In terms of util, sugar zero still has some of the best smokes in the game. You don’t see people use smokes the way he does. His astra is one of if not the best in the game.

https://youtu.be/YviyMp6yY_o?si=grBK1sUF8SimA1if

RRQ look terrible right now. Their util is so bad and de-synced with the rest of the team.

They look better, but RRQ also looks really bad right now. Need to see which is the more important thing right now.

Da fuck is he doing there?

Flyquest should replace EG or cloud9, but Moose wasn't that bad.

That’s fair. Jelly seems like a nice person from all that I’ve seen. Just feels unfortunate that sometimes bad faith actors will use them as a shield to avoid any criticism.

Don’t you think there’s a reasonable interpretation here that she’s stating that NB, who don’t identify as women, shouldn’t be in GC. I get the GC rules say that they’re allowed, but it’s just a rule. Doesn’t make it a moral law that can’t be changed.

I feel like the statement could be only about sRN. I can’t speak for Bizerra’s intentions, but I would believe Jelly to be included in Meninas.

While sRN would be Menino. Seeing as they don’t even identify as a woman.

It gives me whole KeenC situation vibes. Person joins GC as an NB and is a closet misogynist. Seems hard to believe they're acting in good faith about their gender identity. Especially given the context of #35

He called a woman "whore" on a ranked game (and she was a streamer so it was recorded)
there wasn't anything else but if they are still mad at him he probably didn't change much

The rules of GC are not relevant. If you're a woman and want a safe space to be able to compete without having to deal with the misogyny that is prevalent in gaming communities, are we really going to say GC shouldn't be that?

Again, I'm not saying that it's empirically right or anything, but I think it's hard to imagine being a woman and competing in a circuit to experience misogyny by someone who doesn't even identify as a woman. Not saying it's right or wrong, just hard to say it's either as a guy.

Fair enough.

I will say, that if it's true, I do think it could change the situation a little. Entering a space that is in essence the "women's circuit," as non-binary, and then being misogynistic. I feel like that would create some pretty justifiable animus where, as a guy, It'd feel really hard to tell the person that they're unjustified feeling that way.

Again, don't know the full story, so talking out of my ass here.

I'm out of the loop, but in the BR thread people were saying sRN was misogynistic. You know anything about that?

I've been following most of the GC regions, but I haven't looked at the format for the champs.

What was Riot thinking here?

3 slots for EMEA, 2 for NA, and only 1 for BR?

No offense to the EMEA teams, but outside of G2 gozen, the teams have only ever beaten KRU and Fennel, the teams have yet to win against any major GC region. Not to say they should go down to 1 from 2, but I don't see the point in giving an extra slot to EMEA when BR only gets 1. Like, of all the regions I'd think Riot would give a 3rd slot to, it wasn't EMEA.

How is 2 NA, 2 EMEA, 2 BR, 2 Pacific, 1 China, 1 Latam not just objectively better?

Feels bad for TL :(

I heard this was for Assault, not the financial stuff.

He shared nudes of his girlfriend who was underage at the time. I believe he was as well, but I could be wrong.

https://x.com/aEvilcat/status/1465080531247378440

EDIT: link to “taking accountability post” that he deleted. https://x.com/aevilcat/status/1465083711536472073?s=46

That “he’s from EU” line is hilarious.

Just…what? On so many different levels.

Go to bed now. By the time the inevitable tech pauses finish you’ll probably miss one map at most.

They’ve looked leagues better than most teams this tournament. Should be a clean match with the two map bans.

Junior*

When ZETA made the switch to Junior from xqq, the team looked a lot better (around 2023 LCQ). Then they go to Carlao and look worse.

Hello Riot, I’d like to make a report. JFT have made a last minute substitution by having yay play under the name Andy.

This might be the biggest neon diff I’ve seen just in terms of the two of them in 1v1s

You're acting like people are frothing at the mouth rabidly upset about this guy. 99.9999% of people just saw him as an annoying kid posting shit for attention.

99.9999% of criticism of anyone can be deflected by saying it doesn't impact your life. Doesn't make it any less valid criticism.

Personally, death threats are never okay, and neither is doxxing.

However, you see this pendulum effect with every controversial figure. People dislike them, call for them to retire, some idiots take the criticism too far, so people feel like they need to counter-swing back. That's why you see so many people asking now, "Why did we dislike rocketbullets?" "#freerocketbullets", etc.

Rocketbullets should've stopped posting the spreadsheets, but it shouldn't have had to be because he was getting death threats.

Copying a popular gimmick of last offseason but had zero ethics and responsibility with vetting his sources.

Did he break the news on those trials, or were those commonly accepted things mentioned by others in the community that he just included in his spreadsheet?

