Should be a DRX 2-0 unless Bazzi goes crazy

EMEA but it’s incredibly close
No more of this “EMEA challengers are harder than international events” after how G2 and Liquid to some extent played in Reykjavik, I think NA’s scene deserves just as much recognition and respect

https://escharts.com/tournaments/valorant/vct-2022-korea-stage-1-challengers
https://escharts.com/tournaments/valorant/vct-2022-philippines-stage-1-challengers

Korea has higher average and peak viewership than PH + you are only looking at the Korean Twitch stream, there is also an English Broadcast and YouTube stream

Apex is the only battle royale that I found enjoyable to watch, so I’d probably rank genres like: FPS, MOBA, Battle Royale (Apex), fighting games, and then whatever is left

Seoldam is genuinely a good player though? He put up numbers in the APAC LCQ, I don’t think he’s overrated

I know, but V1 payed a hefty price for him when they bought him from SoaR
I’m confident that they won’t be willing to transfer him to SEN for anything less than they bought him for

nt BENECIA, 8 hp away from the ace clutch :(

-It’s no longer early 2021, TenZ is not the most mechanically gifted player in the world
-Removing SicK will only make this team worse than it already is, he’s been one of their better players
-Adding Sinatraa won’t happen anytime soon, why do people keep saying this
-Zander won’t join Sentinels since his buyout will surely be six-figures, which they can’t afford, shown by how unwilling they were to buyout Rawkus from FaZe

And if you include Korea and Japan, Korea would be between SA/ID and PH, while Japan would obviously be on the top

I hope CNJ win, they’re a good up and coming team and their logo reminds me of Griffin

A large portion of APAC viewership is on YouTube

Loud and T1 are 100% getting franchise slots and I think Riot would choose a respectable org like NRG over FaZe in a heartbeat

I’m putting on the OG flair for this game, praying that the DRX match doesn’t overlap with this one

BR is genuinely the best example of a one team region at the moment in my opinion. Loud made it through their challengers without losing a single game and only dropping 2 maps in all, whereas teams like DRX, KRU, and OpTic at least lost a game or two to upcoming teams (ONS, Leviatan, Guard)
Loud are miles ahead of their own region, the skill gap is massive

It’s not going to be on LAN just like last time. Riot can’t even handle a 16 team LAN in Europe with millions of dollars of funding, yet alone a 24 team event in APAC with much less backing. Hopefully we’ll see more regional LANs when franchising happens next year, but i doubt even the LCQ tournaments will be on LAN this year

I would argue that jingg isn't even the best duelist on his own team, I mean just look at how f0rsaken plays Neon, Yoru, and Jett

They probably just want to invest before other orgs so they have more leverage over other LCK orgs when it comes to franchising
Wenty is an insanely good Chamber though so they could no doubt build a solid team around him for next year

I don’t watch many SA matches, but I’d like to see OG win since they’ve got a really unique roster

OG 2-1 FPG (Btw is FPG just ex-Team Exploit?)

Any news on whether or not KT Rolster are still interested in signing Tartarus?

s0m

Riot need to nerf the correct abilities of Chamber and stop neglecting Phoenix
Otherwise the meta is pretty good, at least way better than the post-plant Viper/Astra meta we had last year

If it has the word delusional in it, it’s a bad name

Wardell and Myth

T1 are pretty much guaranteed a slot in NA too though since they are owned by the same parent company that owns NSG and have deep ties to Riot through LCK
Doesn’t matter which region they play in, they’ll get partnered by Riot, and I’m guessing they are choosing to stay in NA for better viewership and sponsors

That’s good to hear :)
I’ve temporarily moved back to South Korea for the Summer to catchup with some family, ended up working out smoother than expected

I’m back, how’s it going man?

Sylvan or Munchkin are the best imports they could choose imo, with Sylvan being much better than pwny on smokes (he’s like a mini MaKo)

It’s sad that they aren’t moving to KR, but I guess this would be the 2nd best outcome

Woah, sucks that it's still 12 teams but at least we aren't in Berlin for the third time
Hopefully next year we can see some LANs in places like LA or Tokyo too

👋 Thought I was going to be gone for longer (2-3 months) but I got my internet working pretty fast :)

what the fuck is happening.

Aside from the racists/xenophobes, this site has been nice and I enjoyed my stay. With important tests coming up and DRX finally out of the tournament, I’m not going to be on vlr anymore, aside from maybe coming back for the new F4Q’s first match, but other than that, this’ll probably be one of my last posts for a while. It was nice interacting with you guys and I had a great time. I hope I was able to brighten at least one person's day. Specifically, thank you for the times:

Vortexy (cya bro)
BaDa
S0v4k
Asphyxia (yes I remembered you)
iKyoto
Mortadelo
redlight (keep up with the amazing reports dude)
hiyo
1ucid
PrTsty (if you still use vlr)
Tokyo777
SETSUZA
HackNaija (I respect how dedicated you are as a fan)
ZoldyK
kwe
jimjam789
Swan10_exe
Marty
Bo0mshell
MilanTheMyth
Shadowisbad
supernova (I hate your takes but I gotta respect the king)
Mca
QueueK
Ciro
Netero
Noyn (cool to see how far you’ve come, although you're prolly not gonna read this)
KoreanOverlord
archetype
trembolonarage (funniest user on this site ong)
beb0p

And anyone I missed <3

Anyways, good luck to the remaining Master’s teams and I hope everyone reading this leads a successful 2022. Later ( ´ ▽ `)ﾉ

MaKo, SugarZero, sScary, and Marved

T-T

Pain

I’d like to see them either keep Rb and work on the teams mental or get k1ng back, drop Rb, and put BuZz on full time Jett/Chamber

Agreed

GGs Zeta, now go win this tournament

It goes both ways and it’s not really an issue recently, I’d say the two are pretty friendly, at least in Valorant

You realize though that the hate boner comes from the crimes committed in WW2 though, right? The fact that their education system pretty much says “there is no war in Ba Sing Se” and that your average JP person has no idea what their previous generations did

Why are they still allowing Split, they should’ve gone for Bind instead

😔

Been broken since losing that round by 0.04 seconds

They should start with players from HM, 10X and Harry are both excellent pickups
Another good callout would be poaching players playing in JP, ie Suggest, Allow, HSK, Meteor, Foxy to name a few
Munchkin and Seoldam are both technically on the market, but I’m assuming they’ve already been signed by now (Seoldam for sure)

Happy anniversary :)

PRX gets countered by DRX
Zeta gets countered by DRX
DRX gets countered by OPTIC
OPTIC gets countered by PRX
G2 gets countered by LOUD
LOUD gets countered by PRX (they are just as confident and have similar aim)

The Neon pick on Split also threw DRX off quite a bit

On Icebox, DRX lost a crucial round by 0.04 seconds and from there OpTic did a good job at antistratting them and finding the opening in MaKo's site
For Split, Rb just couldn't hit a shot and had some questionable decision making with the awp while BuZz's site kept getting abused (he had very little impact on defense, I think he only had like 5 kills on ct side)

I'll find the room in my heart to cheer for Zeta if they win but I will also be in a state of depression :|

I'm using google translate, so there might be an error, but the phrase "Já anota aí que tem jogo da Loud domingo que vem!!!!" does come off a little cocky, although it's not a bad thing to be confident

I don't think that caster is giving OpTic enough credit, I think it's more like:
aspas =< yay
Saadhak = Victor
Sacy > Crashies
Pancada < Marved
Less >> FNS

But it was the best match of the tournament