Great crowd. CS esque game. Cheering for both teams, Riot should take notes and host more events in Americas or good crowd culture loactions. Could make every moment hype and memorable. Also be more leniant with signage riot.
| Flag: | Canada |
| Registered: | January 28, 2025 |
| Last post: | November 16, 2025 at 4:36 PM |
| Posts: | 53 |
Great crowd. CS esque game. Cheering for both teams, Riot should take notes and host more events in Americas or good crowd culture loactions. Could make every moment hype and memorable. Also be more leniant with signage riot.
With how the rosters are currently shaping out it looks like we are headed into the most comptitive and entertaining season to watch this next year.
Every roster move so far seems to be an upgrade / sidegrade to last year. Fewer recycled players and bottom feeder teams like furia and eg have good scraps to choose from and decent teams being built. Talent pool is much better this year (keznit cant find a t1 team because of how competitive duelist role is, yay released from eg even though he is arguably the best in their roster).
Clear top 3 in G2, NRG, AND MIBR. With super aggressive teams that can go on hot streaks, envy, 100t, c9, etc. Furia most likely wont even be the worst for at least a stage.
Only downside is the lack of brazilian and latam talent being brought into t1. Definitely need more southern rookie players to be given a chance because of how insane they are. Just look at the new talent this year in sato, okeanos, cortezia, virtyy, etc. Need to bring in and or curate better igls and coaches that can speak the same language or try to implement some sort of english speaking hybrid system. Hoping that this offseason they workshop a bit and work with the rest of americas to develop players.
Tldr: Americas will be cooking this year.
Zekken
N4rrate
JohnQT
Okeanos
Yay (back on chamber)
If we get a sen - fnatic grand final to determine the most decorated org in val.
The thing is that apac tends to run very hot or very cold and fluctuate very quickly (like rn bangkok teams failing in playoffs to qualify), and against the current opponents they will need to maintain a hot streak in groups and playoffs to succeed. Also last year, geng were good but the rest of the teams weren't that great either. You had 100t as America's favorites. And g2 were stuck with icy as a duelist. Th were the only reasonable team of players with comparable players and power as geng.
Definitely possible as well.
Last three internationals were in the east, also arguably Bangkok could have very easily been a g2 win so the regions are still very competitive and with the caliber of teams being sent from the west now relative to the east its easily their best chance to close out an international win.
What in the adhd bro it's barely a paragraph.
With all of the teams locked in for Toronto its definitely looking like the west will be the heavy favorites to win this event. America's and Emea definitely have their best teams being represented while Apac and China may have lost their likely top contenders in Edg, Drx, T1. Geng and Prx could definitely make a resurgence considering the quality of their rosters. If Jemkin can keep his form Rrq can definitely punch up in their first international as well. Havent watched China but expecting to see their top players get quite a bit of international recognition in this event as well. Looking like it will be one of the most stacked 12 teams we've had coming into an international. Tejo nerf however might make the macro and strats all around quite sloppy.
Cold take G2 win Bangkok if the final was replayed like 9 times out of 10.
Haven't watched any ewc tournaments before. Does anyone what the games will likely look like. 16 teams but group stage is only 2 days long. Probably means games will be running at the same time but will they also be b01s? Also apparently a single elim bracket in playoffs. Shaping up to be an incredibly Mickey mouse 1.25M tourney.
Imo, Tejo almost singlehandedly brought about the downfall of nrg and fns. In the off-season tourneys we saw them have a really good read on the meta with them punishing teams who has to set up in positions for full execs and good macro with the old meta comps to control the game pretty well. And then Tejo was released making all their prep for kickoff useless. Not only that but they didn't even consider that tejo would become meta even though it was obvious it would because of the scout, exec and post plant potential over any other initiator class. Whoever made the call to ignore adopting the agent screwed the team their kickoff stage. This in turn gave them an excuse to cut verno amd bonkar and blame the issues with him/them as the reason for their poor performance.
When stage 1 rolled around they hadnt fully adopted the meta and we could definitely see they tried to use the post plant heavy comps without properly building a game plan to slow defenders and just retreating and giving up all the space before any time was challenged. FNS' calling on attack also struggled in this meta because of how easy it is to reclear any pressure around the map with just a bit of utility committal. The majority of their wins had come solely from great Mada and som performances who always managed to win the duels that would for anyone else be 50/50s for most other players.
Tldr: Tejo led to their downfall if we were in old meta we might actually have seen Verno keep up his insane performance in kickoff and they would have had a decent run if we assume they got better at the old meta comps since the off-season.
Imo KC has a real chance to win this game out only because they can prep the next two maps of this game all week long. Engh is gonna drill in a ton of set rounds to possibly get them the win in this final game.
Emea defintely has some of the more experienced contenders for sure if they make it as well. Imo this masters is shaping up to be a contest between Americas and Emea.
Mibr is a great team don't be disappointed if they don't win an international. There are only 3 internationals a year and with a rookie roster it's always difficult to get a win internationally simply because of lack of experience in cross region battles and the high stakes pressure. But I will say if there was a rookie roster that could win it would be this one mainly because of the leadership and experience Aspas brings to the team (the "been here, done that attitude" so to speak). Additionally, I don't think we have seen a single game where any of the mibr players have add an off day in form unlike a lot other teams who have up swings and down swings which is a great sign.
