Alles gut bei mir. Und bei dir? ;D
GG.

al0rante vs. national teams

xD

Every player needs to adapt to a new team. Everyone.

tex on Raze was directly more effective impactiwse. He def. needs to get used to the Sentinel role...

GG to my Turkish friends. <3

:D

Ahhh, this will be exciting.
I say... LEV 2-1 C9 - but it will be ultra tough.

What's up with azury and Leosen? Those 2 are usually always crazy good.
*Edit: Okay nothing said, Leosen def. got crazy again Split. But azury still had a bad day.

Russians are diff.

You can tell it's different to tex playing a lot of roaming and lurking now with Killjoy etc. as a Sentinel, instead of doing quick entrying and dashing in with Jett. But I'm 100% sure tex will get used to his role very quickly!

aspas + tex + kiNgg = one of the best trios in the world now!

aspas x tex
The best duo westside of the Atlantic ocean! :D

Would love to see the match with these rosters:

Germany
Duelist: Click
Initiator: musashi (IGL)
Sentinel: al0rante
Controller: B3ASTM0D3
Flex: tex

UK
Duelist: keiko
Initiator: soulcas
Sentinel: Lime
Controller: Boaster (IGL)
Flex: Mistic

That would be a crazy battle. But yeah... I guess UK should do this one with all that experience.

What a match. That Cloud9 team looks so damn promising - even without one of their best players, wippie. And yeah, OXY is an absolute beast. Also Leo showed again why he's the best player in the world with this performance after only 1 week of practice since Champions.

I think FNC def. had their problems with the playstyle of C9, but even without much practicing in the last time, their experience helped them to win it in the end.

What a nice idea.

Bro, Leo studied this game. When you see the statistics combined of him for the whole VCT year or even for 2020 - 2023 he's always on top... gigachad.

But I think C9 can become very dangerous, even without wippie. They have such a fresh way to play Valorant... super aggressive and still very methodical. Absolute killer team. Fnatic def. needs to take that one 100% serious.

I mean Filu as well... he already was the best player beside of al0rante in the DACH league and now both did the next step.

B1SK and purp0 are 100% Franchise ready.

C9 2-0 ZETA

I say this time C9 plays much more consequent.

I think now everyone can say FOKUS did actually a really, really good job against FUT.

What a great team. yetujey and cNed fit so well!

AlfaLeo strikes again.

Not scrimming (or not being able to do so) will be punished... you saw it with G2 yesterday, you saw it with one million other teams before and off-season tournaments get quite sweaty quite quickly. xD

Great match of Fennel. Dangerous team with funny dudes!

But still it's so crazy to see how especially Leo, Alfa and Derke are pulling off their stuff like it's breathing. Alfajer hitting shots that you shouldn't hit as human being... :D

GG to CASE. But I've actually never seen trexx and sheydos playing this below their usual abilities. I mean we saw it with some other teams now not giving 100% at an off-season tournament, but trexx and sheydos played like they didn't want to be there. xD Kamo played well and really tried to win, I kinda feel sorry for him.

True.

You can see aimwise etc. that GIA are def. on another level (especially Fit1nho, Cloud and hoody), but they play so "undisciplined" that it literally cost them the first map (I mean it's a OS tournament, so... no wonder somehow, but YKWIM). SAW is def. doing a great job.

And Redgar didn't forget how to peek corners you shouldn't peek. xD Liquid won't miss that behavior for sure. ;D

I like both teams, but dunno - I think with tex instead of leaf the whole chemistry would be better for now, since they won Ascension together. I mean I can understand that tex took the chance to play with aspas and kiNgg at LEV, but yeah... it's a bit of a shame that tex doesn't game for that one German Valorant org in the USA (G2).

Both teams have a lot of potential, but for now I see Sentinels with small advantage because of their experience.

Cloud9 wins this!

Elite = Alfajer 2.0?

Jesus, that dude is quick.

Both teams look very promising.

azury as well soon... only 19 years and will def. become a crazy player.

FOKUS def. got a chance. But def. too early to say which team
might win since it's still such a long time.

You can see that it's the experience that's missing on FOKUS side, since they all mostly played Tier 2 and 3. FUT is obviously still a step above them at the moment (simply more relaxed in dangerous situations... you can obviously see that when cNed, ATAKAPTAN and qRaxs are doing their stuff), but when FOKUS continues to work hard they actually have the chance to become a promising Tier 1 in the future.

I mean they manage to give a hard time to a VCT Champions Top 8 team here. I will def. follow what these dudes will show in the future.

al0rante and Fizzy again... <3

And amb., al0rantes aim is so damn good. It just makes fun to watch players like him.

LEV becoming extremely dangerous again. :)
and tex with his entries so good... I wouldn't expect that keznit has no chance against him.

