Finally I might actually have a second perfect pickems on this site. This isn't as impressive as the 2021 EMEA Champions LCQ pickems, but I will put it on my resume regardless.

Delusional W

Common tamagao W

Ok thanks. The graphic they showed had NIP banning Breeze, but I guess it was wrong lol.

The official broadcast said NIP banned Breeze

Yep. Pretty much what I would predict. I think LOUD will ban either Icebox or Split first. I hope NIP pick into Fracture.

All hail the king.
I think MIBR are still at least one roster move from true contention, but they have improved so much with frz. #2-5 are all good teams that are right on the brink of becoming a great team. I can't wait for the pre-LCQ roster shuffle to see which teams make the right moves.

They call me FerahgoTheL.
(at least in my ranked games they do lol)

Map differential then round differential.

Common ChickenJoe W

I think it has a lot to do with playstyle. She plays relatively passively to keep her post-plant utility alive, and she has information utility to take favorable duels. She is also often lurking or trading off duelists rushing in, and unlike some other supportive characters, she doesn't have to switch away from her gun to be useful.

I just posted a graphic to my twitter for ADR. I didn't spend the time to make it as accurate as the ones in the article, but you can see some general trends.

Chamber:
back to 2 trips
45 second cooldown on tp. He is way too mobile right now because he can continuously set up, use, and reposition his tps.
Chamber is a duelist right now. He brings the bare minimum sentinel value to replace the most replaceable role in the game. Forcing him to be less mobile is the goal.

Cypher:
Rework ult entirely. Non-skill based reveals can be really oppressive, and his is just bad because it is so situational.
Not quite sure what new ult he should have but I don't like buffing his current one to be overpowered when used and only balanced because it is situational.

KJ:
I think she is fine right now.

Sage:
Buff the heal up to 100. (skye is just a way better healer).
If she becomes too strong based off this (I don't think that will happen) the wall can be nerfed slightly.

If you tried to submit a post too soon after you just posted, you would get an error message telling you to wait and if you just hit submit after that it gives it as a response to the overall forum and not the specific comment. Not sure if that is what happened or not.

496/556, but 6/8 of my players havent played yet this week.
In EMEA I am at 118/231 but 4/8 of my players havent played yet.

My NA team is already far enough behind that it would take a miracle to rescue it. My EMEA team is still hanging on the outskirts of contention.

HudsenTheGreat

I am probably going to focus on the BR scene, but I am thinking about doing a couple of the top NA/EMEA players as well.

Hello, I recently posted a graph on twitter of mwzera's rating over his career so far. Unfortunately I cannot embed images in these forums, so go check it out if you want to see it.

One of the things I like to look at when I look at CSGO stats on HLTV is the graph that shows how a player's rating has changed over time.

I made a very simplistic version of that rating with Valorant ACS. Each data point is not simply the ACS of each map. Each data point is a weighted average of the previous 10 maps played. More recent maps are weighed more heavily. (The most recent map is about 21% of the rating and the 10th most recent is only about 3%).

I am probably going to try to extend this for a lot more players, but it takes a bit of work, and I don't have much time, so I will probably only do a few more in the near future. Let me know which players I should do this for next!

Mostly time. I'm very busy IRL right now. I've been prepping a thesis that I have to defend very soon. I definitely want to, but I barely had enough time to do the NA one. Maybe in the future.

About the underrated part?

I recently made a twitter post with the top 10 Brazilian players in terms of lifetime K/D ratio.
I set a minimum of 2000 rounds played and excluded the game changers players. I might do some GC stats sometime as well. Nzr (1.37) and saadhak (1.20) could have been on the list except I removed them for playing a lot of games in LATAM.

Here are the top 10:

1. aspas: 1.42
2. Sacy: 1.39
3. mwzera: 1.37
4. heat: 1.36
5. krain: 1.30
6. frz: 1.28
7. pancada: 1.26
8. xand: 1.23
9. Less: 1.22
10. shion: 1.18

I think people like krain, frz, and shion are really underrated players because they don't put up the big ACS statlines, but they provide consistent value. I would say the same about pancada and Less, but they are pretty hyped up in the community right now, so they probably aren't underrated.

👀

They went over and shook hands afterwards and it looked really genuine. Actually talking and shaking, not the standard fist bump and ignore each other. You love to see it.

My favorite part of rankings: when it all goes to crap. This is shaping up to be a great season.

So it is time for my power rankings of the Brazilian teams in Stage 2.

S TIER:

1. LOUD: They had an absurd 2/1 rounds won/lost ratio in Stage 1 and that number only got BETTER as they faced stronger teams in the playoffs. Clearly the top spot at the moment. Obviously they have unmatched depth, but what really sets them apart in my eyes is their teamwork. They are not a bunch of fraggers running around the map. Should finish top of their group and be the favorites in the playoffs.

