the LEC franchising isnt as much of a success as riot wants you to believe, the regional leagues that are more popular are the ones that already had a very strong national fanbase(France, Spain) while the others are most definetely an aftertought for riot, they dont really care about producing regional talent and just want them to be there so that EU Masters can look like a success so they can say "look franchising good", as an example the ITalian regional league(PG Nationals) has very few viewers and Riot isnt enforcing the "produce regional talent" objective at all, last PG Nationals split there were 0 teams with more than 2 italian players, one of the teams played most games without their only italian player by subbing him out, its kind of an embarassement and other regional leagues face the same problem, LEC franchising isnt as well oiled as riot wants you to think it is

dreamas historically isnt an igl, in the OGLU team Boo always was the IGL, he definetely feels like a temporary replacement while they finish paperwork for the real substitute

Dreamas wasnt igl for OGLU, Boo is, makes this move even weirder, but i think Dreamas is a temporary replacement and they will bring in a real IGL(maybe the rumored AREA or if they are smart BONECOLD or Br0die from the vrl)

i dont think AvovA needs to be replaced, mostly because it would be really hard to find a controller as good as him available in EU, only ones in BRL that imo could be upgrades are MaGiK and xitsha(if he can speak english) adn idk if they can poach from better emea teams, Boo from OGLU could be an option since hes a real IGL but OGLU thrives on utility setplays, while G2 players tend to be more gun minded, maybe they could get L1NK since TL benched him?

really sad to see so many people that dont care about the t2 scene and just label it as "bad players" and "bad orgs", people dont understand that healty systems include relegation so that the big orgs cant just sit on their ass and do nothing and incentives the smaller orgs to expand, invest and make their breakthrough, tier 2 nurtures talent and allows players that people dont expect to rise and show their skill, academy leagues are either going to be
A) like in League where its mostly washed up players that only want their paycheck and some young talent that gets picked up too late cause the washed ups are in the way
B) Like the CS academy league where most teams are super forward looking and hire 17 to 13 year olds to play, cutting off older players completely even if they have lots of talent(This is ok in CS cause the tier 2 scene is really healty in EU)

I feel like franchising might produce better games and teams overall, but it will also kill the career of a lot of players completely, players that might have done upsets or miracle runs in an open format wont be able to do that anymore, top teams that sit on their ass wont ever be upset and snapped back to reality like Sentinels when they failed to qualify for challengers at first, this is going to be a great loss for valorant esports as a whole imo, especially for the players, excluding the ones already at the top

Krea6on used to be rank 1 in eu, same for niesow, where they at now? Ranked sadly doesnt mean much at tier 1.
I think curry does have potential, in CS he used to be highly rated as a talent on Triumph by Shakezullah(Same guy that IGL'd Penny, Moose and Asuna back in CS) so something must eb there for sure, Vanity need sto bring it out and i feel like controller isnt what he should play, he has good aim and good nerves for clutching, he might be very good in a Sova/Fade role imo with vanity back to his patented Controllers, just my opinion

Sadly, scream uses mostly phantom, guess youll have to spend 20 bucks on that phantom minimal skin

rDeeW + WRONS KI is enoiugh firepower to be competitive, realistically speaking they arent good enoygh to face SEA top teams but they can definetely aim to have a good performance and turn some heads

atm rdeew might be better, but that's because Wronski little brother stole his keyboard, once he manages to catch the little rascal he will get 500+ ACS.
Seriously speaking, cant wait for APAC qualifiers, so much new talent, ID 3rd seed included(Alter Ego)

Wronski bags all of ONIC with his hands tied, blindfolded and playing with a steering wheel

Ghost deserves it cause they look like they want it more than anyone else, they have a lot of preparation on their maps and it shows, also they improve by the day, but I think EG could be the real dark horse for getting to Copenhagen, they have the nerdiest setups and the most sound tactics in NA bar optic and Jawgemo is a man possessed

i agree, emotional players like Zeek would benefit greatly from a bootcamp to help their mental and it would also highlight one of starxo's greatest qualities, his good mental and ability to cheer up players that might let emotions get to their heads

Ill give you my quick tierlist from what i seen in these days, I think this split EMEA looked really competitive.

