he removed the Sentinels stuff from his twitter but it sounds like he’s open to playing with them again if they want him

IGLs that have led their team(s) to LAN:

• ShahZaM (SEN)
• vanity (V1 and C9)
• steel (100T)
• FNS (NV/OPTC)
• valyn (TGRD)
• dephh/AYRIN (XSET)
• stellar (100T)

Not sure if steel is actually staying with T1 or if that’s just a meme, but anyway do you think anyone outside of this list has a chance to IGL for a partnered team?

if we’re being technical, the head-to-heads are currently:

• TenZ 40-56 yay
• yay 8-7 cNed
• yay 55-70 Cryocells

i would be shocked if TenZ ends up anywhere other than SEN/100T

there was another thread talking about possibly having a six player requirement for each team? idk if it’s reliable

yeah i meant it more like “they probably won’t get rid of ShahZaM but I can still see them performing well with him on the team”

I half-agree. I think ShahZaM is good enough that he could be kept around (but I wouldn’t complain if they wanted to look at other options), but Rawkus is more of a problem and getting a better coach would have a much bigger effect than replacing ShahZaM… also dapr seems like a W to me behind the scenes

To the first point, would you prefer for them to just announce the teams in the middle of competition? That would cause a lot more problems than announcing it after Champs. At least now everyone has some time to work things out behind the scenes without worrying about competing.

FNC and TL already have Derke and Jamppi so I think they’re less likely to pay a large amount of money for a better (but not massively better) player on that role. If an EMEA team picks him up, it’ll probably be one of the newer or less successful teams

then they get a sixth player and swap between TenZ and yay depending on the map just so no one else can have yay

well most of the year will still consist of inter-league competition to see who qualifies for Masters/Champions so there will definitely be a lot of rivalry

if CIS have the talent, those Spanish and French orgs will sign CIS players anyway so it doesn’t really matter

he’s been streaming pretty much every other day this month so it looks like his mental health break is over at least, if he wants to play competitively i’m sure he’ll get a spot

i think they might also pick up zekken once XSET give up on getting picked up as a full roster

Sources close to my aneurysm are reporting that one of the partnered NA teams will field a roster consisting of TenZ, Sayaplayer, yay, Cryocells, and leaf. The identity of this org will become clear as my sleep-deprived hallucinations come to an end.

Citizenship is not sufficient according to previous VCT rules, unless they’re making an exception for this off-season. xeta might still count if he was playing as an import during the entire time that he was on C9, but ban should not count.

Specifically, the rule I am referring to stated that you may only represent one region at a time, and must wait one year after moving to a new region before you can represent that region.

The Kickoff Tournament is in 146 days, no one should assume that any of the rosters will be the same

Are FUT and BBL not considered Middle Eastern? genuinely asking

LOUD, DRX, PRX, FNC? That’s already four, I guess the top ten is debatable but these are definitely in there so it’s less than 7/10

https://twitter.com/ValorantEsports/status/1572586459441381376?s=20&t=NCkv7ljbj5VBjKLUHRh_7g

When you’ve won LoL Worlds three times I think you can screw up as much as you want and you’ll still be favored

1. Is your org financially stable and does it make good decisions for long-term growth?
2. Have you proven yourself to be successful in Valorant or other esports (i.e., do you have the proper amount of management and investment to be competitive)?
3. Are there are any benefits and/or risks that come with your brand and its sponsors?

There’s probably more but these are the obvious ones.

trent and maybe Sayaplayer, not sure if there’s room for the rest

I just realized that TenZ and Cryo have never played each other in an official match. With Cryo joining XSET at the end of 2021, and SEN having mediocre/poor performances throughout 2022, we’ve only been able to witness yay vs Cryo (and Cryo is winning that head-to-head 70-55 after 16 maps). Hopefully it happens in 2023 because I am interested in seeing who comes out on top.

In 2013, LoL only had five leagues. It now has twelve, so maybe Riot has the same plan with Valorant and will eventually expand the number of leagues as necessary?

Some other stats I discovered while creating the KPR ranking (only players with 300+ rounds are included):

• The top five players by FK/FD are yay, Cryocells, ardiis, cNed, and TenZ.
• The top five players by K/D are yay, Chronicle, TenZ, Cryocells, and nAts.
• The top five players by Deaths/Round are Jinggg, Asuna, f0rsakeN, zekken, and keznit.
• The top five players by Assists/Round are MaKo, Shyy, saadhak, Shao, and doma.

I filled out the top ten, you can see a few differences towards the bottom (ardiis, Patiphan, and nAts were absent from the other ranking), but yeah the rest is just bumping Derke down two spots, bumping cNed up one spot, and bumping Jinggg up two spots.

