Good, you didn't miss anything of value

Yeah, but tbf this is vlr dot gg, so I gotta shit on Navi

Currently doing an internship at a natural history museum. I'm helping design an "expedition" for children for the museum's online platform where they learn about biodiversity through some silly little games

It is actually just mindless waffling, how did you know

Guys why the fuck did I make this post can someone explain

Here's the fraud scores for all regions during group stages, detailed analysis below (5 being the most fraudulent):
Americas: 2.125/5
EMEA: 2.3/5
Pacific: 2.125/5
China: 0.833/5
The numbers don't lie. EMEA is on average the most fraudulent region. (The scores are 100% objectively true)

-------------------------------------------------------

AMERICAS
Loud: Didn't look like the best version of this roster, but made it out of a pretty tough group. Got bailed out a lot by Less, especially against NAVI. Looked kinda lost in the opening match against DRX. Fraud score 1.5/5
EG: Got the easiest group, made it out cleanly, not much to say. Didn't look as insane as they did in Tokyo, but didn't need to. Fraud score: 0/5
NRG: No disrespect to Bilibili, but NRG just can't lose to them twice like that. The second match looked like there was a tier between those two teams. Fraud score: 5/5
KRÜ: They had to show a lot at LCQ, less time to prep and more footage makes it very hard to try and make a run at Champs as well. Didn't win a map though, even though Giants also came out of LCQ, so I can't use it as an excuse too much. Fraud score: 2/5

EMEA
FNC: Not much to say. Fraud score: 0/5
TL: Dreadful. From winning EMEA, being the only team to beat this version of FNC, to bombing out of Champs without winning a map. Fraud score: 5/5
NAVI: Tough matches vs DRX (38-38) and Loud (35-37). Expectations weren't super high, but overall this is still a bit of a disappointment. It looked much better than their previous performances. Fraud score: 3/5
FUT: Tier 2 team in 2022, made it to top 8 in the world in 2023, pretty good. The EG series was pretty close, but so was the T1 series. Still a lot of fixable mistakes, but given the expectations I think they can already be happy with this result. Fraud score: 1/5
Giants: They were absolutely shredding EDG in the first half of the first map. Everything else was rather disappointing. They got obliterated in the rematch. LCQ team, Fit1nho's first international LAN, I gotta give them some slack, but given their last match it's gotta be a Fraud score: 2.5/5

PACIFIC
PRX: Not much to say. Fraud score: 0/5
DRX: Got 1st place in a tough group. Matches were close, but they won both. Still fraudulent with how they handled the Foxy9 situation all year though. Fraud score: 1.5/5
T1: Horrendous. Got obliterated by FUT in the first match and even though the rematch was close, they did not convince me they were a contender to make it out of groups. Their only win was against arguably the worst team at Champions. Fraud score: 4/5
ZETA: Tough group, but a total of 25 rounds in 4 maps just doesn't cut it. Again, I'll cut them some slack for coming out of LCQ, but they could have done much better. Fraud score: 3/5

China
EDG: Only lost to PRX, completely outclassed Giants in the rematch. Still inted a few rounds, but they're on a very good path. Fraud score: 0.5/5
BLG: Zero expectations, beat NRG 4-0 to make it out of groups, beating them 13-5 on the last map. Not much else to say. Fraud score: 0/5
FPX: Also not a lot of expectations, but losing 0-2 to a T1 that did not look good at all is a bit disappointing nonetheless. For now they'll get away relatively scot-free, but next year I think the expectations for China as a region will be a lot higher, and we will have to see some improvemenets. Fraud score: 2/5

bro burned down the entire kitchen

Chronicle, Rb or F0rsaken. One of those 3 for sure

Started watching halfway through the EMEA quals for Berlin

If NRG keep the optic core, there is no way Marved joins them unless they make S0m play duelist. But S0m is extremely valuable for NRG's branding, and also was probably their most consistent top performer this year.

Can they? Yes. It's very unlikely though

The one roster change they made also proved to be extremely valuable. ATAKAPTAN is the fucking goat

Not very surprising, coming out of LCQ sucks, less prep time, and more vods for other teams to study (especially KRÜ, who had to play 5 matches at LCQ)

EG with double map bans in the grand final might have a chance (they should be favoured on Fracture and Pearl), but that's a very unlikely scenario in the first place

He probably has one of the safest jobs of all franchise players. He's the face of Giants, their only Spanish player, the only player that was on the team before franchising, and he's also been performing well recently overall. Unless he actively wants to leave, it would take a lot for the org to bench or cut him. And it wouldn't really make sense for him to want to leave.

