just thought this would be funny to share

if the following happens:

Week 7:
100T beats FUR
MIBR beats EG
SEN beats KRU
LOUD beats NRG
C9 beats LEV

Week 8:
SEN beats FUR
EG beats NRG
C9 beats KRU
LOUD beats LEV
MIBR beats 100T

the final standings would look like this:
LOUD 9-0
C9 8-1
NRG 4-5
FUR 4-5
LEV 4-5
100T 4-5
EG 4-5
SEN 4-5
MIBR 4-5
KRU 0-9

this would be a 7-way tie for the last 4 playoff spots, tiebreaks would be a nightmare but i'll try to work it out in a comment

edit: nvm, tiebreaks would literally just be map differential, then round differential, then apparently a tiebreaker bo1 match to break any further ties, since all 7 teams would have a 3-3 H2H record against each other

also before you say this is impossible, consider that C9 and LOUD are probably favored to win their last 2 games, and KRU is favored to lose their last 2 games, which only leaves 4 more results needed for this to happen (100T over FUR, MIBR over EG, SEN over FUR, EG over NRG), i'm not saying this is likely to happen but it realistically could

yeah i'm pretty sure the vlr standings are going by map differential for tiebreaks

there's a lot of crazy scenarios though, technically 100T, EG, MIBR, SEN, NRG, LEV, and FUR could create a 7-way tie for the last 4 playoff spots LMAO

in the case you mentioned it seems like LEV would be eliminated yeah since they are 0-2 H2H, assuming liquipedia is correct

according to liquipedia it's H2H first and then map differential in multi-way ties where no team has a H2H advantage

that is quite literally why i included a TL;DR and specifically mentioned it not only near the beginning of the post but also in the title, congratulations for not even making it to the end of the title

oh and btw if either 100T or EG lose either of their next 2 matches then the whole complex scenario I talked about becomes impossible and 5-4 will be enough to secure a spot in playoffs no matter what :)

btw for anyone wondering why NRG and LEV would automatically move past a map differential tiebreaker in the scenario I talked about where a 5-4 team doesn't make playoffs, this is because of their current map differentials (+4 for LEV, +3 for NRG), which means that if they were to go 1-1 in their last 2 games, their worst possible map differential would occur if they lost 0-2 and won 2-1, which would put LEV at +3 and NRG at +2. since 100T currently has a map differential of -3, even if they win both their final matches 2-0, their map differential would be +1, putting them below LEV and NRG in map differential no matter what happens.

since only 1 5-4 team can be eliminated, while it might not necessarily be 100T (100T could end at +1 while FUR or EG could also end at +1 or even at 0), if it goes down to a map differential tiebreaker then LEV and NRG cannot be eliminated because they are guaranteed to have a higher map differential than at LEAST 1 other team.

the reason LEV could still be eliminated at 5-4 despite this is due to H2H tiebreakers where they have a poor record in H2H matches against the other middle of the pack teams (1-3 against the other 4 5-4 teams in my scenario) which could cause them to be eliminated in tiebreaks BEFORE map differential is taken into consideration. this cannot happen to NRG since in any scenario with a 4 or 5 way tie at 5-4 for the last 3 or 4 spots, NRG would have either a 2-1 or 2-2 record in H2H tiebreaks which is good enough to keep them safe from elimination.

i wanted to do every possible scenario and gave up bc of all the possible tiebreaks, i'll probably end up doing that once there's only 1 week left to go though

i just like math and statistics and have too much free time now that spring semester is over and summer classes haven't started yet

i added a note to skip to the team you care about!

READ THE TLDR FOR ME <3

YOUR TEAM STILL HAS HOPE UNLESS YOUR TEAM IS KRÜ ESPORTS, IN THAT CASE I'M SORRY

OFC TLDR WAS FOR YOU <3

With 2 weeks to go in VCT Americas I thought I'd make a post about some of the possible playoff scenarios for each team. Tiebreakers according to Liquipedia are H2H, in the case of multi-way ties where there is no H2H advantage (ex: a 3-way tie with all teams being 1-1 against each other) it then moves to map differential, then round differential, then finally a Bo1 tiebreaker. Since tiebreakers could end up being extremely complicated, I can't go through every single one, but I'll give a rundown of what each team needs to do + the help they might need.

