bo5's prediction

KiwiJuice

in EMEA for example, there's 2 weeks between M8 and BBL's last game and the upper final. Both these teams who had momentum now have to wait 2 weeks to play on stage again, for some teams that could form a problem, especially since teams in the middle and especially lower brackets have way more games, whoever's making lower bracket runs could have all the momentum to beat the team that lost the upper final.

I say at least half the teams who lose the upper final bo5 isn't making it to Santiago just because of that.
for example: Furia, AG, BBL, M8, NS could all just lose out on santiago if they don't win the upper final.

MrHyphon

Frags

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its the momentum vs prep time argument again, but since all the BO5s are in a row, its basically impossible to lose 2 and have the mental resilience to win the third, so ig momentum wins this time

KiwiJuice

Frags

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did u forget Masters Toronto?

MrHyphon

Frags

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Toronto was momentum filled but the only first seed to actually use their prep time to innovate was Fnatic

g2 xlg and rrq just ran 2024 comps

Edit: nvm g2 were completely all over the place. They were in a state where they didn't know whether to innovate, go back to the 2024 meta, or stick with tejo

KiwiJuice

Frags

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XLG and RRQ definitely were hurt by the momentum that the swiss stage teams had. Fnatic is just a world class team that pulled through eventually. as for G2, don't forget GEN.G at Masters toronto at some point looked like the best team in the world, so it's just unlucky they had their first game against them. GEN.G later famously fumbled and got tilted against Wolves and it was just over from there on.

MrHyphon

Frags

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The key point about prep time is that teams with time to , uh, actually prepare. if you have a month of prep after the meta completely changes, the least thing you could do is innovate and create new comps. I firmly believe that if RRQ or XLG or even G2 had the tejo meta during Toronto, they would have beat every second seed during playoffs.

cirruss

Frags

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brother xlg had to find a new player two weeks before the tournament, don’t act like it was for any other reason. rrq have also proven that their stratbook isn’t good at internationals, they gave no competition to either fnc or mibr at champs either, and that has no momentum excuse