well the proposed bill is a response to being cut out ("The legislation is likely designed to help the Russian government to facilitate esports and circumvent international sanctions due to its ongoing war with Ukraine")

Sorta a "fuck you ip holders, we have our own copyright!"

Nah theres too much competition still.
After OGLU I was expecting him to be the next big thing (since OGLU improved SO much after they added more coaching staff in such a short time) so I hope he can live up to the expectation I had back then

But who knows, maybe after this year he'll be the new MrFaliN for emea, slowly replacing the old generation

gotta live up to his role as an igl
learned from the best

Well its different to Saudi since its more focused on its own citizens but its still deeply political unfortunately
Theyve been unhappy with the restrictions on esports for a while now (since it turns out people like sports and giving your citizens something they like makes them happy - which is a great tool for a government) - sports being political is nothing new and it really should stop anyone from enjoying the event but Putin knows exactly what hes doing and why theyre hosting the event xD

I dont think it ever made it to vlr: "Russian Lawmakers Propose Cutting Out Esports IP Holders" was a headline at the end of last year https://esportsadvocate.net/2023/11/russian-lawmakers-esports/ which was "rumored" to be linked to the Future Games
So yea look like its gonna be fun for people inside the country. Just keep in mind that big government funded sports events like this dont happen just because they like watching video games and regardless who host them, theyll always have an ulterior motive

He had suck. It was his teammate that shouldnt have swung during the suck and just waited to secure the round
Just bad communication and unfortunate that magnum lost the fight without getting a kill

1 team region internationally, but not in Pacific lmao
they had the very similar results last year
so yes while ofc they grinded its not like we're seeing anything new here in terms of how korea stacks up in pacific and people just forgot

Purely off wins cause I cba to actually do complex spreadsheet shit right now and add h2h, maps etc (so 4 wins = 4 wins even if the 2nd team beat the first... doesnt matter till the last week anyways when not all teams have played each other)
Drx always tied for first/straight up first
GenG was in the top 4/tied for top 4 till the last week (week 9), although from week 6 onward they were tied for 4th with Zeta (so placed 4-5). They also returned top 4 right away with their playoff performance
And t1 was top 4 till week 3 and then top 4 from week 6 onward (2-5 in week 6 and 2-3 till the last week where they drop to 3rd behind prx)

there is no way to make a 3 team bracket that doesnt have this situation
(have winner play game 2 -> they win -> qualified and 3rd game doesnt matter at all
have loser play game 2 -> they win -> current situation = have winner play game 2 -> they lose)

there are no pretty 3 team brackets unfortunately

ok but a subway surfers clone for tech pauses sounds effective af
Riot gotta invest

You just cant read the drama that happens in EMEA because it tends to be in the native language

For example Dach has way too much drama (at least we're leading in one department) but unless you speak german and follow a lot of the pros on twitter youll never find out since it doesnt spread to sites like vlr

the best part of this game was when Borkum said: "ITS BORKUM TIME" and borkumed all over the place.

Really fun map 3 despite double pistol, ggs to both teams

Lots of aggression by fut (TH won a lot of rounds by just stacking up, and fut just kept running into the 4-5 stack with 2 people)
The Boos happened
Fut lost a looooot of 3v3s, 2v2s and didnt get any clutches (only 2 1v1s vs the 4 TH got)

Both teams had a good chunk of new strats too so it had quite a few moments where people just got caught off guard

I love the fact that a post denying the existence of 2022 as a whole is actually baiting people

what a debut from KC
magnum is unreal and im glad him IGL'ing is working out

TH vs Fut was fun af and (despite being very fast paced for most of it) interesting strat wise
Split was good on KC vs GX, I didnt like map 2 and map 3 is just a stomp

oh yea, thats just the engh effect tbh
KC is way higher risk too since Magnum is new to being igl (though I trust that the t2 boys can get another upset)

Ngl my boo stocks are back to the OGLU levels
Boo is the future confirmed

It depends what kind of hate you mean
Rated as a bottom 3? Cores performance last year + offseason performance - I dont think its unreasonable to not expect Boo to outaim cned suddenly

Hated as in that they picked up the wrong new youngsters? Just people who dont watch t2

cant deny the facts

from the EMEA promotional video that released today it looks like BBL were struggling too
(every team has a proper filmed segment in the Arena and bbl just has a joke at the end that they finally got their visa)

c9 mibr are going to be knocked out after 2-3 games too if they play bad
increase the number of good games you also increase the number of bad games

just watch all regions and theres more than "good" valorant

only 2 teams will make it anyways
so if youre not top 2 in your group it doesnt matter, cause then youre not top 2 in the tournament

You remember who our biggest caster duo is right?

We dodged a bullet there that it wasnt the german
Just another day in the office for Ominous the indomie drama was gold though

Jolteon (Volt switch go brrrr - tf are ground types)
Slowking-Galar (regenerator is a thing)
Furret (WALK)

also to provide some additional info to the above answers: if you have dual nationality you can choose what region you represent UNTIL you play a single match in t1 - then you are locked into that region (after franchising was introduced) -> russ only played in t2 since franchising was a thing so he can choose

dont jinx them, they started 4-0 last year too (+ amazing game vs Loud at lock-in)

the m3c comp showcased what he was good for perfectly imo

g2 had just "invented" a triple sentinel comp on icebox that relied on taking A site and then just making it impossible to retake via util - a lot of teams at the time would just give up A so it worked super well
m3c showed off how great brim is at holding A site thanks to the borderline infinite smokes (and theres no real defaults on Icebox to just force them to waste the smokes like on other maps)

it didnt really catch on in the end since FPX proved right away that you can hold sites without needing a specific agent for it, but its definitely interesting
(Also similar to current g2 they played sageless which is always a bit rough on icebox)
I just dont know if its worth all the util youre giving up vs other agents when retakes are pretty successful against most meta comps and it makes attack so much harder

ex nip, guild, tundra, finest, and currently oxygen bonkar does coaching - he has an incredibly good record when it comes to youngsters so if youre serious this might be the best option out there mfy.gg/@bonkar
he's sadly not cheap anymore now that he works fulltime as a coach (his session were like 20$ an hour while he was FA on bonk iirc)

play-ins is a mini 3 team groups stage (so everyone plays everyone) from my understanding