A TIER:

2. Vivo Keyd: Although v1xen played great for them in Stage 1, I think RgLM is one of the best controllers in Brazil. As someone who can also take a weight off murizzz's shoulders as a strategic mind, I think this could really elevate the roster. rhz is a big question mark for me. It is pretty safe to assume he will at least match JhoW's fragging power, but it will be interesting to see if the loss of a glue guy like JhoW really affects their success. They got a tough group again, but they should make it through.

3. NIP: I think v1xen is a small upgrade over bnj in terms of firepower, however, I don't think that was really the issue with NIP. This is a team in the mold of the 2020/21 BR teams that lacked tactical depth. They have more firepower than the old BR teams, but LOUD and VK can match that now and pull away with more cohesion. Same story as VK for the groups, but I think NIP will be challenged a bit more this time. An upset wouldn't be super surprising.

4. Furia: The firepower just isn't at the level of the top teams. qck feasted on Chamber, and with that pick probably becoming more meta, he could take the next step and truly challenge the best in Brazil. nzr is one of the best role players in BR, but I am still waiting for someone else to become Furia's true second star. Finding Mazin's comfort zone is crucial for matching the top teams. I think this team could very easily be upset, but I still expect them to make playoffs and just miss the cut for Masters 2.

B TIER:

5. Liberty: Stage 1 was really disappointing. Tactically liberty are excellent by BR standards, and there is a lot of depth to this lineup. The high end firepower just doesn't compare with the S/A tier teams. Liazzi has shown flashes of brilliance, but he has never found that comfort zone as a duelist. If the access series was just a honeymoon period, this team is in trouble.

6. Gamelanders: The addition of Brinks could really change the dynamic of this team. He could be the second fragger next to dgzin that pushes GLB to contention. The younster Chase fell off a cliff in stage 1, but GLB could have a really underrated trio of stars if they fit together well. I thought this team had fairly basic tactics, and they dropped their IGL, so I am a bit worried about how reliant on fragging they will be. Legitimate chance of landing an upset, but they will have to fight for a spot in the playoffs.

7. TBK: They put up a pretty decent showing in Stage 1, but I think that was about the peak of their performance. I don't see them as clearly better than any team in their group right now. matheuzin and kon4n are solid role players, but I don't see the rest of the roster being ranked near the top of their respective roles. This team is in huge danger of missing the playoffs. A tie between them, liberty, and MIBR isn't out of the question.

C TIER:

8. MIBR: I think frz is a big boost, but there are too many unknowns in this roster. jzz is untested against good competition, and while deNaro and gtn put up good stats in the qualifier, they havent really been more than solid players in previous teams. Probably an outside chance to make the playoffs, but they could be a solid B tier team.

9. Stars Horizon: The loss of RgLM really hurts. In my opinion, he was their most important piece as one of their top fraggers and IGL as well as providing tons of clutches. ING were really good last stage, but it will take a bit of magic to make this team a contender. Still a decent upset pick for a couple of their games.

10. Los Grandes: I don't think this team has the firepower of everyone else except SH, however, a number of their players are only just getting their first rea shot. I was impressed by pleet's IGLing with Liberty, so I could see this team coming together. They give off Stage 1 TBK/ING vibes where they might just show up better than expected.

I am going to win this time.

Check out my predictions here

It tends to be about 195 for the major events. i.e. Masters Berlin had about 196 for the event. It can vary a bit though. There was a little spike in ACS due to the fact that Riot started counting non-damaging assists as 25 ACS, and a lot of newer characters get a lot more assists.

Ok, I found it. His name just wasn't in the system, so the automatic player tag didn't include it.

That duel against fisheko was so fun. I wish we got more than a couple of those before the PPL imploded.

Hmm. I would predict the group A standings to be LOUD, GLB, FUR, SH, LOS, and the group B standings to be VK, NIP, LIB, MIBR, TBK. Group B could go a lot of ways though.

You posted that 14 seconds after I posted the page. Absolute madman lol.

Hello again. Last week I posted my independent article on applying HLTV's 2.0 rating formula to VALORANT. I have now updated the results to include all the stats from the event.

Check out my article on medium for fancier pictures and an in depth description of how these ratings were made and some of the drawbacks to using this formula.

Just to be clear, these are not particularly good VALORANT stats, but they do give you a general picture of what HLTV's rating would look like if applied to VALORANT.

Here are the final ratings.

