Good post.

Hope the 5 are able to stick together somehow.

The players are more to the valorant scene than the org is and always have been.

Personally, I think the whole Sentinels thing showed to Riot that players who are good at branding can do better than orgs and may sell better than orgs because players brands are able to hop from org to org.

It'll be sad short run, but I think in the long run, it won't matter as much.

It probably will not happen because like TSM, G2 is grandfathered into League -- they have seniority there.

The valorant eSports organization at Riot are much younger and are growing the roots of the Valorant community.

Consequently, this means that not only are the possible employees younger and have more views that are polarized with the whole Andrew Tate situation, but also that they do not necessarily need G2 as there are others willing to pay more and devote more/as much to Valorant than G2 are while maintain the community they want.

I think for League, it's approaching its due date, but that's more of a pessimistic opinion of mine.

In reality, it's more like TSM in league is grandfathered in due to seniority.

In Valorant, the scene is in its growing roots, so Riot can foster a new community without shit stains like Carlos and Reginald.

But TSM also had a scandal like G2 did

He's a fucking CEO.

It's about professionalism and knowing social implications -- which btw, everyone with a MBA/modern CEO is fully aware of.

It is wrong to think the eSports industry e-sports CEOs deserve an asterisk.

He's a full grown man who is living a great life. He deserves all these consequences as a wake-up call.

For being a CEO and never growing the fuck up.

Yay is best player period.

Think about it like this:

Yay is so consistently insane at his role, him being top player in the server is no longer a question.

He is so insane at his role that it is no longer about Yay being good, it is about how much the other players show up.
In my opinion, a large reason of Optic's loss to loud was not only because Loud as a whole played well, but because previous stars in Optic went missing, (i'm looking at Marved and Victor).

associated himself with a notorious misogynist after, ironically, announcing female roster.

Because Carlos continously tries to represent G2 as analogous with himself as a figure, it then implicated the entire organization.

Then, PR logs into his account and makes an apology.

Hilariously, he then has a doc rivers moment, proceeding to like all tweets about him having a based take as well as his suspension being a vacation, not knowing people could see him like all the controversial stuff..

Bind is Xset's permaban...but they respect FPX's fracture more...

Don't read too much into it.

Bro.

Derke has 16 first deaths, 9 of which came from fractured, the game decider, itself.. The man lost fractured by himself.

He's definitely a tier above based on how huge Yay's FK/FD difference is versus Derke's with more games played.

Yay, with less rounds played, has more FKs yet less FDs than Derke (+38 vs + 14). Yay even has more kill participation and literally half of Derke's first death participation.

How is that not an indicator of just being a different tier on chamber?

Not sure how people aren't saying Yay is a different tier from Derke...

Yay FK/FD Diff: 38

Derke FK/FD Diff: 14

That alone should speak volumes...

Derke has more than twice Yay's FDs, while still having less FKs WITH more rounds played

Bro, why do you make your own favorite team seem like bitches?

If they're better, they'll be back. If they aren't they aren't.
All that's left for them to do is work hard and not be bitches. If they wanna cry about it and not learn anything, that's cool too.

Don't make excuses for team.

Pros shouldn't have to rely on that shit for anything.

They lost. Shit sucks. They got better. End of story.

It makes it all the more impressive how Cryo (19) and Zekken (17) handled the booing from a foreign crowd, even though this is their first crowd experience.

Riot doesn't want just a game where "guns go brr.."

The gimmicks you see are days, weeks, and months of refinement of testing out strategies and that type of hard work should be rewarded, not punished.

The bans you are suggesting would refine that sentiment - as you can target ban agents that facilitate team-based strats based on scrim info etc.

Good point. Fixed. Thanks! I misread that

It won't happen with a sub...

Is HLTV doing the % of shots that land and then calculating how many are HS? How many killed that are %HS?

I believe VLR calculates it based on total shots, including missed ones, or includes shots that didn't kill as well.

There's many questions that make your analysis not complete unless answered.

Zeta is playing with a sub and that sub isn't the best in japan or near it. I wouldn't put on the Zeta flair just for now...

