Was looking at all the stacked Korean talent not in tier 1 right now, and remembered him being signed then dropped from T1.

I feel like he must have some sort of personality issue. Meteor referenced the team not getting along in GenG, and then they bench him despite being one of their better players, then he gets picked up and benched by T1 in favour of iZu/Rossy which doesn't make a ton of sense on paper.

Surely there's something going on there...

I really don't think there's much ZETA needs to replace right now. Like, clz and Xdll are probably better on paper than Hiroronn and Yuran but they just need time to get used to t1 competition. The thing that needs the most work is the coaching. I'm hoping right now it's just Carlao not being used to working with a Japanese team.

Was there more to this rumor then the contract database? It was updated to 2026 and then changed to 2024 2 hours later, could've just been a mistake.

He's mongolian-czech. Look at his twitter bio.

Can anyone figure out any reason this event had to be 8 teams? It's the smallest ever international LAN in VCT history. I don't really care too much about the whole season-length discourse that happened at the beginning of the year, but surely in 2024 we can do better than 8 teams at a LAN.

The forgot to sign the VLR flair renewal agreement

Riot just needs to explain why there's 8 person LANs in 2024. Literally makes 0 sense. I can't think of any in history of val that were this small

Chat, can I unread a post?

Boaster has not lost a single regular season game in 2 years

I agree with the rest of your points, but didn't they lose to TL in the 2023 season finals? Unless you don't count that as part of the "regular season" which would be kinda weird.

Pretty sure it's going to be SEN vs EG and NRG vs LOUD. It's been that pattern for both EMEA and Pacific. Unless maybe that was just a coincidence.

Visa issues for Trexxx from what I've heard.

not sure what u mean without their 2nd best player but sure

Trexxx is replacing Destrian(I think?) after Kickoff

Sykko carried NA, Potter Drip is fine tho.

I don't think the format's the issue, more so the lack of spots. This format would've been fine if it weren't only two teams that qualify. It's just criminal that we're in 2024 and have 8 team international events.

So unfortunate for KC. On the brightside for them, they're very likely to make Shanghai or Champions.

Bump Sen and Loud up a tier. Put Vit (w/o trexx) down a tier I think.

Since it looks like KC are going to win Play-ins, what do we think the chances of making Madrid are?

They shouldn't be placed against TH as they're from the same group, so that means they're playing against Navi or FNC. Definitely hard games. Reason says that FNC and Navi go in that case, but is there a realistic possibility for an upset?

When I was watching Ash and Pavlos cast a liquid game and every time they said "Key-ko" I died a little inside.

A misspeak. Should've said, "Maybe not (better than) Saadhak." He's saying saadhak is probably better.

This was actually the worst possible example because both of these teams benefitted immensely from roster changes.

They knew curry was coming to red bull and had to go all out to beat him

Felt like they wanted to go the no IGL but have cracked player route, but only Viva and Stew are actually cracked. They either need Yihao and Mart1n to perform more consistently or get an IGL.

To add a caveat, they did have a really close game against TEC, and should've closed it out on map 2.

I'm still hesitant to buy into DRG stocks. AG is not good, and JDG got hard nerfed by yoman leaving. They had a close game against TEC. The only issue right now is that the only other teams that you can confidently say are better are FPX and EDG. EDG is looking to be trolling roles and FPX looks good. They have a chance to make Madrid, but they're going to have to beat one of them and I don't see that happening realistically.

Import rules are stupid. Iirc he's even from Vladivostok which is like right next to Japan. He's nowhere near Europe, but he has a passport that says Russia on it so they say he's EMEA.

I'd be curious to see who you would put higher as a coach. I don't think we've seen anyone outside of mCe and sgares have as much observable impact on a roster.

All 3 of them transformed teams that weren't very promising into good teams. (TGRD, 100T, and EG). I

I'm convinced that VCT clutch//god video actually cursed him. He looked really good at LCQ, that video comes out, then I don't think he's won a single clutch since.

