The edater drama was actually so zzzz I don't think anyone gave a shit.

They've got this. Even if they don't qualify this OQ, I feel like the odds are super high next time.

I don't mean it in so far as watching vods and stuff, but if you know the comp you're going to likely play against, I feel like that at least gives you a head up in prepping.

You might also have an advantage in picks and bans

I was thinking about the SR game earlier and it made me realize something. I think GC teams might have the hardest time going through these open qualifiers.

Even if you ignore anything related to skill

1) about 1-2 months before this, they play in the GC championship, meaning they have to try their hardest and show strats, comps, and agent picks which anyone can see. Maybe the fact that we have a map pool change doesn't make this that big of a deal, but it still doesn't feel fair.
2) they have to worry about the GC qualifiers coming up, something that non-gc teams don't have to worry about.

It feels like the way challengers is set up kinda puts them at a disadvantage. I don't really think there is a way to get around this.

Idk tho, something feels a little unfair about it, but maybe I'm just coping preemptively in case SR lose.

I read the video wrong, they used the word that means team, and I assumed it meant "seed". It's not likely to be the right bracket.

I know, after making it the seeding didn't make any sense. I just kinda trusted what VLR had was how the seeding distribution would work.

If you go to around 1:25 in the video it has the rankings for the bracket. https://x.com/valesports_cn/status/1752711797466079513?t=5sRjzrIn1Jhuva06uAS1kQ&s=09

Group A
JDG
TE
FPX
BLG

Group B
DRG
TEC
TYL
NOVA

Group C
EDG
AG
Wolves

This is assuming the mapping of what spot goes where is correct on the VLR page.

What type of cheating? Aim or wall, etc...

I like ZETA, but I feel like you're underating T1. They looked good in the off-season, and Zeta didn't look the best. Zeta also has two rookie players. I think they'll struggle earlier in the season, and improve once their rookies get accustomed to competing.

Tough first match for M8 in franchising. Yet, Vitality not having their roster set might lead to an upset.

If I had to take a guess, I think Leo generally agrees with the community, but has certain limits and requirements imposed by execs, such as budgets and not interfering with League viewership.

While they're technically the same company, I think it's important to separate the VCT and Riot. Leo and the VCT's interest is promoting Valorant, but Riot's goal is maximizing profit. If I'm being charitable, Leo is likely trying his hardest to push for longer schedules, but is getting shut down by execs who want to maximize league viewership since it's likely more profitable.

While I may disagree, I understand your reasoning for putting Demon1 in a flex slot. However, f0rsaken to me is number 1. The man plays literally every role from duelist, to recon, to flashes, to senti, to smokes at a high level. The other players in that category don't do as much.

What is even the difference between cutting and benching lol?

It would make more sense to have something like on-role, off-role, cut IMO and just have same role players.

I think their prospects are higher than last year, but they're probably not going to.

giants (at least during lockin, i dont remember if they kept them)

Sorry, but please don't deadname burger king gaming

Holy shit. They got the 13-year-old who observed the NA Challengers matches to make their announcement videos.

I put T1 over ZETA personally

麦当劳员工 Lol

Yeah. Korean T2 is so odd. All the best prospects seem to play in other regions. I guess the pay is just not good there.

Hmm, possible. I think Lumo and Only1 did well in their first matches, but it's hard to tell from just those games. Both FENNEL and SCARZ played teams that aren't good. I think FENNEL's performance last year sets them as the favorites.

SCARZ was good last year, but I fear losing Jemkin, Kr1stal, and Toraneco might've been too much.

Stew's gonna be a household name by the end of this season

Me :)

Don't think winning is EG's number one priority rn

Now that Xdll is back, is this roster winning acension? They had a close map against fnatic (without their full roster), better than a lot of T1 teams did against them. Syouta is one of the most promising duelists to come out of Japan. Xdll is a great flex player and should've gone to Zeta had he not had his scandal, and his sova is better than his Skye, so he should benefit from the nerf. Derialy has international lan experience, with Northeption at Copenhagen. GON and CLZ are both arguable for best in role in Japan outside of Zeta players.

I don't know much about the T2 scene in other Pacific reasons, but who do we think are going to challenge them?

That's true. I think qck is more recently in my mind with playing senti since dgzin normally played Jett on Furia.

I have faith in Saadhak. Even if qck and Tuyz underperform. Cauanzin and Less + Saadhak is already terrifying.