Also looking at how the playoffs are going in Pacific and China, America's have some of the most experienced international teams and players for contenders atm.
What is this take, sen have been looking great. America's in fact is the only region where we have 3 strong contenders for the international in Sen, G2 and Mibr.
Haven't seen the entire game yet, but Sen need to add a bit more flexibility into their style, they play the higher percentage play too much with too much rigidity in how they take space especially on their attack. They need to be willing to add in solo pushes and lurks into their style. Also need a ton more contact plays and dry swings in some rounds simply to throw teams off their regular pace. Otherwise they have played pretty well, just need to be willing to make these riskier plays especially against teams like g2.
Also EMEA is getting too much credit for being a strategic region ngl. The only good comps that have come from the region have been from Fnatic. America's on the other hand came out with cypherlock, some actually goated harbor comps for icebox, no duelist comps, and the tejo yoru vyse meta.
This is outright false, this comp is from NA tier 2, even if you only watch Emea you would know that Koalanoob (interview) introduced this comp to Navi himself to prove its strength.
There is so much wrong with this 100t team. Their positioning is always terrible (hence why they lose their 2v1s 3v1s etc.) Asuna and eeiu are playing with different paces (Asuna too far ahead to be traded, Eeiu too far back to trade). Boostio's individual decision making is terrible he gets into good positions with lurks, flanks mid walks but end up pushing and throwing the round rather than holding his position. Zander has to try and cover gaps and holes left by all of the other players and is always having to play safe because his team is aggressing every angle at the same time. Cryo playing decent but also does tunnel vision a bit too much. Overall they have a very 1-dimensional playstyle of explosively taking space, but also are hardly ever prepared for reaggression or reactions from the opposing teams.
One of them is guaranteed Toronto now (same side of the bracket). Only MIBR seems to be a strong international contender in this group. If 100t or Kru sneak in, America will be seriously underrepresented.
It's a problem of meta as well in that case far less contacting currently. It is much harder to tap heads with double duel dives, blinds, stuns, missles, and drones clearing every angle.
Always has been, just the perception of Vandal power has been too high for too long. (I.e. vandal preference is still very high)
Bang is far ahead of the curve here. Players should definitely spend a prac session just practicing smoke spams and tracer tracking through smokes if they don't already. For those who disagree this is genuinely a skill (game sense) and anyone who says luck kills doesn't know what they are talking about.
This is also honestly a possibility Sen might try to get some prep on fracture and ascent ahead of playoffs and might pick into one or two of 2gs better maps.
If Sen win against 2g and 100t is out of contention for first seed, is Zikz willing to to troll the map pred and lose to kru so they don't face g2? They likely wont (out of sake for competitive integrity) but definitely a thought that will cross their minds especially since Valyn considered 100t to be one of the weakest teams they face in scrims.
Seeing a few threads regarding balances to the game to make it more entertaining in ranked, I agree with a lot of the ideas of reducing utility but imo what valorant needs most is the freedom to make community maps at the very least if not entire communtiy servers and bring back more game modes (like replication).
Definitely so many orgs can do this to improve their image and get more viewers invested in their org and brand. Doesn't even have to be a winning roster just needs to be entertaining and make community-appreciated decisons.
Will just genuinely be a fun team to watch. Aspas and Frod will be in full control of the roster and direction of team with little to no managerial oversight. They have great young rookie talent looking to make a name for themselves in Cortezia and Xenom. An Igl who is willing to fill any role and entry any site for Aspas. Verno in his revenge arc likely putting in the effort to prove himself. The vibes here will be at an all time high even with the potential language barriers. Most of all they seem (from an outside perspective looking in) to have full trust in each other which is more than a lot of the teams in the league atm.
Basically a breath of freshair after all the crazy roster moves, player cuts, and drama this last month.
Edit: Also almost forgot that they signed Sacy as a CC who is easily one of the best personalities in the entire valorant scene.
I actually forgot about Trent, that is the true mild take
Hope so too but their last 2 games were so bad individually and in teamplay that I cant really put them up in top 3 until they show some signs of life.
Does anyone know if Chiwa is playing or will Vakk continue for BBL?
Personal opinion and bias
Yoru, Breach, Tejo, Vsye will dominate the meta here. Unlikely that EMEA experiment with deadlock. Heretics will not be able to find an identity in this meta and will not make Toronto. Vitality will be 5-0 in groups. KOI will be 0-5. NO waylay?
Group A
Group B
TOP 3
FUT, Vitality, BBL/TL
Prediction: he will say Sen are frauds
Yes my rankings above are biased fs based on how I think the teams will approach the meta. From a pure 5 player power lvl standpoint: G2 > KRU > LOUD >= SEN > 100T > MIBR > C9 = LEV = NRG > EG > FURIA > 2G
Personal bias and we literally have no info on how these teams will look (they played over a month ago). You also cant rely on past performance when ranking these teams just look at last year's difference between kickoff and stage 1, nrg were still predicted to be a super team heading into stage 1 before they fell off a cliff. 100t popped off out of nowhere, Sen failed to make it, c9 and kru went on a run in groups, loud fell off. Lev super team got relatively mid results.
