did you get the buddy too? or just the title

hold on there! let's not jump to conclusions, you never know an honest man could just be doing some auto work and.. uh oh a cylinder gets stuck! and now the kind man has asked the internet to help him

mine too

If you have something like a knife you may be able to scrape it free

Where did they announce? It must've been today since I haven't seen anything yet

I agree good players deserve more, but the base expectations for everyone are too high rn, it's unsustainable as it is for most orgs, at least in NA. For franchising to work all 3 of these need to be in profit: Riot, Orgs and Players, and currently the orgs are getting the short end of the stick. Orgs shouldn't have to decide between risking bankruptcy while making a potential LAN winning roster and signing the cheapest players with no hopes to win anything

maybe central asia? but they usually play in other regions since i dont think there is that much demand

the current system incentivises orgs to just throw money at players (and for the players to request a ridiculous amount), a cap would help them spend responsibly which is good for their longevity and therefore the esport. thats just my opinion though

if not bait this is crazy
maybe I should actually read before commenting...
but a spending cap is actually probably a good thing for them to implement

TL haven't been interested apparently
G2 is the most likely imo
NRG is a maybe, like 10% chance imo, since it would have to mean demon1 getting dropped
otherwise I think GX / NAVI are possible

tuned in to the CN stream and they were playing this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZyEkmjebk0
this song nearly drove me insane back then

no way they named the seating areas after the in game ranks

It was my first FPS too! the only other game I really played before on PC was minecraft 😭. But honestly it's been pretty fulfilling to learn and improve

yeah honestly the only way is to keep on trying, since its completely possible to be held back by pure (un?)luck, the more you play the more you reduce the margin of error in terms of your elo

nice, I think you could make it further tbh your duelist games are looking pretty good overall, I'm starting uni soon so I can kiss my free time goodbye 😭😭

wow with those stats you'll be out of bronze in no time

Man, I was there. The best thing you can do is keep on top of it as you get it but I get that work can pile up. I would first break it down into chunks, organise your backlog with priority and difficulty, try and start, and only start the hard/important projects first, you'll find once you've started it, it gets way easier to keep on going, imo the hardest part is starting, I've found 80% of the battle to getting work done is just starting. Say it doesn't work for you, move on to an easier task, hopefully you can try starting that instead, but only leave that as a last resort.

did you start in iron/bronze? what rank are you now?

I started iron in episode 1 act 2/3 and I peaked ascendant in episode 5 act 3, I hadn't really played much since then* and I placed gold 3 last act, but I grinded my way back to asc. I was wondering if there are any others like me who started super low but built their way up

*= I did actually play on and off but it was super unserious with no regard for my rank, I was mostly playing to pass time instead of actually ranking up

here's my tracker for anyone wondering: https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/Aayan%232005/overview
hopefully I can find more time in the future, I want to get immo 3 at some point since I've never really been a high rank in any video game, and VAL has lasted long enough for me to try

wow, we're in the days where this clip is considered ancient 😭😭

he's like a discount trembo and I love it

It's unrealistic yeah but I think their playstyles would match each other so nicely

I don't think franchising is why the format you suggested is suboptimal. I think the only thing that franchising really restricts is the teams which play, but theoretically the teams that play have nothing to do with crafting the format, which is why I thought the tier 2 suggestion was good.

This is what Riot are doing in 2025, and to be honest I think it's the ideal format if you don't account for tier 2. We have a full kickoff bracket as you suggested for Masters 1 to sort of kick things into gear, then with two full independent splits where each team seems to play every other team (twice in total, meaning a minimum of 22 matches), that solves the main issue of teams not playing enough from this year, and it makes qualification for international events more structured. I think an interesting thing to note is that this is basically just the 2023 format if we were to not have LOCK//IN, where LCQ(ish tournament) and Split 1 are swapped around. I think this approach has the least drawbacks, and the main issues aren't even to do with the format. For example I don't think Masters 1 should be 8 teams at all, it should definitely be 12 but in theory that is a very easy fix. I think 4 international events is a good idea but it will only work if the off season is condensed even more.

Honestly the tier 1 format is pretty good, I think the main discussion we should be having is on how to fix the tier 2 system, so it can actually be justifiable for orgs to invest in, as the current promise of a 'roughly 1/20 place for a tier 1 spot for a year minimum' is very lacklustre.

😭😭😭

I like the idea of letting tier 2 teams play, but with this it seems that the teams who already don't play much (i.e. those who aren't good) will play even less, now you could chalk that up to being a skill issue, but its a series problem since if an org doesn't play games as less companies will be willing to sponsor them. In this current system we already have the issue of too few games, so I think this would just make the inequality between the top teams and the lower teams worse

what has he said in the past?, I'm unfamiliar

wow that's a nice piece
have you applied for a vlr writer position? I think you could make it
https://www.vlr.gg/362584/vlr-gg-writers-wanted

me

Yeah exactly, that's what I tried to point out near the end of my paragraph

It has it's issues 100% I agree but outside of taking gambling money which riot refuses to do I don't think there's another way to make it sustainable. I like how it's not a complete franchising system and more of a 'partner' system, this also has cons but I like how it means the orgs don't get too much power

idk its hard to tell, the only way would be to see if he's good or bad is to have someone else do the job and compare it to them. But that could turn out badly if he actually ends up being decent. On one hand I like how he's been receptive, he's somewhat listened to the community; for example when people were complaining about the off season being too long (both in tier 1 and tier 2) he actually did something to address it, when pros were complaining about the PC's he fixed the issue. On the other hand I think he's really struggled convincing orgs to stick to tier 2, and by extension he's failed to create a 'carrot' for tier 2 orgs

dort should be the first user limited to 3 stars
and yes W shout for cloudberry

What I'm curious of is if they've given out any more titles/buddies for masters/champs winners accidentally now that we know that its even a possibility

KOI Demon1 is happening bro, you just aren't ready

even better go read this: https://www.vlr.gg/380895/i-showed-a-cned-to-a-girl-at-work

CS vs Val 'beef' is the most 1st world shit I've ever seen, there are better things to get pressed about
I play Val more but still play some CS, and honestly just play whichever one you enjoy more 😭😭

wtf thats crazy

if xeus and kaajak aren't on the table it might be a shout
he'd probably have until June to prove him self over comeback

I'm slightly hesitant to say it because of how KC performed at the end of 2024 but I think magnum gets a lot more flack than he deserves, considering he was put in to the igl role I think he's done a pretty good job
ofc engh is present but I think magnum gets more hate than deserved

play a bit more consistently (better to play 3 games a day than 6 games every other day)
maybe a few more dms, normally hs% is irrelevant but try to get at least 25% just so you know its for sure not an issue

yeah this pretty much (assuming you want to actually play duelist to play the role, and not just to frag only). I would commit to learning 2 of the 3 and that should cover all maps

Isn't crossfire super popular in china

wow interesting, can't wait to see it

gotta be boaster

uh oh

chronicle
mako (igl)
aspas
johnqt
chichoo

have faith in demon1 (KOI)

bro is the allat warrior

wait its a real team? I thought it was just some randoms

https://i.imgur.com/LYMWlsv.png

I have been validated

americas then pacific would be the most optimised route