Allow on Jett, Lakia on Skye, Estrella on Breach (I know you've malded once on this pick in particular)

I think DK is still stuck in late 2021 post-LCQ loss

They put Estrella on Breach. Again.

Esperanza and Estrella were super sus on that Bind...

Never was signed. Sylvan isn't in any team.

Well, that's rude.

Also, even in recent years, Riot has put smaller prize pools even for a well-established competitive ecosystem.

MSI's prize pool is only 250k USD. The Mid-Season Invitational, the only other international tournament in League's ecosystem that pitted each league's mid-season champions with each other (comparable to Masters.)

Riot prioritizes its internal incentives and incomes for their top-flight competition (viewership, the Partnership program, cosmetics, merchandise, etc.), while still giving an external prize pool to supplement an already streamlined economic flow. This is a once-in-a-lifetime tournament. I have no doubt that come Masters and Champions, the prize pool will be increased per process.

Team skins are coming, and if anything when it comes to income, it'll most likely follow some semblance of similarities to LoL. VCT is in its 2nd year, and there's still a 5-10 years' worth of timeframe to catch up to CSGO and R6's income (even though there's much more added pressure knowing it's Riot and their success with LoL)

Fellas, you do know the teams are also still receiving incentives and incomes from Riot as part of the partnership agreement, right? LOCK//IN is only a showcase tournament, of course it won't have some big prize pool.

Yes

Staple name, one of the orgs currently in LCK

Edit: if you're talking about Jeong Hi, ex-DK. Good player, very dynamic.

GGyul and hangul is the last two members, don't have VLR profiles.

Acquired. Shadow Corporation is an old name in terms of Korean talent agencies.

Same parent org. SPEAR is transferred over to OP.GG

So for the road to Ascension:

It really depends on the Challengers' region. Some Challengers (like LATAM, JP, and OCE) adopts a relegation system where the bottom performing teams will have to go through the qualifier process once again. Some Challengers don't have any relegation at all, so they're safe for both Splits.

There's no mid-season international tournaments for Challengers, only Ascension.

All I'm going to say is I'm not going to fully report based on unofficial records and other hearsay. The situation is tricky as it is, taking the decision to not fan the flame.

He has experience playing in Challengers and now he's shown that he's capable of competing with the rest of the pack. Not a joke.

https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/announcements/announcing-valorant-s-premier-alpha-test/ all you need to read here for now.

No, in game tournaments were never intended for Challengers. That beats the purpose of Challengers. Challengers is solely for Tier 2-high Tier 3 competition.

Premier acts as an gateway for amateur, semi-pro, possibly Tier 3 or below players to get a taste of what competition Tier 1 and Tier 2 might have, all wrapped up within Valorant's in-game client.

I wasn't aware that Premier was supposed to be launched in conjunction with Challengers qualifiers. Nowhere in the official Premier Alpha blog nor any other leaks that it was supposed to be launched around right now.

AFAIK, it's still in Alpha post Brazil-test and it's nowhere near finished.

Yeah my bad, I went a bit aggressive there. Sorry. But yeah, basically what Leo said is what's being translated into LOCK//IN

the format could've been 2 16 team groups bo1s(simulcast the group stage because people are only gonna watch the teams they like.

This is the exact reason they're making every match available on a centralized broadcast. They don't want to take away any potential viewership and exposure from the lesser matches/teams. They rather have a consistent, continuous viewership that even if it fluctuated, it won't hypothetically having that much gap compared to a simulcast.

They want every team and match to have equal amount of opportunity to gain as much viewership in certain context and times.

check #8

I didn't say that they're hiding that they're prioritizing the fanfare and broadcast/viewership while trying to find a compromise and middle ground over the competition, did I?

Check my previous/other comments. I made it clear that I'm well aware over their supposed priorities at this point.

I rather have RRQ doing their best and showcase their roster and competitiveness, even if they got slotted out, it entices some viewers to search/get more exposure about them

Continuous viewership is still viewership, even if it fluctuates.