S tier - Can win Challengers 2
Fnatic(Definetely the best looking team so far, their mechanical players are insanely good and they are supported by 3 very smart system players that are also really reliable in the frag department, also they look very good tactically, especially when Enzo can play Fade, they seem to understand that asgent very well)
Guild(The best looking team tactics wise, Koldamenta is reading the meta and the midrounds really well and I love how he manages to utilize his players fully, just look at how he utilizes trexx fragging talents paired with leo gamesense on attacker side to always put them in good situations, also they play the best retakes in EMEA)
FunPlus Phoenix(Great team all around with lots of star potential in every single player, IGL'd by one of the best in the world, they have very good prep and counterstratting along with insane versatility, only way to beat them is to study them a lot and frag really hard like fnatic did, I think that if they meet in playoffs its gonna be an amazing game again)

A Tier - Strong playoffs team
G2(Solid team with great fraggers, they seem to be transitioning roles but if they manage to utilize nukkye and hoody well, its a really scary team, especially fragging-wise)
Liquid(Lots of star power but losing sliggy definetely made them more shakly in the meta read and they rely a lot on mechanics to win rounds, I hope they can get it togheter or else they are going to fold in the playoffs)
M3C(The first games looked very shaky but they seem to be finding their form back, if they can manage to keep a strong mental they can definetely climb to S tier)
Acend(A new team with insane fragging power, I think they could miss out on playoffs because some players are having an hard time adapting to the new system, but this could be an incredibly scary team if they find their footing, Monsteer has been the highlight for me)

B Tier - Good but not enough
FOKUS(A good team with super exciting players that got really unlucky and ended up in the tougher group, JuGi, Vong and YaBoyLewis are definetely players to keep an eye on for the future and i dont see them losing in promotion tournament)
OGLU(A very tactically sound team that lacks a superstar fragger, I feel like the support core of Destrian-Hype-Boo is really good and smart but they need to find better fraggers for next split, MOLSI is explosive but very inconsistent and emotional and Feqew is sadly not good enough for tier 1 play, I would love to see L0udly and/or MiniBoo from Arctic in this team!)
NAVI(Good team but except for cloud there are no standout players, definetely feels like the average challengers team, good players but nothing that makes you jump out of your seat, losing jady really hurt them)
BBL(Not a bad team individually but they are missign a lot of team elements, pAura style of IGL seemed to have worked only for SMB and in BBL it looks like they dont really have a plan and rely a lot on mechanics from AslanM4shadow and QutionerX especialy on T side, talented players that need a better guide)
BIG(While musashi was a great pickup and twisten is a great talent, I feel like the lack of strong leadership that gob b had made the supportive elements of the team drop a lot in performance, especially Aslan, he looks completely lost this split and obnoks doesnt really fit his new roles, Luckerr is also p uninspiring as an igl, i hope the germans can turn it around but it looks dire)

its a very popular org in germany, its kinda like Karmine Corp in france

vakk not a bad player, but I have to agree that the fact Vookashu was completely overlooked when rosters were formed for challengers 2 is really confusing, ghes a great igl with real good mechanics, maybe the fact he lives in russia has something to do with it?

insanely talented player, even more impressive considering he mainly plays Controller or support agents,. he could be EU's marved if DavidP takes this lineup to the next level

munchkin used to play in english speaking lineups in Overwatch, a game even more comms heavy than Valorant, Im not really worried about that

TL 2-1 BBL
I think BBL can take a map off of Team Liquid and can make them sweat out the win, people underestimate just how good BBL aim is, especially Aslan and QutionerX, If they manage to make a good veto where they go to Icebox(not one of liquid's better maps) I can definetely see them, taking the map, sadly for the turks i think that on most maps(Haven,Ascent,Split in particular) team liquid will dominate since they have more experience and they can run their double Operator setup that has been their trademark.

FNC 2-0 OGLU
Not a great matchup for OGLU since Fnbatic is a team that has shown to be proficient at dealing with setplay heavy teams(which OGLU is) but they also have insane firepower in alfajer + derke, the thing that has been OGLU downfall in most of their losses, unless Boo comes up with really insane strats and a perfect veto, i can't see OGLU outgunning Boasters troops.

