A (sort of) esports news source publishing opinions of their editors/writers ahead of a major tournament? How dare they!

It's a decent system for now in tier 1. The current state of tier 2 is abysmal, even Leo Faria says it will change going into next year. It has to.

I believe Riot's long term vision for VCT is a promotion/relegation system starting in 2027, under the assumption that viewership increased and stabilises during the next 4 years. Every decision in regards to the partnership system seems to point in that direction.

For now in terms of building consistent fanbases the system is probably working as intended. KC would never be in tier 1 in an open circuit, but they draw hella viewers. Having some stability is important when establishing a new (e)sport.

If Loud don't win champs, like even if they play well and end 2nd, the team is probably falling apart with the tension between Aspas and Less. A big win might help relieve the tension but without the win I doubt they'll stay together.

S0m is staying 99.9%. He's a huge brand, has been with NRG for a long time, is in good standing with the team, and has played well too. If they make a change it'll be ardiis.

Marved probably stays with SEN tbh, but the team will be broken up 100% and maybe he'll leave. Depends a lot on what SEN's vision is for the roster rebuild.

There is no way in hell mini doesn't re-sign with FNC. For the org it's a no brainer, they'll pay him whatever salary he demands. He's the best talent scout in EMEA, he works together with Boaster perfectly, there's no better option, not even close. For mini as well, FNC is a no brainer. I don't think any org offers a better support system for players and coaches. Even if they bomb out of champs, mini is staying (although his salary may depend on the success).

Ayrin will not get a slot on a partnered Americas team. I honestly think purely career-wise, GE is a pretty good pick for him, but if he wants to go back to NA, any challengers team would be happy to take him most likely (but of course it's a bit of a risk for him).

I mean, it's a valid opinion to think Demon1 is better than Ethan, but it's definitely not undeniable lmao

Throughout the Americas season, both Demon1 and Ethan had identical average ratings at 1.08.
At Masters Tokyo, they again had identical ratings, at 1.09.

Unfortunately for EG, they will get humbled by the best team in the world, FUT esports.

.

And TL beat FNC the last time they played. Does that mean TL should be above FNC?

Banger, and the animation is amazing like always. For me it's not quite at the same level as Die For You, but idk if any VCT song ever will be. Die For You just set the bar so high

The premise of the article is that NAVI used to be a title contender (from winning Copenhagen to 4th at Champs to 3rd-4th at LOCK//IN), but is not a title contender any more.

The question the article raises is can they go back from their current form (i.e. not a title contender) to their past form. Which is not the same as putting them in contention for a title.

allat

I mean it's not franchising, orgs didn't buy their slots and they can't sell them. It's also limited to 5 years, we don't know what'll happen after that.

Ah yes, the only team that made top 3 at four different events (and top 4 at five if you count NRG) was just a fluke

Probably referring to this: https://twitter.com/G2esports/status/1437038327174213637

FNS on Breeze against DRX "This kid's retiring after this game, I'M THIRTY BRO". Not as epic as the others but pretty funny tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGS8MqABM-0

Tokyo definitely looked like they were extremely nervous (except atakaptan, he looked pretty comfortable tbh). I mean they only played tier 2 until last year, can't blame em. I think their potential is much higher than what they showed in Tokyo. I think they have good chances to make it out of groups, but probably not much more than that tbh (unless they get a really lucky draw in playoffs)

bro you have 4 stars on vlr, you will never have kids 💀

1. Qw1
2. Atakaptan
3. qRaxs
4. MrFalin
5. Mojj
6. everyone else

He has Less in 12th at least. I think given Loud's performance at Tokyo it's okay to have Less outside of the top 10, but then I'm wondering about Aspas at 5th.

sScary is in 8th, hope this helps

He's literally still on a contract with G2, he's still making money, and he still has a career. He's not a tier 1 player. He's a solid tier 2 player, and he is very lucky to not have been released like the rest of his team. I don't think he feels bad, why would you feel bad for him lol

1. FUT esports
2. The rest

drop your pickem trembo

Everyone on vlr is a lot more brain damaged, so vlr better

90%: Not a single team will play Deadlock
50%: EG getting grouped
10%: EDG winning it all

They played 3 games, one of which was the grand final, which was a seeding game where nobody played their normal roles. So 2 BO3 series that you can take seriously. That's nothing

Besides EDG, the Chinese scene is still behind. They will catch up, but right now I doubt BLG or FPX will make it out of groups

If you remove the good players the average player is pretty bad who would have thought

Guild has always been one of my favourite teams in EU, I just think they never really reached their full potential, and I always felt like they quite often threw very winnable rounds due to bad calls. I like kolda, he's a cool guy, and I was always rooting for him on Guild, I just don't rate him as a top IGL.

I say this in real life all the time bro, it's a light-hearted joke. I love France, I grew up close to the French border in Germany, been to Strasbourg many times. And like I said, took some camping trips through southern France, the scenery is really beautiful, some of my favourite vacations. Also met some lovely people there.

