Money, probably.

Ah, I'm not well versed in the 'funny' (my fault). I've always wanted to know what Europeans think of their micronations (because NA does have the Caribbean countries) Thanks for humoring a lad!

isn't freeing signed to ra rn? Or can they buy him out any time?

Honestly, there are arguments to be made for other players being top 5 as well right now imo, but yeah I agree that it's very healthy for every region to be strong internationally.

Isn't Listenbourg fictional? Also, I would like to mention my geography is decent and that I'm asking the following question because I'm curious. Would you be okay with people not knowing Malta and Luxembourg? They definitely feel irrelevant at times (from an outsider perspective anyway)

I mean, I wouldn't fault people for not knowing Montengro either. Balkan history isn't that well known outside Europe tbh. Not knowing Armenia is a different story though imo.

I could've sworn VLR said that Medusa was igl, but ig I'm going insane. (Is Anthem igl?) Then, TenTen definitely could be going to DFM, since Medusa isn't great frankly.

Probably not DFM. TenTen has played like 4 agents in his entire career, all of which are either duelists, chamber, or kayo. Meiy is already playing all these agents, so I doubt TenTen goes there. TenTen also said he's willing to play senti,~~ but I think Medusa is igl, so unless they have a plan for that, I doubt they kick Medusa. ~~I think Zeta is also not likely to sign him. They learned their lesson the first time when putting an unestablished player in an off-role (cough hironronn).

To be honest, I have no clue where he'd go. T1 needs a smokes player if anything, but I could see a world where they put izu back on smokes. (with xcurrate to sentinel). DRX and GENG are chilling with their rosters right now as well. Unfortunately, in my opinion (KEY WORD: opinion), I see him going to GE. GE did say they were planning to sign korean players (last I checked anyway) and they are also planning to nuke their roster, so if he's going to franchising, I wouldn't be shocked to see him go there...

Edit: I have been informed that Medusa isn't igling. In that case, there is a pretty decent probability that TenTen goes to DFM.

Okay, so I did more research, and basically, a player can 'declare' themselves as a part of the region if they have something proving that they are of that region. Since Yotaa is at least partially Japanese, there is a high probability that he has paperwork proving that he is of that region (I don't really know the specifics since I apparently just suck at googling)

Long story short, you need at least 3/5 players from that league in particular (i.e you need 3/5 players to be Japanese to play in the Japanese league) If you look at the team right now, it looks like there is only 1 player that is JP. EJAY and adrnking are obviously not Japanese and thus are considered 'imports' in this context. Meanwhile, Yotaa and Yoshii probably fall under an exception where they can 'prove' residency in Japan (as they are at least half and/or have some paperwork?) and thus are considered Japanese, even though they have the French and Pilipino flag on vlr.

So, yes, I admit I was wrong. That is not how it actually works, but I wasn't too far off, I guess.

Edit: in the larger context of the post, there are no rules against importing coaches. Additionally, you are allowed two imports for T2 anyway, so dimasick and Wolfen are okay. Also, to appease the Chinese league/govt, Hong Kong and Taiwan could be considered 'Chinese' in this context, so I think UCc does not count as an import from APAC (or he can 'prove' that he lives in China maybe?). But there is also the Taiwan/HK league so idk about how that works tbh.

That person was half Japanese, so they did not fall under import I believe

mikee has lost every game vs oxygen I'm pretty sure.

tbh the US representatives this year are weaker than they could be. Oxygen would definitely have been a better team than TSM imo

I mean, he probably can, but alecks just doesn't want to teach jinggg new agents or smth. I could see them either putting jinggg on full time senti or full time duelist.

If hyumin was cooking on omen, I could see mindfreak leaving tbh. I feel like jinggg, something, and forsaken have insane peaks, so it wouldn't make sense to drop them and davai is consistently good. Unless someone was planning to leave in the first place, mindfreak is probably the next best choice.

Edit: also, there are more jett maps now, so something can cook even harder.

I can't believe I missed that! Thanks.

