according to the latest estimate that I could find, it seems like it might be a bit higher (like half a million people) but that was from a year ago so idk what it’s like now

Update: I tried doing my own estimate using the same methodology and these were my results:

• Americas: ~3.95M
• EMEA: ~5.00M
• Pacific: ~4.35M
  Not sure how accurate this is (i.e. does it only include people who were ranked this act?) but it seems like Pacific is growing the fastest at the moment.

I always do better with the reaver, the RGX vandal just feels too heavy for me

The problem with that is that Chamber is just too universal. Killjoy only gets played on 3 maps right now and giving her a buff isn’t going to fix that unless they rework her abilities entirely. It might boost her pick rate on Icebox/Haven, but her and Cypher will still have a hard time replacing Chamber on maps like Bind and Fracture

If we consider results from all three events from this year, there are only nine teams that really have to be on the list. The top six are obvious: OPTC, FPX, LOUD, DRX, PRX, FNC. The exact order can be debated, especially for DRX v PRX, but if DRX win their next match I think they’ll solidify themselves in the top four. 7th-10th is more difficult, because I think the only teams that even qualify are LEV, TL, and XSET. No other team has made it to the playoffs at more than one LAN, so picking a 10th place team is difficult. I suppose you could just give it to ZETA for their Reykjavík run and for being in a group with OPTC and LOUD at Champions.

for the “buff another agent” part, i was thinking maybe they could make it so that you can dismiss as Reyna without getting a kill, but if you do then it’ll have a cooldown and you won’t be able to dismiss after a kill during that cooldown? it would allow her to OP safely like Jett/Chamber and hopefully increase her usage in pro play without making her overpowered

my mom is from São Paulo and she’s still alive so I think they’ll be ok

i’m pretty sure the ACS for that match only includes the rounds that were played before the replay, and vlr manually updated the kill/deaths later with the overtime rounds

i’m honestly not sure how else they’d do it with 30 teams. maybe 6 groups of 5 round-robin with the top two teams from each group advancing into a 12-team double elimination bracket? but then seeding is still weird

Because Upper Final has been played before Lower Round 3 at both Masters this year so they’re not going to change their schedule when most fans will be expecting this order anyway

specifically February 14 - March 5 according to the calendar for those might want to know

cool that they used the French/Mexican/Filipino agents to represent each region, but imagine if players could actually only use agents from their region lol

Americas would have Brimstone, Viper, Reyna, Raze
EMEA would have Fade, Chamber, Astra, Breach, Phoenix, Sova, Cypher, Killjoy
Pacific would have Sage, Jett, Skye, Yoru, Neon
Kay/O and Omen would be ambiguous

NA v EU has happened 6 times: 100T v FNC, XSET v FPX, 100T v FNC again, OPTC v TL, XSET v FNC, XSET v FPX again. The score should be NA won 4 and EU won 2.

Also the top four team at Reykjavík earlier this year (OPTC, LOUD, ZETA, PRX) were also from different regions.

the only correct decision for XSET is to accept the replay for the org but go for knife fights at mid until someone wins, then if FPX shoots they become the bad guys

literally all they had to do was come out of this with their heads held high and maybe gloat about the fact that they won a second time but instead they’re all (except for Shao) being incredibly disrespectful toward XSET and about the situation in general

Shao is the only likeable player on FPX, change my mind

SUYGETSU was told that he can’t do that anymore so clearly riot noticed it and reviewed it

this is unreadable on my phone

are we defining rookie by age or just someone who didn’t go to a LAN last year?

? it was a 6-6 first half last time, then XSET won 7/8 rounds on defense so calm down

i think they just play differently, the way Derke takes fights reminds me a lot more of dicey. I prefer yay’s style so i’ll say yay > Derke > dicey

English scientists don’t exist

to be fair, it has been played 13 times at this event and only went to overtime in the three games that DRX played

twice

you win

1st time: 16-14 FURIA
2nd time: 19-17 FPX
3rd time: ?

