GE Fighting

I have wondered where the conversation around IGLs ends for a while, so here I go starting it. If one was to realistically create criteria for quantifying and accurately measuring which IGLs are good, unlike other roles where you can take KAST, ADR, Clutches, etc. into account and create parity, it becomes difficult for an IGL as you cannot evaluate strategy, mid-rounding and just leadership objectively. Like how do you rate leadership? A good leader can lead in different ways, command respect in different avenues, etc.
Now, I am a football fan and one way a "captain" is evaluated, like Xavi in Barcelona, Gundogan in Man City (in terms of a good leader) or Harry Maguire in Man United (lol) for a study around what quality leaders provide and the only legit criteria I found was "improvement". Why is this the case? Imagine you have two equal-quality teams, in this situation, the better IGL would navigate a win 10/10 times if they played. Now if it's like a team with players 20% better, in that case, the same repeated would yield 8 wins if they played 10 times. Now, therefore, an evaluation of how much better a team or a group of players look with the presence of a good IGL is the test for what a good IGL looks like, for example, look at the top tier 1 IGLs in the scene, people like Boaster, FNS, Sadhaak, etc. A comparison would look like Marved at Sentinels, like clearly a terrible IGL because the team looked way worse qualitatively than with a different leader or IGL.
With this context, what's the community's opinion on IGLs? Gimme a top 10 including tier 2 and tier 3, I honestly think Hellranger is up there.

Chet and FNS Fnatic would win.

SOulcas looks lost and honestly so does Sayf

.... TL has nAts, Redgar + Jamppi + Sayf + one scrub vs Chronicle + Alfajer + Derke + 2 scrubs I think NaVi >TL> FNC

Liquid looks spicy next season. Nats and Redgar is such a nice move, if it happens, best sentinel player and a top IGL.

Liquid is a trash team and shaky af. Only hot at times, fluke team. Will get found out this Champions.

I agree. It should've been M3C. It should've been them.

After watching EMEA, NA and APAC LCQ and checking VLR for EA/SA LCQ. My tier list:

S: FPX, LIQUID
A: PRX, FNC, OPTIC, LOUD
B: KRU, ZETA, EDWARD, DRX
C: XSET, BOOM, LEVIATHAN, 100T
D: FURIA, XERXIA

Teams in the same tier have a 50/50 shot of beating each other. Teams in higher tier would be considered favourites in a head-to-head. Also I stan PRX but I feel teams will heavy anti-strat them and that might f with their mojo.

Now, irrespective of what team you support, only glory hunters like M3C as a team, again their players are universally loved iI feel, cause let's be real they are a Russian team with no clout, mouse deals, content or popular streams for the 12yo. But this team is so fkin OP. They are now doing some PRX style aggressive plays as well, so versatile and like the team is so fkin stacked, even their coach Engh is fire. Someone give these guys a massive contract ffs.

G2 makes sense man, they were in talks of picking the team up already in the past so it seems likely or at least possible. Also Carlos on stream had said that he loves the roster and would love to pick em up.

Also Na'vi might pick them up if they get partnership, which may happen cause Na'Vi is quite big.

With Partnership on the horizon, Gambit is definitely not getting partnership, so what happens to the M3C players? What are some of the orgs that should make partnership who would be good for picking up the team?
My top picks:

1. G2
2. Team Liquid
3. Team VItality

These are the most likely teams who could use and might look at this roster.

Braindead take

Context: https://twitter.com/OfficialANGE1/status/1550930385881686016

that would be a real alpha move

not a flex, just sad.

Not really, the Orgs have a lot of money, Riot makes no profit if TenZ makes a million or cloud9 makes a million. My point being, NA is a competitive place with Call of Duty, Seige and other eSports along with CSGO saturating the market for viewers and revenue "growth". Asia makes a lot more sense cause its new, there arent many competitors and a closed league allows them to make sure they support the ecosystem in Asia and grow there. Also just based on numbers and mathematics, any company which can establish a lead in Asia would be bigger in the long run, there is a reason why NBA wants China and the PL viewership on TV revenue is massive from Asia.

It means take this with a grain of desi iodized salt

Hear me out.

Riot from a marketing and business perspective, and kids, this post ain't for you, realises that market reach for Valorant is already saturated in NA and especially in EMEA. More importantly, they are competing with CS:GO for players and viewers, especially in EMEA but also in large parts of NA where COD and APEX are big. So their initial masters events being in EU makes sense, since its a safe choice where they know the tactical shooter market is saturated and is fully developed so low risk, along with the fact that they can tap some CS crowd.

My hot take: Franchising and the future of Riots plan, business-wise makes sense for them if you consider that their primary goal is Asia. My reasons are listed below:

1. Asia is untouched by CS:GO, no big orgs or players here so the interest in CSGO is comparatively low.
2. New market with loads of untapped potential, meaning they have scope to grow and print them moolahhs for their shareholders.
3. Investment into the ecosystem or protecting it in the long term just generates more players, now the fun part is, they don't have to compete with CSGO in Asia.

Riot is abandoning NA. Maintaining a presence in EU and trying to grow in Asia, to beat Valve and Blizzard. This makes perfect business sense to me.

P.S. Caveat, I'm am also drunk rn.

Pics or didnt happen

Bro calm, hes top 3 at this event for sure tho.

