Tons of good korean players are available up for grabs, especially since Riot nerfed Korea to just 3 teams in the main stage every event.

And yet a partnered korean org gets two NA imports. Talk about irony.

Back in 2021/2022, nats and gambit/m3c were undoubtedly one of the most interesting teams to follow. Precisely because of his lurks, just like you said.

But nats is not the goat. He was indeed one of the most entertaining players to watch (and I don't think there will ever be someone similar again), but that doesn't make someone the goat.

Keeping recycling old jp players hoping for a different outcome is not a good strategy

Riot can decrease FIlipino franchise slots to 0 (who comprise a bigger playerbase than japanese btw), but somehow anything lower than 2 slots for Japan is a no-no

The "massive japanese audience" is an outdated myth at this point. They do not follow the game as much as they follow the organizations and their streamers

Bro posted this to brag about loud

Back when Valorant was actually high stakes

Do you consider NS RedForce, DRX weak orgs?

What baffles me is that, Riot absolutely should've rewarded the orgs who have been pushing the scene all this time, with partnerships. Regardless of the region caps

Instead they shat on them, and picked those who did not even exist like GAM and Crazy Raccoon, because "nuh uh we need japanese and vietnamese viewership". Like how is this even fair to those who put in actual effort over these years

Wdym by "pays the bills for half the league"

Who said there's any problem with it? Russian and other players play on EU teams, and that's fine

That's what I'm saying. CIS doesn't exist in Valorant, it's an integrated part of EU at this point

None of the CIS orgs are truly committed to Valorant except Navi. And even then, Navi's rosters are more all-around European than they are ukrainian/russian, which would basically result in the same 6 EU teams in the end

I would indeed like to replace M8 with Navi, but even then, it makes very little difference on the whole "EU non-EU" thing

Where exactly is this great player talent? Best players on japanese teams have always been koreans

They're just gonna keep inviting Japanese orgs who have showed zero merit over 5 years of esport history, for them to shit the bed over and over again

Bad day for the scene. Japanese teams have been farmed since day 1 in this esport.

"There will not be a single partnered Turkish team"

Bet FUT is incoming too

Sunset is Vita's permaban

I believe at least 2 of the 8 partnered EMEA teams will be from Turkey (most likely, FUT and BBL). Which will bring a total of Turkish teams in the Kickoff to 3

Who said that all of the 8 partnered EMEA teams will be from Europe only? Pretty sure that FUT and BBL will get those slots

All things considered, T1 did good. Most people had them exiting at 9th-12th place

Group A was also called the group of life - however, both of their teams are still in contention. The teams so far eliminated are from the death groups C and D, which is ironic

EMEA can pull top-tier talent from an insanely broad pool spanning Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Meanwhile, Americas teams are practically constrained by language barriers and time zones—meaning NA is pretty much limited to the US and Canada, while BR and LATAM stick to South America.
Sure, there are a few exceptions, but that’s generally how it goes. Pacific deals with the exact same issue with language and culture barriers.
Honestly, it’s no exaggeration to say EMEA has a massive edge when it comes to scouting and roster building.

I've been watching a lot of competitive valorant back in the 2021-2022 era, so naturally Vitality are very likable to me because I recognize the GOATs - chronicle, derke, jamppi. Back then they were playing on different teams, but now they're united against NA bums - it is very sweet

Remember how everyone was saying NRG/NS/KC was the group of death, or how G2/PRX/TL was another group of death

Turns out VIT/LOUD/GE was the real group of death all along. GE probably could've pulled off something in playoffs too

https://www.vlr.gg/734313/g2-esports-vs-loud-vct-2026-americas-stage-2-lr3/?game=all&tab=overview

13-3 13-6 fathers of america btw

Riot changes the meta so often, because they want to create a perfect balance of all agents between both pro play and casual gamers. In the end, they are never able to create a perfect balance that would appeal to both.

Personally I don't have an opinion about whether such frequent changes are good or bad. It is what it is.

Which makes it even funnier when I see people clowning on teams for losing a match once or bombing out of a tournament once. Come on, it's random anyway. A team could rise to the top in virtually no time, and similarly fall down from the top in an instant.

Fun fact: there have been 15 different winning teams among 17 international LANs that happened throughout the history of the game. The only teams to win a LAN twice were Sentinels and Fnatic - each of which last occurred 2-3 years ago.

This is to say that Valorant will never have an "era" like Astralis, NiP or Fnatic had in CSGO, for example. Not even like in the other esports: Dota, League of Legends, Rocket League - all of those had their own "kings" for a long of time.

Valorant will continue to be completely and mercilessly random, and I think that's the main appeal of it to the audience - everyone always has a shot to win.

To be fair, both teams in GE's group are performing the best among all groups in playoffs so far

NRG

As a region, in terms of depth, EMEA is second most stacked to Americas right now and has been as such for quite some time. Being trophy-less for so long doesn't change this very fact.

APAC tier2 doesn't challenge APAC tier1, Chinese tier2 doesn't challenge Chinese tier1. EMEA does.

At London Masters, the main stage of the event had 3 EMEA teams, 2 Americas teams, 2 China teams and 1 APAC team. Both APAC teams besides Paper Rex got humbled in play-ins.

You were saying something about EMEA being the worst region?