It’s always OT

FNC has only won 2/8 times on Ascent/Fracture at LAN this year copium

DRX’s final match in Reykjavík 2022 also started with a close loss on Icebox followed by a win on Ascent so idk

this narrative for this game is gonna be crazy. we either get a DRX redemption arc or the most consistent performance ever (winning the first three matches and losing the next two at all three LANs this year)

it’s also necessary for XSET to lose that game so the 4th place curse narrative continues

I noticed that NA and EMEA currently have an even match record so I decided to break it down by event:

Reykjavík 2021: NA 3-1 EMEA
Berlin 2021: NA 3-2 EMEA
Champions 2021: NA 0-4 EMEA
Reykjavík 2022: NA 0-0 EMEA
Copenhagen 2022: NA 0-2 EMEA
Champions 2022: NA 4-1 EMEA

Total: NA 10-10 EMEA (if you wanted to use maps as a tiebreaker it would be NA 24-29 EMEA)

XSET “playing bad the next year” is almost guaranteed since they have a very low chance of making it into franchising and their roster will likely split up as cryo/zekken move to the teams that do make it

yay has gotten at least one kill in 123/189 (65.1%) rounds and multiple kills in 49 of those rounds. For comparison, I’ve listed the primary Jett/Chamber player for the other remaining teams:

Cryocells: 86/147 (58.5%) and 35
BuZz: 83/157 (52.9%) and 41
Derke: 131/251 (52.2%) and 62
ardiis: 125/240 (52.1%) and 48
aspas: 93/189 (49.2%) and 39

Interesting Observations:

• If BuZz gets an initial kill, there is a 49.4% chance that he will get a second kill, which is absurd
• yay has, by far, the highest percentage of rounds with a kill
• aspas is the only player on this list below 50%
• ardiis has the lowest percentage of multi-kills, given that he gets an initial kill, at 38.4%

it’ll be DRX/LOUD v FNC, so no early rematches

and all three maps that they lost were on Breeze

foxz currently has a higher ACS on Phoenix than ScreaM does

this psychopath has correctly predicted the winner of 23/24 matches so far (only missing LEV v PRX): https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/03db3396

we can only have one EMEA team in the top 3, much better diversity than 2021 Champs

it took me 8 rounds to remember that he’s in this game, i legitimately didn’t notice him do a single thing

these first two maps are basically meaningless. OpTic is known to be a strong Bind team and a weak Breeze team, and the opposite is true for TL. it just feels like these are warm up maps for the true battle

the chance of “sentinels playing either Envy or 100T” and “100T playing against one of them” is 2/3, not 1/2, because they had to play somebody from a different group

XERXIA deserves to be here

i mean we could still have 3 NA or 3 EMEA teams in the top four even with this bracket so it doesn’t help Riot much

Ranked by FKPR - FDPR.

Best:

1. yay (26-7)
2. ZmjjKK (25-10)
3. kiNgg (24-12)
4. dgzin (24-11)
5. ardiis (18-7)

Worst:

1. Mazin (4-21)
2. Life (4-10)
3. Surf (12-24)

if you go to the Agents tab here it shows the attack/defense win% for each map

it’s been pretty even so far in this tournament, 53% attack over four maps

I added an explanation of what I saw, but my initial theory was definitely wrong.

Basically, I noticed that for Group A my incorrect prediction (Paper Rex) was listed as the Qualified team, but in Group B and Group D where I predicted LOUD and 100 Thieves, it still listed the actual winners (OpTic and DRX) as the Qualified teams. I thought that I knew why it happened, but after looking at other pick’ems I realized that it must be more complicated than I initially thought.

“After the Group Stage, a random draw will seed the Knockout Stage. The four teams who will have advanced out of their group in 1st place will be randomly assigned a yet-to-be-determined 2nd place team from a different group.”

There is no way to know who LEV will play, it can be any of three options. I’m assuming that the drawing will happen during the one day break on September 6th, right before the decider matches.

Champs 2021 was their only actual bad performance, at every other event they’ve only lost to the 1st or 3rd place team (GMB in Berlin, OPTC/ZETA in Reykjavik, OPTC/FPX in Copenhagen)

yeah idk why 100T would feel more confident in Breeze than in their Icebox or Bind given DRX’s history

number of rounds played