that's why my dopamine peaks at friday evening/saturday morning, truly appreciating that freedom

those aren't nationalists, those are populists

I feel like this initial push might sway some tier 2-3 talent in NA valorant to CS. NA teams in valorant have 30 slots in franchising (possibly 35), yet no way to get into that closed club. It makes more sense to grind an open circuit

thing is, anything will piss them off :) funny shit is that I as a ukrainian know exactly which pricks will show up talking their shit and their solution would be ''just don't sign russians lmao'' while those idiots still want to use the russian audience because they are pests. talking shit about war and stuff, attacking people like s1mple but they still were attending events in Moscow after Crimea was already occupied and Donbass had a conflict there as well

ironic given that natus vincere means born to win in latin :D

it would require any russian player to become non-representative and leave russia completely. oh, and navi might still get the hate from some PaTrioTiC people

it's actually a good midterm solution
full region teams drop their 2 worst players for imports = retain region BUT get stronger
those 2 players who didn't cut it in tier 1 drop down into tier 2 where they are the best players.
tier 2 team gets an upgrade and therefore pushes its competition to grow.
undiscovered talent makes its mark and goes into an upwards trajectory. has been working in cs for 20 years bud. NA CS didn't die because eu killed it, na killed itself by going for the same 4 tier 2 teams but with these people mixed in another way

CS2 is the most established esports out of the three, the talent pipeline is so diverse it's insane
are you a young PUGGer who just grinds the ladder for elo? Get scouted by an academy team like b1t, m0nesy, donk and many others.
are you playing in a team with friends? go from esea open to pro league by being a better team like spinx, flamez, w0nderful
are you a tier 2 player? grind tier 2 events and get your breakthrough like iM, jL, sdy, demqq and woro2k
valorant and overwatch cuck themselves with franchising. CS is open circuit, the stronger team wins

furia assembled all the hype talent and that gave way for pain mibr imperial to just get everyone else and now imperial has beaten mouz at pro league, mibr has beaten spirit and pain are like top 10 team rn

imagine col with JBa and slump instead of hallzerk and grim, maybe even get stanislaw if you want full NA

wdym, brazilian CS is literally on the rise
pain are a great team who is capable of beating tier 1 teams
mibr literally have beaten spirit and put upa fight against g2
imperial won mouz
stand proud, bra71l, we can't troll you :(

It's looking promising. as a rule of thumb of how good the region appears is a question if that team was good if you assembled a region only team, would it do well compared to navis g2s mouz, spirits.
twistzz - IGL
elige - 2nd entry
naf - anchor
lake - entry
slump - AWP
the only one you doubt for this category is the awper, osee is inconsistent, junior just doesn't have any lans to prove himself, slump is the newest kid on the block. I feel like when complexity implodes, jason lake needs to get slump and maybe, sadly, raid wildcard for JBa

I feel like NA CS can somehow turn into a sequel to CIS scene. reason why CIS is so cracked INDIVIDUALLY right now is because some of those kids attended lans since they were 8. There still is a lan culture in russia and ukraine, w0nderful (major winner for navi) spent his free time after praccs in the beginning of his career farming lans in his hometown (he got banned from attending cuz he was too good). Launders lan, NA revival series, CCt are those events, just FFA to enter and wreck noobs

there is nothing stopping the orgs from changing regions bro :D Vitality can just sign a 3rd israeli on the team and Zywoo will farm Asian RMR

I feel like some TO will come into the American scene. PGL took international, Blast took Europe, I feel like there is just that juicy NA market left for the taking

and Shanghai has a huge chance to become that next step. Right now americas has 7 team slots, asia has 3, europe has 14. Given that europe will likely have shaky teams like falcons, virtus pro, astralis and NA+SA+asia has teams like liquid-m80-wildcard-9z-imperial-pain-mibr-mongolz-furia-complexity barging in, I am sure americas and asia have a chance to claim more slots

I mean spirit aren't at their best rn, but I am sad for wildcard, only a historical game stopped them from the biggest upset of round 1

except that it does exist, the org isn't locked to the region, the region changes depending on what players the team has.
3 or more players from the region = locked to that region FOR THAT time frame
2-2-1 split = the org chooses the region

This. A person outside of the game and in the game are two separate entities. Michael Jordan outside of the NBA is a petty bettor, on the court he is 6-0 in the finals. Ronaldo is an egoistic maniac, but on the football field he is one of the best to ever do it. You can get away being a prick if you are talented in something, but you cannot get away from underperforming despite being a nice person

I would, but it would require A) no war in Ukraine B) Higher Ua/Ru population in Valorant;(

Because being a nice funny guy doesn't bring you trophies. People are attracted to winners, those who aren't winning are immediately a target to hate.

Yikes, I like groups, they at least make the seeding worth something

His full name is quite telling :Eduardo Kenzo Nagahama Sato

Close enough, welcome Jetstream Sam

Part of the Japanese diaspora in Brazil

X has some weird metric for views, basically If it appeared on your feed, you are a viewer. Same reason why esports awards had 4 mil viewers or something

What even is the difference between coming 1st and 2nd within your own region?

Isn't Worlds right around the corner? I am sure that would explain the production being so bad

most orgs will still prefer to get the more experienced players

my guess is that most whose places the tier 2 takes :D
either that, mcdonalds or cs2

''many of these players moving up to T1 ''
what about people moving down?

I mean not all of them, you still have your heroic ( who needed new owners), astralis (who had like 3 years in a row in the red) etc. maybe this bullshit from na orgs might lead to a collapse in the ecosystem

maybe it has now lead to EMEA orgs being more financially stable?

I doubt snax and malbs costed a lot in buyouts (500k for malbs, idk for snax), c9 tho actaully somehow managed an almost profit for their ru lineup (cost around a million, sold sh1ro for 1.5mil, bought elec+perf for 2mil, sold elec for 1.5mil, so it's actually not a huge minus

are you not entertained?

ain't no fucking way, does that mean there is NO financially sustainable org in NA? That's bad...

Riot get their sales, players get their salaries and orgs just get a risky investment . Like i know most football clubs operate in the red as well and take loans, but those are clubs which run for decades, not some child game 'org''

I would say player salary is a huge L in terms of finances, just too high.

I would say FaZe is probably the richest, like they are owned by GameSquare, not some content creator group

I doubt esports is cooked, just overinflated. The only ones making profits are players and the game developer, Orgs need to jump out of their fucking pants to afford the best players.
IMO the best solution is a clear salary cap, kinda like what F1 does, limit the spending and punish anyone who goes over it

I mean I didn't see similar messages coming from EMEA orgs, so maybe someone just overinflated on expenses?

take a look at the North American teams
EG - had to cut costs on their Champs winning team
Sen - needed injections to stay alive
NRG - Chet took a pay cut to afford the buyouts
C9 - CEO admits to cutting costs
G2 - pretty stable but not a franchised team
100T - NadeShot had an hour long podcast on how much money 100T lost on esports
I wonder how these problems might affect the 2027 resigning

I mean it's not aspas level of liquidity, but I am sure there will be buyers

is there a public figure somewhere?

Tenz is one of those players where you just go for them if they are available

nice org choice by Riot I guess,
EG - almost dead
C9 - losing sponsorship
100T - has nadeshot having an hour long talk on how much money 100T lost
NRG - buyouts paid by coaches
SeN - needed cash injections
G2 - limited time slot

most of the bundles money isn't a profit no? More like sustaining the cash

probably G2 have the most cash, I guess NRG as well

m80 is NA's only hope

https://www.vlr.gg/402203/geniune-question
/closed