tysm very appreciated

enlighten me. I've always been interested by Chinese vendors but my past experience with Chinese sellers has been horrible, what's the difference?

I'd also suggest using a burner card or even debit/gift cards, surprisingly handy!
I'm not tryna be racist but based on my past experiences, you can never trust Chinese e-commerce platforms to the full

don't worry at least we're not NRG zzzzzz

wish I could agree

unfortunately, meta is meta for a reason, and if they don't have the finesse to win those mirror matchups, it's just realistically difficult to have the capability to "out-comp" the opposition using a variant/unique comp. that's why you see most of the early innovation from top teams, while other interesting comps don't spread (one example being FUTs obsession with brimstone on maps like lotus, where it isn't the norm, and didn't work)

careful...

someone close to me ordered something on aliexpress and their CC info got compromised, they didn't get their order despite ordering from a "trusted" vendor, and to this day still gets spam emails from them despite trying to unsubscribe, from different emails, so its physically impossible to permanently block them

id be wary, just my two cents

you seemed to have missed the entire point by a long shot.

Let's look at your original statement:

Why disqualify EDG?
Majority of regions only have 1 good team anyway

by the premise of your original statement, anyone reading can definitely assume that our main point of conversation is trying to really see if there is 1 good team or not per region.

sterllaresca rebutted with giving examples of regions with multiple decent teams, you used the argument of claiming that none of those teams were good at the same time, which in itself is a faulty argument--that shouldn't be mentioned, since you never really specified or required that in your original statement.

anyways, instead of directly questioning why you asked that question which was irrelevant to the main idea, I decided to take a different approach by stating that your point was wrong nevertheless with other examples, since if I were to just reiterate what stellaresca said, I wouldn't really be contributing anything to the debate. I get why you added "we were mainly talking about 2024 when EDG started being good," but in what way does that make it a fair assessment? its fair to say that teams like EDG and FPX had the required experience (trials, scrims w/ APAC) pre-China release! So why neglect anything (everything in your case) before 2024, when EDG won their first champs after crashing out of both masters preluding to champs 24?

in general, your argument doesn't make sense in at least four different ways: none of your replies are relevant to your original statement, there's no reason to mention 2024 and beyond since that's realistically cherry-picking, not specifying any constraints regarding your initial argument, and with comment #29 in the thread, merely stating something with 0 backing and 0 clarification.

GMB 2021 M2 Berlin
ACE 2021 C Berlin
FPX 2022 M2 Copenhagen
FNC 2023 LOCK//IN Sao Paulo (I counted this as a Masters event for the sake of simplicity)
FNC 2023 M1 Tokyo

AMER and EMEA have 5 trophies (3M 2C and 4M 1C respectively) each. how much more you think champs is weighted over masters is up to discretion.

imo c9 is better than most of EMEAs mid-table teams atm, but yes, 100T is not showing signs of life.

also, I think the “ooh ascension team is good" argument actually has some validity. tgrd being t1 but not in franchising just shows how packed the talent pool was perceived to be at the time, therefore teams like tgrd/g2 m80 and mxs all stuck in tier 2.

and your last point is fallacious. NAVI and FNC was already on the decline before koalanoob and crashies joining, APK was always shit regardless of flor, and KOI isn't a real team in the first place.

flor
1.17 / 5 maps kickoff
0.71 / 3 maps s1

flyuh
0.77 / 6 maps kickoff
0.64 / 2 maps s1

koalanoob
0.88 / 6 maps kickoff
1.28 / 2 maps s1

crashies
0.89 / 10 maps kickoff
1.66 / 2 maps s1

it seems very variable so far, especially with the low sample size (n). either way, hard to make that last statement. also, koalanoob and crashies seem to be stepping up, barring recency bias.

the entirety of LCS seem to have 5 vibe merchants with their abhorrent performance internationally.

W bait

I think it's unfair to assess VALORANT in terms of the CS series or other hero-shooters like OW/OW2 or even Apex, since VALORANT has just started down its "longevity" route as a video game compared to these games. CS franchise was released in 2000, Quake in 1996, OW in 2016, R6 in 2015, and Apex in 2019. (these are merely examples of tac-shooters, hero-shooters, and high-movement shooters)

refer to LoL, yet another product by Riot Games that has made it big. The meta has shifted unbelievably (one that I can think of recently is lane-switching that pros do, might not be viable anymore) despite being released in 2009 amidst great waves of popularity. VALORANT being under Riot Games and receiving way more frequent updates that any aforementioned games above makes me inclined to think that the skill ceiling will artificially be raised, if necessary, and will likely follow that trend nevertheless.

right now? no, not as high as other tac-shooters or MOBAs, since certain elements (like you briefed over) inhibit VALORANT from reaching such a ceiling.

id say PRX is beta LEV with how long these issues have been persisting for

so this is just factually wrong?

most notably, as far back as late 2022/early 2023, EMEA had ex-FPX/NAVI + FNC, AMER had OPTC + LOUD and then LOUD + EG, APAC had DRX + PRX

good shout

k1Ng pseudo-retired due to army + age
Zest is on infinite limbo aka "hiatus"