Saw some people on this thread saying that the ranking should have used Kills/Round instead of Kills/Map, so I made that version. The criteria for this list was at least 300 rounds played at Masters/Champions.

1. TenZ (0.913)
2. yay (0.903)
3. Derke (0.883)
4. cNed (0.877)
5. Cryocells (0.876)
6. Jinggg (0.850)
7. ScreaM (0.840)
8. ardiis (0.828)
9. Patiphan (0.822)
10. nAts (0.819)

Also, here's the worst players from this ranking because why not (still requires at least 300 rounds):

1. crow (0.548)
2. FNS (0.550)
3. ANGE1 (0.566)
4. zombs (0.569)
5. Kiles (0.583)
6. AYRIN (0.584)
7. delz1k (0.586)
8. BONECOLD (0.587)
9. dephh (0.594)
10. Benkai (0.600)

Players with more than one Ace at Masters/Champions:

• crashies - 5
• keznit, Jamppi - 4
• Marved, yay, Victor, Derke - 3
• ardiis, Sayf, Laz, aspas, Jinggg, SugarZ3ro, leaf, TenZ - 2

EDIT: As of now, the data I used does not include rounds where a player got six kills, so certain players might be undervalued.

The drop from 3rd to 4th place is crazy, it’s the same as the drop from 4th to 10th

i’m just basing this off of twitter rumors, obviously I can’t say for sure that any of these teams are actually in which is why I added the “(allegedly)”

Let’s take a look at orgs from NA LoL, who compete in the LCS. Four of them have been to an international event in 2021-2022: C9, 100T, TL, and EG. All four of these orgs have (allegedly) secured a partnership with Riot in 2023. Why? These orgs all have the advantage of a) having a previous relationship with Riot, and b) demonstrating that they can be successful and stable in that system.

In my mind, 100T and EG were always the favorites to obtain a partnership from NA, but instead I am seeing a lot of people who are upset by EG getting in over OPTC/TGRD/FaZe/TSM when it really feels like NRG should be the more surprising pick here (and yes I understand that NRG is likely a safer choice for Riot over OPTC/FaZe/TSM due to finances and perceived stability).

I just want people to understand that, although EG has not found much success in Valorant so far, their selection should not come as surprise based on their history as a company and their relationship with Riot.

TSM has also had some recent controversies that might reflect too poorly on them, like when Leena Xu left to work for OfflineTV and later joined Sentinels.

TenZ SicK zekken zander trent

that’s the second highest, the record is held by NaturE (49 kills) in this match against TSM: https://www.vlr.gg/29251/gen-g-vs-tsm-champions-tour-north-america-stage-3-challengers-2-ubqf/?game=46603&tab=overview

name one big African esports organization

I think three teams is reasonable at least. Gen.G and DWG are huge and would definitely boost viewership in the region if they become successful.

rest for nine weeks, then watch Brazil win again in the World Cup

yay, kiNgg, stax, pancada, SUYGETSU

After the Grand Final, OpTic/Envy will have played 80-82 maps on LAN. The closest team to that is DRX/VS with 59 maps played, and OpTic haven’t made a single roster change in that time.

58 maps in a row on Chamber btw, truly a miracle

i mean it’s certainly possible. if you look at the previous two DRX v OPTC matches, OPTC won on Bind/Breeze/Split/Icebox and DRX won on Ascent/Fracture. Bind and Breeze have already been played, Fracture and Ascent are next, so history tells us that this could theoretically go to Haven.

to be fair, that’s only a sample size of three events so saying “only 1/3 won through the upper bracket” isn’t super significant

If DRX were willing to play Pearl, I think they’d have banned Fracture against FPX today. They’ve seen FPX play Pearl twice and had a two-day break so my guess is they continue to ban it and take their chances on Bind (where they only lost 11-13 to OpTic in their last match)

From 2-9 to 13-9 let’s goooo, honestly I’m so glad that FPX are out because I like the remaining three teams so I don’t have to stress about who wins now

maybe this list was made by Yinsu’s alt account

the title makes it sound like you’re taking about the player FNS joining FPX

they won that map with 9/24 first kills damn

This is the 4th time that OpTic/Envy have qualified for playoffs through the group stage, won their first two matches, then lost the third match… getting too predictable smh

I don’t see how FPX could beat them in the Grand Final (if they even make it that far). OpTic would be able to ban Icebox and Fracture, and they’ve looked better on Pearl, Haven, and Bind. That just leaves Breeze (where both teams are pretty bad but OpTic has gotten more rounds in their losses) and Ascent, the one map I think FPX would actually be favored to win.

For reference, in their last match FPX won on Split, Icebox, and Fracture while OpTic won on Bind. None of the maps were close.