Love the replacements
2 new high caliber rosters who we've never seen (properly in BBLs case) play

bo2 have the advantage of always being exactly 2 maps long (so great for the organizer who can then make a set schedule and sell a guaranteed amount of sponsor spots), with the disadvantage of draws being possible
bo3s have flexible map count (2 or 3) but there are no draws

so bo4 would have both disadvantages (variable map count 3 or 4, and the possibility to draw)

I dont think an industry as big as the football/soccer one really cares about morality anymore
gotta go print the investors money somehow - and fifa being.... interesting... is no secret either

the comparison on what country are committing what atrocities probably isnt suited for vlr so imma ignore that aspect

the big difference why its not seen as a problem is because to my knowledge we have no reason to believe the Chinese government is investing large sums into esports to try and sports-wash their image
theres a couple of reports of investment but theyre all focused on on operations within china rather than trying to make an impact globally (again to my knowledge, feel free to link me articles showing something else!)
however as sideshow mentioned near the start of the video should we have other countries also take such an offensive approach they'd have to be called out too
In my personal opinion paying attention to how countries interact with esports is a good idea anyways due to how powerful sports are for influencing ones population

france is a bit confusing in general this offseason
there were serious considerations of going back to 8 teams earlier in the offseason (looks like thats not happening) and as I linked above there seems to be new teams aiming to get into the leauge (who I highly doubt will get a slot assigned to them through normal means, since its a small org thats only played a single offseason tourney in val so far)

so in all honesty anythings possible till we get some more info

late edit since somehow this thread is still alive: https://liquipedia.net/valorant/VCL/2024/France/Split_1 seems to have gotten info on it being 8 teams (revision 5 days ago to change it from 10 to 8 teams)

well theres gonna be a qualifier for france afaik
https://twitter.com/TIMPPAZIVLR/status/1732777578954391704 are trying to qualify for example

but yea his project was also rumored to be in polaris (very) briefly and they also have a ton of unannounced rosters, so either of those regions seem reasonable

Its one of the bigger fumbles in the long run imo just because it will end up stifling growth in one of EMEAs most profitable regions, but from my understanding diversity in regions was not really a consideration.
And if you then just look at the fanbases in Valo all of the EMEA teams have a bigger following.
Its a shame but its not like it actually changes much - a german team wouldnt have been able to compete at international levels so BIG would have been a mixed roster with max 2 german players anyways and at that point its just as easy to cheer for any other team

omg youre right

pacific is the only exception

so did Fokus Fut and m8
its just a funny trend (mainly for emea, since cn has a sample size of 1)

In both EMEA (counting Promotion and VRL Finals) and now CN ascension the favorite has yet to win

clearly rigged format

The iso to decide if you make it into t1
we really challenging the odds today arent we RA

scrims have apparently been (really) rough for them... luckily they tend to not translate directly

id expect them to be a good chunk worse than liquid since I think that roster is an upgrade over Apeks (who were already consistently better than m8)
but they should beat the rookie teams early on since they're already a proven roster
I also rate their coach Ex6TenZ highly, so I think they'll adapt well into the weekly league play

-> Bottom half but no way they end up as the worst team

hard to say imo
last year was a lot better than results let on and they probably looked like one of best team during the off-season so far (sample size of exactly 3 maps so gg), just playing good standard valorant
on the other hand we also saw how easy it is to fall to mediocrity and I dont think its controversial to say that we dont know if Ardiis will actually be an upgrade over cned yet

id consider them to be like the EMEA NRG, where the players' 2022 performance is why people are really exited about the team (though at least nrg is an actually new team so the comparison doesnt translate THAT well)

remember you play all rounds in scrims
really really good but it isnt like a 35 in an official

bonus point: Russ dropped 37 during scrims so GE is finishing top 4 this season ;3

sorta?
Rn its definitely horrible for NA specifically since you had to condense a competitive region into so few slots
Just look at that lcq https://www.vlr.gg/event/1130/champions-tour-north-america-last-chance-qualifier/main-event right before franchising, all teams were at least somewhat competitive for the 3rd slot.
But as franchise continues the team slots do increase, so I don't actually see this being a problem in the long term
using the snapshot of NA t2 from last year only really TGD and M80 were really t1 ready, so the proper team count isnt too far off and this should get better over time
... that is as long as t2 stays healthy, and t1 can actually be the place for the established and proven talent - Americas t1 does not have space to develop talent outside of tier 2.

