Since all the teams in VCT Champions 2023 have been confirmed, I've decided to come up with a potential group distribution as a fun hypothetical
Since there are 5 EMEA teams, 4 Americas teams, 4 Pacific teams, and 3 Chinese teams, I'm drawing each group in a way to have one team from every region, except for one group which will have to have 2 EMEA teams and no Chinese teams. I've also tried to balance out groups somewhat through creating pools based on seeding, mostly based on each team's performance at Tokyo rather than their seeding going INTO Tokyo. I KNOW THIS IS PROBABLY NOT HOW RIOT WILL DO IT, AND I HONESTLY DON'T CARE BC I'M DOING THIS FOR FUN!
Pool 1 contains FNC, EG, PRX, and NRG (top 4 in Tokyo)
Pool 2 contains TL, EDG, DRX, and LOUD (5th-8th at Tokyo)
Pool 3 contains FUT, T1, GIA, and BLG (9th-12th at Tokyo, with NAVI replaced by Giants since Giants won LCQ over NAVI, and ASE replaced by BLG as the second seed from China)
Pool 4 contains NAVI, KRU, ZETA, and FPX (bottom seed from each region)
I'll be drawing groups so that each group has 1 team from each pool AND meets the region distribution conditions.
Group A:
NRG Esports (Pool 1, Americas)
EDward Gaming (Pool 2, China)
FUT Esports (Pool 3, EMEA)
ZETA Division (Pool 4, Pacific)
Group B:
FNATIC (Pool 1, EMEA)
LOUD (Pool 2, Americas)
T1 (Pool 3, Pacific)
FunPlus Phoenix (Pool 4, China)
Group C:
Paper Rex (Pool 1, Pacific)
Team Liquid (Pool 2, EMEA)
Bilibili Gaming (Pool 3, China)
KRÜ Esports (Pool 4, Americas)
Group D:
Evil Geniuses (Pool 1, Americas)
DRX (Pool 2, Pacific)
Giants Gaming (Pool 3, EMEA)
Natus Vincere (Pool 4, EMEA)
Assume that opening matches in each group would be the Pool 1 team vs. the Pool 4 team and the Pool 2 team vs. the Pool 3 team.
AGAIN, THIS IS A HYPOTHETICAL, GROUPS HAVE NOT YET BEEN CONFIRMED, AND I MADE UP THE POOLS MYSELF
If these were your Champions 2023 groups, who do you have making it to playoffs?
EDIT: GROUPS GOT DRAWN AS I WAS MAKING THIS LMAOOO
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