You know pools and groups aren’t the same thing, right?

True, but you could assign seeds 1-4 for each group

examples:

Pool A:
Master's 3 Winner - 1
EMEA 1 - 2
EMEA 2 - 3
EMEA LCQ - 4

Pool B:
NA 1 - 1
KR 1 - 2
NA 2 - 3
NA LCQ - 4

Groups would then only have one of each seed
Pools make it so we don't get something like NA vs NA and seeds make it so we don't get something like Master's 3 Winner vs NA 1

Personally, I'd rather see Riot do pools like this since it makes sure we get actual international play (unlike putting SMB and ACE in the same group)

Pool A:
Master’s 3 Winner
EMEA 1
EMEA 2
EMEA LCQ

Pool B:
NA 1
KR 1
NA 2
NA LCQ

Pool C:
BR 1
LATAM 1
BR 2
SA LCQ

Pool D:
SEA 1
JP 1
SEA 2
APAC LCQ

made the template with C9 before the match even ended ;)

Now that the NA LCQ is over, we can finally make a tierlist with all 16 teams:
https://tiermaker.com/create/valorant-champions-1228666

Btw, you can either upload with lightshot/imgur or log in to save your tierlist

Really excited to see C9’s “best” map finally get played
#C9WIN

If Cned gets suspended before Champions, ACE legitimately might not make it out of groups

It's not fun watching my favorite teams play against 100T
They're too good at comebacks

Full Sense are from Thailand, not OCE

son of steel, IQ of over 9000

wtf was that round, lmao

Are GL even considered T1 in BR anymore?

xeta played really well though?

bruh

they haven't even closed out map 1 yet bro...

C9 literally just gotta shut down Asuna and they win the round

Easier said than done though...

C9 have a good map pool, wdym

Split ✅
Breeze ✅
Bind ✅ (after the XSET match)
Ascent ✅
Haven ✅
Icebox ✅

The losing team also tends to get a buff as well since you tend to learn more from losses

He’s not comparing how good / similar the actual teams are

He’s drawing a connection between the fact that both are consistently good teams but never really achieve much

BcJ has better ults but Xeta has better darts imo

LFG #C9WIN

People were giving him too much shit for one bad match

DK will 3-0 whoever comes out of the other side of the bracket

Poised

Gtn

Ez for Xeta

If Guild +draken one more time, they will be the best team in the world
Europe isn’t ready Bonkar’s 9000 IQ and a 3rd draken buff

Yesss, and give us gunbuddies for the attending teams

Yes, but it's Riot, so we probably aren't going to get that

Am I tripping or is FaZe benching one of their best players?

Definitely thought Rawkus or ZackarEEE would be on the cutting board next

I genuinely think VS would 26-0 SQ

LG during stage 1 were one of my favorite teams to watch

They had the crispiest aim and were one of the first NA teams to contend with the big 4 at the time (SEN, 100T, TSM, NV)
The bo5 series against SEN was also amazing

o7

I can respect someone supporting their team no matter how good they currently are

It's not looking good my friend (ಥ﹏ಥ)

That was anticlimactic

Let’s go C9

Praying it's C9 but I wouldn't mind 100T going to Champions either

I think FaZe having a run like they did in Stage 1 would be entertaining too

xzi looks insane, like already on the same level as the rest of the VS roster
If Ghibli or Talon enter the scene, he'd be a great start

Wonder if he will choose to leave the OW scene permanently though

T1 vs DWG will be better than the actual finals

Giving LATAM+BR 4 slots while KR+JP+CN 3 is kind of brutal imo

JP - brings in a crazy amount of viewership
KR - has a top 5 team and the rest of the region is about on par with SEA
CN - it's Riot, they will definitely make sure the game succeeds in CN because of the potential market

On the other hand:
BR - has gotten 5-6th and 9-12th place at best and has okay viewership (not as good as JP's though due to CS still being popular)
LATAM - underrated region, but don't really have insane (top 5) teams or high viewership (kind of like a worse CIS/KR region)

In the future, when Valorant has potentially died down in Asia, I could see this happening, but atm, I strongly disagree with giving BR+LATAM more slots than APAC North

APAC North has overperformed internationally in 2021 while BR hasn't accomplished much

Otherwise, I agree with most of your slot allocations

Not a coach, but I think IMT should look for an IGL that isn’t playing on 200 ping

wtf Boostio

Why did Estral Esports disband?

Looking back, they seemed like a really good team that could have definitely made it to LAN

Online Nerf: FaZe, LG, C9, 100T, V1
Online Buff: Gen.G, XSET

No clue where Rise is because I'm not sure if Riot would allow Shanks to play shirtless

Who you got winning the C9 vs Gen.G match?

Not official, but I would guess:

Oderus: Killjoy/Cypher/Viper
Wippie: Astra/Omen/Viper
Zellsis: Skye/Phoenix/Reyna
Penny: Jett
Effys: Sova/Sage

Best: I need Girlfriend
Worst: Built By Gamers

Underrated player is Karra from VersionX

Check her stats in the past five games

Doing Vision Strikers dirty I see :(

Edit: also where tf is Liquid

idk about other people, but I grew up learning that it's rude to make eye contact with elders/people with authority

This is coming from someone who grew up Asia and currently lives in the U.S., so maybe stuff has changed since than ¯_(ツ)_/¯

true, but I came here to see controversial takes >:(