A lot of 100T's "new look" was inspired by a lot of Optic's playbook - and Sgares is a smart guy who knows how to contrive a lot of plays.
The watch party said as much.

I don't think they'll be better than optic because Optic's players are as good if not better.

Every time people think there's a "new NA hope" Optic feeds them what they had for dinner last night. I would wait and see before you are rudely reminded again...

i think it's -will +cryo/bdog regardless with franchising coming up - and i don't know if xset will have a place with 100T/TSM/SEN(replace with NRG or whatever which)/Faze/C9 in terms of org value.

Teams can go shopping at SR roster especially rn since they have good individual pieces.

C9 will get zekken to replace curry probably.

NA rosters get really interesting finally.

Yep - if vanity is your top frag then - and i quote the man himself - the boys need to wake up...
And also curry.

Bro - they have played the weakest side of the bracket; a LG, who went through an org switch and knowing they won't be a team in franchising, that lost to C9 who have Curry as an active player, and the Guard, (the latter being in a state I can't determine because of facing similar competition).

We have to see how they do vs a team like NRG/EG/Faze/100T

imagine using past tournaments as evidence of winning a future tournament when the meta is entirely different.

Nice.

You clearly give a fuck by starting a thread.

Just wait until the next tournament and don't let a single major event haunt your mind - that's definitely what the pros don't let happen.

If you are a competitive person - or hell, have any dreams or aspirations - do you grasp onto every little tiny chance and opportunity you get or do you just give up?

The only "no chance" they have is if they aren't trying - that is a fact.

There is always a chance if you try -- but that's only dependent on how much they care enough to grasp onto that straw.

Is it good? Maybe not, but if you even have a passion or a dream, a tiny chance is a chance enough.

I think FNS is better because he forced his team to switch styles and now it balances multiple faces where the players are forced to take on many roles and characters. I think the other IGLs give their players too much slack to not constantly adapt and be multifaceted players.

It's going to be interesting and IMO Riot needed to do this.

There's a lot of questions for pros now.

Double duelist? Which piece of utility are you giving up? Trade offs? Etc. Etc.

People are complaining and bitching but that's because they don't like thinking about playing an evolving game.

People beg for change, but then suddenly whine when there is change.

In my opinion, Shaz is the best NA player, regardless of what people say.

Probably the only player on Sentinels to be consistent throughout all matches played, but Sick comes close.

In terms of actual ceiling, I would, sadly, still say Sentinels. Sentinels have shown that fragging isn't an issue, as they have had more FKs in all of their series than their competition. On the other hand, too much ego peeking which lets teams crawl back, (Tenz on Split...).

I think NA will be competitive because NA will not have IMPLODED rosters competing, but I have doubts about TSM being any higher than Top 4 because of how Wardell plays Jett.

Hey man, it's just like l1nk said, he's ahead of every other team...

When he's sitting and holding an angle with a judge.

Link really is ahead of these other teams when he's sitting in an angle with the judge.

Otherwise...

Bra they've been full power. What is Cned's power on Bind? Bind was literally foreboding how strong Acend is individually, BEYOND Cned

Because people keep calling Acend Cned and friends; meanwhile, bind has 0 input from cned and other members stepping up massively.

People just do not like to think otherwise.

Yea it's unfortunate. Wish Tenz showed up to even a remote proportion to his hype.

The team threw so many opportunities despite having so many FK advantages by fucking ego peeking, (Tenz)

Goes to show the game goes well beyond how well you aim.

That and fucking judge gameplay man.

So glad these Acend doubters and fucking TL bandwagoners are gone, man. Complete idiots if you thought Acend was only Cned when it was clear the other players just need their moments.

I've been saying the team IS NOT Cned and friends. Cned's team is insanely good.

I think they'll do pretty well. I think at best, top 4. It'll be nice to see NA without imploded teams like TSM, 100T, T1; in other words, to see all the orgs with money and staff actually not have imploded rosters.

As someone else said, I don't think TSM can ever be top 2 with Wardell being Jett. If he switches to viper/astra or breach/sova and they pick up a really good Jett, then I'd be down.

