You are telling me RRQ wouldnt get more than rounds if they just played 3A and 2back of B every round and FNC wouldve flanked them from spawn every round? Use your brain and calculate first before replying

When did you see team using spawn on Ascent? FNC only used it once this whole attack half and it was due to RRQ mistake not FNC's plan, just sit on sites FNC dont have a good exec and they are low on time

Surely you just sit on sites against this comp when they are execing with 20s left every round right? Just play 3 on A site and 2 on back of B and you just win on time. FNC are getting away with murder, they shouldnt get more than 4 rounds on attack with this comp

Even after seeing G2 struggle in Americas with tejo at its peak? It was a 60/40 matchup at very least and 40% turned into reality this time

Amount of excuses 1st seed teams are making and them tweeting about changing the format is absurd. You guys never complained about experience gap when the similar format was implemented at 2023 Tokyo and 3/4 1st seeds won their opening game at playoffs but now you guys complain?
Get a grip and have a better excuse. Reality is XLG and RRQ were really nervous and we havent seen them be good without tejo esp. crazyguy, and G2 and FNC lost really close matches against good opponents.

Did you forget the guard core that was demolished by PRX in Reykavik 2022? They've lost before. Out of Sen roster only Narrate lost to PRX once, every other player has won against PRX

Everyone who are saying "SEN got a fraudelent run", "Sen are farming China" before you say that just remember the fact that FNC skipped group stage for winning clearly the worst region in the last 2 years. Put some respect on VCT CN, they have 6-2 record against EMEA teams in the last 3 events

What crack are XLG smoking? I want some of that.
First, they first pick SEN instead of Wolves and 1st pick Sunset which is probably the Sen's best map and 2nd ban Ascent and give SEN a chance to play Pearl 3rd map? Are they that confident on themselves that they just give SEN their best 3 maps? I guess we take it

G2 lost, PRX and SEN won, what a great day for Valorant.

Johnqt didnt lose a 1v1 to dicey so

I would love SEN to play FNC no matter the result because I think FNC is the best matchup for SEN in playoffs map pool wise and they have pretty similar playstyle so the matchup would be fun

I dont think FNC is making top 4 as everyone is expecting and I just wanna state the fact that FNC played tejo only in Icebox out of current map pool and they also had 3 weeks prep time just like APAC swiss stage teams. So they have no excuses if they bomb out.

Also, TH shouldnt have had any excuses as well, PRX got out of group with 2 weeks of prep because they had to play EWC and TH also played Tejo only in Icebox(altho they changed it) and Lotus.

I dont know who is good or bad in this tournament entire way. This whole tournament feels like a fever dream and I dont know whats going on
SEN beat both Chinese teams barely but both Chinese teams beat EMEA teams so idk how good SEN are, TH and MIBR look horrendously bad so I cant judge any of their opponents who beat them, PRX look like last years Madrid PRX sometimes really good sometimes really shit and they are just here for fun, idk how good XLG and RRQ is without tejo breach since they were not this good before tejo meta, EMEA look like the worst region so is FNC any good or are they also gonna bomb out?

This script is so boring man, this is the exact same draw as last years Shanghai:
Chinese #1 picks the team that beat both Chinese teams in Swiss stage
Usually disappointing but the team who somehow won their regional stage 1 pick the easiest opponent
And G2 vs PRX with FNC remaining with GENG.

China vs Americas since champs 24 is 7-4 for Americas:
Sen: 3-1
G2: 3-1
LEV: 0-2
KRU: 1-0
On the Chinese side:
EDG: 3-2
Trace: 1-1
BLG: 0-2
WOL: 0-1
FPX: 0-1

I know we all joke about how NRG lost to BLG or whatever and say China is the worst region, but the matter of fact is that Chinese teams are 6-2 against EMEA teams in the last 3 events. (Basically since Champs 24):
EDG: 3-0
Trace: 1-0
Wolves: 1-0
BLG: 1-1
FPX: 0-1

I think TL picks one of Icebox or Ascent, they are not gonna pick comfort map for PRX like Split or Sunset even though TL are good on those maps.

Am I crazy or is attackside calling in Toronto worse than past 3 years in Internationals? I am watching so many teams only 5-man or 4-1 default and hitting sites where they put pressure every time. So far I ve only seen SEN, GENG and BLG showing multiple different defaults like 3-1-1, 3-0-2, 2-1-2 etc. You can understand TL are pretty much playing ranked with so little time and PRX have always been 5-man hit team but what are other teams doing?

This is crazy if you consider the fact that 4 worst players in thsi tournament by VLR rating are all Brazilians.

