Well gotta play both sides here since I agree with the point, but disagree with the outcome
double the post length

Sen will be fine, no question about that imo.

For NRG the concern on map pool could come into effect though
Bringing in a new IGL is exactly why I think its an actual concern, since they dont have a good map pool to fall back on yet
So theyre playing catchup on the new maps while also still developing their "core" strat book on the old maps

However I am also very much reps pilled so I agree that them getting more officials in is a good thing for the team. Regional play gets so muddy that fundamentals are king.
I think that it doesnt quite work as well as in the offseason though (if there are issues you cant see in scrims they dont really have time to fix them), but its better than not getting reps in

The main reason I think it will work for NRG specifically is that their schedule works out well. Also Bonkar is the truth.

well yes its how he acts xD he baits a ton, it gets reactions and he clearly finds it funny af

doesnt stop you from separating his points and the bait though
the actual point he made isnt hard to disagree with either (sideshow for example gave the 2 biggest counter points in the nrg segment), so you can go after that, but dont get hung up on the intentionally over the top things since theres no substance to engage with there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-XdLzHyvco&t=9613s
dont take it seriously when hes intentionally baiting for fun

that being said his main reason (which he doesnt explicitly repeat in the nrg segment) is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-XdLzHyvco&t=9510s

did you watch it though?
cause after the babyrage he does bring up points which are perfectly valid as an analyst

like separate him intentionally ragebaiting ("reason number 1: its funny to see Sen and NRG fans crashout") from his actual concerns

wtf, why is GX doing amazing social media stuff now

wdym? todays (and yesterdays) matches should be showing

vlr wasnt showing t2/gc games while ewc was going on
so its only the post ewc games that show

ewc privileges that no event has ever gotten, or realistically will get again

you gotta finish that thought though
champs is just a glorified qualifiers for the next years regional

so regionals > champs > master
and since we already know ewc > regionals

ewc > regionals > champs > master

no confirmation afaik
however we know that they offered the comp val reddit money to allow ewc coverage (and got denied)
they then went here to advertise their new reddit (vlr just so happened to be fine with that advertisement)

and then "mysteriously" all non NA t2 / GC games stopped showing up while ewc was going on
just compare https://liquipedia.net/valorant/Liquipedia:Matches (swap to completed) to the vlr match history tab

so "no", but yes

Since VLR isnt doing their job... AGAIN

NorthEast is live with their Upper Swiss stage (https://www.vlr.gg/event/2540/challengers-2025-north-east-samsung-odyssey-split-3/upper-swiss-phase)
Schedule for today:
3:00 PM CEST (in 30 mins): https://www.vlr.gg/512241/enterprise-esports-vs-d-ti-ulice-challengers-2025-north-east-samsung-odyssey-split-3-r1
4:00 PM CEST: https://www.vlr.gg/512242/input-lag-enjoyers-vs-extreme-gaming-challengers-2025-north-east-samsung-odyssey-split-3-r1
5:00 PM CEST: https://www.vlr.gg/512243/bitfix-gaming-vs-metizport-challengers-2025-north-east-samsung-odyssey-split-3-r1
6:00 PM CEST: https://www.vlr.gg/512244/bonk-vs-twisted-saints-esports-challengers-2025-north-east-samsung-odyssey-split-3-r1

wont be around when it starts so early post
idek why this is necessary for an official t2 league, but here we are

and you made a post complaining about a misinterpretation of peoples issues?

https://www.vlr.gg/513191/the-issues-with-ewc-summarized

Bro youre just intentionally misunderstanding what people are saying at this point lmao

The criticism isnt that players dont take it seriously, but that ewc doesnt create an environment where they can preform to their max level and fucks up its production.

For an extreme example: You could host the biggest football event of the year, invite the best teams and set the biggest prizepool ever. If you then decide that their playing field is gonna be a swimming pool, your event wont be taken seriously as the next big thing in football.