The execution is quite underwhelmingly shit, I agree. But being able to broadcast every match is something that even dome shooters kind of struggle. It can lead to one stream having a higher percentage of viewers than the other, and lead to teams and matches having wild differences in average viewership.

Now I do believe this does plague Valorant, but with ensuring a centralized and continuous coverage of the event, it ensures at least someone will watch a team and the matches, and eliminate the hassle of switching streams just to catch every match.

Also it's clear it's also about new teams' exposure.

The one thing that does give it a bit of a question mark was giving the LOCK//IN winning region an extra slot at Masters.

Other than that, it was more or less apparent that this might not be a Masters-type event (paraphrasing the original announcement that LOCK//IN is a 'celebration of a new milestone for VCT')

Goddamn it's only 12 posts but yall fuckin extended it

Like a trailer that cuts too short and didn't show anything worth mentioning.

From what I've seen from people so far is the expectation that LOCK//IN would be like Masters at the very least (which honestly I'm not blaming them for.)

I'm not exactly shocked because the original wording to describe LOCK//IN was (paraphrasing) 'to celebrate a new milestone in VCT history' makes me think this isn't something like Masters.

Fair, yeah. Randomized bracket seeding would probably do that, even if there were stipulations to ensure the "ideal" circumstances.

I won't disagree that for now, this is the most hyped event in Valorant. However, the mantle can be easily dethroned with any future events that has the gravitas and competitiveness of LOCK//IN.

On one part, I believe that this is a glorified showmatch/tournament that somehow has the prize of giving the winning region an extra slot at Tokyo. On the other, it still serves as a great competitive showcase of how teams have evolved from last year towards a high-stakes, one-and-done event that have no room for error.

It's clear that they're trying to prioritize fan viewership and broadcast while trying to not compromise the integrity of the tournament.

Every match is broadcasted. That's not relatively an easy feat, especially for shooters. In CSGO, some teams often have fallen to low viewership just because there are multiple streams and people tend to gravitate towards the big names.

Will LOCK//IN avoid this issue entirely with every match being streamed? It depends, we'll probably see a fluctuation of viewership for each match, but every team will have the same amount of exposure on a central channel throughout the event.

Imo, growth can be seen later with the International League split starting later this year. I believe LOCK//IN is all about gouging and building interests with the 30 partnered team + 2 Chinese teams (that may or may not get their own league.)

It's hell on the players and management on the team, though.

China is separate, btw. They don't count as Pacific teams

That also caused by Riot giving full majority handling of SEA to Garena for the most part, only recently with Valorant that Riot was directly handling the region and Garena being released from their contract.

Actually they do win a slot. The winner of LOCK//IN gets their region an extra slot at Masters Tokyo.

Unknown since China is differentiated as a separate region.

Equal treatment equal opportunities everybody will be malding once their teams are out. COPE

Yes

Not confirmed. There's no confirmation.

You know, most people who had commentes on the thread were VLR regulars. None were 'new' or completely biased towards Jonas. We just don't like the asshole behaviour.

There's honesty, and there's being an asshole. Maybe he had an off-day. Maybe he went into the game on a bad streak. I'm not one to judge since I prefer to build my own opinion.

The criticisms? Fine, that's your opinion and I won't step on it. But your behaviour? Not worth debating.

....some of the things I've read on this website.

Whoops I uh, I wasn't mad, but it was a hint of sarcasm with my words.

Sorry

because instead of changing/altering names minor or major every so often he should stay with one to stop confusing us, thanks.

so did you bet or

so

Fair enough

I mean you're not off the hook for being toxic but damn like I'm not gonna do shit if you're just a troll or smth (or facing me in bad mood)

They'll have stream lol, like us it's on the later rounds. Take the L

Quick tip: @mods won't do much except probably me grumbling to reply if you're just this annoying lmao