😭

I'd say late 2022 to mid 2023 hit hard

it was a time when we had a potential dynasty in FNC, classic teams (OPTC, LOUD, EU-FPX/NAVI, DRX, PRX) alongside them, the novelty of franchising (with all the interesting drama and great roster shifts we had), and the best time to see a rapid development of strats (as compared to now, where not as many unique strats are being innovated because a lot of the meta strats have already been innovated). We also saw the rise of new challengers such as EG, who later on went to win it all. oh and late 2022 also had crazy ass teams that didn't make it to franchising such as XSET (Cryocells + zekken), OPTC (NRG if they actually locked tf in + prime yay), GLD (Leo + trexx + Sayf, how did they not place higher), TGRD (pre-G2 + Sayaplayer), XIA (pre-TLN)

you're right on all aspects but there's really no need to say this godobvious fact out loud

100T can be swapped with C9 or even LOUD, but nevertheless I think this list does a solid at representing the general power landscape of AMER

idk this guy has 0 ball knowledge and probably started watching either late 2022 or early 2023 and onwards

nah fr u cooking

you're good I just like shitting on NRG fans since a lot of my IRL friends are devout NRG fans

dawg what happened while I was asleep 😊

I agree! Pacific is truly the worst region of all time.

Truly these tourneys seem to be mickey mouse and nothing else!

istg NRG fans aren't even trying to get rid of their illiteracy allegations.

"You can't take more than 1 player from each team"

immediately puts leaf and valyn

thats actually a smart strat.

with MIBR, G2, DRX, T1, and PRX out, your only competition is VIT, TL, EDG, and SEN if we're going by teams who made it to Masters Bangkok.

if you want to make the strat more efficient but the roster slightly less efficient, JAWGEMO instead of aspas is a good shout.

im ngl kind of but at least we were the goats at it

0/8

at least you aren't spewing nonsense like the other user in the thread.

also I wouldn't call it a free read, that comp is genuinely broken IMO and with the best tejo, I would say that's the best option they have. (although I would agree that maybe 1/2 map comp change might be necessary)

but hey, alecks and co. face an even sterner problem...

i feel like atp you're just branching your own points and just throwing all of yellow_donkey's rebuttals out the window by not properly addressing them

genuinely, you're trying so hard to act like you have an in-depth knowledge about the KR scene, but you're pivoting around the same point over and over, being that everything is solely termi's fault. you mention how glow is a vital part (which is valid), but it seems like you're being hypocritical by not giving termi his flowers. termi was put in difficult roster situations and pinning the blame entirely on him (and not DRX management, known to be lacking in the organizational and the financial sectors compared to T1/GEN) is blown out of proportion and at minimum, mildly ridiculous.

and if we ever say otherwise, we're apparently blinded by the "fan-girl" bias you are conjuring out of thin air. hello?

ok you're just saying you're a hater in general? what're you tryna say

There's two sides to every coin, and today, well, he got the short end of the stick.

My condolences to leaf and I genuinely hope it doesn't get to his head, he's been frying lately and one bad series doesn't determine his prowess in-game.

RIP.

I mean, it's better a track record than 95% of tier 1 teams

wym bro

Listen to yourself and all the comments you make under Indian-related threads. You have a SEN flair while repping an Indian fan. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but for someone who backs up India this much, I would legit shame myself to death if I also supported the most bandwagoned team in valorant over an actual Indian team, albeit the ruins it's in rn (spoiler: im pretty sure yk this but GE isn't the only fucking south Asian team when you have VLT, OGS, RNT, etc...)

Hope you didn't lose too much betting money.

You are acting like T1 has no established synergy already. You have no ball knowledge.

Obv BuZz stax has synergy from DRX
BuZz Meteor have been long-time acquaintances
Sylvan iZu know each other as well
stax Sylvan know each other closely

and DRX has not been in a stable roster since 22/23. 2023 was the failed six man project, 2024 was messy with rb zest stax out fb beyn in plus fb having to step out for a bit, 2025 had BuZz foxy9 leave, hyunmin free1ng in

So what the fuck are you insinuating? At least try to ponder on what you're stating before you mention this absolute slippery dipfuckery you are spewing.

I would actually disagree slightly.

2022 drx in champs was on par, we had top 1/2 flex Rb, top 1 smokes MaKo, top 3 duelist BuZz, top 5 initiator Zest, and top 4 igl stax

In terms of raw content and sheer hero plays and clutches, yes.

Storyline? If you consider stax and BuZz finally winning one and Meteor's b2b masters win, yes.

Wait idk why all of a sudden termi hate is flooding the site, this might be the most reactionary take. There's so many reasons why termi is all-respected from the entire t1 stratosphere...

People in this thread don't understand what irony or sarcasm is

It's clear that you are:

a) solely AMER/EMEA watcher
b) ignorant
c) only started watching Valorant for at most 1.5yrs max (which you still should know that termi has been the best KR player developer)
d) all of the above

all good bro gg go next

G2 will bounce back

Weren't you the racist person to Koreans?

Please get off our ass. Most of us koreans (that don't bait) don't even hate EDG...

Finally. stax and BuZz deserved it so much. Holy shit they actually did it.

wahhhh wahhhh

Keep crying

and who beat SEN 2-0 in Bangkok, helping them be sent home dead last

They played solid bro

Let's not do this.

Be happy for stax and BuZz

Cry me a river, then build a bridge light enough to carry t1 across but not for G2.
GGWP G2 W for T1

#FACETHEFACTS

BAHHAAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
JAJAJAJAAJAJJAAJAJAJAJAJJAAJJAJAJJAAJAJAJA
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅎㅋㅎㅎㅋㅎㅎㅎㅎㅎㅎㅎㅋㅋㅋ
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