those sponsors have brain damage.

I would assume bad work ethic and lack of drive as Todak is big in MY as a brand but consistently does bad in VCT nowadays.

I think FNC and DRX's peak should be higher.

"to reach upper finals you have to beat 2 of the best teams" - not necessarily true depending on groups.

dont forget that whoever makes the lower bracket run has to beat the same teams the upper bracket runner beats as well. its a better way to properly rank the teams in the tournament. vct korea had a single elim tourney and thus the second best team in KR (TNL) did not get to go to Berlin for Masters because they ended up getting an unlucky draw versus VS.

single elim means anyone can just go win depending on their luck in groups. double elim proves that you deserve your spot at GF and it wasnt a lucky sequence of teams.

also statistically double elim is better.

Team Liquid are on a tear through the competition, knocking out both OpTic and The Guard 2-0 and 2-1. They meet FNC in semis and humiliate them in a 13-0, 13-0 show of dominance.

TL has qualified for the Grand Finals vs NIP, the stage is set.

Then suddenly, Vladimir Putin declares an end to the war in Ukraine, and sanctions are lifted in just a day.
FPX, given that TL have participated in their stead, are allowed to rejoin at the cost of having to play a bo5 vs EMEA's 4th seed.

FPX completely demolish Liquid, winning 3-0 with a map score of 13-1, 13-2, and 13-0.
FPX have qualified for GF over Liquid!

Grand Finals becomes a craze. You could feel the momentum. The players play their hearts out, with a quintuple overtime map. The APM and pressure causes Riot's PCs to spontaneously combust.
As the smoke clears, Shao is seen defusing the spike. As the timer beeps, it explodes. "Kurwa" Shao whispers, then falls unconscious to the ground from exhaustion. The match is over.

NIP 3-0 FPX

all sorts of shit could happen in one game. could be a fluke. if the team that wins upper bracket is the best they will beat whoever wins lower bracket anyway.

why though lol

why should it double elim is good, that's how the guard secured 1st seed.

4/8

^

u are based af

Zest

to be fair that same NV had covid and lost to X10 too

anyway i think just watching their games it was evident that Acend looked bad. not off results but actually seeing the games. thats my take. it seemed pretty evident to anyone who watched who was a true neutral tbh.

me personally i think they looked terrible and honestly even if VK didn't use the cypher cam exploit they would have lost anyway. they looked like a different team after groups though but i think anyone could see that groups acend would not have done well in the tourney.

Champs. They went beast mode during Playoffs tho for sure.

Hoping Asian teams do really well. I love XIA and PRX so I'm rooting for them as well as DRX and TGRD.

They dropped 2 maps the entire tourney last I checked. Pretty insane.

???? I'm not saying EMEA is shit lol I'm just saying they've been weakened. Through no fault of their own lol I literally said Russia-Ukraine weakened EMEA and it did. Bozo. I wouldn't be surprised if TL beat DRX too I literally said DRX look the weakest they've ever been.

Acend looked completely dog in Groups though tbf.

Happy to help!

yes ofc. It will be a major disappointment if any EMEA team does not make playoffs.

would be nice but DRX have to have spent a lot of time adjusting their players to the new roles - they might be rusty when returning to their old ones. Plus idk where Zest fits with k1ng now that BuZz is in the roster..honestly I feel their best possible roster would be BuZz Rb Stax MaKo and Lakia. Maybe replace Rb with k1ng.

True, they are the only EMEA team unaffected by RUS-UKR but personally I'm not sold on their power ranking as they happened to face an exhausted FNC and M3C.

true, but replacing your 1st seed with your 4th, with your 3rd playing with a sub obviously weakens the region's rep no?

if they play on servers outside of the private one at Reykjavik they need technicians and logistics to communicate with the guys running the server at Frankfurt or wherever FPX is playing on. That being an external server outside of the immediate control of TOs at Iceland means that if any technical issues were to arise it's going to be a lot more difficult to fix. Just because a server has not had issues before does not mean it will never have issues in future too. You don't run a tournament on assumptions like that. You need contingencies.

If you wanna see what happens when Riot tries to run pseudo-LANs, take a look at the shitshow that was NA LCQ.

This Masters almost every region has levelled up and it could be any region's tbh.

EMEA weakened due to Putin lol, no FPX and FNC playing with a sub.
NA has two solid teams in OpTic and The Guard, really good fundamentals and work ethic.
APAC sent the best teams they could - XIA and PRX, both mechanically cracked with the strats to go toe-to-toe with EMEA and NA teams.
JP sending ZETA, a team that has levelled up ridiculously to the point of doubling, maybe tripling in firepower.
BR with their superteam LOUD, didn't drop a single game in VCT 2022 S1, even against VK, which gave World Champions Acend a run for their money, with NIP looking really good too.
LATAM with KRÜ and LEVIATAN, KRÜ having made the miracle run at Champs, LEVIATAN narrowly losing to KRÜ.

KR, realistically I don't see them doing as well. I also don't think they'll have the private rep of scrimgods like they did at Berlin and Champions, just because they look so weak compared to 2021. Different roster roles and players. I hope I'm proven wrong but as a DRX supporter they are the only team I am genuinely concerned for regarding even playoff qualification as they might even lose to the other Asian teams...

sayaplayer looks and sounds cooler

maybe, but unless it's a private server that's excluded from the public servers other teams play on then there's going to be instability issues. the ping itself is the biggest problem really, it has chances of messing up the games and ruining fair play.

Playing online introduces a lot of factors and possible bugs/complications that are hard to foresee and prepare for. It also messes up the fair playing field as Valorant's netcode works better on low ping.

DRX prolly gonna end up facing G2 FNC OpTic in groups, Prime Astralis, Prime Barcelona in playoffs and SKT T1 in finals in the tourney from the way their luck's been going.

As big DRX fan i think this is the worst the team has looked so far. i am not impressed with Zest - despite what the team may say about his IGLing he is just not as mechanically cracked as other IGLs and i think thats their deficit. Zander, Vanity, Boaster, Redgar, all these players are great IGLs and also frag out. the new roster roles are shaky too. i dont realistically see them making a deep run but hopefully i'm proven wrong.

samesamesame

what about zander valyn and fns

as pro

putting 2/3 EMEA at the bottom is a pretty hot take

optic and fnatic
i love both but i want to see some new faces get big

Legend, I switched FS and Bleed so rip me

mb i suppose, i assumed he was talking about overall because there was no indicator that this thread was about recent performance

HUGE W

where does it say that tho

yeah but whats ur point u said they cant even take one map from the guard, but they took 2.

they beat guard 2-0 in playoffs no?

Guard for LAN was right! 2 preds right so far lfg

i forgot abt se7en shit

HAHA its been a couple years since i last saw. was it le big mac or sth?

yankee?

Drive My Car in the same list as The Last Jedi. damn.

royale with cheese?

definitive best list in no order:

inception
dunkirk
2001
good will hunting
shawshank
goodfellas
godfather
parasite
blade runner 2049
lotr two towers
spirited away
interstellar
whiplash
schindler's list
saving private ryan
apocalypse now
la la land
no country for old men
pulp fiction
the social network
stalker
the shining
slumdog millionaire
minari
truman show
eternal sunshine
requiem of a dream
reservoir dogs
inglourious basterds
shoplifters
wolf of wall st
zero dark thirty
birdman

FNC win it all but PRX and KR teams won't be a slouch either. I reckon PRX will make playoffs with KR though.