oh yeah, was that when he dropped like 49 in that match that had a server crash? nobody really talked about his Kay/o huh

idk anymore. I thought the different was the other guy is verified, but apparently, that was done manually

idk anymore lol

maybe?

doesn't he have a verified badge tho?

Agreed. I personally wanna see 100T 2-0 sentinels for the storyline, but it probably won't happen since they're both probably gonna give this their all. it'd be real nice for 100T's international acclaim tho if they did

yeah, a lot of people tried to put duelists on kay/o, but looks like what you really need is a sentinel player on it.

it's easy. After a 8 months of competition, all of the teams who are able to make LCQ by points or Champions directly are Tier 1. They're the only teams in direct competition amongst themselves for the highest title in the game.

And this goes for every region. In NA that makes it like 11 teams or so

really? I do think a couple minor touchups could be useful, but idk it seems fine enough when the tournaments are all done. it only looked weird when people were looking at it in the middle of the stage 2 challengers when half of the teams weren't even playing

yeah idk why people like to hate on hiko lol. it's become its own meme at this point

actually you're right. idk what happened with their defense. that's actually been on fire recently but here they popped off on attack. lol they're just insane. I do hope this means it's nothing but up for them since they can pop off on either half

they consisttently mount insane comebacks in Haven, idk what it is about that map lol

faze was only good that one time. everybody has adapted it seems

LOL well I guess we do need at least 1 person to pick it in case it happens

changing my pickems immediately.

It has several benefits over the older format for competitors.
All teams on day 1 who would be having multiple matches will all be coming from wins & have a similar level of winning momentum/mentality. The previous format had teams who had just lost immediately fight again for their life after dropping down to the lower brackets and risk getting eliminated.

Additionally, the teams who do end up losing that day get to rest until the next day without being eliminated, so if they were just having a bad day, there's a chance for them to make up for it or reset their mentality so they can play close to their best (which is what we want to see).

Lastly, it lets teams who win and remain in the upper bracket skip the next tournament day to rest while the lower bracket teams work themselves out. It essentially rewards them for staying on top.

For the viewers, we get to know who 2 of the top 3 are on day 1.

it's much more fair now cuz both teams will be coming from wins & have similar winning momentum vs the previous method which had teams who were losing have to fight for their life to stay in on the same day after dropping down to the lower brackets

It also gives teams a full day break if they win both their upper bracket games. and teams who lose get the next day to recover if they were just having a bad day. For the viewers, we get to know who 2 of the top 3 are on day 1.

yeah i have no idea where this hiko dislike is coming from all of a sudden. The man's been a solid sova since day 1 and frequently uses his utility efficiently

100T literally got rid of Dicey because they didn't want a dedicated Jett lol. They clearly want a 1 duelist comp max. Not every team has to have the exact same comp and I'm interested to see if what they're trying works out in the long-run

idk where this is coming from. Hiko regularly gets shock dart kills and does a great job as sova. He used to have better ults in the first strike days, but he still hits and always does his job. There's literally no need to replace him at this time until he stops doing his job.

it's called long-term planning

well, we know it's all opinion based over here. I just thought it's strange to include T1 (and GenG, but I guess they still technically have a chance if TSM or Rise bomb out instantly in playoffs) when they so recently failed to show up. At least with V1, despite their problems, they have a chance to win LCQ based on their recent masters 2 run. Can anyone reasonably say the same for either GenG or T1?

how do you have LG this strong? lol

how do you put teams in here who, after 3 masters/a year of competition, don't even have a chance at making LCQ lol

Bro, use their player names at least in the middle with quotation marks lol. I'm not even gonna bother to look those other names up besides tyson

I don't wanna live in the world where this bracket exists

just 1. maybe

very safe pickems. But I do think it's interesting you have LG beating faze so early

I think you have to understand that the rating system is not a picture perfect system that you can take a snapshot of and be like "this is clearly #4 team in x region at this point in time"

It just keeps track of matches and distributes points accordingly over time (over a year at this point). That said, you can tell it's working at least moderately well when the top 11 teams in rankings are the actual 11 teams who have a chance at making LCQs and champions. These are definitely our best 11 teams right now in NA. However, you won't really know who's #2-11 until after playoffs, because all of these teams are still competing in this bracket until the playoffs are over. Until then, I don't think it makes sense to artificially adjust the rankings because of how people feel. Let the math do its work and see what it gives us after the playoffs.

Ultimately, I do think the math might benefit from some kind of decay system that factors in wins a lot less after a certain time period like 6 months. Or a roster change can have a ranking penalty. Or something else creative.

not in the beginning tho

It's definitely too early to tell. TSM just got 10 rounds on defense against Faze on Breeze.

It's the same for every map tho, including Split. I don't really think it's that CT-sided if you play your T-side right like all the teams who enjoy split and have other teams ban the map for them.

well, Fnatic would've lost this 2-1 too if it was a bo3

Woah, thanks for an amazing recap Hudsen & Eutalyx

Wow, Hunts is an idiot. got a whole team disqualified for such selfish reasons

100T will 2-0 Faze if they're on point.
2-1 if they go back to their old ways.

Just because teams haven't figured out a defense yet doesn't make the map attacker sided. TL and VGIA had the same issue on ascent but nobody's saying ascent is heavily T-sided.

what kind of backwards thinking is this lol..

Sen 2-0 Rise of course

Don't go too fast and eat your words now

TSM 2-1 if they win pistols.

TSM 1-2 if they go back to their old ways.

Faze 2-1

They're fine as players tbh. They just played shit as a team.

Team's frequently not checking corners. SUPER passive, sleep-inducing gameplay on defense AND attack. absolutely abysmal map control on split and haven. terrible spacing in a few ascent rounds. and just overall uncoordinated team play. They play like all they do is scrim and not ranked where random shit can happen and they need to adapt on the fly. It still feels like they just picked up Valorant, and with all that aim, it can only take them so far.

there's some inaccuracy to every gun.

that's just a penalty for losing. Don't lose and you get to relax 4Head

Not at first, but now they're lower. they just didn't have enough matches to lose to knock em down, but they're down now.

they were atrocious on defense too in map 1 & 3

yeah, i have no idea what tf they were doing with their SUPER passive set ups and basically forgetting map control in critical parts of the map like ramps on split and garage in haven then getting pikachu faced when an enemy is in their face and they're trying to drone. it's actually insane watching them playing with the passive level of plats & the aim of gods. it's jarring.

T1 will probably 2-0 TSM unfortunately.

well, they won it. Let em try things out.

What do you mean? Sentinels have already played it 3 times (with a 100% win rate). GenG have played it, xset, as well as 100T.

KJ is huge on Breeze. she just shrinks the map into nice chunks where you can put utility where normally a player would have to occupy that space and you can respond to it as needed without spreading the team too think on defense OR attack. I thought this immediately when Breeze came out and it's pretty reassuring when I see KJs top fragging or just doing really well in many Breeze maps played by top teams (like Dapr on Sentinels and some EU teams too like brodi on tenstar).