THAT is what people are complaining about.
It was built top down instead of bottom up. Event sounds great on paper but once you look inside it somehow manages to have more issues than the understaffed and underfunded t2 leagues.

no, if its to be on the level of a vct event (or for my comparison RBHG) then the quals matter

If Riot just decided to invite 10 of the 16 teams at champs it would be a micky mouse event
as such looking at how the teams got there is essential for determining if it is a good format

Teams with Subs/Trials that didnt end up getting signed
I excluded players which were playing on rosters before they were announced. Ya can do that work yourself if you care.
AG
XLG (x2)
BLG
JDG
Trace
PRX
KRÜ
2G
G2
FUR
APK

go look at the qualifiers^^

prizepool does not matter whatsoever to make a good event
"Youre a horrible person"
"Who cares, look at my car!"

and did you watch the qualifiers? youre only sliiiiiightly off with 2 teams

online
scheduling nightmare
inconsistent and badly designed formats
tons of teams playing without full rosters + multiple teams using it to trial players
different patch to the ones teams are scrimming on
not part of vct

Basically the only reason you get to claim this is on the same level of VCT is if you also consider Red Bull Home Ground to be worth a masters.

Gosh dang, how much are they paying?

This is not the example you need to show that bo1s are good. Its quite the opposite since it doesnt even attempt to understand why bo1s are useful.
We've had PLENTY better implementations in t2 already and people have still disliked them.

The reason you would do bo1's is to speed up aspects of large group stages. Either to increase the amount of teams that can participate (1) or to use it to increase accuracy of the format in a shorter time frame (2) that cant fit a full bo3 round robin

(1) Look at https://www.vlr.gg/event/2540/challengers-2025-north-east-samsung-odyssey-split-3/lower-swiss-phase for example.
This is how you use bo1s in an eliminating format. 3 wins/losses, only qualifying/eliminating games are bo3.
The bo1 allow for far more teams to partake, while choosing (pseudo) swiss as the format (isnt punished as badly by the inaccuracies of bo1s).

(2) You can also do full bo1 round robin group stages where the idea is to maximize the amount of games in a shorter split. This allows the format to reward the consistent teams without being influence by a lucky group draw (see this years vct format for a bad example).
https://www.vlr.gg/event/2389/challengers-2025-t-rkiye-birlik-split-2/league-phase

EWC just fails at all the positives I talked about. It doesnt understand what bo1s can do. It (very on brand with the rest of the event tbh) just wants to go for the biggest numbers possible, without giving 2 shits about the competitive design of their event.

this is our split for sure :)

from what angle are you approaching it though?

Pure fragging, round to round impact, team impact, (each of them except only internationally,) or something else?
cause each of them will lead you to VERY different top 10 lists

The big case for F0rsaken is that hes a glue player that will fill any role the team needs him to, while putting up the best stats of his team and being one of their most vocal players (possibly qualifying as igl nowerdays?)
Combine this with the fact that PRX have attended the most internationals and you have yourself a reasonable candidate for top 5, or even top 3

Itll just come down to your personal weighting of various factors

the last time* we had a bo1 tourney xms ended up as the best player in t2

(*I dont actually know if it was the last time and cba to check)

even vlr's only Guild supporter isnt around anymore https://www.vlr.gg/user/Minte :(
rigged by clout

idk
I think it is since he has aspas level stats (post franchising) and has been in t1 since 2020

but Guild just wasnt successful enough to make internationals, so his only success is from his short stay with fnc
theres just so many options that Im not sure if Id have him on my own list in a week ngl

edit: o saw whos 9th and 8th, ok I think its insane

youre looking at Rating2.0 instead of watching arent you?

Rewatch TL vs GX Fracture for example
Game with mid af stats but one of the best smokes impacts we had in EMEA all tourney

(If you prefer using "objective" methods like stats, then add Rar into your evaluation too though - captures impact a lot better than Rating2.0, but since its blackbox its harder to understand its biases)

also nowhere near as bad as people "remember" in t1
split 1 2024 was great, kickoff 2024 was good and kickoff 2025 was very comparable to peoples favorites like Xeus

problem is Stage 1 2025 and Stage 2 2024 happened so unlucky

50% of the time, hes great every time

Tier 2 games don't get updated on time (especially Turkish games and Turkish 3rd party tournaments)

Slow updates are fine imo. Thats an api thing and you cant expect a human to take care of it all the time. Ofc faster would be better, but its not the end of the world.

However we very regularly have t2 games not show at all and (except for some NA) t3 never does
For example North//East had its Stage 3 start start today. Yea they didnt show up here. Official T2.

This NEEDS to be fixed

Ranking system's been shit since launch

Worst part is VLR has been informed by multiple teams over the years how the broken ranking is causing harm to t2.
Its completely worthless as is, so why keep something that makes getting signed for t2 teams harder?

