i may be devils advocate but i think fnatic winning champs would be peak. crashies redemption arc after god awful year on NRG, Kaajak proving he's the best rookie by far, and then the core proving they're still dominant. I don't like G2 but it would be nice to see them finally win one as well. Valyn and JoshRT are great leaders and they deserve it.

and a 12-6 they threw to FUT LMAO

platchat is comprised of analysts, coaches, and casters employed by riot. Riot doesn't hire just anybody.

they know more then most of VLR.

XLG dropped their IGL in Kr1stal because of region restrictions
Boom shouldn't be here, but proof that when the roster isn't poached, they can show up, they just choked in playoffs.
G2 similar to Boom, they kept four of their roster the same and then made a change to pick up Leaf. Proof that when the roster isn't poached, they can do well.
I assume you mean DRG, again proof when you don't poach the roster, they can show up.

All the rosters you just listed prove my point of when they don't get poached or lose their best players, they can perform and contend. Boom went undefeated in Stage 1, G2 was the best team in all of valorant for a bit, DRG made Shanghai, XLG made Toronto.

Obviously there are outliers for both sides, Gentlemates, Nongshim, for example didn't make a whole bunch of changes their first year and got railed.

But the main point stands, we don't get to see some of the full potential of these winning rosters because they get poached, can't play cause of age, region restrictions, etc.

the system is flawed because often times the best upcoming players that get poached are apart of the Ascension winning rosters (Kajaak) or the age limit for franchising.

We never got to see the full potential of the Apeks winning roster, or the Bleed winning roster, or 2G winning roster.

they need a coach. I’ve no idea why they decided on Faded when his TSM run to Ascension was a cinderella run.

this is reminding me of FNC with Elmapuddy. They switched to Milan and the results have shown, with zero changes to the roster.

Champs Boston
Champs New York
Champs Miami (this would be cinema)

turkey this, turkey that. FUT has been proving that aim is not enough to win you games. We have full Turkish rosters that just look mediocre at best against teams with no turkish representation so why do we think they'll clean up in a world cup?

Chronicle is in the goat conversation. Just not from the people on VLR. Ask any pro or former pro who their top 5 is, and Chronicle is in that list. The people who know, have him in that conversation.

getting a performance coach could also allow kaplan to solely focus on strategy and gameplay.

I guess we know why DRX never let him play in high stakes elimination matches. This is an entire different player

both RRQ and Wolves are at their first international. Obviously it makes sense a team like RRQ would have some nerves and Wolves feel more comfortable because of the swiss stage.

But G2 has been to the past four international events. I already said up above that momentum can be a huge factor, but G2 lost because they were the worse team. Not because Paper Rex got momentum, they had that momentum in their regional playoffs but still got 3rd.

They had all the time in the world to polish their game plans in practice where no one can see what they do, like what every roster did for swiss.

resulting to insults because you're coping. the better team won.

all of my "words" prove the point of better teams winning. but since you don't like evidence based arguments, i'll keep it simple for you.

G2 lost because they were the worse team that day, not because of the format.

the 4 teams that won in the opening round of playoffs in Shanghai were top 4 of the event, or in other words, the better and best teams.

Everyone holds G2 to this higher standard and they're a great roster, but they can't beat Paper Rex? They barely scraped by Liquid and got rolled by GENG. If G2 is supposed to be such a great roster, they would've won, plain and simple.

As to your point, the better teams won. Because that's what it means to win. You were better that day. If G2 has another bad day tomorrow and bombs out of the tournament, are we to blame it on format or just call it what it is: they had a bad tournament.

The advantages G2 had going into this heavily outweigh the advantages of a team like Paper Rex getting momentum. G2 lost because they were the worse team. It's even worse when you acknowledge the amount of time they had extra to anti-strat and cook up their own comps that no one would know about. You're coping because you lost to a better team.

I'm gonna say it again because I truly believe it. The better teams won. Momentum and stage reps are great but the better team won.

Masters Shanghai, the only #1 seed to win was 100T. Which makes sense, because G2 was a tournament favorite, GENG was a runner up in Madrid and won the event, and Team Heretics got runner up in Shanghai and in Champs. All of these matches, the better team won. The three swiss stage teams that won in Shanghai all placed top 3 and 100T placed 4th.

The same is true for Toronto. You can use the numbers 1-7 all you want but its just cope. These aren't regional match ups, its very common to see other regions #2 and #3 be better then other regions #1.

What happens if they switch the format and the #1 seeds still lose out? Are we to just keep catering to the #1 seed so they can win? If they were the better team, they would've won.

More comfortable? All these #1 seeds had all the time in the world to watch these swiss stage games and anti-strat whilst cooking their own stuff that no one would've seen.