On paper roster wise and for the memes XLG might be the best opponent but I think lowkey FNC might be the best matchup for Sen map veto vise because FNC perma ban Pearl and have to play Sunset against Sen which FNC were historically bad at. Also if SEN first bans Icebox, FNC will pick one of Split or Lotus which are good maps for Sen. And the 3rd map will likely be Haven or the remainder of Split/Lotus.
Only against FNC Sen will be able to play top 3/5 maps of their map pool and other opponents might pick Ascent (I thing G2 and RRQ will pick Ascent against SEN) or Icebox(XLG will pick it).

Honestly its pretty likely TH and PRX qualify for playoffs considering PRX are probably the best team remaining and TH play against Wol and TH and PRX dont play each other in the final game. If that happens I think Swiss stage teams are looking much better compared to 1st seeds just like last years' Shanghai.
Be honest, which lineup is stronger:
GENG SEN PRX TH
G2 FNC RRQ XLG

Oh I skipped thru replays and I didnt notice he was playing on stretched. It felt like an unlucky day for zekken, he was hitting some nice shots but he was getting caught a lot and that shouldnt happen again. 7-13 fk/fd is not something you see every day

I had exams and I just rewatched the SEN game and honestly SEN didnt play that bad after the 4-1 timeout on Split. Scoreline looks bad considering WOL might be the weakest team in the tournament but every round SEN lost, it looked like it was due to missed shots or individuals getting caught by WOL agression.
It wasnt like the games they lost before against G2, KRU or DRX where they were making so many macro mistakes even tho individuals were hitting shots but this time their macro was good but individuals were making mistakes and honestly this is what I prefer over zekken carrying with 35 kills and 13-3 win.

Honestly even as a Sen fan I will be surprised if they dont lose a map to Wolves. I am expecting 2-1 win considering 1 month break, meta shift and potential role issues

I feel like there are too many vocal leaders on this team so that everybody feels like they need to be the person who fixes things after losses. For instance, Johnqt is obviously an igl and he has a say, Zellsis has been emotinal leader for this team for 2 years, you ve seen how emotional and responsible how Zekken and Narrate feel after losses (even map losses sometimes) from the videos released. So thats why we see so many changes after every loss pretty much, whether its gameplan, comps, seat order, roles etc.

Only reason I am bringing this up is that I saw a weird stat on reddit that said SEN changed their comp on a map not named split after every loss on the map this stage. So we are entering new meta and SEN might have role issues again, so dont be surprised if SEN changes their comp after they lose a a map to Wolves or smth.

Can you link me the post? I havent seen any news about it in prx's twitter account

Is Mindfreak playing in Toronto? I havent seen any posts that indicate Patmen's visa issue was resolved? Does anyone have official info about who the 5th for PRX is?

I expected previous Chamber/Jett one tricks to be main stay once again with the Yoru meta because Yoru works very similar to old chamber. On defense it is pretty much 1 to 1 to old chamber, you could argue even better than old chamber because of how agressive yoru can be, and rest of his kit is so good. On Attack he is arguably better entry than Jett because you have one tp to default and another tp to site exec whereas Jett only has one dash.

I am honestly surprised players like Cryo, Yay, Demon1 didnt pick up Yoru that fast.

.

Do you also feel like VCT observers make Valorant look a lot more messy than it is with free cam/overview observer POVs? I think they make valorant look 10× more complicated and confuse the viewer compared to CS, when in reality Valorant is maybe 2x more confusing than CS just because there are so many types of utility.

When there is a site exec or retake happening, or when someone is planting/defusing the bomb observers switch to Overview POV and we miss 70-80% of the kills when there is a site exec and we just watch wingman plant the bomb for 4 seconds and miss 7 kills/trades in the process. Just keep observing the player holding the site and its much better for audience to understand whats going on.

You can just see from EWC qual matches that without observers' high cam POV games look a lot more understandable and less confusing even though teams were playing in old tejo patch and there was no replays in those matches.

Who is gonna be the comparable team to PSG in Valorant?
It should be a team who pays high salaries and never won an international before with superteam rosters but drops their superstars and wins champs.

I think its like NRG winning champs this year(after dropping superstars like Optic core, Demon1 and Verno) or VIT winning next years champs after dropping Derke, Less and Sayf.

LEV: +Natank instead of Mazino
Vitality: -trexx (not saying cyvoph is bad but the team synergy is more important)
GENG: -Meteor

Who has the pure best aim in Toronto? What I mean by this is if everyone takes like 30 hard bot challenge 5 times, who will have the most and who will have the least average score amongst all 80 players in Toronto?
I think the best score is gonna be someone with calm tappy aim like woot or cortezia, idk about the worst one

So what are the roles look like in TL after penny joins? The problem is penny is not an igl and presumably patiteK picks up an igling role, that shouldnt be that much of a problem. Also penny only played duelist in his career, so I assume Serial moves to perma senti role, penny duelist and kamo moves to flex role as he shows to be flexible.