They'll have lots of funds, but it all runs back to a spreadsheet for whoever owns Barca. These companies/teams don't invest in eSports because they're passionate about it, they invest because they see it as a money-making opportunity. If the eSports division is constantly running at a negative, they'll just stop working in this market. Barca as a company as a whole is still making profit (most likely) but the eSports division's balance is likely negative.

I can't given an answer other than the experience I've had being in gaming communities for a couple of decades. I've seen plenty of kids try to make up excuses when they leave a community because they think being seen as a victim will make people miss them. I'm being super cynical here, but you can already see how many threads there have been like "free rocketbullets" when the reality is that the val community spent the last couple of months shitting on him.

But who knows? Maybe I'm just too cynical.

Am I a bad person for being skeptical? I find it hard to believe that he, without posting any other personal info (granted I don't read his tweets except for when they show up in my feed), was able to get actual pictures of his house in DMs. I doubt one would be able to find much other than an email and an IP address, which wouldn't give you a street address. Anything further than that would require some serious effort, which I doubt anyone who disliked his spreadsheets would go through.

They play different agents?

Koala plays Jett,Yoru, etc. Asuna plays, Raze, Gekko, etc. Koalanoob would be a replacement for Cryo if anything, not Asuna.

If a free agent team qualifies, they require an org to buy the team before they enter partnership. I believe I read from some val journalist back during the guard situation that Riot can actually refuse to enter a partnership with an org they don't trust, and require another team to buy the roster out for them to enter the partnership. I don't know if it would happen in this situation, probably only if some gambling website tried to make a team.

Talking about the org, not the players (I like the players).

From what I can tell, they're a Kinguin/G2A competitor. I'm honestly conflicted. From what I can see so far, I worry about if they're going to be another C9/Mibr, I.e, spending the bare minimum and just taking up space at the bottom of the league. Just from what I've seen so far it seems reasonable to think they're just using the team as advertising for their company, which is fine I guess? The t-shirts instead of jerseys, logo looks like it was made by AI. I'm also not Brazilian, so I might be lacking a perspective.

But at the end of the day, the players earned their spot. Just worried it might have been better under a different org. Time will tell.

My understanding is if they don't know they'll put an international flag next to you, and then you can ask for it to be something different.

Regardless of which team won, the best pred you could give either of them would be making playoffs as the last seed, and maybe missing champs by one game.

Neither team looks outstanding.

I actually think <18 should be allowed on ascension teams. Given that they'll be 18 within the time the team is in T1.

IMO, teams shouldn't be able to field a team in any region that wouldn't be able to play in the VCT. It takes away spots from upcoming T2 players in these regions.

There's a limit, for example, Sengoku who had something and vici, two players who may have been imports, but only played in VCJ. Compare that to Chinese teams importing EMEA players so that they can try to get the VCT spot just to drop the player(s).

I think in any of the smaller sub-regions they have limitations on imports. I believe The Mongolz were supposed to play in VCJ, but the league has a rule on the amount of non-japanese players.

I lost 5 years off my life when I saw him hold the spike while he was being brim ulted.

He had soo much time, but just decided to die to get it half to leave Sultan in a 1v2.

It is a travesty that this guy is taking a spot on a roster where any new Indian talent would probably be better.

I think he's proven at this point he can't play at a high level. Just need him to either actually learn a different role or just pick up new talent

Yeah, nah. This man can't use a rifle. Bro thought his issue was he only played Jett. Switched to other agents and kept all his bad habits. Man is trying to play Jett on Gekko

Tbh, I don't even think Skillz is the problem. He certainly isn't helping, but having an initiator that can only op and wastes gekko ults is probably more impactful

Hard to call strats when you have a player that would rather dry peak with an awp then use his init util.

Ahh, I see. SPG was going for the go 0-7 down and then remember how to play. An ascension classic

Did we just pick random agents?

Looks like they haven't practiced it at all. Neon especially looks lost, like he thinks if he just slides he'll kill them. People just going for random hero plays.

RVNT look good, still some issues I'm seeing. Notably Skrossi can be a good source of early picks. But looks like they have a solid plan of how they want to play rounds.

I think it's also a way for orgs to essentially "snipe" a spot in a minor region by just using imports to secure a spot which they'll have to drop.

Don't know if this has been stated, but I'm pretty sure regardless of what team wins at this point, they'd have to drop a player (unless someone has Chinese citizenship as well). Feel like this is a pretty good indication that the system needs to be more strict on eligibility for ascension teams.

Can't have both Sadhaak and N4rrate tho.

Mibr getting in instead of Keyd Stars was sad.

I don't think Zander was ever on a team with Kaplan. Kaplan was on ghost gaming w/ Jonhqt, but Zander at the time was on V1. I don't think Kaplan was ever on m80. I could be wrong though.

Polaris farmers

Sign 4 Turkish aimers + one T2 igl. Easy VCT spot.

Tbf, it's probably different coming to germany to play for a tournament v.s. essentially working for the team in Germany the whole season.