edit: idk why title says both ewc brainfart moment but ignore
people have been saying that EWC is a tier below Masters or on the same level of Lock in and they are both below masters. This take is dumb and doesn't make any sense. EWC had 16 teams participating, with every VCT team except for Loud having a chance of qualifying.
By design, the EWC teams are theoretically of higher quality as well, as the top 2 teams from split 1 in each region auto qualified to it.
you can complain about the format, sure whatever, but look at the playoffs and compare the quality there to masters bangkok. Fnatic, GenG, TH, Prx, SEN, are all elite teams who have been good this split and will be good next split and for champs. Meanwhile, Bangkok playoffs had Vitality, T1, EDG, and G2. T1 and Vitality are both teams that had good starts to the year but have been pretty underwhelming the rest of the year, with T1, the former masters winners, not even making Masters Toronto.
The quality of this playoffs would have only have gone up if G2 had their full roster, as they likely would've made playoffs with Leaf, further cementing the idea that the playoffs teams quality is stacked.
tldr: format being bad doesn't mean shit as playoffs was stacked regardless, and if anything this tournament has more quality teams than 1st master tournaments like bangkok and madrid
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