That would be sick, but it’d take so much time to come through everything. Platoon made a few videos using that I think, so if you want to go check that out, go for it.

I took 4 hours to input it manually lol. That's also why I'm only using one stat (rating) because it would take too long to figure out how to extract data using an api

tbf brazil has high peaks. (cough Aspas) So, it's not too unreasonable to see Brazil

Bro I didn't make up the numbers. This is using the stats across the entire year. Obviously my opinion is different, but these were the results I got when I put the numbers down.

I made a rudimentary spreadsheet of every Valorant player that play in t1 (minus china for obvious reasons), and here's what I found out. (yes I manually inputted all the information, I'm sorry if there was a mistake!) I used two metrics: top 5 players from that country and every player from that country. I also made this based on the flag on vlr because I cba to figure out each person's nationality.

The best Valorant Country (if we are taking their top 5 rated players) is the US, and the highest rated country if we count everyone from that country is Russia. The lowest rated on both accounts is Singapore.

The best region (if top 5 players) is AMER or EMEA (if we count every player). PAC is better than AMER overall, but it does last in terms of peaks.

The top 5 countries (top 5 players)
1) US (1.126)
2) Russia (1.118)
3) Brazil (1.114)
4) Turkey (1.086)
5) Korea (1.078)

Top 5 Countries (every player; min 3)
1) Russia (1.044)
2) Sweden (1.0425)
3) Philippines (1.039)
4) Turkey (1.013)
5) Thailand (1.012)

Now, something to note is that countries with more players will have a lower rating on average because there will obviously be bad players from that country. (countries with less player typically have an advantage in the second metric) However, the best Valorant nation is most likely Russia. They have a lot of players that all perform AT LEAST average (with the exception of Redgar) While the US ranks higher peak-wise, they also have a copious number of players, and there is a significant amount of players that are rated below a 1. The Philippines are a weird case where there was a lot of mid players, but invy single handily put them on the board.

Edit: Someone mentioned that I forgot JessieVash. This did cause the Philippines to drop, leaving Russia at 1. They are still surprisingly high up.

Spreadsheet: texthttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ykcJAtv3Kg8ZGkSHztohTxk--rUhyKNs7iKB4DVjxLU/edit?gid=2137493557#gid=2137493557

Just go to sleep early and wake up early.

At least boaster doesn't lock phoenix every game...

It's probably because duelists are the most talked about players in this community. (with a few exception)

I mean, didn't the team almost walk out after nzr got the boot? He's probably still iffy on that.

I mean, maybe suygetsu chose to become fa

he's the goat duelist of Chile.

for the viet roster, they have probably the two best fa agents possible rn being YesIcan (initiator igl) and Ficio (senti/viper/???). For context, YesIcan suffers from the greatest team diff in the history of valorant. Bro drops 1.36 kd on igl like wtf. Ficio is that one guy that dropped 40 (and lost) against edg in that off season tourney on viper. With a healthy dose of imports (from the Vietnamese diasporas across the globe in America and Australia mainly), I think shanks could have an absolutely dominating roster.

I think if NRG builds a good roster, NA has a decent chance of winning at least a masters.

so I did the math and Russia has the second highest rated players on average.

would you really risk getting fined over x

He also played skye early on in the season. Tbh jett and gekko is all the really need so it’s allg

In foxy9’s defense, he was forced to switch roles a ridiculous amount of times in the past year. He went from duelist -> initiator -> sentinel (which he spent a lot of time on and got very comfortable with) -> initiator

Compared to other regions internationally, amer lacks that (consistent) x factor tbh.

For example, in the top 10 of players at champs, the only amer player is keznit at 5th (which is a testament to how team diffed this guy constantly is tbh) Pacific has 3 players (primmie, meteor, texture), EMEA has 4 (trexx, derke, chronicle, riens), and even China has 2 (Chichoo and smoggy)

At shanghai, there is also only 1 amer player in the top 10 (aspas at 6), while every other region has a pretty even spread of players.

The only time amer showed up was during madrid with a ridiculous 6 players in top 10.