Yeah. Personally, I really hoped Astralis or Heroic would enter, but I don't see them ever starting a Val team

In the off chance that Heroic ever does join Val, I really hope they have their social media manager that shits on Val post about the Val team. That would be hilarious.

Americas: Flyquest, Optic, DSG

EMEA: SK, Astralis & Heroic (never gonna happen)

Pacific: Damwon, Crazy Racoon, Fennel

China: NIP, Rare Atom, LNG, Weibo

Yeah. Tbf I don't know if I would say looking at Twitch for scrimbux takes dedication, I think even James attested to this. It was just kinda funny seeing santos get so pressed because people were praising James.

Noot Noot was a GC team who had a player that was accused of cheating, and subsequently banned from GC*. They went on a small run in the tournament, where they possibly caused a few teams notably DSG to lose. https://youtu.be/rTyFDhamkvw

James FF, the scrims leaker on VLR, had drama with ds santos, a vlr "journalist" who I believe used to go by Eutalyx. Ds santos claimed that James wasn't a "real journalist" and a "basement dweller who looks at Twitch all day." As opposed to santos who does real journalism, which is waiting for official announcements and writing a recap of it :O (Clearly needs a lot of professionalism and skills for that). Lots of people on VLR got upset at ds santos as they saw the situation as overly rude and a "pot calling the kettle black" ordeal.

"*" It's worth noting that the player, Malibu, was never explicitly found guilty of cheating, but in the report that banned her from competing in val events, they stated ban evading, but never addressed the cheating allegations.

Yay vs DSG, KeenC, noot noot, lock-in crowd drama

not related to pro, but James FF/ds santos + the Leorge falloff

Some pretty good drama this year.

Yeah, I get the Football player example cause what team they're on will play a significant role. I just think that CCs barely do anything with their teams outside of being in videos every now and then, so I was just curious.

Ehh, it won't be as easy as it should've been, but BCJ and nitro are good. Both were really good prefranchising.

Xdll back in the Fennel lineup. ascension contenders

I like it. Double controller was only so viable b/c of skye, and it's nice to see people have to actually change their agent pool instead of just always playing Skye as initiator. Unfortunate for pros since the change happened so late, but I like it as a casual player.

Content creators might bring more money into the org. You get a bigger audience for ads, and you get more content that you can advertise on.

I'm not trying to be mean, but I am seriously curious as to why.

Even when I had content creators I liked, I never really cared about what org they were apart of, so I'm curious as to what would make some care.

You're almost a shoe-in for ascension next year. You get the chance to play alongside some pretty large names, you get paid by M80, you can play alongside your team if you win.

Could be valid reasons not to take offers, assuming he got them.

Hmmm... I don't remember the specific video I watched, I think it was TMV, and he mentioned that Tuyz was gonna be on Duelist and qck would be playing sentinel. I just kinda assumed it was the case, could be wrong.

I think the real question is, was promoting Tuyz to duelist instead of picking up an upcoming duelist from T2? I'll be honest, I didn't watch too much of Tuyz on TBK, but I think Askia on Union looked good outside of their last game. Again, I didn't watch any of TBK, so I would defer to a Brazilian fan's opinion on this.

I would argue that FPX didn't have a star duelist, and was more Suygetsu and Shao than Ardiis.

Pretty sure that's a wall at EG's office.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football

I know what you meant, I just was making a joke about this. Football to most of the world means soccer, not American football

I feel like this might be a really stupid suggestion but I'm not seeing the issue.

League seasons go from January to November (LCS, LEC, LCK, and LPL start in late January, Worlds is in the end of November). That's 11 months of the year, obv with some gaps in between. Could valorant not do the same but do like December to October? Would be a little bit of a weird starting point, but would avoid any conflict with worlds.

LEC and EMEA use the same stadium as well, I think it's the same for Americas, not sure about Pacific. So it would be impossible for the games to happen at the same time, so I don't think that would be an issue.

who the fuck plays football outside of the US

oh no....

I agree with everything else tho

I was gonna write something along the lines of him not considering any of those sports real sports unlike the actual real sports (i.e. the ones that are popular in his country), but he did it for me.

Bro, it was a joke, not that deep

Fair enough

top 11*

Possibly, but The cypher cam into both mains is just too stronk I think. Plus demon1 rifling is too good, don't need chamber for that.

Cypher just too good on Sunset tho