Underdogs in Masters

Is no one going to talk about how teams that were literal nobodies a few months back are now about to represent NA in Masters? NV, LG, and XSET were some teams I don't think anyone really thought "Yea, EZ ticket to masters, LUL" What's your thoughts on this and who you guys think might upset in Masters

Envy was a top 3-4 team last year though

Absolutely every team that played in First Strike respected Envy as one of the best teams in NA, with some of the TSM players considering them the best team in the region period. Even if they haven't been able to yet win an event, given especially how they formed in the beginning of Sentinels' dominant Ignition Series era, they've been consistently one of the best teams for the past six months.

Envy has been pretty dominant(except against Sen until they beat them in Challengers) since they signed Food and Crashies. They dominated the NSG First Strike open and closed qualifiers but lost to TSM in the main event of First Strike, lost multiple times in Challengers 1, but still made it to the main event and, most recently, they dominated Challengers 2. Unfortunately for Envy, other than beating Sen twice, there is no indication that they will actually show up in Masters. They always are amazing when they need to qualify for an event but we will have to see if they can actually win an event. As for the others, XSET had a solid group and only added BcJ in January and LG was one of the top tier 2 teams for a while but had multiple roster changes, with Venerated retiring from Valorant and them releasing Kziase but once this new roster with Dre and Moose blended together, they started playing like a top 6 team and now we're here.

I definitely agree with the comments on NV, but I'm excited to see LG and XSET play in Masters. I've been watching these teams in the small NSG monthly tournaments and I'm super excited to see some of these amazing players play on the biggest stage. Happy for them to represent NA for sure

Luminosity has been a good team for quite a while now, with their current roster even taking a victory in NSG Winter Champs which was back in January I believe. They were definitely expected to get into Masters after that. XSET throughout first strike struggled in qualifies but were definitely an underdog coming into the first Challengers. NV, like the comments have been saying, are certainly not underdogs and more like favorites.