EMEA is in a bit of a different spot where you actually have the slots to make a team of 3 t2 players who youre gonna try and develop for future season (but luckily to balance things out we have our own t2 problems due to an (imo) absolute trash format)
And Pacific is just weird? Language just makes stuff hard for them. So while I think theres a ton of spots up for grabs for t2 talent, the pool of t2 talent to actually fill said slots is limited per team, thanks to not every team/player being comfortable with the same language. And for the fun of it they also have a (imo) bad t2 system.

GAL feel like such a weird team atm
player wise they look amazing: DESTRUCT1VEE is in contention for turkeys best smokes, ip0TT has been fragging out of his mind this tourney, both glovee and Jlerst are veteran t2 players who've always looked good and KROSTALY looked fine this tourney

but they just look kinda off when playing... its early days with a major overhaul of the roster so I do hope they figure stuff out by the time the regular season rolls around

https://twitter.com/fokusclangg/status/1734915320496664953
in german, but its just announcing that they'll return to DACH

Isnt that currently only a rumor?
Afaik the only one to report on it is ImMine and they have a tendency to report on speculation

he's quite literally scream 2.0
amazing individual talent that never really achieves anything despite often being called the best player itw
gets to build a team and fumbles the bag

igl arc when?

(though im pretty sure furia will be fine, they have enough fragging power, just a very off tourney imo)

thats assuming they dont have to replay any more rounds

insane orgs but the rosters are looking meh since talent is way more split
regular season is gonna be fun (though bo2s x.x) with a lot of competition but I dont think any of the rumored rosters are really top competitors for ascension
gonna come down to how cgn develop ig since they probably have the best roster

also fokus and SK have to go through qualifier, if either of them dont make it people are gonna riot xD

Vlr showing sunset as a 1 hour 50 game despite being only 18 rounds is just funny af

yea im a tad surprised, I thought he'd just say screw it and int eventually xD
he still takes a crap ton of fights so its not like hes a passive sentinel, but its a balanced playstyle atm

I actually think its a good change
meteor has insane skill but was honestly... quite... meh last year since he couldnt stop overheating
I feel like having him play the aggressive sentinel like alfa, even if it doesnt end up being permanent, could help

them finding what looks to be an actual competent TO is a miracle and im so in for it
its a shame so many orgs already pulled out due to the uncertainty surrounding polaris but I hope they'll be able to rebuild it

looking forward to watching 'em next year

now I wanna know the lockdown numbers, those must have been something else then

Id assume games like this one https://www.vlr.gg/281031/cloud9-vs-furia-superdome-2023-colombia-lbf
and then the GF vs lev was actually decent https://www.vlr.gg/281029/leviat-n-vs-furia-superdome-2023-colombia-gf
offseason so 0 guarantee theyll end up doing well in the more structured and strat heavy regular season, but they have a really good core this year with a ton of firepower

id expect them to keep the form
their player quality is just SO high, which is why them flopping last year was so a disappointment
this time round they already look like a good team going into the year and instead of having to catch up they just dont need to fall behind

only potential worry is that the offseason events arent that heavy in the anti-strat department and we've never really got to see sen (well ig Kaplan) just hard outstrat people last year
But I think theyll be fine, they have a good igl and its not like this is the first team for the coaches

https://twitter.com/WhoCars_Val/status/1733871695084056993
with who cars competing in polaris again next split, can we have the flair back?