I see you, and I raise you one Optic Gaming.

G102 Lightsync

I can see you making a case for Lev but Guild for sure are on the same tier. Like they play super sound and tactically adept Valorant. Plus they have Sayf, Trex and Leo man. They are quite easily on the same tier.

S Tier Teams: Optic and PRX (The only top teams, Optic because of how resilient and versatile they are and PRX because of their talent, speed and strats. The kings of adaptation and fluidity are what Optic look like and PRX are just the unbeaten speed demons. Also, either may lose to A-tier teams but that still doesn't change their superiority for me, they have proven to be the top 2 already for me, just from the eye test)

A Tier Teams: FNC, DRX and FPX (FNC is clearly the most intelligent team here, DRX is the most coordinated and had a close-ish series against Optic as well along with a clean Group stage, and FPX is just a wildcard for me, but potentially the most dangerous team in this tier capable of even winning the whole event. Suygetsu is a demon as well.)

B Tier Teams: Guild, Leviatan and Loud (Guild proved they are world-class after shutting out Optic and lost out on a close game to FPX, they also have Sayf, who I think is a top 5 fraggers at VCT. Leviatan is just so resilient, not the most strategically sound team but god they have god-tier talent, maybe expect more from them at Champions with more prep. Loud are just the most finished or complete team out of LATAM/BR, and Aspas is a monster as well, but even tactically they are super sound and complete, a real top team.)

C Tier Teams: Kru and XSET (Kru is just a really mechanically and tactically sound team with a top 5 star in Keznit, unlucky how they lost out and were in a group of death but could've easily upset teams and taken wins over other teams in this tier or even teams in the B and A tier, so Kru is probably a B tier team but I'm placing them here because of recency bias. XSET looked decent but got outclassed by Optic and then lost out of Leviatan because of multiple mistakes and their strat book is simply not good enough to compete at the highest level nor do they have the talent to cover for it barring Cryo and Zekken who looked good but still made mistakes.)

D Tier Teams: Xerxia and Northeption (Not the worst two teams but placing D because of performances and how everyone else seemed to have levelled up and they have simply not caught up. I will say both these teams need a little more experience and individuality, to escape their respective big brothers in their regions.)

Bro, stop embarrassing yourself.

Nevermind, Melser making it interesting.

This is such a tragic and boring game to watch like it is such a snooze fest of a match. After Guild v FPX, this is a real downer.

Yes, my Silver friends have strong and reasonable opinions on ange1. Yayyyy.

nAts and Redgar are together, and in a call with hiko and Tarik.

I was going through twitch to see the co-streams and I see Tarik had nAts, Redgar and hiko. My glasses dropped. What is happening? Lord nAts gracing us all, with Redgar.

Also shoutout to Mitch and Tom, also good. I dislike the guy who says "man" a lot, its really annoying.

Pansy and Hypoc are goated honestly.

Sentinels won't win LCQ my delusional friends. I predict group stage exit.

https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/7035d830

Is he fine? Seems a little sick to me today. Anyone know if he's under the weather or something?

W take. Only 12 y/os with no life and streamer simps care.

Agreed, prime nAts is still a sentinel first so I guess I'm okay with this take.

This is hilarious, I agree BcJ is best initiator in the word, no irony here.

Here are my thoughts in a super concise manner:

1. EMEA is a large region, and they have access to former Soviet nations/the Balkans/Turkey who shit out Counter-Strike and FPS talent out of their ass. I believe these CIS/Turkish players are a different beast so there is that going for EMEA. Credit to Fnantic tho for their hot streak.
2. EMEA has more money than every other region barring NA. The reason is very dark (ask your history teacher) but the point is they have more money to invest and more orgs who spend time on pros, even tier 2 players in EMEA/NA make more money than a tier 1 APAC player.
3. Consider Korea, a developed region which is getting fucked, but APAC is literally unorganized and has very little to no investment, yet PRX and Xerxia are doing so well. To compare, Zombs's watch collection is probably worth the net salary of all PRX players for a solid 3 months. Considering that, the fact that APAC teams are even competing is a big deal, give us investment and resources and soon APAC will dominate.
4. A lot of people in APAC support CIS teams like Gambit and FPX because we agree with the regional supremacy of CIS and also because APAC is a super-region is a tonne of countries, haters and stans.

Put some goddam respect into APAC. Also, whats up with Korea sucking so bad?

P.S. APAC has toxic fans but here is the thing, there are a lot of us so we'll out-spam the haters. Boohoo and I just wanna see PRX play goddammit.

As an Indian, I get it man, 1.5 billion people, it gets a little messy.

Fair enough

I get the NA hate but Optic is such a fun team to watch IMO. Based take but I feel Loud are a little boring to watch so I really hope Optic make it.

Honestly, I feel all the NA hate is just directed towards a small minority of them, also because everyone hates Americans. Now I still think Optic have a strong chance but Loud might just take it, but my pred is still on Optic taking the W. With that being said, barring the weird race thing, EU will probably smoke everyone except my boys Paper Rex (copium) and probably will take the dub. Also predict FPX losing to DRX but qualifying second because of the sub situation. Any hot takers?

You cant handle the truth

Remove M3C flair is a moronic take from a moronic region.

Wow, Sen is just a full blown stream team now. I cant wait for them to come last in groups again and getting 0-5/ :)