And lastly a subjective opinion, the site just looks bad. maybe make a visual update

Idk probs just biased in the opposite direction but I dont mind the "older" look
Its functional and doesnt take away from the content hosted on here
Thats 10/10 nowadays

Sideshow had a nice spreadsheet for it

If you include pre fanchising EMEA still farms everyone
But post franchising its Americas >= Pacific >> EMEA > China in terms of average placements at internationals

wouldnt overall (so all of vct) performance be better for greatest player though?

teams dont spawn into those internationals and f0rsaken making more than double the amount t3xture has should be notable imo
overall stats start to tell that story

I really struggled with this one ngl
Looking at some of the discussions here, I shoud note it is greatest players not best players
Anyhow, in order:
Boaster - Most consistent IGL by a large margin
Chronicle - Most winning player and best (from my shortlist) international average placement (3rd!)
F0rsaken - Most international appearances (from shortlist) and great individually
Aspas - Individual stats + lots of internationals
ZmjjKK - King of China (most dominant regional player from my shortlist by FAR)
-- Arguable from now on
Valyn - No wins yet, only real fragging IGL
Crashies - NAs most successful player historically - just never close to best in the world individually
MaKo - Best player from DRX, IGL nowerdays
Leo - Too few internationals
Shao - T1 since 2020, what people think Meiy is (3rd best RAR on my shortlist)

HM
Jemkin and N4rrate for having the best stats (>500 rounds) by far in my dataset - just missing international success
Derke should also realistically be on here, but I really wanted Crashies to make it and am too much of a Shao simp to kick him
nAts missing also feels wrong but yea... just hasnt igl'd very long yet and had 2 fully dead years

well leo has been around as a top player for a lot longer
while an international audience (before he joined fnc most of emea too tbh) never really got to appreciate Guild, but theyve been ~ top 6 team in EMEA since beta

its why he had such a good reputation with orgs going into franchising

he doesnt have time to wait
he got a j*b bro

3rd times the charm

Now thats a move

for your sake I hope youre not german, cause youre going full right rn
aint the sort of thinking you should be doing when it comes to germany^^

german citizen + considers themselves german => german
they can be turkish too, that shit isnt exclusive

we dont need any other bs; that line of thought only causes harm
ya might wanna look at our history books
we have a pretty major chapter on that

Koi cooking with the new pickup
ez 2-0

Samsung Odyssey Challengers NORTH//EAST t3, turned China t2, turned Samsung Odyssey Challengers NORTH//EAST t2, turned China t1 player

While the sample size is very small (3 maps vs 9 maps) id argue his viper has been equal if not better to cypher
but that is carried by sample size tbf since the KOI split does a lot of that

regardless its not like viper has been a bad agent for minny yet, so idk why them trying out stuff during a non vct event would be bad

and how tf would we know if comeback is better on agressive champs vs chamber when he hasnt played chamber in any relevant games yet xD

youre correct it isnt currently
but that doesnt mean it cant become an asset that sets m8 apart in the future

not really? feel free to look at his first kill stats
FKPR, UFK% and UFD% are all good, but nothing exceptional compared to the other top duelists in t2

its the rest of his play that sets him apart
and the biggest factor in that is his sniper usage

why are we upset at the best sniper in t2 getting put on chamber?

Its t2, teams arent very good at announcing and vlr isnt very good at keeping track of coaches

but yea the post ascension streams are funny af in retrospect with him "flaming" various teams, before his own would fully collapse

A year late but dang being a ucam fan is paying off
Olizera is amazing and im looking forward to see how it works out

should bring a decent amount of firepower to the team

I dont think so? they have 2 players to replace (Flor and Gov)
here is the last iteration they were trialing publicly https://www.vlr.gg/487992/apeks-vs-giantx-esports-world-cup-2025-lr1

Based on the roles named he is the signing instead of Tag

yes, those are the exact same things he told us 2022 (right after fnatic chose chron instead of him based on the other comments made during that stream)
the credible wasnt meant as in "he didnt say them" but rather that they were just him voicing ideas/doubts; not proper plans^^

separate rumors
but yes he's been talking about it being a possibility (publicly) every offseason since 2022/23 (so before first year franchising)

also the reason why those rumors were never been credible though, since it was just him being very open about his doubts on stream (while still actively in talks with teams)

fnatic have 0% winrate on 2 of their maps
theres no way prx have to be scared

Its happend plenty where people "reported" that they had a "verbal agreement" before orgs had settled on a player
however given that this one was sheep esports I dont think that would be the case for this one

1 week isnt very long either - theyll put something out before they play an official dw

Project Blender is gonna be amazing from what we've been told so far