Wait people actually cheer for the Wolves Soccer team? I thought it was just some money laundering thing.

Buzz and Izu stocks aren't really high at the moment, but T1 are a superteam. Meteor is the best at his role, debatably in the world, and Munchkin is the best IGL in pacific. I think if we had 2023 Buzz stocks, then T1 would be touted as a superteam.

This lowkey might be winnable for Exa, he's the future goat of the game.

I think most of Val clears CS, but there are some elements of the Major that gap Val.

1. The big swiss stages are so much more fun than doing a bunch of 4 team groups. I'd love to see Champs become a 24 team event, with a 16 team swiss stage, with the top 8 joining the top 8 teams who got a bye.
2. I do like the fact we get an "A" and a "B" stream. From a fan perspective, it means I have to worry about less breaks. I also like the fact that two streams means we get more opportunities for Casters to experience globals. It would be nice to create more opportunities for up-and-coming casters.
3. WHY DOES THE VAL UI NOT SHOW WHETHER A TEAM CAN BUY NEXT OR NOT. I'd be so nice to see when a player can afford a rifle + light armor, so you can yell at teams for forcing a retake quicker.

But most of what Val does is good / I perfer it. Expecially the ads. You don't notice how tolerable the Val ads are until you hear a CS ad to the beat of spongebob. I almost closed the stream after that. It was worse than a Boaster Bustdown.

I'm enjoying the Major tho.

#MolodoySaveFuriaPlease

Any game, any stage, Molodoy clears.

I'm fine with 2 kayo flashes since you can hold 2 flashes in CS. You can't hold two smokes, which is when I think brim should only get 1.

Val event obv, #1 val streamer

• Co-hosted / casted by Ohne, Bren and YumYum

• You can only play Brim & Kayo, but you can't buy any extra brim smokes.

• Every 6 rounds, they open a case in cs.

• Every ace, they open a case in cs.

• Every clutch, they open a case on cs.

The only teams invited are orgs that have a CS team also.
Winning team faces the Valorant Furia roster with (future starladder 2025 Budapest major winner and MVP) Molodoy, and they get the honor of losing 13-0 to the best roster of all time (they have molodoy).

Thoughts?

Boom Blox for the Wii

I'm basing zero opinions on the results of RBHG, except setting a floor for teams and establishing (in my head) what I hope they'll work on before the start of the season (ex. N4rrate getting more comfortable on duelist, C9 getting better on their defense). Like, I don't care about who wins, I just want to make sure that these teams will (by the start of the season) fix these apparent issues that we are seeing on what is basically day 1.

I can understand dropping JonahP for someone who beings a bit more volatility, but for BabyBay on SENTINEL is wild to me.

I mean it's alright, it's never going to contend for top 3 but it could stay alive for a champs spot.

Knowers know that Boaster was better in 2023 than in the last two years.

He was better than Chronicle in 2023, and now he's neck deep in a red pit.

Doesn't really matter tho, cause his calling gets more value than Chronicle generates.

Skuba was a controller main for his entire career before Cubert & NRG. I assumed the Keiko acquisition wasn't just for firepower, but for the additional flexibility that he can provide into this new meta. Skuba can handle solo smokes, and Brawk has shown to be a capable Sentinel player. They can just kinda do whatever wack shit that Bonk cooks up.

Chronicle also got the meaningless trophy, and was the worst player on his best team. He's only the goat of getting 3 vibes kills and then losing the round.

Nah, they gotta steal Exa from T1. He's got a late September birthday, so he misses all of tier 1 in 2026, but he was the best player in T2 korea for all of last year. There is no reason to not take someone who is a top 3 prospect in their role, globally. I'm under the impression that he (or his family) is based in NA, since the challenger season is over and he's back playing on NA servers. I don't care how good fireball or alvin are, Exa should have been in tier 1 this year if he wasn't age locked. If you have Nightx + Exa for 2027, then you can become a serious contender instantly.

Can't be called a choke when it's very clearly a crypto throw.

If the spurs stay healthy then they not only have a top 3 player in the league (not 2 or 3 tho), but they also have the best backcourt rotation in the league (Harper, Castle, Vassell, Fox) or they just trade Fox to bolster their froutcourt once the deadline hits. This team is insane bro.

AL look like the best team in the tournament (alongside Gen.G), they should be outright favored.

But then again, T1 is T1.

Winner goes to the grand finals against Gen.G, so either way it's a run back.

Chronicle is the goat of getting 3 in a random moment and losing the round anyway. LETS GO VITALITY!!!

