It's always been like that

Edit: Also to add on to this. Of course "we've always done it like this" is not an argument for why it's good.

The thing is, the final four are usually held in a different, bigger arena from the rest of the tournament. Booking such an arena is expensive, and so you'll want to minimise the time you have there.

Also, matches on three days in a row have not really proven to be a real disadvantage for teams. On the contrary: we've seen plenty of lower final winners win the grand final as well, despite the map ban disadvantage.

That deep into the tournament, it's less about prep and more about resilience, form and momentum. Winning that LF and then playing the GF on the next day can actually be quite the advantage for a lot of teams.

Demon1 did pretty well considering they were not comming a single word in English. Bro was in 2vXs getting no info.

I thought you were me for a second

Agree with this a lot. You see it often that the MIBR players often get isolated and the trades aren't as amazing. I personally believe that on top of the individualistic playstyle, MIBR messed up their veto pick. Bind was lowkey a blessing in disguise since they had a fairly solid comp that could delay FNATIC well and they had really nice micro details to win out some of the clutch rounds.

However, Abyss was a problematic pick since they lost some of the momentum on attack and were completely shut out in defence. I would have expected a put more prep-work to anti FNC's defence, but it felt a little more like they tried to get away with treating the comp like any other comp.

It's clear now that the Breach-Astra-Waylay combo is an extremely potent way to flush out key positions that the site anchor would hold so playing on-site would be far too risky. Boaster was so crucial in the late-round with that Operator so retaking would suddenly become quite bad especially if you have no vision block. The solution then becomes to play proactively and aggressively for space because you do not want FNC to be set-up for a site pop. I also believe that double-smokes might be a nice way to counter some of the operator post-plant play as Cortezia's sentinel utility did not garner much value on defence.

Love your lullaby. Just gotta work on the lyrics a bit

Who tf is putting money on T1 for this match

DEI = half the partnered teams in EMEA are from just two countries (France & Spain) with entire subregions (e.g. MENA) having zero representation?

Will be interesting to see how GX do against an actually good team

Verno remembered how to play the game

N4rrate is looking different

hence "long"

^

I guess you could say he's no longer on KC's pyroll

I do think judging by by the fact that KOI (according to Ibai) were not given any notice or any chance for negotiation or any sort of warning/ultimatum, it seems pretty likely to me that Riot's mind was already made up because they had a specific org in mind that they wanted to bring on.

Given the timing (a couple of weeks after the end of stage 2), if they bring in Gentle Mates I will be 100% convinced that that was the reason.

Ibai also said that Riot absolutely had the right to kick KOI, but clearly if a team is underperforming wrt their contract requirements I would imagine the natural first step would be to approach them and tell them that they'll have to improve or they're out. No notice means they don't want KOI to get their shit together, which only really makes sense if they have a replacement lined up.

But of course this is all speculation and maybe there was more going on behind the scenes.

I know for your lot reading 3 comments is a week's worth of work but some people can actually read.

I'm literally obsessed with you, if you don't come over here and kiss me right now I will CRY

Chat I'm scared

His supportive util was really good this year. Obviously the team was doo doo, but on a team with some better fraggers I think he could do well.

Drop your pickem

Genuinely how long does it take you to read this? This is like a 5 minute read at MAXIMUM if you're like 6 years old and just learned how to read.

This guy's comment history so far:

1. "0 ball knowledge why [would] fnatic ban lotus"
   --> FNC banned Lotus

2. "i love the liquid copium in the comments"
   --> Liquid won

3. "bbl are asss ez fnc win"
   --> BBL won

Before this comment, I would have said no way KC win, but after this Mrudddddd comment I'm not so sure any more

I thought we were all in on it. Why did you put money on NAVI? Are you stupid? Lmfao

He's shit on any role that isn't duelist. He might be a good duelist oper.

A terrible day for mothers everywhere

Because we're in EMEA in stage 2 of the 2025 VCT season. Sidedness of a map depends heavily on the meta, on the teams, on the comps, etc.