FPX 2-1 G2
Very hard game to predict, FPX does feel like the more complete team, with versatile players and super structured play, but G2 fraggers seemed on point last week and when Hoody+Nukkye come alive it's really hard for any team, to deal with them, I still prefer FPX, especially because they are a prep-heavy team and G2 isn't a super deep team and they cant be surprised by new additions like the ones Fnatic had.

GLD 2-0 BIG

Guild was the superior team even last challengers but in the break they seem to have evolved a lot, Koldamenta is implementing a very cool style of calling on Defense, with a lot of gamble stacks adn quick rotations for retakes and guild seems to be perfect for this style, they played some of the best retakes ive seen recently vs M3C and their superstar Leo seems to not be letting his foot of the gas, I odnt think the new look BIG stands many chances

M3C 2-0 NAVI

While M3C seems to be on the downswing, maybe because they still seem to be in a pinch regarding roles and maybe because of outside reasons, this game against Navi, another team that looks to be really struggling both mentally and mechanically is the perfect occasion to gain their confidence back and get a good win.

ACE 2-0 FKS

Acend looked extremely impressive in their first game, especially in the mechanics dfepartment, one of the casters compared them to the 2017 CSGO superteam and I think the comparision is very on point, Acend has a lineup full of players that can pop off hard and sadly for Fokus, I think their reliance on mechanical skill from their star duo of JuGi and Lewis isnt gonna fare wll against Acend's stacked roster

Ban sounds definetely like a strong pickup for a big org like T1, Munchkin also can move to NA, he played in english speaking rosters when he was in OW so he wont have any problems, i think they might look to good tier 2 players for smokes and sentinel, i think Ange has been looking pretty consistent for a very unstable DarkZero roster and iyen deserves to get out of Soniqs, his chamber is great and plays a super good passive viper

Wow, i assumed it was C0M since he was doing god's work with akrew, but if its boostio then huge props to him for improving so much with his calls and role assignment, I suspect that C0M is giving him a lot of input too

Let's see if they keep choking, since last challengers their playstyle looks very evolved so thats very promising, I hope they show up for the re4st of the event cause Leo and Sayf deserve to play internationally, they been working their ass off for a long time with this org

Leo and Trexx are insanely talented and Russ is the most underrated player in EMEA, people are surprised that guild is playing so well but people that follow the scene knew that Guild is a top team with top players, they even improved recently and Im loving this Stack and retake playstyle they are carving out on CT

makes sense, on tundra he played hard sentinel

not a surprise for anyone that followed guild for long, Kid is one of the biggest talents in EMEA just waiting to show up on international stage to kick ass like Suygetsu and Zyppan

go watch old Guild games, Bonkar was mostly on smokes and breach

yea, theres a reason why he was rated so highly in Cs without ever winning a major, amazing caller and most importanly incredible at growing talents and making them look great, think about how versatile both Shao and Zyppan became under his guide and he also completely revived Ardiis career, incredible leader in and out the game

While its undeniable that saadhak was red pretty well by FNS, I dont think LOUD should beat themselves to hard, they were easy to read but they were a really new team that clearly had some lacks in the map pool that made them run very similar setups on CT all the time, especially Less, not to say they are bad players, but they clearly preffered to play rfamiliar setups rather than go for counters, making them really easy to read for an experienced IGL like FNS, but im sure that with time LOUD will have more strategic depth and Saadhak will be able to throw more curveballs and surprise even the best IGLs

Stax has historically been the Caller for DRX so im going off that, if Zest has been IGLing recently then he takes that spot because Masters DRX played the best valorant in koprea as of yet.
Regarding Zander I think that his performance at challengers 1 kinda skewed perception on him, for sure he is amazing and he can frag out, but the lat qual he looked way worse, especially in the calling department, consistency is key for an IGL and seeing the questionable setups and lack of prep from V1 made me lose a lot of confidence in him

I agree with your top 5, but I would like to shout out some other excellent IGLs in my opinion
Boo from OGLDN is a great igl, LDN thrives mostly off amazing utility usage and smart calls which is why I rate both Boo and their coach Joynt very highly, their style reminds me of an european DRX, sadly except for MOLSI they lack firepower but everytime they play their set plays and midrounds always impress me even if they struggle to get the work done in more thrilling and mechanical situations