True, relying on G2 bombing out and NRG popping in the playoffs
Personal Opinions and Bias
G2 will likely need to change their chamber pick(relatively easy to counter and does not perform well if Leaf is not online). SA could contend for all 3 top spots in playoffs and will generally be much stronger than people expect (except for Furia and 2G ofc). Double duel or Tejo will become the predominant meta in Americas (will see early success and is the easiest to adapt in a week's time in between games). Sen will bounce back (cope but actually). 100t will likely bring a unique comp for their first game. EG will be entirely lackluster this stage. pANcada will be the highest rated player. 2G will win less than 60 rounds through the entire stage. FNS WILL BE SHOOTING.
Group A
Group B
TOP 3
NRG/LEV, SEN, LOUD
Bros really out hear critiquing my spelling. Was the autocorrect and didn't proof read mb.
True. Tldr: No game with similarily skilled players is a guarantee. Any given day an upset potential is possible due to a pop off game, a strong antistrat that wins a few rounds, or just some good pistol round wins because of how momentum based this game is.
It used to be impossible to counter chamber because of the amount of util you needed before to push him off a line, but now you can just Tejo missile his likely tp rendezvous spots and trap him. Especially on a map like abyss where there only really are a few good tp positions for mid and a.
The 2.0 betting odds are definitely weird considering kru have many more proven t1 players, and have demonstrated a much stronger performance after their initial loss against loud. Their map pool is their weakest point. They have a weak haven attack, kru also likes to ban fracture and pearl whereas mibr like to ban fracture and pick pearl. This leaves a scenario here mibr will most likely be favoured on the map picks, but still would not think thats enough to make kru have 2x odds.
I would argue that g2 is actually near their peak as their players have had a year or more playing together hence why they look so synergized and their comms and calls from an outside perspective looking in are nearly flawless. Their improvement will come from Jawgemo taking over and changing the pace of their game adding even more to their playbook.
Oh just realized mb lol typing on phone with autocorrect.
Too many people here are writing sentinels off completely.
Imo, sentinels have yet to demonstrate their peek potential. They've only played two games so far like g2 and have had a very lackluster performance. In the loud game for instance their synergy with their utility was very off (understandable considering the complexity of the comp and the time theyve had with it) but they were still able to demonstrate that their form was intact with clutch potential and hero plays that won them the series. Narrate so far has had a slow start to the season likely because of the role swaps and breach pivot. However, he had been one of the most consistent players in emea last year despite kc doing not much of anything past kickoff, so I'm confident his form will return with more runs on the agent.
G2's synergy has been nearly perfect since the start of kickoff, However. they have not been tested much in disadvantage situations because of the space, flanks and timings leaf has been allowed to take in the last 2 games on chamber. Their chamber pick will be anti'd as well. Considering their success so far g2 will likely opt to improve their weaker maps and might not be willing to adapt their comps and strats much further on their chamber pick maps (their strongest) which may give an opportunity for sen to counter them on their pick.
Map wise both Sen and g2 don't seem to like playing haven and fracture. They share a lot of maps in the current pool.
Sen likely still prefer split/pearl,lotus,bind abyss in that order.
G2 will likely prefer to play abyss,pearl,bind/split,lotus in that order.
Possible map pick/bans
G2 ban haven
Sen ban Abyss
G2 pick fracture
Sen pick split/pearl
G2 ban lotus
Sen ban bind
Remaining split/pearl
In this scenario, g2 will either stick with their double senti comp on pearl or cook up something new to prevent being anti'd. And sen might come with a new comp on split considering their struggles on the map so far with the solo yoru entry.
If Sen improve on their synergy from last time, get a good map pick/ban and start off hot they definitely can beat g2.
P.s. no game is more than a 70/30 between similarly skilled players just because of how momentum based this game is.
IMO 8 team masters atp is decent for the start of the season. The tough kickoff bracket makes sure only a few good teams per region make it through (i.e. teams that don't have glaring holes and inconsistencies in their play). Because of this every game is a much watch and after the first round the Swiss stage makes all of the other games pretty important as well as they are all advance or elim games. Ideally you would want more tournaments with more teams invited but with the current investment from riot into esports this is kind of the best we can hope. The scene hasn't developed enough either yet for more teams at the start of the year without making masters 1 look competitively worse than masters 2 because of the massive gap between the top and mid table teams in each region at the start of the year.
I could definitely see China winning this event, I think I just personally rate the lean into the yoru pick by g2 and Sen a lot higher, simply because he has been an overturned agent for a while, allows for a lot of set play opportunities in this execute heavy meta, has combo potential with Astra, that is more viable again because of omen nerf plus 5th star and is very strong on defense because of his quickrotate tp.
I think America's also just has a great grasp on the meta with g2 opting into the chamber for sentinel and with sen opting for no sentinel or vyse on their maps.
Also am hopeful that Sen and nrg simply just need a bit more time to get comfortable with these new comps as they do play very differently to last years meta that America's is used to.
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