they're trying to cook you but you're right. objectively there's nothing tangible separating a masters title and a champions title apart from number of teams or format differences. arguably, fewer teams makes it harder for any one team to win the tournament, because in any given round they're never facing less than a top 3 team of a region (or top 2 previously sometimes) - as opposed to champs where a 1st seed can go against a 4th seed, for instance.

cue that one Bren rant

It doesn't necessarily last for life, I believe the symptoms can improve over a period of time, but it does seem he has a pretty bad case of it.

It's not that the actual virus itself is still in his system, it's the lasting damage to the respiratory system and other parts of your body that can remain with you and cause negative symptoms well after you've recovered from a covid infection.

Fnatic were almost never less than top 2 of their region before they hit their true peak when Chron and Leo came in, hell even before Alfa arrived they were still considered one of, if not the strongest of EU. They haven't come lower than top 6 in any VCT regional competition since challengers qualifiers in 2021. Do you want him to IGL a team of 5 bronzes to ascension or something?

People will point them out losing rounds to time but will never consider that they can also win rounds because of the lateness of a strat - there's a lot of confirmation bias there. There's a reason they leave their rounds late and they win more of them than they lose.

Check again

That's because they're escaping the Paris server quarantine zone

*redbull instalock

imma be real man, no one should gaf about this and everyone will forget it by tomorrow

d4v41's ace yesterday was against eco and that was still insane, it's not as simple as eco ace = zzz

it is definitely exhausting for them if it goes 3 maps (particularly for the IGL), and you have to split your prep time the night before between two teams. it's a disadvantage and any team would rather not do it if given the option of a different format

BLG and XLG looked poor this tournament let's not lie, if you're counting China as better than EMEA and NA off of one team in Wolves, then you have to give Fnatic the same grace for EMEA

yeah unfortunately the map bans are rough as hell for fnatic, PRX love both of Fnatic's permabans and they get the map ban advantage in GF

classic story of Turks claiming they're not European while begging to join the European Union for the last 70 years

not even true, those are just his most memorable moments so that's all that's coming to your mind

heavy respect for both these teams, FNC 2-1 G2

bro doesn't even like playing it either, the reluctant goat

Across many different iterations of his team and through every meta in the game he's consistently farmed his region, attended 9 internationals, won 4 regional trophies and 2 international trophies. Never placed below top 6 in a regional VCT tournament in 4 years. I don't think there's anyone even close to him.

Edit: EMEA broadcast put up a stat today that said Fnatic are positive in VCT series win record against every EMEA team after winning the grand final against Heretics, another neat stat

put some respect on boaster man, this split has been unreal for his mechanical performance compared to last year

Yeah I'd agree with that if they did offer him a contract

You can frame it either way if it's true about it being financially motivated. You could say it was a decision by Fnatic to let him go (it's been known in the past year that they've had some financial struggles), but you could also frame it as Derke's decision to leave because Fnatic wouldn't meet him at what he thought he deserved as a world class duelist.

You're mistakenly looking at the growth of their esports industry as an isolated thing and not as part of a massive, coordinated, entertainment and sports-wide strategy to diversify their income channels. Yes a lot of it is for reputation improvement (which feeds into tourism in return) but there's no doubt they're trying to build up an economic base to replace future dwindling oil revenue. Anything is better than nothing even if it doesn't make up the full potential loss. They're basically trying to spend a lot of money for as long as possible on entertainment and spectacles and hoping it convinces people that they're the default destination for this stuff after a while.

That's not relevant. If all their funding is coming from the Saudi government then it doesn't matter if they're an official government-linked entity or if it's being funneled into a shell company, they still exist only at the whim of the Saudi royal family. Yes, they could try and avoid a PR threat by setting up a shell company and hiding the flow of cash but that much money coming from nowhere is going to raise eyebrows in an autocratic country where the richest family happens to be the one running the government.

Derke wasn't part of the choking though, he was consistently putting up strong performances even in losses. He was still a top 5 player in EMEA before they went on their 2023 streak.

Ty goat

They're funding countries doing heinous shit, but the real point of contention here is that there is a tangible degree of separation between a private tournament run by a private business in the US with no direct government involvement and a tournament publicly funded by the Saudi government. If you're trying to make the first thing into a major ethics issue then it's basically impossible to operate a tournament anywhere in the world. If you focus on the second kind of situation then you have something you can actually make a difference with.

Not fair to call GC tier 4. At the top level of GC it's probably 2.5 or something but overall it's so grassroots that it goes all the way down from there too.

Nobody should care about this tournament unless you're a 100T fan or something who's gagging to watch anything from them at this point. The actually good teams with a decent shot at champs are not taking this seriously, without even getting into the awful ethics.

Probably derived from Irish or Welsh yeah

worse bait

when has being down in score ever phased fnatic of all teams lmao

I don't think there's ever been a case of a player calling for a tech pause to save face after letting go of the key or whatever, that would be insane

No it was obviously a bug or lag, there's no way a tech pause pops immediately after that and it wasn't due to an actual issue

the mods are just cautious about the chat devolving to ardiis-tier, they're fine

Copenhagen

the series?

plus GUILD Leo on FNATIC bench lmao

brexit power

I had a ranked random in immortal 1 screaming and crying when I told them you should be taking space on Fracture defence because you get omega crunched otherwise. You tell them to watch a pro game or two and get a clue and it's "but we're not pros" like they don't have eyes and hands to copy what they see competent players doing.

Sorry, did they take Fracture out back and shoot it at some point or what? Wtf are they doing with that map? Lmao

can't believe people aren't recognising parts of the navy seal copypasta

Liquid has some sort of partnership with Apeks with Soulcas becoming a two way player for them if I'm not wrong

W poster

Teaching empathy to VLR nolifers is like teaching algebra to a dog, respect for the message though

crazy how people will dance around to avoid saying a team played well enough to beat the other team

you are not a chef, stop trying to cook

Magnum hasn't played with him for almost 2 years and the meta, map pool, and players that Boaster has to work with are completely different, so I don't think that's a significant factor. Maybe in a 1v1 situation between the two that might come into play a bit but otherwise I'm not too convinced.

they legit put them top 4 in their power rankings while saying they could be potentially higher but it's hard to tell at that point. that's a champions placement position, that's hype.

what are you waffling about? vitality was hyped the whole off season as soon as their roster was announced, especially by the likes of platchat