I have mixed feeling atm
Zeta is fine, like its really not bad, however I feel like they struggle to understand the strengths and weaknesses of GEs comps

Every one of their players has proved that they know how to click heads during the match though so Im not too worried yet

stop kink shaming

appreciate them waiting for me to get home from uni befor finishing map 1
would have been a shame to miss the OT

ngl that round was one hell of a roller coaster

Yeeeee
at the same time if they get their shit together its not like this roster cant still make it, they have the players and the staff... just not like this

This was some of the worst valorant Ive seen in t2 for a while and I watch polaris
idk what is going on with fokus but this is just tragic for a roster as stacked as this

just know youre taking responsibility if they win this now

but they cant be void since otherwise the extra competition of champs is also void xD all champs does is move part of the qualifier into the tournament. Its still the same 4-5th place teams that get added into the tournament that didnt make it to masters.
All teams that made it to masters had to prove that they were better than those teams already

The only reason it leads to upsets is because not all regions are equally competitive when it comes to their non top teams (see in the past c9 and liquid making it out of groups, knocking out Pacific/Americas teams, despite being lcq), but thats becoming less and less of an issue as time goes on luckily

But masters also have better qualifiers, whats the difference between Fnatic having to play EMEAs 4th place vs Apacs 4th if we're assuming all teams are equal

its why it makes it so hard since they have different qualifying forms that filter teams differently so its not a 1 to 1 comparison

the main reason I prefer champs despite having the worse qualifier is because teams dont get placed into top 8 instantly (and then you dont have a loud situation from masters this year)

I was gonna experiment % steps for the reward of points (so everything except for 1st place is worth more in Champs without having to decide an arbitrary number, but also not punishing the winner of the tournament) but Ill test that in 2 weeks once im done with my exams ironically procrastinating maths by thinking about maths instead xD

Cores: ah ok so overlap would be allowed; yea that would have been how I would have done it for best "cores" too and is nice and intuitive

With the tied I was more referring to how tournaments that have tied slots lose some points since you dont take the middle value between 3 and 4 for a tied slot, but just eyeballing it I dont think it ends up mattering at all

Point distribution: Masters/Lockin placement being worth 1 less than a Champs placement is interesting; ill def think about that if I get around to making my own version in ~2 weeks
I think the core problem with the point distribution will always be if Champs is more competitive than Masters (different qualifier forms, lcq teams being at a huge disadvantage, etc.) so thats always gonna be an arguable aspect regardless how you do it

Thank ya for sharing your thoughts

Could you make an explanation of your methodology? Theres a lot of choices that seem arbitrary without getting insight into your decisions

Where do your weightings of champs, master and lock-in come from (how did you come to those number)
How did you decide how much 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc are worth comparatively? (What is the reason behind "devaluing" tied slots [tied 3-4: 120 points, while 3rd + 4th is worth 135])
I assume you split teams into years when their core changes - how do you determine what is the core for evolving teams like fnatic (basically how many players is a team allowed to change in what time frame to still count as the same core for your system)?
Also do you have any plans/ideas on how to deal with the issue brought up above about teams who go 0-2 but still ending up top 8 due to regional performances? (While this is currently international only. Obvious solution is adding regional preformances, but that'd require an entire rework)

I love the idea behind making a table to track teams/cores consistency over the years and can see myself wasting way too much time writing different formula for it already xD

well its more that he chose the right things to criticize in this case (things that the players/teams also thought were a problem) since they were already working on them behind the scenes
but yea, original post just chose the worst examples xD

I get the feeling barca might actually be bad at bind

I really disagree with getting lime off duelist
the core of kiles, wolfen and Lime is working absolutely amazing atm and all 3 are fragging on their respective roles

Lime is a duelist main whos currently the 3rd best duelist in the region (per rating and ACS) who can play jett, raze, yoru, neon, reyna, chamber and has won a vcl on duelist

vs Wolfen who just spend an entire year of people wishing for him to play a passive role since his playstyle didnt look good on duelist

Both of them look really good atm, idk why you would want to change that

its not uncommon for coaches to work with the roster for months before getting announced
or in some cases never getting announced since the long term "trial" failed

theyre not analyzing the game either dw lmao
theyre just someone who bet and lost money, being completely oblivious to the turkish scene, its strengths and its problems

watching the games to have fun is the only correct way, otherwise you end up like the person above, bitter, watching a stream that you dont understand and watching a game youre getting tilted at

no, clearly you meant that they should build a time machine and go traumatize themself (that way 4 days ago would have only been the second worst day of their life)

SNS have actually been impressive considering they just joined t2
the coordination and discipline is really good

If they keep this up theyll make top 4 for sure

He's not a bad pickup though so Id be more worried about how the team is gonna work rather than him as an individual
(heres his game against giants during the offseason https://www.vlr.gg/282839/giants-gaming-vs-ucam-tokiers-crossfire-cup-2023-finals-gf )

DFM just gonna slap CR's logo onto their player card and itll sell right away