Victor, a key player in Berlin along with Crashies, had covid. As a result, they most likely had to follow stricter quarantine protocols, making practice probably harder.

That's not how teams work. These games are TEAM games.

You can have a team of 5 beast and it won't come together because team chemistry is a real thing. You may have 5 Fakers/Simples/etc and still lose because you need to have 5 players that play well together and individually.

Examples that come into mind for super teams that failed:
G2 League 2021
TSM League 2016-2018
KT League 2018
Vitality CS "French Dream team" with RPK Zywoo Apex Etc.
Faze CS in general when they pick up random ass superstars and assemble what on paper entire legacy players, (Boston Major, Coldzera Joins, Twistzz joins, etc).

Let Lakia find a team that suits him and let him help build teams that help build around him as well. Don't waste incredible talent on a team that clearly won't work around him.

No disrespect to VS, but VS is literally holding Korea hostage by not selling off Lakia or letting him go to a team that competes with them.

The one map Lakia played, he did pretty well.

Is it? I wasn't aware of the camera bug up until now. It didn't gain the same amount of notoriety as it is now, which is equivalent to the boostmeister.

Shox and crew got angry and complained immediately, rather than teams just accepting it. And then it gained more notoriety when pros posted on twitter, which resulted in threads just like these.

It would be similar to if dreamhack and other teams accepted the boostmeister spot. Except now Riot is setting its own precedent for that by seeming to suggest that they now will fix those types of bugs, as they are exploits all the same as boostmeister -- it's murky water. It's essentially Riot suggesting they determine what's a texture bug and we aren't letting such tech into the game cause they believe it ruins competitive integrity.

Imagine CSGO. The tournament dreamhack 2014: LDLC vs Fnatic on overpass. If you are young or were not invested in CS during that time, you may not know what I'm referring to.

Summary, same kind of issue. Texture bug where the enemy can see you but you can't really do anything about it.

However, for Valorant, the advantage is obviously to a lesser extent in terms of an advantage.

The biggest difference is that the camera can't kill people, while Olof could awp and kill people at spawn.

It's up to Riot to ponder the decision Valve/Dreamhack executed now.

????

Bro. Do not pull that discrimination card. Right now, America is the laughing stock in many threads, these included. HLTV, Reddit, Politics, what have you.
But you won't see me bitch about it. I either care don't about it or IF I CARE, I'll try to do something about it.
You say that we are well but legit Sentinels, is literally being considered insignificant and shadows of themselves after losing 1 map to furia?
AND because sentinels lost ONE map, the entire NA region is discounted.

But fuck Americans right. That's the popular narrative anyways.

Also, it isn't even our language. It's England's, which is in Europe....

I agree. See, the way you phrase it, it's logical. I just don't like it when people talk as if Cned is 1v5 when clearly it's other issues.

Sometimes I see Cned re-agress when he just has to hold. Which is fine if you are a godlike player, but you have to respect your opponent at some point. There are a lot of minuscule details, but because Cned often plays jett and is duelist and awper, with a team that funds him, it discounts what everyone else does to the eyes of othersl.

No offense to Cned. But go look at the match page now. Acend as a team has more frags than VK.

They just lack tactics. It's not about firepower guys lol.

Acend even has more FKs than VKs. Plus, everyone on Acend funds for Cned anyways, while on Bind, the solution has been let Zeek shine, not Cned.

Idk why they are insecure about Ascent. Awp is pretty powerful on that map. So is Sova. Sounds like a good map for Heat and MW?

tech pauses happen in esl too. It's just the reality of very hype players and delicate equipment.

No. Wake up to reality.

NA is made fun of on regular bases. CS, League, Val, whatever esport.

It isn't up to you, me, the casters, or anyone. Respect is EARNED not given. Remember that.

It's best to practice and train everyday so you can earn that respect at a major moment. Most pros who end up being successful understand this because that's reality.

This is one of them. Now you wait and see if VK can vindicate your region for you.

Brazil, up until now, hasn't earned anything. VK is full of great players, the casters have said this, but will that matter? History says not. Let's see if VK proves otherwise.