MaKo    1.34
yay     1.32
ScreaM  1.32
aspas   1.31
Sayapla 1.27
f0rsake 1.26
SugarZ3 1.24
Jamppi  1.22
Marved  1.22
Jinggg  1.22
Fearoth 1.20
hoody   1.20
xand    1.17
stax    1.17
sScary  1.16
Sacy    1.15
Nivera  1.14
Zest    1.14
Victor  1.14
BuZz    1.13
Laz     1.13
Mixwell 1.13
crashie 1.11
TENNN   1.10
Benkai  1.09
Less    1.08
soulcas 1.06
cauanzi 1.06
Surf    1.06
H1ber   1.05
L1NK    1.05
JonahP  1.05
Mistic  1.04
Sushibo 1.03
nukkye  1.03
Dep     1.02
keznit  1.02
valyn   1.02
pancada 1.01
NagZ    0.99
d4v41   0.99
foxz    0.98
bezn1   0.98
Klaus   0.97
neT     0.96
delz1k  0.95
Rb      0.94
crow    0.94
bnj     0.92
Jonn    0.90
MAGNUM  0.90
mindfre 0.90
FNS     0.90
saadhak 0.89
trent   0.88
Mazino  0.86
AvovA   0.85
Crws    0.85
Meddo   0.81
Boaster 0.65

Wait... is it... ScreaM? I never would have guessed.

Nivera?

Bwipo?

Ex6TenZ?

Mixwell?

On the sentinel role, he was Sharks second best player. Most recently he was the best sentinel in the access series. He is not a star, but he found his comfort zone where he is an excellent role player.

I am not really sure how to reduce the power of baiting in a rating like this. The best way I can think of is in something like RIB's impact rating with machine learning, but that takes so much more data (like the time left in the round, or if the spike is planted when the kills happen). I think this HLTV style of rating is fairly reasonable if you have to limit yourself to just the stats on the statpage.

So excited for more LOUD games.

Yeah, it has been criticized for being too similar to a K/D rating, but I would disagree that it doesn't factor KPR or ADR. The five primary factors in the rating are KPR, ADR, KAST, deaths per round, and HTLV's own Impact stat. Impact for HLTV is combines first kill, first death, multikill, and clutch stats, but the rating is still criticized for lacking nuance for actually rating a player's value to a game.
Unless you use something like runitback's Impact stat which uses machine learning to determine which kills actually changed the round, factoring out baiting is hard. ACS just rewards rushing at the enemy.

Thanks!

Riot really like control over their product, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a different rating system come out. It would take enough community pressure to convince them to abandon ACS instead of just modifying it.

He really struggled for the Guard. I hope they don't lose confidence because of this performance.

<3

Have you ever looked at a statsheet and wondered which players are the most valuable? Have you ever wondered how VALORANT stats and CS:GO stats compare? Here I apply the most popular CS:GO rating formula to VALORANT to see it’s strengths and weaknesses when applied to a different game.

I just wrote an article on medium approximating HLTV's CS:GO 2.0 rating in VALORANT.

I didn't write it here in the basic forums since pictures aren't an option, so check out that article if you want to read in more detail and see the more readable pictures.

Also I posted this on twitter so please retweet and share to get the article as much exposure as possible.

Thanks!

Here are the final ratings that I produced:

Sacy    1.39
aspas   1.36
MaKo    1.34
f0rsak  1.32
ScreaM  1.31
yay     1.30
Sayap   1.26
SugarZ  1.26
Jamppi  1.22
Jinggg  1.21
Fearoth 1.20
hoody   1.20
Laz     1.19
xand    1.17
stax    1.17
sScary  1.16
Marved  1.16
Victor  1.15
Nivera  1.14
Zest    1.14
BuZz    1.13
Mixwell 1.13
Benkai  1.09
TENNN   1.08
Less    1.08
soulcas 1.06
cauan   1.06
Surf    1.06
crashi  1.06
pancada 1.05
H1ber   1.05
L1NK    1.05
JonahP  1.05
Dep     1.04
Mistic  1.04
Sushi   1.03
nukkye  1.03
keznit  1.02
valyn   1.02
mindfr  1.00
NagZ    0.99
foxz    0.98
bezn1   0.98
Klaus   0.97
d4v41   0.96
neT     0.96
delz1k  0.95
Rb      0.94
crow    0.94
bnj     0.92
FNS     0.91
Jonn    0.90
MAGNUM  0.90
trent   0.88
Mazino  0.86
AvovA   0.85
Crws    0.85
Meddo   0.81
saadhak 0.81
Boaster 0.65

Check out the article if you want to learn about the limitations of applying the formula. The average rating was 1.063 which is slightly higher than 1.

LOUD have also announced that the games were swapped. DRX/OPTC early, G2/LOUD late.

I recent posted on my twitter that I am working on an independent stats based article. I don't really know how I will have the time do it, since IRL stuff is piling up, but I will be waiting until after Reykjavik anyways.

Whoever can guess what I am planning will win... a shoutout on my twitter. Alright that isn't very impressive, but I am also just doing this for fun.

Your hints are:
1) It is based of the Reykjavik stats available on VLR.
2) Locked -unlocked if LOUD beat G2
3) Locked -unlock mechanism unknown until 2) is unlocked.

VLR writers are not allowed to participate since they already know, this is also not being written for VLR at the moment

I think frz could be a huge addition.