I have news for you if you think America actually has free speech with all the companies running around free to do what they like.

To be fair, the EDG that showed up to the T1 game was definitely not the one that'd been playing the rest of the tournament.

Strongest region is complete cope, holy. SEN is imploding post TL loss, and you just listed a bunch of reasons teams CAN'T keep up. The G2 loss to sentinels was down to Anti-stratting they adapted to. SEN has always liked anti-stratting, but it doesn't mean they can keep yp.

EMEA and APAC both have 5 serious contenders. America's is too busy tripping over themselvesup. I reckon G2, 100T and MIBR will make it to Toronto and then both the latter will crash out.

no it wasn't I just saw it for the first time today and we all know if I didn't personally see it it didn't happen

Icebox is notorious for not really needing entry. I think we'll see solo Iso or no-duelist comps making space for the Deadlock.

My initial comp ideas would be Viper Deadlock KJ + some combo of Sova Tejo KAY/O and Iso. You'd have to test them all though. Triple suppress meta could also happen, that'd be funny.

technically Masters Bangkok with T1 Carpe

oh NOW you admit they don't have staying power bruh

surely that's the opposite of true

Unless another org pulls a BLEED.

if you can't drop him run a 6 man so you can field him as little as possible. Easy.

They're taking turns sitting out, I'd be interested to see if they're just deciding who to drop or unironically considering playing 6 man in 2025.

because val is an inconsistent ass game what? We've had literally one repeat back to back event winner in the game's history?

If they've got a 60% chance to win the matchup, they're better but not so much better the gap can't be closed?

yes they are what? America's is easily the weakest region right now they're easily making Toronto.

T1 might not because there are 5 good Korean teams, but G2 has no home competition.

Just be close enough to Canada or Mexico they can't tell, easy.

Did we want the same bloody show? They were praising T1 more and had very little to actually say about G2.

They were at best 6th before Bangkok if you were a supreme SEN hater like me. They didn't look good before bangkok and still don't look consistent. They just improved dramatically, which good on them, but doesn't rewrite history.

So many people want to be Hindsight Harry's on this site and pretend they knew the whole time because they've 0 integrity and are full of shite. G2 looked better before, and if you ran that final again 100 times, they'd probably win it more times than T1. That's not to devalue what T1 did especially since they're clearly better than the other 6 teams, but please rate teams off their gameplay and not JUST their results in hindsight.

no get in the shower

bro don't leak my next alt wtf

can mods mug anyone clearly fake flagging or are they busy

double elim but you get elim by winning and prize pool for exiting first.

loser's final gets a wooden spoon

start?

in your reply history apparently, wild

Literally what is the motivation otherwise? You've not given one.

I'll hear the argument they don't know the APAC scene as well as EMEA and Amer due to language barriers which could lead to misevaluation, but i think "they're secretly racist" is a bit far.

God forbid new people become interested in the scene that have just enough of a life to not come in here during the downtime between events unlike us.

Saying G2 is overall a better team than T1 is not saying T1 isn't good or didn't deserve to win. It just means G2 wasn't at their best and are more likely to perform later in the year too, which frankly, I agree with, and I'm a huge America's hater who was routing for T1 the whole event.

You're so right, PRX is so capable of winning without an IGL that they've just signed one 🤣

There's a world of difference between "Able to reach playoffs" and "Can actually play through the Bo5 and win a title"

not as funny when one guy does 70% of it but go off

Like I said, you need the best of both worlds to win titles, not that you can't place with just aimers, especially early season.

They'd have crashed and burned either like this year VIT or PRX.

You ain't getting titles without a good igl, even if you can run headfirst into playoffs before you hit the wall.

e

bro

igl needs good team, team needs good igl.

real news at 7

Jing as Raze maybe Pheonix merchant surely he can't do anything else and they don't want to drop him fully.

no

They're a bit out of options right now and don't want to cut Jing entirely because of clout and team synergy, so I'd wait and see, I reckon we're getting it anyway. 6 man with him on the bench 5/7 maps is a close as they're willing to go to cutting Jingg, which is what they should ACTUALLY be doing.

Regular blogging kinda been dead for a decade cuz of microblog social media though... don't think you'll have any luck.

I thought the implication was they would 6 man like T1 did and sub Jing as a Raze/Pheonix merchant but not use him otherwise.

seriously just do what everyone else is doing and use twit- oh. errrr... convince your favorite analyst to use bluesky? Idk

Finals and crowd were great but personally I don't think I can faithfully argue the event that was 90% "Oops one team shat themselves" instead of "Wow, these are some crazy interesting well thought through outplays" is anywhere near the top of the list.

Even if some of that shiting themselves was occasionally pretty funny.

Rest of the event was very meh with so many games lost because of one team shitting themselves inexplicably while the other team played decent, but the final definitely was EXCELLENT.

Most of us don't consider every team shitting the bed a good event.

call it masters Bangkok the way these games are ABSOLUTE penis...

I don't think I'd call them heavily underrated based on their prior performance, I think they've just improved exceptionally quickly, which is arguably a bigger accomplishment.

It doesn't create role issues unless you're doggardly convinced sentinel IGL is untenable which has literally no evidence. Boostio won Champs as a sentinel IGL. John won Madrid, as a sentinel IGL. Nats beat them, literally in their last game, as a sentinel IGL.

Stop forcing John to play initiator instead of creating a system that allows him to IGL properly on Senti, like other teams clearly can. Then N4rrate can play at his best. If Bang isn't comming enough to enable that, cut him, his pacing is already also an issue.

The only time senti IGL doesn't work is if your IGL can't frag. This wasn't true of Boostio when he won and isn't true of John or Nats now. If you're FNS I mean yeah rip but your IGL being a walking ult orb is crap regardless of their role.

BBL as 3rd seed EMEA is crazy when TH and KC looked better than them despite getting knocked out. The former looked excellent until finals and the latter is the only team yet to get close to beating VIT (literally down to a single 1v1 postplant thrown by Avez) who you rank 2nd overall.

The region also doesn't really look weak, just scrappy. In fact, I'd argue it's the strongest region across right now, because Americas and China are basically one-teams right now and pacific has no big standouts like EDG, VIT or G2 despite having multiple decent teams.

Because SEN has him on the payroll bro it ain't hie fault an NA team wants him more.

It's the complete opposite. EMEA "looked horrible" - read: had any amount of two-sided games - because there were about 5 serious contenders, unlike other regions that have exactly 1 each. VIT, TL, KC and GX are all legitimately good teams that have a shot at internationals.

VIT is ahead right now because they look more obviously closer to G2 and EDG level. TL is close behind with DRX.

TH could comeback too since they very clearly were underprac'd after all the illness.