Why would we care how attack sided Lotus was in the Tejo meta, or in Pacific, where all maps are a lot more attack-sided? That's just irrelevant.

RRQ went 3-2 in Stage 1 groups (that's 3 points)
Placed 1st in playoffs (that's 5 points)
Went 3-2 again in Stage 2 groups (3 points)

That's 11. Where are you getting the 12th point from?

They're not out yet, but it's looking unlikely.

Before playoffs, we're looking at

1. PRX 15
2. T1 13
3. DRX/GenG 12
4. RRQ 11
5. Talon 7

Rest is irrelevant.

Now GenG definitely need two if PRX/DRX/T1 to make the final, or else they're out. This also means that Talon needs to lose both UF and LF, which would place them at 11 points, still behind GenG.

But then of course RRQ are not allowed to overtake GenG either. RRQ only need one extra point to overtake them, which they would get by placing 4th. All RRQ need to do to place 4th is to beat DRX.

So to summarise:
GenG make it if

• PRX beat Talon
• DRX beat RRQ
• Either T1 or DRX beat Talon in the Lower Final

If any of those things doesn't happen, GenG are out.

This isn't even bait lmao, read this guy's comments, he's just genuinely angry

He's got solid looks, but he's no Stellar/NataNk

Yeah, no good team has ever lost a 6 round lead against Fnatic.

Also 53% Defense win rate across EMEA is "attack sided"...lol

Ascent happened

From being shit in 2023 to reaching two international grand finals in 2024 to becoming the first partnered team to get relegated in 2025. What a rollercoaster

You can say what about loads of tier 2 teams? That their owners had to watch their team choke like four separate 12-x leads in tier 1, sending them back down into tier 2? I doubt it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on which tier 2 org is as well-run as Gentle Mates with a comparable fanbase though.

Man that feels bad for the owners of M8. I hope they fully commit again next year and get a shot at franchising in 2027.

Great org with great fans and they deserve to be in tier 1.

I mean yeah they should have beaten FUT and TH, but GX and Vit are both winnable matches and if they do get them both, the only way they miss out on playoffs is if GX beat TH. I haven't given up hope yet.

Bro thought he cooked with this one 🥀

"Here's how Bernie can still win" type shit

Yeah they can only catch up to T1, who they have already lost the tiebreaker to

My goats are back, Cortezia my glorious king

If matches start at 18:00 in Berlin, it's midnight in China and 1am in Korea. That's not really doable for East Asia.

And you don't really want to start matches much earlier than that because the majority of the event will be on regular business days.

It's not really possible to please all regions at once, and Pacific and China just have by far the bigges fanbase. Plus Champions is actually rotating through the regions (in the partnership era we've had Americas, Pacific, EMEA, now China, and 2027 Americas again) so I don't think there's much to complain about.

Toronto and Paris this year should both be fine for Americas and tbh I'm expecting M2 next year to be in EMEA again and M1 probably in Americas too.

"You just gotta hit your shots" - autumn, probably

You're tripping, the accent is fire

Derrek my goat

What having spikezin does to a team

It was FNC in their EWC group, not Sentinels (also says "secured" twice in that sentence)

I don't know if you're serious, but even if NV win Ascension, they're only guaranteed one year and get relegated if they don't make stage 2 playoffs. So unless they make a lot of noise during kickoff and stage 1, mid season roster moves are pretty much a guarantee.

I had Art in my VFL team as a low cost filler, unlucky

Acend obviously

Oh yeah for sure. But vlr is also not exactly known for being 100% accurate on nationalities.

My point is only, just because he has an Italian flag on vlr, doesn't mean he's a citizen of Italy. He might still just be Brazilian which would explain the visa issues.

Liquipedia has him listed as Brazilian. Note that vlr flags do not always necessarily correctly reflect citizenship.

He might still be Italian, maybe he has dual citizenship, I don't know. I'm just saying the flag on vlr doesn't mean much.