stat, that gets brought into stat discussions from time to time.

#7 aside

Nah 30% isnt "too high", but the stat is still borderline worthless.
HS% is just a stat that lacks any and all context in a game where context is king.

There are just so many correct plays, that lower your HS%. Spraying through smokes, right clicking with the classic, buying like half the games guns, spray transfers, confirming kills on low hp tagets (util damage galore) all are "bad" plays according to this stat. And thats only the things I can think off from the top of my head, im sure theres way more examples when paying attention to it during a pro game.

A players ability to get consistently get HS is ofc a good thing; however the stat doesnt properly capture this.

pretty much yea
aint about accuracy at least

Nah
Swiss is, per its design, non eliminating
This makes it great for group stages. Its by far the most "game count -> correct ranking" efficient system (of the traditional formats).

However for kickoff we dont need a correct ranking. We only need top 2. In that case running a non eliminating format is just hugely inefficient. We dont care if a team is 8th or 12th; theyre not top 2 so why waste games on them?
So you want an eliminating swiss system. But at that point its just a single/double/whatever elim bracket, except its harder to understand since matchups are drawn after every round.

For group stages it'd be nice to see though. Means you can run 2 "full" group stages, rather than having to split it like last year. Plus the average game is much closer. (But then the problem is that running a playoff after is counter productive, so you kill a lot of the hype. If peeps get used to the format it could work though)

the game we saw was bad

but its also an fns team
its tradition for them to look shit the first game
lower bracket run is ez

!stats

pain

Super impressive showing by NXT, ggs

sideshow + tmv stream was 10/10

100% valid; its why I prefer t2 over t1 personally

Polaris takeover

these mini lans from atn vs sge gotta be the best addition to dach ever

What a series

Notice how its only crashies and boaster farming him?
Clearly theyre both spoiled rich kids that have never taken the bus in their life, so Vakk has no idea how to deal with them

Yea wish it was 4pm CET (2 hours earlier)

ianto's dogs looking different this year

Just a lot of duelists who are good on yoru
And then seeing him do well in scrims means others are more likely to use him

Hes strong enough that is "viable" for him to become meta - he provides more util than raze and jett (but doesnt entry nearly as well imo)

idk I always found it weird how much glaze xeus was getting while people actively called out that lewn was an unknown pickup
given how similarly they both preformed last year (minus lewns team struggling a bit more) I had high hopes for him
not this high though

Lmao no
While we dont have any info about Soulcas afaik (though given the timing I think its reasonable to think its the same situation), kaajak was not sold to Fnatic - his contract just ran out... ofc he'd switch

.... And idk what you smoked but them doing a proper trial process is a good thing? Its an asenscion roster - they have to start later (remember most t2 players are already in talks with t1 orgs before ascension even starts) and cant compete for players (since theyre the worst option with a 1 year contract).

And lastly Its also not like they just settled with him yesterday either; batujnax has been with the roster for a while now

Great first showing from both teams tbh
Rookies on m8 preformed, and apeks got to show that even without firepower they can still look competitive

the start had me REALLY worried
but very nice recovery

Well for them to be a true dark horse they gotta lower the expectations first; way too many people had them as their dark hose
After today I dont think anyone expects them to make it to an international, so now they can step up

What a showing by the t2 guys
Cant wait for Chiwa to be back cause they looking good

its not: 2023 only had 6pm (5pm for playoffs)
2024 had 5pm for split 1 and 6pm for split 2

you can change your timezone to berlin in the settings of vlr if you wanna check

Same time as "always" (we've had a couple different times, but this is the main one for 2023 and 2024)
6pm germany (CEST)

Back to back ace is something
Deqadz op, pls nerf

F

100%, plus theyre sharing skin sales (according to cgn discord)

Wait I thought this rumor was a troll based on Webber/Neil (cant remember who x.x) praising last years cgn roster so much (due to how they did in scrims)

this is amazing

Im a bit confused why people are upset at it being h2h
This is how we always do it in valorant for 2 way ties

I cant think of a single tourney where we had maps or round diff as the first tiebreaker