Stax is probably the best IGL at calling utility setplays, DRX entire playstyle revolves around doing what he dictates and enabling the fraggers, its a very cerebral style and Stax basically created it during VS domination in korea

Crow from ZETA is definetely the most overlooked part of their run, utility usage was amazing all tournament from ZETA and most importantly he called some very good rotations and stacks on CT side that influenced greatly ZETA's 3rd place run, domestically he's even more dominant, you can tell he preps a lot and ZETA many counters to strong teams showed his prowess

C0M is imo the best IGL rising up from NA's tier 2, I feel like he has a great understanding on how to make players give their best performance and how to make their strenghts shine, just look at how well Jawgemo is set up in the recent EG games and how well hes been performing since C0M joined and you can tell that this guy can only get better at IGLing, especially in a Superstar-heavy region like NA

Im really enjoying how koldamenta has been calling the CT side, reminds me of Heroic in CSGO where they explode very early into a key part of the map then play for heavy stacking off the info they get out of the early aggression, paired with some amazing retakes, if they make this style into a science they can become a real top tier team on CT

I used Ghost as an example because they are clearly a team that is working towards a structure but still need to figure out stuff, they have some maps that look very structured(Fracture) but on others they completely rely on Koala and/or Nismo to find the crazy shots(Haven yesterday is a p good example of this), they are also one of the teams with the lowest winrate when their duelists dont pop off along with sentinels.
Sentinels as you said is the perfect comparison, you just need to see how tenz enters sites on T side, its very adrenalinic and reaction times based, with lots of close up shots and every possible flash thrown to support him, TenZ makes it work cause he's incredibly gifted mechanically, but those kind of entries cant be practiced consistently and thats why Sentinels are becoming inconsistent, along with teams getting better both mechanically and tactically around them, I think the future of valorant is definetely Optic's playstyle and Masters showed it, with even the other top 4 teams playing more structured(Especially ZETA)

Mechanically speaking they are really strong, especially JuGi, what I meant by the game being in G2 hands is that its all about preparation, whihc is the best counter to very mechanical teams like fokus, if G2 did their homework, I feel like they should have the upper hand, they are an experienced team with some of the best fraggers in EMEA like Nukkye and hoody, but if they were lazy or preferred to prepare better for other teams, thats when I think Fokus can surprise and beat them, they certainly have the aim to beat them, its going to be an interesting match.

if JuGi keeps his head on his shoulders he should be able to win the OP battles all the time, but I think G2 is too drilled to let JuGi take over games like he did in promotion, I also have some doubts on Lewis if he can perform against way better riflers like Hoody and Nukkye, same for Iluri, not too worried about vong and Bucher tho, they are smart players that dont rely on aim too much, still I feel like this game will be completely in G2 hands, if they prepared well and can tie down JuGi i dont see Fokus winning

yay always frags because Optic systrem is very well made, FNS took a lot of the fundamentals about positions from CS and applies them very well to valorant, yay always frags because he is allowed to play a lot of different positions where he can find impact easily both on T and CT side, his mechanics are also insane but if you remember, FNS managed to make Mummays operator skill look good back in the day, it's all about giving yay easy peeks most of the time or peeks that he practiced hundred of times, teams can only try to avoid him, but if they avoid yay, they still have to deal with Marved and Victor, who both play to cover positions that teams will funnel into to avoid yay, like Long B on Icebox(always held by marved on Viper and he always pops off by playing around his smokes) thats why you always see yay, marved and victor popping off, FNS makes them play off each other so that no strat can escape from facing one of them on CT, in T side its even harder cause they always use util to set up an early operator peek and there's no way playing around that unless you are seriously committing utility, which is also bad, cause its all utility you wont have for retakes.
Yay always popping off is a result of playing structured and cynical valorant, not Optic overly relying on him to pop off like Sentinels with TenZ or Ghost with koala+nismo, those teams are more "free-form" and thus they need their duelist to go for hard entries, which require reaction times and are thus more inconsistenty than yay's studied and drilled peeks

on chamber maps this would definetely work well, but on maps where Chamber isn't that strong they probably have to come up with somehting else