Team stuggles for years due to inconsistency
Keep player known for inconsistency
Profit

I love when EG gets rid of their best player to replace them with one of the mid NA T2 players.

IG it would be MIBR, I mostly place that onto Tex being a very volatile anchor but their overall team comp works way better than a 2024 NRG. Zekken, Mazino, and Tex are all willing to duel and "fuck around" so that Aspas can take good fights. Plus, they work as double duelist & as a harbor team which may be very advantageous in the upcoming patch. G2 are too consistent, and NRG have a really good core, a top 3 coaching staff in Val (not 2 or 3 tho), and they arguably got a firepower upgrade in Keiko. I KNOW MY W STREAMER IS CLEAN BUT THAT BRITISH MF IS NICE WITH IT.

MIBR are just new + Tex likes to overpeek.

They have legs to grow as a team, but I've never been a Koalanoob fan. NA T2 is pretty equivalent in terms of raw mechs, and Koala has never super impressed me within that system. Farming in Scrims & ranked means so much less than farming in NA T2 (Look at Icy vs Oxy for example) but Alym & nerve are fucking nice, so who knows.

Chron "Let me get 3 while the rest of my team is dead and then lose the round" icle.

Yeah, it's on management to create a team that can function within the game well, but I genuinely don't think that was the direct priority when building the roster. I think they were going based on firepower over fit, like at the start of the year they were trying to get N4rrate (one of the best Scans in EMEA for 2024) to roleswap over to Senti. It fills in the gaps for the team - Have a strong firepower lurk, and a very structured hit (The Fnatic build). But when N4rrate couldn't get comfortable in proper situation, it left Sen Management in a bad scenario. N4rrate probably joined the roster with the intent from Kaplan to have him as their star Senti, and then bang can be an anchor role on the other side of the map. But when one side of the map is Zellsis, then you can't fully bet on him getting his 1 every round.

They aren't really a great team playstyle wise. Zellsis, John, and Bang are all very passive players in one of the least passive meta's ever. It's why Sen was able to still look good, but not look great. They were the type of team where, if everything went to plan, they could play above the sum of their parts. But, the moment anything was off, they were just boomed. It's not great having your Sova be your second most aggro player. Teams that had successful years have multiple pieces of aggression within their flex, smokes, and Senti players.

It's not about like midrounding or calling, it's just about how they interacted as players.

Also the gameplan read wasn't optimal from Kap, but when you have a roster this passive you kinda do have to plan around hard retake angles.

The alfajier breach will cure cancer worldwide

Honestly, my life would fully peak if Fnatic won an international now without Chronicle. Then I can fully hate on him and drop the "They were better without him" line constantly. Or if he's just Vitality's worst player, then it can fit the (true) narrative I'm pushing of how Chronicle was the worst player on 2023 fnatic & the reason why they lost.

I legit think

-bang
-zellsis

+Oke
+Satellite

And we fix most of the issues with Sen.

True double duelist, true entry structure, potent lurker / anchor.
Just overall better firepower, and Oke's vibes will make this team stop feeling so much stress.

Loud's expectations was that they were bad (for a champs team) after how poor of a performance they had in Tokyo. They made a great run in Champs, and their stage 1 & Lock//In was great, but they had such low expectations going into the tourney.

Relative to EG, Loud had a harder path and earned their spot. EG did just have a Cinderella run at Tokyo, but was a rare team that maintained the insane form change between tournaments. Look at NRG who went from 4th to getting grouped. Of course, that was for internal reasons, but it shows how many levels of consistency a team needs to get through multiple tourneys.

To answer you question, I don't think it would be seen as any more or less "flukey". I think it would be held as a more impressive run, but not less flukey. Peaking at the right time is what wins most teams their trophies, and this exists between all (e)sports.

Thank you for clarifying, have a great rest of your day.

Also the only real fluke is Ascend. They literally lost their first match and only got past due to shitty riot refs.

What do you even hope to achieve with this conversation. The thesis statement is so loose; i have no idea what you're arguing for.

60 second skye birds and other detectables (eye + dart + knife) is super fair IMO, but having everything at 60 feels klunky ngl.

I have a great uncle who got a bravery medal from the government for taking down an active shooter with his bare hands. This is not america, and it was like 40 years ago.

Love Derrek, but there is a reason we only talk about 2022 LCQ and literally nothing else.

CS is the same as European Football, you need a crowd or it's the most stale thing imaginable. They've been doing the same smokes since the cold war. It's also crazy how every top team is built with 1 Alfajer, 1 Miniboo, 2 Patiteks and Boaster. Two guys gotta go buck wild or the team has like 3 rounds.