Jawgemo played in America's, you can't just change your residence like that.

I thought Enzo was the IGL, am I crazy?

Nah, they put a lot of effort into the announcement video for the skin (https://twitter.com/zetadivision/status/1760318463002935369) they just like that design I guess.

I kinda like how clean it isn't instead of trying to have the valorant art style which a lot of teams did. Personal tastes I suppose.

GE's classic is pretty good, but that player card looks goofy as hell to me

Bro's never been good. He's a solid t2 player but doesn't have the skill to make it in t1. Has random flashes of brilliance, but nothing near the level of consistency. TL should've taken a bet on an up-and-coming player tbh.

I will be praying on Fnatic's downfall so that a chronicle move can be made possible.

I would give anything to see a Gambit reunion but with Something/Jemkin/b1sk/Kr1stal instead of Deffo.

Aspas would've dropped like 80 against random emea T2 pros. Keiko is good, but don't get ahead of yourself.

Tbf to NA, that didn't really feel like banter. Felt like the FPX players were actually being toxic because they thought xset members were trying to replay the match when they didn't request it.

Just confirmed, I can only buy the bundle, not the items individually.

My understanding is that the esports bundles are bundle only. Every region can buy normal skin bundles separately, but Brazil can buy bundle-only items individually.

Could be wrong tho

Too soon of a turnaround. According to Ferahgo's article, they'll be coming out sometime in May.

The guy's doing amazing

On a side note, wouldn't his name be pronounced like Kay-ko instead of like Key-ko?

Key-ko sounds goofy as hell

Wasn't there a situation similar to this that happened with xQc? He said something that got interpreted the wrong way (idk I never followed OWL). Not saying this is necessarily the case, but I would want to see the statement or remark before making any strong judgements.

The sad thing is he's not even the best T2 Japanese duelist. DFM just keeps recycling old players instead of just picking up new talent. This is a shame because most other rookies seem to be performing well this year.

CN is definitely stepping up in talent, but I don't think they're quite at that level yet. JDG got nerfed because of import rules and FPX has yet to be competitive against top teams (and even not top teams) at international lans. I don't think many people think other teams even have a shot.

Wouldn't they have to beat NRG/Cloud9 if you look at the Playoffs bracket?

NRG would be difficult. Maybe C9 as well

Maybe, but I feel like a lot of the duelist players who can't perform well anymore would do better on smokes as they can be played in a similar style to old duelists (i.e., Tenz). Plus you have the added benefit of disrupting the roles as little as possible since Egoist plays sentinel.

If you're referring to sScary it's because he's not really off-rolling. sScary lurks all the time, which is something viper is more suited for. You let him play his best agent while Yay plays the smokes that are needed.

This would be for the next split or next year.

Yay > Smokes
sScary > viper
Deryeon > entry
Egosit > sentinel
crazyguy > flex

Lets yay focus on rifling and holding angles on site. Deryeon gets to entry. sScary gets to focus on lurking which is better for his playstyle.

They can ban maps that require double initiators or play off-meta comps.

Thoughts?

I think they have a higher ceiling right now, but their level of performance is the same as last year right now. Unfortunately, kickoff is a punishing bracket, so I think they'll likely not be able to improve enough in time to make it in Madrid, but they should be better for Shanghai or Seoul.

I think Carlao needs to be more proactive with his timeouts and try to stop the members from tilting. It looked like they were just running it down towards the end of the 1st half on sunset.

Tbf, TENNN was actually pretty good and was part of the reason they were so successful in Reykjavik. He hasn't been able to perform to the same level since his eye issue, I don't know how much it contributes to the issue, but it's worth mentioning. Crow has always had subpar performance, but the members (especially the new NTH members in 2022) commonly referred to him as a brother figure that helped with morale and getting them used to the team.

They should be releasing on Thursday. So expect a teaser earlier in the week.

c0m has the best sova in the world, the man redefined an entire meta on a fracture with his Sova. Even Fnatic switched to it after getting beaten by it.