What a match. When you consider that this FOKUS team is almost totally fresh, they made a very good job against a team that played at Champions and even made some big teams a hard time - and yes, of course FUT also has new players, but we still talking about a dif. level here.

al0rante and Fizzy were 100% gold transfers for FOKUS. They will def. be one of the top contenders for the next EMEA Ascension.

GG, Congrats to FUT.

Normally al0 is really good for a 25 bomb, but mostly on Killjoy or Cypher, when he is more roaming. But his aim is so damn on point... 56% Headshot rate is crazy.

al0rantes and Lewis aim... so crispy!

A German together with his Prussian broskis from Chile, an Argentinan and a Brazilian. Historically actually a very hot mix. :D

But for real... this is actually great. This team could become an monster. I still can't believe that I see aspas, kiNgg and tex in one team. So cool.

tex is a beast! He did crazy stuff for TGRD. So we have aspas, kiNgg and tex in one team now. This could be a very, very explosive roster. I'm super excited to see them play.

Imagine ardiis as Flex and cNed would stay as a pure Jett player. That would be insanely good. Shao could easily play as a IGL.

But yeah... sadly not the reality. :S

Since Valorant is a team game, pretty much every duelist is "nothing" without a good team. You need good Controllers and Initiators to be able to let the Duelist "off the leash".

So either he joins LEV as rumored, or he joins an Asian team
just like yay. He recently always spoke about learning Japanese and that he plays Valorant in Japanese since Tokyo... could be just out of interest and a hobby or maybe a hint on a new team.

But yeah... when the rumors are true and he and tex both joining LEV, that would be crazy.

Insane lineup! So awesome. I was actually hoping that they also sign xffero or invy, but it's great anyways.

I wouldn't go THAT far, but BLEED has a crazy lineup. Also Singaporean teams like BLEED have a strong economy. I bet they will perform very good in the future.

Oh man, didn't expect that. But contracts are contracts and I understand that he wants to make new experiences. I wonder who will become the new head coach - probably slk or Aanderz.

In the future I could imagine Boaster being an coach of Fnatic as well.

Thanks for everything, mini. Back 2 back major winners - 2023 was an INSANE year.

Damn, that's tough. Are the contracts of pANcada and Sacy still running for 2024? Since aspas is very close with both dudes (regarding Rod Breslau), he could either join Sentinels as well or join a new team with them. What is more likely? I mean TenZ showed he is able to player other agents than duelists (KAY/O f.e.) - but I don't know if that's actually the best solution.

Ultra excited to see what's happening with him. I saw on that one sheet, that kiNgg might leave LEV as well. A South-American super team would be a kinda sick idea... xD

Or (!) what about Paper Rex aspas? :D

I don't think it has something to do with pride, tbh. He was an NRG player before and since ardiis will probably leave NRG just like s0m and FNS, he could rejoin NRG.

Also I guess that at least one of the other ex-TGRD players will leave the team as well. They probably all got very, very good offers after TGRD got dissolved. I could imagine someone of them joining Sentinels.

Argh, I hoped SO MUCH for the TGRD boys staying together for VCT 2024. Damn.

So... since ardiis probably is going to leave NRG just like s0m and FNS, will tex then go back to NRG? Or is it not sure yet that ardiis will leave as well?

Deserved. What a journey... from not even being a contender to the regular league playoffs in April 2023 - to making it to Tokyo Masters with a great Americas playoffs in May - to making it to the Tokyo Masters grand finals and only losing there to Fnatic in June - to winning the Valorant Champions in the USA on homeground in August with a great revenge on Paper Rex after first losing them in the upper final.

I'm personally especially happy for Demon1 because of all the doubters and Ethan after he had so much bad luck at other teams.

What a insane story of a great team!

Good luck to both teams. Both absolutely deserve to play this grand final. It's going to be a beautiful Valorant battle... I'm quite sure about that.

My predictions were often kinda wrong during this tournament.
I say... 3-2 for EG.

At Champions right now even the best overall player. For the Duelist role in 2023, I'd say Derke and aspas performed a bit more constant over the last majors (Tokyo and São Paulo) and the regular season + local playoffs, but I think Demon1 could def. change that within the next months. When you look at how his stats changed for the whole year and then to the last 90 to 60 days, it's crazy.

What I find the most interesting is the difference between how a low-sense Jett player like Demon1 plays compared to a ultra high-sense Jett player like something.

GGs to LOUD. They played so well. I think as a Fnatic fan you should not be mad or anything... the team won two trophies this year and yes, they made mistakes at Champs and didn't continue their "100% concentration gaming" mood, but in the end they're humans. LOUD showed it in Tokyo, NRG and Fnatic showed it at Champs... no team can't always play at 100%.

I wish LOUD all the best... they have a great team, a great IGL and they proved any doubters wrong. I hope Fnatic and LOUD will have some nice matches in 2024 as well!

Boa sorte, LOUD.