LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

100t clears your fraud region buddy

this is the first match i've watched of this tournament so maybe i'd have a different take if i watched gengs last match tbf

geng not getting any cheers vs fpx being the obvious crowd favorite just adds to the drama/intrigue of the match for me. maybe objectively/from a player pov it's better if the crowd was unbiased, but i think a biased crowd just adds to the excitement of a match. every round fpx win feels even more crushing for geng, and every round geng win is them literally silencing their haters and proving how good they are. the entire first half felt like a victory lap from fpx, proving all the doubters wrong and crushing a supposed top team in front of the home crowd, and almost the entire second half is just geng putting a stop to that, silencing fpx's home crowd and proving that they really are one of the best teams in the world. it's the first match in my admittedly short time watching competitive valorant i've watched where i've been this invested in the storyline.

i mean CS is a bit different, EU still get a vast majority of spots at any given event because they're just way better than every other region. Each region gets a bare minimum amount of slots with the rest changing depending on who did well at the last major, which imo makes a lot of sense.

that's fair. i feel like it's a lot harder for chinese teams to improve (to the level of being internationally competitive atleast) when there are only 2 competitive teams in the region and the rest just play weak domestic comp/a couple games against good teams and then go home if they make an international event, but there isn't really a great way to deal with that unless chinese teams started bootcamping in eu/na/br/etc to scrim against top competition during the offseason which isn't really something riot could have any affect on.

that's true but i'm not arguing that china as a region should just be merged with apac, because that'd be a logistical nightmare now that both regions are already established. i'm just explaining why i don't think china being its own region makes sense, even from the perspective of helping the region improve.

would they not improve faster having to play against pacific teams to qualify for international events though? as is they only play against (relative to the other regions) weak national comp and then get a couple games against top competition at an international event and go home.

ill be honest my frame of reference was just cs + people i know who are mainly valorant watchers thinking china being a seperate region is weird so i assumed it wasn't the case in other esports. i kinda just think its a bit weird that with a preset amount of spots for each region a country that isn't particularly competitive gets one over, say, brazil/latam or na, or even seperating eu into 2 regions

every chinese team except edg and (sometimes) fpx is a very likely contender for if not guaranteed last at any international event, compared to emea, americas and pacific who have multiple potential title contenders (on paper atleast) and a ton of internationally competitive teams. plus in every other esport i've watched where regions matter, china's just part of pacific, and that's what makes sense geographically. is china just its own region because riots owned by a chinese company, or is there some other reason i'm not thinking of?