I feel like twisten is wasted on an Operator roile, he's at his best on Raze, playiong super aggresive and diving into sites, he also played jhett like that on T side and thats when he looked the best, while LuckeRR is a great operator player, if they manage to split the roles so that Twisten is always the one entrying site while LuckeRR plays more passively on a Chamber or a utility Operator like Jammpi does when he plays KJ or Controller it would be perfect imo

I think Aslan should go back to the sentinel role OR obnoks, since Mushasi is coming in he will defientely play Initiators since its his specioalty and he plays them really well, I hope we see something like
Aslan - Controller
Mushashi - Sova, Kay/0
Obnoks - Sentinel
Twisten - Main Entry
LuckeRRR - Chamber/Jett

OG LDN is also a super solid team that can upset any of the stronger teams since they prepare so well in the tactics department and have very explosive fraggers in molsi and feqew, FOKUS is also really scary since they have JuGi who absolutely dominated the VRL and the promotion, i expect banger matches all group stage

is it the same Persia that used to play in the Overwatch League?

he was excellent in CSGO, but fell off with that optic lineup falling apart, he was still good on C9 but after that his passionw as clearly gone, unlike his c9 teammate TenZ mixwell talents didnt translate well into Valorant and tyhats sadly clear to see, his work ethic is great and hes cdlearly a good person that doesnt make his teammates turn against him but his skillset isnt as good in valorant as it was in CS

JonahP and Zekken are also part italian, but I think that we have some good players in Italy, we just need to support our local scene so that it will grow and produce more talent, I have faith that we have a knack for being underdogs, just think about our runs at Overwatch World Cup, even if we sucked we still amde some good teams sweat for the wins, we can do that in valorant too

they have ties with LGD Gaming(Chinese organization) and TALON Esports(Based in Hong Kong but operating in the south asian region as a whole) for their Dota 2 and League teams respectively, with valorant's rising popularity and talent in South East Asia I wouldn't be surprised if they invest in that region, maybe they collab again with Talon or invest into Paper Rex, wouldnt be a bad move at all

we have some interesting players, I think
Bipo
Heartbeat
Mass3r
Giuden
Morphiwow
coached by JoYnt could be a fun dark horse team to get far into qualifiers

I'm giving 2 options for each relevant agent atm
Jett: Aspas, Yay
Sova: Sacy, Leo
Viper: Sugarz3ro, MaKo
Chamber: Yay, Nivera
Cypher: SUYGETSU, nAts
KillJoy: Nivera, Less
Omen: MaKo, Marved
Brimstone: Marved, Chronicle
Kay/0: Xeppa, Victor
Neon: Victor, s0m
Astra: Sugarz3ro, Pancada
Raze: Jinggg, Zyppan(honorable mention to mwzera even if he doesnt play her as much anymore)
Sage: TENNN, Shao
Skye: hoody, Ethan
Breach: Leo, Benkai
Reyna: Scream, Jinggg
Yoru: Forsaken

https://twitter.com/angrytitans/status/1520432799542611968?s=21&t=hqFvS1cekNY6FJW8wLIi4A
Bipo and HeartBeat linkup lets gooo, the 2 best players in Italy in a solid team, trust me that he will carry them to VCT Challengers, big for italian esports(even tho im a bit sad that dsyre released since its an italian org) gives us a real chance to do damage in the DACH league

C9W beated a very respectable mix in clanless(including pho, critical and huynh, all very respesctable players) and lost to Gen.G(a top tier 2 team) and Girl Kissers(a stack of renegades players, who were a solid tier 2 team) there is no shame for a female team, that gets lower quality scrims and has less expectations to perform like this, they actually looked really good against Clanless, their objective isnt winning champions obviously, but the fact they are starting to match good stacks like clanless is already a huge win for female esports, a category which is heavily stigmatized and has a very hard time growing, they are improving and we should be happy that theres a female scene at all unlike many other esports

I dont think Riot willgive out an official MVP prize, but I remember that in the fan vote for the Finals MVP Marved won, so thats p cool.
Also if yay were to win it, I think he also deserves it a lot, he’s definetely the most complete operator player in the world at the moment, right amount of crazy plays and structured patience, ideal player for many teams