If anything, the #1 teams were more comfortable because no one had any clue what they were cooking. Especially right out of a meta change. They had all the advantages in the world and still lost.

FNC lost because they couldn't close out the first map. But also, GENG just looks like the better team thus far.

RRQ probably lost because of Wolves momentum.

I think the better teams won.

Momentum can be a big part of that but if G2 is supposed to be this god-tier roster, why are they losing to PaperRex? G2 should've been thrilled to play against that style.

Paper Rex was one of the teams that suffered because of the Tejo meta, while G2 was the opposite. We're just seeing the results of the new meta play out.

Counterstratting is great but they didn't even put up a fight. SEN literally said it was easy. Which means the counter strat pick was a terrible idea.

XLG has proven to be better then Wolves because they're the #1 seed. They had first pick. No region restrictions.

they picked SEN's two best maps. after picking sen first. and they only got 12 rounds total. they got railed. no one needed to watch the game to understand XLG fucked the map picks.

you're delusional and this thread proves i'm right.

frauds for losing to the team they got first pick and then picked that teams best 2 maps. the coaching staff has some questions to answer

i didn’t watch the games cause work but why did XLG pick SEN with the first pick, then go into this and pick two of SENs stronger maps.

they are hard trolling

he said its only for championship grand finals i believe. but then also the only game they wore them in the sen classic, they got railed by NRG. so maybe they thought it was a jinx

at the time of this reply, he's 14 and 4 on FK/FD and +13. bait used to be good

skip school

comparing the top CS to top Val casters, i think its pretty even. Bren and sideshow, Pansy and Hypoc, Achillios and Paperthin compared to Launders and Scrawny, Spunj and Machine: if its not these duos in CS or Val, i don't enjoy watching.

faded has a lot to prove still. if he's a great coach, having this roster with Vitality should easily prove that. If he can't succeed with this roster, it proves the opposite.

It sucks that we never get to see the true potential of a tier 2 team that wins Ascension because of age or Tier 1 teams poaching. The only ones we have actually seen through really is G2 and Gentlemates if I'm correct.

Apeks lost their star duelist and Soulcas, Bleed lost their core because of age and then their org was shit, XLG lost one of their players because of the import rule, and the ascension winning roster is different from the current one. 2G couldn't have their star duelist because of age, then they drop their IGL because of the performance. Its a sad system to see this so frequently.

That being said, I think M80 winning ascension either years would've been really great for the scene. That core of both rosters 23 and 24 were incredible and they would've made moves in franchising.

he's been immo 3 7 times. that seems a lot better then "barely reaching"

he's like 16

he was like this on 100T. 100T didn't mismanage bang, they mismanaged the rest of their rosters around him.

neon abusers had skill and aim. Tejo abusers can have that too, but don't need it because they point and click where they want their missiles to go. literally a child could do it.

and Trent and Leaf still had stand out games? Jawgemo isn't the reason G2 is so dominant. Everyone on that team is a shooter.

they beat G2 with zekken being the third highest fragger. everyone on this team can pop off. but they don't need to pop off because their team play is good now

we want FNS level IGLs that can shoot, definitely think he is a liability if he's not shooting.

why does everyone keep gassing up Rossy as an IGL when he has yet to prove anything in the actual matches. Rossy is not some FNS level IGL. He just started IGLing this year on Cloud9 where he was dropped and now Leviatan where he was dropped. A good IGL isn't getting dropped like this. plus supamen is incredible

its an academy team. they're developing the roster by putting them on these different roles in officials. the staff is doing exactly what they should.

kaajak was 2-17 before getting an awp where he then went on an 11-1 run.

which is against tos, so bannable

you got banned because every act before this, you peaked Silver 3. but now you're suddenly ascendant 2 with a 30%+ hs rate? you either bought the account or you're actually cheating. both of which qualify for bans.

so it begins again. 0 bracket play wins last year.

the hindering debuff is one of the strongest things of her kit, imo

They need a performance coach. As far as I know, they don't have one. If you watched any of the behind the scenes at Kickoff and the vlogs, Kaplan is doing all of the "get some energy and hyped" and all this. Quite frankly, i think kaplan is going about it the wrong way in his pregame and post game speeches, anyways.

Get a performance coach just like Vitality and FNC did in their primes, with rosters like these, it can save the teams. It'll allow Kaplan to focus solely on being head coach and not a therapist. Everyone on SEN can be a shooter on their best day and the only reason they lose is to themselves.

demon1 above people like zekken, jawg, and texture is criminal. he's a jett merchant. we all saw how bad his raze was. he's only good at one duelist. everyone he's above is better as an overall duelist

he's not even IGL anymore. Artzin is

WELL WELL WELL

i believe dephh cut himself. they cut the coach.