IF YOU AIN'T READING ALLAT SKIP TO THE TL;DR AT THE END I'LL SAY EACH TEAM'S OUTLOOK

LOUD:
LOUD has clinched a first round bye.

Cloud9:
C9 has clinched a playoff spot, and clinches a first round bye with any of the following results:
C9 win vs. LEV
C9 win vs. KRÜ
LOUD win vs. LEV
(if none of the above happen, C9 would lose a 2-way H2H tiebreaker against LEV, but C9 could still possibly win a 3 or 4-way tiebreaker with LEV + NRG and/or FUR if they win both of their last 2 matches to create a 3 or 4 way tie at 6-3. the reason a LOUD win vs. LEV clinches C9 the bye is because C9 would automatically win a 2-way or 3-way tiebreak against NRG and/or FUR due to having wins against both teams)

Sentinels:
SEN will be eliminated with a loss to either KRÜ or FUR, since either result will put their ceiling at 3-6, and one of EG, 100T, or MIBR is guaranteed to become the 6th team to achieve at least 4 wins.

With 2 wins to finish their schedule, SEN has a chance to qualify for playoffs. One possible result is the following: EG and 100T both lose their last 2 games, and LEV wins 1 of their last 2 games, pushing 5 teams to 5 or more wins and creating a 2-way tie for 6th place between SEN and MIBR at 4-5. In this scenario, SEN would win the 2-way tiebreaker due to their H2H win vs. MIBR.

MIBR:
MIBR will be eliminated with a loss to either EG or 100T, since either result will put their ceiling at 3-6 and push a 6th team to 4 or more wins.
However, with wins against both teams, MIBR does have a chance to qualify, possibly without even needing to rely on a tiebreaker.

Example: Assuming MIBR wins vs. EG and 100T, then if both of those teams lose their other match (EG vs. NRG and 100T vs. FUR), and SEN loses at least one of their last two matches (vs. KRÜ, FUR), then MIBR will sit at 4-5 with EG, 100T, SEN, and KRU all sitting at 3-6 or worse, which would allow MIBR into the playoffs regardless of what happens with the other 5 teams.

If the above does not happen, MIBR will have to rely on tiebreakers that will likely involve multiple teams sitting at 4-5. However, depending on the other teams in the tiebreakers, MIBR would have wins against NRG, 100T, and EG, and considering that the tiebreaks would likely include 100T and/or EG, this could give them a possible H2H advantage that pushes them through to the playoffs without having to rely on map differential, since MIBR would automatically win a 2-way tiebreak against any of those teams, as well as a 3 or even 4-way tiebreak including only those teams.

KRÜ Esports:
KRÜ has been eliminated from playoff contention.

With the remaining 5 teams sitting at either 4-3 or 3-4, playoff scenarios get extremely complicated.
For both 100T and EG, both teams MUST win at least 1 game to have a chance for playoffs. Losing both will put either team at 3-6, and in that scenario either MIBR or the other of the 2 teams will reach 4 wins. A final record of 4-5 will give both teams a chance for playoffs, but they will need lots of help. Winning both games will lead to a very high probability of making playoffs, although there is one possible scenario that could spoil this.

For LEV, NRG, and FUR, all 3 teams can clinch playoff spots by winning both of their last two matches, and will likely make the playoffs with even 1 win. However, as I alluded to before, there is a scenario where a 5-4 team does NOT make playoffs (this could happen to any team except NRG). Here's the crazy scenario.

If the following happens:
100T win vs. FUR
EG win vs. MIBR
NRG win vs. LOUD
FUR win vs. SEN
EG win vs. NRG
100T win vs. MIBR
LEV wins 1 out of 2 matches vs. LOUD and C9

Then there will be a 5-way tie for 3rd-7th place between 100T, EG, NRG, FUR, and LEV, all sitting at 5-4. If ANY of the above results does not happen (except LEV winning both matches, which would still create a 4 way tie between 4th-7th place) then a 5-4 record will be sufficient to clinch a playoff birth. However, if the above scenario happens, there is a very complicated tiebreak process.