I'm honestly ok with this change, with the sole exception of Breach. Breach is fine at 40 seconds per stun, but the rest of the Initiators get their info abilities back after 40 seconds, which can be toned down honestly. 60 isn't too harsh, you can still do 2-3 fights per round. I'd like to see riot experiment more with the non-recon agents (+ skye), and explore 45 or 50 second timings as buffs to even out initiator viability.

Skye with a 60 sec cycle is stong again, and the recon agents will always have a place in the meta. Plus these 3 + Gekko are probably the most accessable ranked agents, so having them be 60 seconds while the more "niche" Initiator's get buffed timings will make learning the other Initiator's feel more rewarding.

Shoutout Chronicle 2023 for being arguably the sole reason why Fnatic lost in each of their 3 losses, bottem fragged (6/9 bottem frags on maps, didn't go positive once, -64 total).

"GOAT" btw

I would go 5 > 3, then the rest. But 5 and 3 clear. 3 is just Fnatic 2023 without their statistically weakest player, but 5 has too much firepower.

Swing, run, and pray. Such a "great" game.

Holy fuck, next year AM is either gonna be cooking or is going to be full cooked.

Also Sen should pick up Okeanos, he literally fixes like 80% of the issues on that roster. They also need to drop Zellsis for Satellite, not just for firepower but because Zellsis does too much of the emotional work for the team and they need to grow up without him.

Hopefully we'll finally see South America stack a roster again, it's so overdue. But, I think a ton of good T2 NA and EMEA coaches are going to end up in China, and we'll see an insane year-to-year performance increase after how bad China was all of 2025.

China has more trophies in the last 2 years than EMEA has.

Everyone was so mad at him being insane with the odin, then it would switch to Crashies and Boaster who made it look fair. The skill ceiling on this weapon was actually insane, and that's what Brawk demonstrated.

team oriented awards:
best team of the year - G2
best regon of the year - APAC
best international run of the year - DRX
best regional farmers - Sen
comeback team of the year - NRG
biggest dissapointment of the year - Sen

player/coach awards:
2025 MVP - Something
ROTY - kaajak
coach of the year - Bonkar
comeback player of the year- Crashies
awper of the year - Mada
igl of the year - Boaster

Explainations:

• G2 won all their regional stages, grand final + Top 4 + Champs. Overall, I think they did the best when you consider full year.

• Apac most competative

• DRX was like 15/16 seed going into champs, crazy run to get top 3.

• Sen should have been a better team than they were.

• MVP is crazy hard ngl, I heavily considered Valyn for this too, but Something was probably the best Yoru of the year.

• Kaajak is crazy bro

• Bonk did gods work with this team

• Crashies stocks were so low going into the year, he did insane for this Fnatic team at times.

• Mada good with OP, but overall i felt it was a pretty chill awp year.

• Boaster's calling legit won 60% of their rounds alone. Like he could have the current EG lineup listening to him and they'd be extremely competitive.

Donk is the goat of Val ngl

Look into 2023 Fnatic. They were such a good team and system that they only had 6 series where someone went double negative (out of 27). 2 of those were Boaster against Furia and against BBL (he went -10). Got farmed one map, team still won. Chron went double negative 4 times, those being the Lock//In finals (-11), their two champs matches against Loud, and their grand finals against Liquid. He went -15 and -22 against loud, and -27 against Liquid - all three Fnatic lost. That Fnatic team was built so well, that they engineered a system that maximized consistency. Chronicle got consistently farmed in those series and destroyed his team's system. His individual underperformance lost his team the EMEA finals and Champs.

-15 and -22 against loud at champs, -27 against Liquid in EMEA. Nobody except boaster went double negative on that Fnatic team in 2023 (he went -10 at his worst). The team operated by mitigating mistakes and varience, he was the only player that underperformed enough individually which boomed their entire approach to the game. He lost them more games than he won them.

Chron is the reason 2023 Fnatic lost 2 trophies. He was genuinely worse than Boaster in 2023, and he absolutely crumbled in pivotal moments. He can't lead a team; he can barely be a 3rd option.

Pure bias bro, he's my favorite player.

B A C K T O B A C K M A S T E R S W I N N E R

#1 - Two champs trophies in 5 years is good enough for me to have him as the goat, considering he led his team to the second champs trophy. Scene is young enough that 2 champs is enough.
2 is Alfa, 3 is Sacy, 4 is Meteor, 5/6 is Chron and Aspas (can't decide who is higher).