I mean, I don't think izu has even gotten a chance to play in full korean ever, so maybe he'll quadruple his kills

For some reason, I feel like xcurrate is staying (since he's learning korean and all)

Roles could look like:
Izu/Akame - duelist
Rb - flex
Stax - initiator
Izu/Akame - controller
xcurrate - sentinel

If we're going off champs stats, the only countries that could field teams are: (I think? I could be wrong)
China
Korea
Turkey
USA

The best rated players for each team would be (assuming we don't give a shit about roles):

China:
CHICHOO (1.18)
Smoggy (1.14)
Kai (1.10)
KK (1.10)
Luoking (1.04)
Avg rating: 1.112

Korea:
Meteor (1.17)
texture (1.14)
Flashback (1.04)
mako (1.02)
Buzz (1.01)
Avg rating: 1.076

Turkey:
Riens (1.15)
Alfajer (1.09)
yetujey (1.07)
cNed (0.99)
woot (0.99)
Avg rating: 1.058

America:
zekken (1.12)
valyn (0.99)
Zellsis (0.98)
com (0.98)
leaf (0.97)
Avg rating: 1.008

Tldr; China > Korea > Turkey > USA

note: after I finish homework, I'll go make a spreadsheet or something and try calculating the best valorant country of 2024 using total stats across the year (may use acs as a marker because china moment)

ig problem is what do they play on lotus and sunset, since d1 does not have a good omen

Assuming import restrictions still exist:
Americas:

• Duelist: aspas
• Initiator: saadhak (igl)
• Flex: zekken
• Smokes: som
• Sentinel: Shyy

APAC:

• Duelist: Meiy/primmie
• Initiator: invy
• Flex: forsaken
• Smokes: Mako (igl, btw I would’ve preferred to put Karon, but Meteor is legit the only good senti in apac)
• Sentinel: Meteor

EMEA:

• Duelist: Alfajer
• Initiator: riens
• Flex: Sayf
• Smokes: grubinho
• Sentinel: nats (igl)

isn't reduxx still too young?

KK acing but still losing the game was cinema.

you can full kit and buy shorty on pistol (w strat)

I think Boaster is retiring anyway. He mentioned last year that he was retiring soon, so I'm guessing he'll retire, and they'll bring back Leo and put chronicle igl/smokes

Never interacted with geospliced directly but I liked his predictions for vct china last year. (Especially since I wasn’t a china viewer myself)

If dsg lose ascension, +juicy +vera +grumble.

I mean, both of them are proper duelists. Something can raze, and jinggg can jett, so they could just kick one and keep the other. However, I would prefer this roster to stay together. I agree, they should probably do what trace do. It would also solve the massive overheating problem as sentinel would force them to cool down

Even if they have a good reason, they still face backlash. I remember hearing about how an idol with a torn acl got an exemption and people got giga pissed for some reason.

Pressure got to them I guess.

vlr trolling

Thing is that I'm all for innocent until proven guilty. That's actually why I dislike these allegations between there is no proof of guilt AND (to me) feels like there is a lack of proper justice if the allegations ARE true. All these allegations do is hamper his career while letting him run around free from consequence (assuming they are true). At most, this will result in the alleged perpetrator losing their career. Otherwise, this is but a simple speed bump. imo, the only reason one would ever release these allegations on only social media and not take legal action is if the allegations are not true or exaggerated.

Edit: Additionally, these allegations absolutely wreck the alleged perpetrator if they are false, which adds on to the last sentence I said above. Absolutely no reason to post "x abused/hurt me" unless you're bringing awareness to the situation AFTER the law has been involved.

To me, if the allegations are serious enough to warrant career ending actions, they are probably serious enough to get the alleged perpetrator arrested. Honestly, if there is no legal action involved between the alleged victim and the alleged perpetrator, I start to doubt the validity or at least the extent of the claims. Like, if any of the things the victim says is true, the accused should not be allowed to walk around and potentially harm other people. imo, if the claims have substance, lawyer up instead of tweeting about it.