ye there were people more adamant about them splitting but I cant find those tweets anymore
so ig its a rumor for now

there were speculations of them "splitting" right after the shit hit the fan with EG and their paycuts
https://twitter.com/Bo_Hoogland/status/1709126988529647863

with how that 8th round went I dont think a timeout would help
clearly the world just doesnt want them to make it close(r)

wait till you see his raze

lothar tweet incoming

yup, theyre going with a circuit points system this year
https://www.oneesports.gg/valorant/vct-2024-season-format-explained/

Gonna be an uphill battle for them
Theyre at a huge disadvantage during the first split compared to a Fut, Fnc, Gia or NaVi since at the end of the day they are a t2 team moving into t1
and with no lcq thats a huge problem

I think theyll still do well; theres a ton of rookie squads in emea this year and theyre by far the most experienced one out of those, so theres a really good chance that theyll upset one of the "old" teams, get to a lan, secure points and make it to champs

Problem is if your internet sucks the site is just plain unusable
even at 360p the stream just gets stuck every 3 minutes and I then have to refresh leading to the 5 second smiley animation
(not a problem at the end of the day since theres vods on other websites but its an aspect they havent optimized for yet)

problem is tenz plays too many champs pancada doesnt atm
like idk what role theyre planning to leave tenz on so if he transitions to smokes and Zellsis flexes then sure

dude the whole Pancada new 6th man thing was a fun meme at the start... but how tf can you bench Zellsis

actually nvm thinking about some of the stuff Ive seen in ranked or from Ange1/Jamppi back in the days, I really wanna see jinggg omen now

... hes playing omen atm, how tf would we even compare them right now

Deserved GC champions after this amazing run, ggs SR

well no the new roster which theyll have to play with isnt final yet from what Ive heard (theres a ton of players floating around atm)
the one we know was for polaris and is getting revamped to meet the region rules

teams would be so stacked, it'd be amazing

dang the merger not going through sucks, a "super region" in terms of talent would have been super entertaining

also at least good to hear that theres been an actual effort to find a replacement, nobody ive talked to knew shit about it

https://twitter.com/ImMineVAL/status/1730688000546238820

The rumor of Fokus moving back to Dach has been circulating for ~ a week now
This is most likely a reaction to Polaris... well... not existing atm for next year? TO is going out of business and there has been no communication as to who's gonna replace them/what will happen afaik

This is such a shame since the Fokus roster was a front-runner, if not favorites, for ascension going into the 2024 season, but is also a huge hit to Polaris as a whole since Fokus were hard carrying viewership last season

theres very very few how did it faster afaik
carpe and nivera are the only ones that come to mind

only other examples I can think off are all around first strike

very fair
cant say I can beat vlrs forumla either

ngl I cant read and thought you wrote "find the most impactful play of each top team from every year" so thats mb

per chance itll still be higher for ZmjjKK due to the 273 acs Tokyo performance but ye thats on me xD Your proposed system is a lot better than what I thought you said

Raw stats is just gonna be another problem though due to how intertwined they are, I can recommend reading https://www.vlr.gg/160667/vlr-gg-player-rating-explained
and then it automatically favoring certain roles and playstyle which is why rating is meh for duelists x.x

Idk how invested you are in the whole thing but if you want to write up a formula Id be super down to read it^^

you are correct that, due to the nature of all stat based analysis, the results can be misleading
this analysis was very kill and trade focused so it favored duelists

and ofc it cant properly represent the complexity of the game; even when ignoring your point about the team not properly being considered (since its just gonna be impossible to separate a player from their team) it has huge issues
economy impact of kills, how much support util you were receiving during the kill (how good was it?), how many people were on the site, etc would all shift the weighting significantly - it just leads to an endless game of trying to get more aspects of the game into your stats... and in the end theyd probably still be wrong due to the whole team thing

your proposed solution wouldnt lead to a good result either, it would heavily favor players like ZmjjKK who have a risky and inconsistent playstyle, while a more consistent player like for example demon1 would look pretty mediocre
It also has the whole acs & kda already being linked problem that vlrs rating tries to tackle

At the end of the day the stats are great because he presents all his thoughts and reasoning for the stats, and its easy to figure out what aspects he overlooked and then decide how much you value them - no stats will ever beat the "eye test"