I wish I could have mentioned more players as EVPs but i didnt want the post to be a complete wall of text, if I could give some props to more players I would definitely mention Laz, he was the one that started the miracle run afterall and I think his drop in the playoffs wasnt really his fault, it was more teams starting to veto around his Chamber, if you look at how teams started to veto vs Zeta, they always picked maps where Cha,ber isnt strong and forced Laz onto KJ or Viper, hes still a great player on those agents but Laz on Chamber is a totally different beast compared to Laz on KJ.
Other players I wanted to mention where FNS for his amazing igling, Sacy for the goodperformances before the grand final, F0rsaken for his entry fragging and OPerator play and Victor for being without doubts the best Neon in the world

Now that the dust has settled on Valorant first big lan of 2022 I think its fair to say who in my opinion was the events MVP and i will add in 5 other players that were really impressive and deserve a mention in my opinion, starting from the EVPs, in no particular order.

Kim "MaKo" Myeong-gwan(DragonX) - The player from DRX that impressed by far the most, this tournament was in my opinion, a showcase of how strong and impactful the Smokes role can be and MaKo was a prime example, a player of incredible consistency, with a strong gamesense and in my opinion the best aiming skill in DRX, he had no bad games and produced quality performances all tournament long until DRX were eliminated by not fault of his own and impacting all rounds(79% KAST, best in event)

Wang "Jinggg" Jing Jie(Paper Rex) - An incredibly entertaining entry fragger, Jinggg reminded me a lot of Asuna in the way that he's so incredibly cofident in his skills that he can turn seemingly bad peeks into kills, paired with incredible movement and reaction times, he was certainly the highlight of Paper rex along with f0rsaken, what impressed me the most was just how well he could play into his team's set plays and frag out(3rd best KPR in the event and the best KPR among pure riflers)

Shota "SugarZ3ro" Watanabe(ZETA Division) - I had an hard time deciding which Zeta player deserved the EVP the most, but I knew that one out of SugarZ3ro, TENNN and Laz had to be here, Laz had an absolute heroic showing during the group stage, but cooled off during the playoffs, TENN came alive during the playoffs and was always a consistent fragger, but SugarZ3ro was the player that consistenyl performed for ZETA, while also playing a Smoke role that showed just how insane of a player he is, his reads through smokes, his spams, the judge plays, the fact that he can play Astra at the highest level after the nerf really shows his gamesense and ability on the role.

Erick "Aspas" Santos(LOUD) - The final boss of brazil's ranked ladder was a player with many doubts around him, will he be able to keep up the same level on LAN? Can he do what he does to brazil's best team against the best of the best in the world? And the answer was a resounding yes, aspas has shown to be an insanely mechanically gifted Jett man, both on and off the operator, Loud's playbook often hinged on him being the main fragger and dumping resources into making him succeed and aspas always delivered, contributing in some way to basically every round(76%KAST, 2nd best in event) and even in Loud's 3-0 loss to Optic, he still managed to get more frags than yay, proof that even the most dire of circumstances wont stop Aspas.

Jacob "yay" Whiteaker(Optic) - El Diablo delivered once again for NA, bringing his usual superstar level to the competition, especially on Chamber, an agent that highlights his insane operator skills more than any other, FNS rock solid IGLing is perfect for yay, he is always given the best positions to frag out and he unsurpisingly delivers again and again.

But my MVP of the even was without any doubt

Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen(Optic) - As I said earlier, this tournament was the demonstration that the Smokes role can be extremely impactful in the fragging department and it only seemed logic to give the award to who in my opinion has been the best smokes player at the tournament and likely in the world, Marved performance was truly something else, especially considering that unlike yay, Marved isn't playing the best positions, He is often solo anchoring sites or providing utility for the team, despite this, he frags out consistently showing off impressive aim(31% HS%) and great versatility, his consistency and ability to provide strong smokes gameplay is in my opinion what gave Optic the push to win the tournament, even more than yay's insane clips imo

Thanks for reading this long post

very ambitious mix team, but I think that it's gonna have a hard time to break through the best teams in japan, especially ZETA, CR and Northeption, but I hope i will be surprised