To be fair, I'd say babybays tenure within top level OWL and to a lesser extent VCT do redeem the CS Vac ban from 2015 is a very long time ago is kind of irrelevant from a legitimacy assessment since its kind of impossible to play at a tier 1 level under as much scrutiny as early OWL without an extensive background/ integrity competitive check.

Just a question real quick, what are the roles for this team going 2 look like 2 jett/duelist player and 2 sentinel players plus shazam on sova/fade seems really odd. Is OXY or penny going to transition over to the flex/flashes kind of role? do we see Wippie or Dapr transition to full time smokes? Idk if this is going to work out to great

Go emulate pokemon fire red, easy couple hours time sink

Both had there rosters leaked for months but made an announcement video's are pretty quality and memorable (even if a bit cring), lets hope the other EU (/couple remaining americas) teams can follow suit

Edit: NVM the giants one is a banger

Ardiss copped the biggest NA money bag from NRG, Hence why his off to buy a lambo

I'd probably like to throw in a few more names Corey, Bazzi.
Also like a lot of Val coaches came from overwatch;
eMIL from liquid, Lateks from giants, XQQ from zeta, ddx from Kru, Juv3nile on TSM

To be fair they are co-owned by activision, bit of a call of duty moment. But honestly with the development hell it went through I'm just happy its here and in a position to make producing content profitable and thus create more content in the game

It aint football unless; goals are worth 6 and behinds are worth 1, there are rugby level tackles without pads, Collingwood chokes a grand final or 2, someone takes a hail Mary punt for goals from a few hundred metres back, kids are only going to Auskick to play poison ball at the start and your old man is talking about how footy was better back in his day. Gotta love some true blue football

peas (like highkey worst vegetable), love me some overwatch 2 right now

real shot at least from a financial aspect probably a fair shout to look at a way to limit cash flow. Maybe not full cut off but definitely hard cap the financial side to add some more stability. I know its available on a lot of betting apps and such if not separate account with limited amount transferred into it could be another option. Hope its looking better

I aint complaining :)

Anyone know whether Chinese players are considered to be part of the APAC region (given the game isn't out in china still I think)? and to follow up would they count towards being import players if signed outside of Pacific teams?

You don't even no the meaning of dead region until you have been an OCE believer

So the thing I'm wondering here is does the single import player rule completely prevent OCE players from getting into tier 1 outside of the single greatest cinderella promotion story of all time.

With the announced partnered teams for APAC, it would be a small miracle for one of the very clearly regionalized teams within APAC to sign an OCE team. Of course OCE players are able to play on any pacific team but given the nationality of teams likely to appear within APAC the number that would also communicate in English is roughly 0 (granted maybe I'm just unaware of some regions that prefer to com in English e.g. I remember hearing somewhere that a dominant French Overwatch preferred to com in English because it was more efficient).

Import rules prevent any team from having more than 1 import player from a different region on a team. Unfortunately for OCE this means that OCE players are going to be in direct competition for spots within American rosters (since imports are less common in EU and the cultural/language barrier is a lot less) with any other import players from EU and APAC players. If you were the GM of a partnered team would you rather hedge your single import slot on a tested EU veteran, a rising international star from APAC or take a punt on the one guy who looks really good in Tier 2 OCE.

As such I suggest that the best long term decision to support OCE players within Tier 1 Valorant would be to attach the region back to NA/Americas like 2021 LCQ so that they don't have to compete for the import roster slot in the most likely completive region to bring OCE players to Tier 1.

The rumor is bobo are likely to sign with renegades

My passport is saying Order to 2:0
My brain is saying banger match
My Heart is saying order go to lan

All the players and engh are still signed to gambit. But in order to compete with current sanctions they play under M3C. It basically means that if someone wanted to buyout the M3C roster then they would have to buyout the gambit contracts also (for example what happened with Gambits CS roster moving to C9)

old mate, this really did age like unpasteurized milk

Aswell as why One Breath could get into EU last chance last year by buying out the core of forZe they gained forZe's LCQ spot

Honestly I would bump the non-emea chances given there is a strong probability that a lot of visa issues regarding Russian players could almost nuke 2 EMEA teams leaving fnatic as the only hope for EU. There is decent odds KRU will be the highest placing team at Champs to be able to play at iceland. Feelsvisaproblemsman

So basically from I can tell ownership behind Andbox, NYXL (the owl team) and Subliners (the CDL team). Has made the call to push their whole org around their most successful branding NYXL I'd say its for multiple reasons. A. NYXL was easily the stronger brand than ANDBOX B. It allows them to pivot their stronger NYXL branding into venturers other than Overwatch which diversifies their presence and has them less tied to a games esports success (which given the stability of Blizzard higher management is very smart from a business perspective). C. It allows them to conveniently close the chapter business venture of ANDBOX as a clothing line which I'm assuming wasn't super successful

wait until M3 qualify and can't make it, that day will be actual pain

Easy Gunba stonks, hope the man does well with his return to Overwatch League

Its time for an old copy pasta from trills Overwatch days

ʕ ͡·ᴥ ͡· ʔ YOU'VE BEEN VISITED BY TRILL SMASHER OF GOODULTS. CLAP YOUR PAWS AND COPY PASTE THIS MESSAGE 5 TIMES WITHOUT GETTING BANNED BY MODS AND GOOD SMASHES WILL BE WITH YOU FOR THE NEXT YEAR ʕ ͡·ᴥ ͡· ʔ

