Fnatic: either you were a Viper main from beta or like to watch white people dance

yes, Champions has a floor of Immortal 1

Brimstone gaming disbanded ;-;

What kind of buffoon said this?

I did the math, and this is how Team Liquid have a chance to qualify directly to Champions via circuit Points:

1. Gambit (and no other EMEA team) HAS TO win Masters 3
2. G2 and SMD cannot progress beyond quarterfinals (if either makes it to semis Liquid goes into LCQ)
3. Acend have to lose both of their group games (if they win even a single game then Liquid goes to LCQ)

Still there were some weird decisions in that Haven map vs SAW (haven't checked the TEN vod yet), like Magnum pushing out of a random smoke and dying, which is a bit of a concern. I hope the team can iron out basic fundamental mistakes, as that was something that gave Sentinels the edge in Masters.

I don't think anyone should comment on strats - if they feel some setup works well on a map (even the triple controller bind setup), that's their decision. I believe in the guys winning it out in LCQ! Or ACE, G2 and SMD not making out of Groups lmao

Nice. Now if only Fnatic win LCQ, Champions entries will be a whole different level.

Whoever wins their playoffs deserves to be in Berlin. Fnatic didn't play well, so they're not in Berlin. If SEN played horribly and lost the playoffs they didn't deserve to be in Berlin either. How is this a question?

It's more of a cultural thing; a lot of us are yet to understand internet etiquette. People simply don't understand that spamming skRossi and Average Jignesh isn't funny and is annoying. This leads to Jonas banning Average Jignesh or binod from his chat and suddenly "he's racist". He's not. A simple rule of thumb on the internet is don't do something that you won't do in real life. Especially on a global platform.

APAC LCQ stream chats will be interesting though, as Global eSports (skRossi's team) will be representing South Asia.

nein

I don't see how someone who plays a video game can harm me compared to a literal terrorist or a meme of a head of a State.

helpmestepbro, Top 10 in APAC Leaderboard the last time I checked

Edit: nvm that's literally the post lmao

Here goes our pickems xD

Any link to an official statement?

I do miss sinatraa's Sova a lot. There's no denying that TenZ addition took SEN to a virtually unbeatable pedesteal, but there was something magical about Jay's Sova that's impossible to replicate with the current team. Kinda wild that arguably the best Sova in NA isn't playing for any team.

Don't forget skrossi fanboys

-69 frags, keep it that way

We'll get more. All LCQs are supposedly LAN.

To add on, this is how it would've looked like if there were bye rounds -

1. F4Q makes it out of groups by winning a single bo3
2. If 1. happens, SEN and G2 face each other twice with the second game being more important than the first

In hindsight, a double round robin really was the best option out of a bad situation.

And still have one group with no EMEA teams OMEGALUL

I think people don't get sarcasm, so don't try.

done

This does make for a very interesting APAC LCQ though

PRX just need to win one bo3 to qualify to champions via circuit points. Bren and PRX are tied at 225 each, and Bren isn't gaining any thanks to the Philippine government. If PRX somehow manage to win a single BO3 in Berlin, they are through.

SEA already has 3 slots in LCQ.

And no region gets 3 direct slots to Champions via circuit points. Not even the mammoth region of EMEA.

I assume they'll just play a straight up bo5 tiebreaker. Seems like the only fair move. The tiebreak match being clubbed with APAC LCQ sounds pretty good for the hype. Whoever wins the tiebreak goes straight to Champions, whoever loses goes to LCQ as a top 2 seed.

Heartbreaking, really.

But this makes the circuit standings in SEA spicy. If PRX gets knocked out without winning a single game (which is highly likely looking at their group), PRX and BREN would be tied for 2nd place in circuit points, which is a problem as SEA sends 2 teams to Champions via circuit points.

HowToNoodle's also gonna stream at 2230 IST (UTC+5:30), but as pokedyo said, they all start at the same time.

There's no way it isn't gonna be LAN; what's the ping from SG to Tokyo like? a hundred?

LATAM is geographically much more expansive than BR - it spans from Mexico to Chile. And their Challengers playoffs are played offline anyway, so I don't think ping will be an issue even if you include BR, as the playoffs will be offline.

Wait, you're right

As much as yall have a competitive scene, the number of teams playing itself is rather small to warrant anything over 2 slots. If I remember correctly, the open qualifiers for stage 3 had only 32 teams? I might be mistaken, feel free to correct me.

6 can be done if even MENA teams are allowed to participate in EMEA playoffs. Then they can do the playoffs as a LAN. Imagine how sick it will be.

Then soniqs, a team comprised of 5 australians, shouldn't be allowed to play in NA. There are some restrictions regarding native players, but I'm not sure about the specifics, especially when it comes to NA.

Really depends on whether you wanna see a single elim quarterfinals.

If anything, masters should've followed the SEA playoffs format. 4 groups of 4, round robin groups (where each team plays the other for a 2 map series), top two from each group advance to double elimination playoffs.

The group stage can be easily wrapped off in 6 days (cuz each series is a bo2), and the double elim playoffs in another 6 (like masters 2). A moderate extension from the current format, but much better IMO.

I'd say yes. The SEA circuit points table goes as deep as the EMEA points table, and SIXTEEN teams play in SEA challengers playoffs - the most out of any region challengers playoffs. Even EMEA playoffs has only 12 teams.

South Asia (India) and East Asia (China) get 1 and 2 slots respectively in APAC LCQ (with 2 from JP, 2 KR and 3 SEA)