The Middle East (as per the definition on Wikipedia) includes regions on three different continents my guy

China has more inhabitants than NA and SA combined. Literally a bigger region than Americas

1. FUT

Poor guy. He'll be back on that stage though.

How does that make it less impressive lmao

EU is less clouted because nobody bothers watching Valorant when EU orgs are actually successful in CS. NA League and CS are kinda shit, so people watch Valorant instead. Plus BIG didn't make VCT EMEA and Germany is the biggest country in EU

Also Cryo and yay are very similar in the roles they fulfill, and it would be a huge risk to "upgrade" when Cryo has been pretty solid all year while yay had....well....a year. It just wouldn't make sense.

I'm pretty sure EMEA is the region where the most teams comm in English. Only KC, FUT and BBL don't (and I guess M8 now as well).

In Americas only the five NA teams comm in English. In APAC it's PRX, GE, T1 (I think), RRQ, and for TS I believe it's a mix between Tagalog and English.

So yeah not sure where they get that from.

I mean if yay is actually willing to play for minimum wage and actually willing to relocate, I could see Vitality or Team Heretics signing him. The only teams that comm in a language that isn't English are KC, BBL and FUT.

The extra slots were just a temporary solution for the integration of China into VCT anyway.

Next year each region (including China) will have 3 masters slots and 4 champs slots. I think giving slots to the winners of LOCK//IN and Tokyo was fine. The simpler, the better.

Eh, two tough losses (38-38 vs DRX, 35-37 vs Loud). They did fine. Not great, but obviously not anywhere as bad as the average vlr intellectual will make it out to be.

FUT Indian pride 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

India best region with five teams in playoffs (EG, Loud, FNC, Bilibili gaming and FUT)

Cloud isn't overhyped, he's always been good back on Navi as well. I trust mini's judgement.

Does he? I don't see him at champions.

This year was an exception because it's the first year of the partnership leagues, with visas being a big issue in the early stages (which is why we had lock//in instead of a first split). The following years will look very different and we will get mid-year transfers.

Iceland I can see because of the FPX and FNC situations, but which part of Copenhagen or Tokyo was lucky for Optic/NRG?

In Copenhagen, they had Guild (Leo, Sayf, trexx) and Loud and KRÜ in their group, who were all competitive. Group B had two bottom feeders in Xerxia and Northeption (no disrespect to those teams but group A was def harder). I don't see anything particularly lucky happen to them during that run.

And in Tokyo again, they had the better of the two EMEA teams in their group, and the far better one of the two Chinese teams. So again, slightly more difficult group. And then they immediately drew FNC in the first playoff match. Where is the luck?

https://www.deepl.com

Wym 🗿

That's the dream

He is the best Harbour hands down. His Astra and Omen are a bit hit and miss, but overall he deserves to be there

Trembo posts like these are why I still come to this hellhole of a site

Threads like these need to be studied by professional psychologists

Am I tripping or aren't those 5 the exact same duelists that were mentioned in the post?

If BLG is so bad that their games don't even matter because they're leagues below Tier 1 Valorant I guess NRG is a Tier 5 team

John Riot literally did make a freer bracket in group B

Yacine was pretty much an emergency substitute (because Riot put a lock on Twisten with whom they practiced) so I don't blame him. Russ was always the clear weakest link though.

Kolda is on KOI as their token Spanish player (like Mixwell on Heretics, at least Fit1nho is a good player)

I mean it's not Optic's fault that FNC and FPX were weakened. Whether or not they would have won otherwise, they got four top 3 finishes in the five LANs they attended, you have to be delusional to call that a fluke.

SEN and Acend had one good tournament, Gambit had two, FPX had two (and probably would have had three in better circumstances), Loud had two, and Optic had four. (Pre-franchise)

There's no way you actually believe this 💀

Literally nobody said that.

He's had a bunch of bad matches this year, for example against EDG. Overall he probably had more good than bad games and a bunch of REALLY good games, but there were definitely some clear fluctuations.

I love your detailed analyses trembo, never change

Can't find a source on where mini said that he considered Cloud as an option for Fnatic (but I do remember him saying it if that vouch means anything). I did find this tweet:

https://twitter.com/minijake_/status/1625228954511585280?s=20

He zm on my jj till I kk

Eh, Lock//in was single elim and they didn't really care. In Tokyo they played with a sub. A trophy in either tournament would have been a miracle.