Don't spam it to much I would like to spread the history

Its kind of just an Australia moment tbh... great potential then through a bunch of non game related obstacles in the way give it 5 years and the talent will have integrated through into other region teams and Australia will return to being a farm region for the very few players lucky enough to escape the island.

kind of hit in CSGO with 5 aussies mixed across t1 cs. Idk I don't know much about CS

definitely happened in Overwatch with Team Australia putting up a stellar run at multiple world cups blizcon but only 4 players total making it the league and only 2 really getting play time (Rip Trill and Adam). Then another OCE player colourhex making it to the league then imediatly getting flexed onto a completely different role because they needed someone to fill the gap...

fighting game players are all still stuck on the island

no, unfortunately he could not get a passport. Big sad

Ez for Bonkers again

Easy for Bonkers, 1st stop on their way to crush gambit at masters

I can not discriminate on who it is that I hate, everyone needs some hate in their lives :)

Can I write for over.gg instead?

There results and eye test have definitely improved since they moved Bazzi over to Jett. It's really nice to see the return to his days on C9 Korea

Feelsbadman for bonkers :(

Just a heads up this speculation is in relation to association to current world events in the Ukraine and Russia*

If I'm repeating something that been bought up prior then I apologies but as a person who follows motor racing I'm seeing a lot of rumors surrounding governing bodies restricting drivers like Danil Kyvat and Nikita Mazepin from competing. And though I would hope Riot don't follow suit in preventing players of Russian citizenship from competing at offline international events the precedence would likely be there in other sporting/(esports with the blast premiere restrictions in CSGO).

To circle back to Version 1, given they are currently looking like a very strong contender within NA to make it to Master 1 a potential outlaw of Russian players could unfortunately hit them with the same issue they had on their last trip to Iceland with Wippie being unable to compete. However the more unfortunate issue I would like to raise is the potential for the current situation to not result in a blanket exclusion of Russian players, however the political nature of the conflicts having an adverse effect on Russian Visa's and travel which is an issue Wippie has already had in the past (pre-conflict) which I could only imagine could result in him missing Masters 1 if the team did qualify to represent NA.

The key word there being 'were', didn't say they are anymore. It's amazing the difference playing Ardiis on Jett made for FPX's results but also it shows that they're not allergic to duelist's anymore. If only a certain other team would follow the same lesson.

It's pretty unlikely we see hiko out, from what I remember hearing they need to retain at least 3 players to maintain their invite to VCT (granted no idea how that effects them after they've started playing, though its likely a similar rule to prevent invite spots being sold to organizations without the majority of the roster having in some way earned that spot). So with steel and seven on T1, boi (actually I don't know what his doing), dicey on Faze and Nitro playing CSGO. They really can't sub hiko out and can probably only replace him in VCT with a temp stand in for exceptional circumstances

G2 were the TSM of EU, really good at the start of the game then trying to constantly throw a bunch of new talent at the issue while still holding onto their broken core of players. Giving you just enough hopium to keep the fan base alive

FPX were the soniqs of EU. Clinging onto former glory while barely fighting in the T2 scene, Throw some roster changes in around the core but it doesn't make a huge difference and an unknown allergy to playing duelists.

Here I was thinking G2 were the TSM of EU, When really they were the 100 thieves of EU. Unfortunate really

Um, ok but like are these boys the 100t of EU now

I hope that link is a rickroll

Lorde, Solar Power is what you need right now my guy

From a results perspective it's pretty undeniably 1st place Engh. Then the other big hitters would be Sliggy (liquid), NBS (Ascend), Mini (Fnatic) and Onur (Ex - KRU).

I'd also like to shout out the former immortals coaches Gunba and Packing10 who have since their start on the LA Valiant in Overwatch had an amazing eye for player scouting. (some of the top of my head, asuna, dicey, neptune, JCstani, JonahP and Genghsta in Val. aswell as KSP, Dreamer, Shax, Lastro and Rain in Overwatch league)

Coaching is really hard to judge without an inside perspective in how the team operates but all of the above have very good references from their players and other coaches, with the results to back them up.

Gotta add an amendment to the flair section that the only correct options is Bonkers

kinky?

when cars

In terms of the role, its the guy who wants to play a second duelist but spends all their time on KAYO and Skye

In terms of these boys, anyone who plays like more than 2 agents apparently qualifies

Hard boiled

Bonk

Trust me, Kone is the way to salvation big man

Bonkers, Bonkers or Bonkers

This should be difficult