world champions, then what is the differencee
there is almost no difference (at least how it's being perceived)
0
if masters and champs are both considered.........
posted in
Valorant Discussion
Comments:
Threaded
Linear
Almost every international event that includes all regions is considered world championship in esports tbh.
because masters happens twice a year, champs only happens once, and has more competition
lock/in isn't considered because different format creates possible fluke runs (not saying fnatic's was one, 3-11 comeback on icebox was impressive)
Only Champs are considered World Champions by Riot
In their official posts, they refer to Masters winners as just: "Masters Winners"
When a team wins Champions, they are referred to as the 202X World Champions
Thats why if you win Masters Santigo, for example, you will get a "Masters Santiago Winner" title, but if you win Champions Shanghai you dont get just a "Champions Shanghai Winner", you get a "2026 VCT Champion" title. You become the World Champion of that entire year.
but I hope riot does clarify something on if masters winners being considered world champions is a normality or not
Master winners were NEVER considered as world champions. I don't know where you heard that.
in every esports title they are for any int the winners are world champ (of the moment) even if they dont get a buddy to say it rito should clarify
That's not the case in any esport I watch which have the same system as Valorant.
In League of Legends if you win Worlds you are the world champions, not MSI or First Stand,
In Rocket League if you win the RLCS World Championship you are the world champions, not any of the RLCS majors.
No one calls themselves world champion for just winning an international.
Riot is just confused, world champion = best team in the world, not however they define it
Its just a prestige thing and it exists every esport
There are big tournaments and THE biggest tournament that is the World Championship of that competition
In CS, Astralis won like 16 international tournaments, they were the best team in the world at all those several points in time. They are not considered 16x World Champions, they are 4x World Champions because they won 4 Majors (the World Championship of CS)
In LOL, Faker and T1 won 6 Worlds (that would be Champs in Valorant) and 2 MSI (that would be Masters in Valorant). They are not considered 8x World Champions, they are 6x World Champions because Worlds is the World Championship of the game
The cs comparison is different, since cs has two majors anyways, but also many many more big tournaments than valorant, many by third party organizers
Ultimately, the prestige thing shouldn’t matter much because it’s mostly just prize pool and promotion more than the tournament being more impressive to win
Valorant is way more flukey than cs, winning champs doesn’t make you a better team, just a team peaking at the right time. Surely you don’t consider EG more accomplished than FNC? Or acend more accomplished than gambit?
I feel like it's too early to determine the actual best teams in any given year, valorant is definitely one of the most rng esports
It’s wayyyyyyy to rng for champs to matter that much
Genuinely such a flukey game, if champs was the only tournament that mattered the esports scene would be very scuffed
I think riot has a huge problem in terms of how prestigious their tournaments are
Well, yes, a team that wins 1 Champions is more accomplished than a team that has 1 Masters and 1 Lockin (slightly less value than Masters). Acend Champions > Gambit Masters. From just actual achievements alone of course (lifting international trophies)
Champions and Worlds have way more value than CS majors because of what you said. in Valorant and LOL its one chance to win the entire year, while CS has 2 Majors per year
Unless you consider regional performance and overall consistency over the year into account, but there if you're counting overall international "placements", there are no 2nd or 3rd place trophies
It’s way harder to win two international trophies, especially back to back
If your going off your exclusivity argument (2 masters vs 1 champs), then there are only two teams that won two international trophies ever (Sen and fnc), and only one team back to back (fnc), while there are 5 unique champs winners (acend, loud, eg, edg, nrg), so clearly champs isn’t as hard to win as multiples of any tournament.
But also, that argument is poor. There’s only one kickoff a year, so is winning kickoff more impressive than stage 1/stage2? I do think we should consider placements, valorant is too flukey to only consider trophies. Teams rise and fall with metas and certain agents like chamber or tejo.
The way I I see it:
VCT is like a race - Masters 1 is the start of the race, Masters 2 is the middle of the race and Champions is the finish line
Meta shifts, new agents, maps, buffs and nerfs are all the hard curves and obstacles of the circuit where the racer/team needs to adapt to.
The winner of the race is whoever crosses the finish line first (the team that evolved the most and/or reached the highest peak of that year)
Winning Masters 1 = you were the fastest car in the first third of the race
Winning Masters 2 = you were the fastest car during the middle of the race
Winning both Masters 1 and 2 back to back = you were the fastest car for 2/3 of the race
Winning Champions = you were the overall fastest car of the entire race and won the whole thing.
thats the vision that makes the most sense I think
Players like Aspas for example already said that he prefers to win 1 Champions over >5< Masters. So even the players are already focused on the prestige that was designed for the esport by Riot
I guess I’ll just have to agree to disagree, because I see them as three different races, with champs being the hardest. You can’t be the best of the whole race, because there have been teams like edg and nrg who were shit 2/3rd of the year and peaked for champs, how can they be the best of a whole year? They just got lucky with when they peaked.
The meta changes between each of the 3 races, so how is champs the ultimate race?
A team like prx won Toronto and got heavily antistratted and studied, so champs was hard
Meanwhile, nrg were straight horrible in stage 1, so they had an easier champs. Could you truly say NRG were a better team in 2025? Or did they just get lucky with when they got good?
They just got lucky
bruh
A team like prx won Toronto and got heavily antistratted and studied, so champs was hard
yes, and they failed to adapt and lost to a team that had a tier 2 sub, obstacles that they couldnt overcome. Every team is heavily antistratted and studied at Champs, thats not a PRX exclusive excuse
Meanwhile, nrg were straight horrible in stage 1, so they had an easier champs. Could you truly say NRG were a better team in 2025? Or did they just get lucky with when they got good?
At the end of the day, they did everything over the year to make the team work, to overcome the obstacles and adapt, they kicked 2 players, brought in 2 new players, their IGLing became better and one of the rookies they bring to make it work ended up winning MVP. Its the classic: "They were the best when it mattered the most"
When it matters the most: Champions
I’m not saying nrg didn’t deserve to win champs, but they aren’t the best team of 2025 as a whole if they weren’t good for any period of times apart from one tournament
Imo it’s harder in a flukey game to be good for long periods of time rather than being good for one tournament. Every single champs winner has fallen off other than loud, so I just don’t think calling the champs winner the team of the year is true. Valorant is just too flukey to say champs is the only tournament that matters.
Let’s see how if nrg adapt now that they are the team to beat.
It’s funny because you can argue masters is harder to win
Champs has 4 teams from each region, so on paper worse over all players and competition quality
Nah with how competitive regions are nowadays feel like all 4 teams generally are insanely good or have massive potential except for china ig. Don't think extra 1 slot makes decreases the quality of competition or anything.
it offers more varied competition as well, bc the possibility of masters being attended by the same teams is much higher than in champs
Idk, it definitely allows for some teams to get easier group stage matches, even if against china
it allows for some teams to get harder group stage matches as well
the teams that survive those harder group stage matches are more likely to get top 3
Master allows some team to get free playoffs slot too tbh. At least champs doesn't have that. Tbh I would love swiss stage in champs like in dota 2 but less bo1 games. I think that would be the best one.
same, and the #1 seed is even being debated if it's an advantage or disadvantage
at least in champs every team has the same fate of battling for a spot in playoffs
You fail to consider that champs is always at the end of the year where most teams are at their most competitive with the meta and team synergy mostly figured out.
Oh yeah I do agree champs > masters, but the gap is exaggerated like crazy
To say that champs is far more impressive or masters shouldn’t matter is just a bad take imo
Imo, champs = 1.5 masters
tenz rented 10000 lab grown monkeys to spread masters = champs propaganda across all of social media
Discord