FPX beating FUT is definitely a spicy take. FUT looked extremely shaky at Tokyo and they still beat ASE. Everything else is pretty normal though

FUT goated team

Breloom + Bidoof = Breloof

Came up with the name when I made a second Pokémon GO account for trading, and wanted to use some Pokémon related name. My main account at the time was something like Azazel2107 (after the Binding of Isaac character), but I really liked the sound of the name Breloof, it's simple, unique and recognisable, so since then I have stuck with it and used it literally everywhere.

It'll be interesting to see where he ends up. Like, which teams would realistically change their IGL right now?
In NA:

• NRG and EG: Even if they flop at champs, they probably won't change the IGL
• 100T: only a possibility for vanity if they drop both stellar and bang imo (I guess vanity played initiators for SR, but I'm pretty sure he prefers smokes). It's not out of the question, a lot of IGLs don't really play the same role as stellar, so if they do decide to rebuild the team around another IGL, at least one more player will be on the chopping block. bang is great but sometimes it just doesn't work out. It's also possible that 100T only make changes to their coaching staff though. On the other hand johnqt also slots into stellar's role quite nicely and could be an option for 100T
• C9: While jakee and Runi were never the plan A, they were pretty good throughout a majority of the season (though they choked twice in important playoff games). I think there's a good chance that C9 hang on to their roster for at least the first split of 2024. Jakee and Runi likely still won't really get the highest salaries, and signing a bigger name might be too much of a risk. They've shown they can compete.
• SEN: They will definitely make changes. I highly doubt Marved will stay on the IGL role. It was a decent temporary solution, but I would be surprised if that was their long term plan. But I also think they will probably keep Marved on the roster, which means I think vanity wouldn't be the ideal IGL to sign either, since again I think his smokes are better than his initiators.

So quite honestly I think there's a good chance he will not end up on a tier 1 NA team at all.

In EMEA, the teams with a clear IGL problem are TH, Vitality and KC. KC is not an option for language reasons. TH and Vit will definitely sign an IGL in the off season, and I would not be surprised if he was pretty high up on their lists. It could be a realistic option (IF he is actually willing to move to Berlin. It's a big decision)

That being said, I do believe johnqt is the hotter commodity at the moment, but since they tend to play very different roles, it might come down to the orgs' vision for the entire team much more than just to the question "which IGL is better".

But also, I am very stupid, so most of what I say is probably poo poo garbage.

"No region has more than 2 or 3 decent teams" means "every region has at most 2 or 3 good teams". 3 is included in that

big trouble

Except Cypher after ulting. It's impossible to hit his head when he's not wearing his hat.

My solution: When he ults, he just puts on a baseball hat. Added benefit for Riot is you can give him a hat from a random MLB team and get a partnership going with the MLB, or maybe sell Cypher baseball hat skins for $100 a piece

Yeah, that's the point. In either case, a team that arguably doesn't really deserve it makes champs

Pretty sure the regions will be separated (except EMEA of course)

All EMEA teams except the Turkish ones and KC (and M8) comm in English.

They literally said unlikely, as in, it doesn't make sense for 100T to replace Cryo with yay, but Cryo and yay have a smilar role/play style, so it would be a good fit

You mean the team with a Swede, a Ukrainian, and a Latvian (living in England), and a Swedish coach?

France is a lovely country for a camping trip, especially if you're from Germany or NL/Belgium. Without all the French people it would be the best country in the world

Good enough to beat Clown9

Boaster and Tenz both get plenty of hate. It's just weird tbh, they both are super wholesome people.

Half of those countries have like 3 inhabitants and they're either all cattle farmers or professional tax evaders

I mean if we say LOUD and DRX underperformed, then we should also acknowledge that FUT and NAVI also underperformed and EG overperformed.

Especially if you watched the FUT games vs EG and DRX, I think it's clear that a lot of it came down to nerves, everyone besides atakaptan looked shaky af, which makes sense considering they only played tier 2 until this year. I think they can be as good as EG or 100T when EG isn't currently going on an absolutely insane run.

As for NAVI, god knows what they're doing tbh, they should be much better than this. Even in cNed's rare Jett games he doesn't perform like he used to.

I still think Americas has the edge over EMEA, but it's closer than people pretend. I feel like we've been there before, when 100T narrowly scraped by two wins against ACE and GMB and NA fans thought NA would destroy everyone at champs in 2021, and then 3 EMEA teams top 4. Or when EMEA underperformed at Reykjavík and then won Copenhagen.

To be fair to Navi, they are the only LCQ team that played in Tokyo, and thus had a lot less time to prep for LCQ.

Not like they looked good at Tokyo, just an observation.

Bro had trexx, Leo and Sayf on his team last year and got eliminated from LCQ by old NAVI and OGLU

Feel kinda bad for [team]

There was an "incident" in ranked where TenTen said something about Flip being Indian and shitting in the streets (which is especially dumb because Flip is Indonesian) and Flip said something mildly racist back about anime (which is especially dumb because TenTen is Korean). TenTen's contract with Northeption was immediately nullified, Flip wasn't really punished at all I believe.

Also TenTen is Meteor's brother, which is why this whole situation was brought up again for this game.