What are your thoughts for what the roles would look like? Would penny replace nats as a senti or would all the role swaps happen as I mentioned?

Will they announce group draws ahead of time or drawing process video anywhere or is it just announced 1 week before the event?

Does anyone have any idea about how does EWC organize group draws from other esports in last year ot something?
From what I know so far and if we assume regional restrictions apply pots should be like this:
Pot 1: G2, FNC, RRQ, XLG
Pot 2: SEN, TH, GENG, BLG
Pot 3: NRG, BBL, PRX, EDG
Pot 4: 100T, KC, DRX, TEC

If the regional resteictions apply, most deadly group will be G2, TH, EDG and DRX in the same group

NA going to Middle East for money, wow never seen that before

Yeah but you are missing the point again. You might say raze ult has equal value as yoru ult, but raze is still one dimensional compared to yoru. You can play yoru so agressive on defense, do you remember how zekken hold A main down against MIBR and G2 on his own? He cant do that on raze. Also yoru can push up mid 1-2 rounds in a half and that forces attack to use their drone to clear mid, raze cant do that safely.

But fade util and omen paranoia will help with yoru ult. Yoru has 2 flashes, 1 clone, 2 prowlers, fade eye and seize and omen paranoia to help to execute with yoru ult. Its still enough to overhelm 2-3 players on site.

Yoru even without countering vyse stuff, still looks like the best duelist on Split. Yoru has much more defensive agression potential, especially holding A main and pushing mid, also his ult is usually better than raze/jett ult and flashes are useful without breach in the comp

We are seeing a lot of double duelist on Split to be successful again just like in 2023 and are we gonna see shift towards Cypher Viper comp(Sen's 2024 comp) to counter double duelist again?

The reason why that old comp was bad at the beginning of the year was tejo, because viper was having a really hard time holding mid against breach tejo. And now tejo is gone is that comp gonna come back?

My theory for new comp is:
Cypher, Viper, Omen, Yoru and Fade

Or are we about to see double duelist from every team? What are your predictions?

MIBR players are sooo good at saving man, I ve never seen them miss a shot when they are saving, its honestly impressive how consistent they are

Bro both of these teams are sooooo shit how did MIBR lose to these guys? Ethan is always calling his team to 4stacked sites, 100T are swinging ahead of execs with their stacked sites, score should be 10-0 for 100T right now but they threw so many rounds

That platoon video stats are soo boosted lmao. It is only playoff and international tournaments and leo has only 2 sample tournaments, 7 matches to get stats. Even if you know these are small sample, Leo has boosted stats because he had so many exit kills in EMEA playoffs. You just have to watch the breeze game against KC to understand what I am saying

Personal bias and I think TH are more flexible and will adapt to new meta easier than FNC. FNC lately have been late to adapt to new metas, they adapted to gekko stuff late in early 2024, they didnt play neon in late 2024, they didnt play tejo enough in kickoff. So they might struggle again fo figure out stuff

Since so many teams are very close to each other and even arguably the best team in the world - G2 was rounds away from losing to EG, 100T, MIBR and C9 in Americas alone, it wouldnt shock me if we see another cindarella run like T1 at Toronto again. So thats why I prefer to rank teams on tierlists rather than pure ranking. This tierlist is based on general community expectations and little biased towards Americas and Pacific:

Expected to win the event: G2
Title contenders: TH, GENG, SEN, MIBR
Pure dark horse: PRX
Potential title contenders but I expect them to flop:
FNC, RRQ, XLG
Expected to get grouped: TL, BLG, WOL

He has rough maps too sometimes, even when he was the best player on the world he went like -10 against LOUD in Madrid, so what I am saying is its just hard being consistent duelist in this game

It is cope but kinda reasonable cope, I ve never seen someone's POV playing duelist in a competetive setting

After watching Tenz's POV I kinda understand why dueliat players have off games even if they are a good shooter. I feel like Tenz lost like 4-5 fair gunfight the entire match and he was getting killed by random shit a lot especially on attack side. Obviously I have a bias but Tenz was winning a lot of pure 1v1 gunfights when it was given to him and honestly I dont remember Tenz killing anyone who is stunnned or flashed.
You kinda understand after watching this why some players with good aim become jett one tricks and cant play dive duelists.

Thing is they were never great with tejo either, you have to understand the coachs POV too, if your players are not comfortable with running tejo comps, it is just better to run more comfort double duelist. If the matches against FNC didnt happen you would be praising TH how they didnt even need tejo to dominate EMEA and they are already ready for Toronto, but the matches happened and FNC were just better