If they go by H2H records among the 5 teams, which Liquipedia seems to imply would happen, then 100T would have a 3-1 H2H record, LEV would have a 1-3 H2H record, and the other 3 teams would all have 2-2 H2H records, which would seemingly leave LEV on the outside looking in. If they go by map differential, then NRG and LEV would be guaranteed playoff spots, whereas the other 2 spots would be dependent on the scores of the last 2 weeks (100T would end with a map differential between -1 and +1, EG and FUR would both end with map differentials between 0 and 2).

If LEV wins both of their last matches, creating a 4-way tie for 4th-7th place, then NRG and 100T would have 2-1 H2H records while EG and FUR would have 1-2 H2H records. It is unclear if this would advance NRG and 100T and lead to a separate tiebreaker between EG and FUR (a 2-way H2H tiebreaker would give FUR the spot, a map differential tiebreaker could give the spot to either team), or if we would simply go to a 4-way map differential tiebreaker. A 4-way map differential tiebreaker would lead to the same result as the 5-way tiebreaker, where NRG would get a guaranteed spot and the other 2 spots would be dependent on the scores of the last 2 weeks.

TL;DR FOR THOSE WHO AIN'T READING ALLAT (SKIP TO THE TEAM YOU CARE ABOUT):
Here's your team's outlook ranked from most to least likely to qualify:
LOUD guaranteed playoffs and first-round bye
C9 guaranteed playoffs, gets first-round bye with a win or a LEV loss, maybe with some weird scenario with C9, LEV and FUR and/or NRG tied at 6-3
NRG guaranteed playoffs with a win, can still qualify with 0 wins and help
FUR and LEV guaranteed playoffs with 2 wins, extremely likely to qualify with 1 win and can still qualify with 0 wins and help
100T and EG extremely likely to qualify with 2 wins, can still qualify with 1 win and help, but eliminated with 0 wins
SEN and MIBR must get 2 wins to qualify and still need help, SEN likely needs more help than MIBR (since MIBR has yet to play 2 of the teams they would have to beat out for the last playoff spot and MIBR can technically qualify without needing tiebreaks)
KRÜ eliminated

It's notable that LEV has the toughest remaining schedule of all teams (vs. LOUD, C9) and could end up in trouble despite having a good outlook

for EG do you mean 3-6 or 4-5, 3-5 isn't possible

not technically part of this season, also the last 2 maps were really good yeah but a 13-3 stomp on the first map is not competitive or exciting

NA realized that they made franchising

they've got to realize by now that it's 7-3 for EG not 7-3 for LOUD right?

you're still updating it wrong, EG is up 5-3 not LOUD

btw whoever is updating the map score live, you have the teams switched, LOUD won rounds 1 and 2, EG won 3, 4, and 5, etc.

that's fair, i consider competitiveness to be the most important part of match quality, i'd much rather see an extremely close and hyped series between 2 decent teams than a match between 2 amazing teams that ends up not being very close. obviously gameplay level matters a lot too but i think that overall both teams played pretty well

1. a match that started with a 13-3 stomp and technically isn't even part of this season (but i'll allow it because it's from this year)? you would rather watch 13-3 stomps than close maps?
2. yeah that was definitely this season and not last year
3. M3C is definitely a team that exists this season

people really think that me calling it the highest quality bo3 is equivalent to me saying 100T and LEV are the 2 best teams LMAO

you can have a match of the season without the participants being the 2 top teams

when i'm thinking of highest quality i'm thinking of competitiveness as the most important factor

can you give me a series that was equally as competitive and higher quality? i'll wait

name 3 better and more competitive series so far

you mean a match where the first map was a 13-3 stomp? i'd rather have a match with 3 competitive maps than a match with 2

is that the best bo3 of the season so far?

3 maps, every map went the full distance or into overtime (13-15, 13-11, 13-11)

every player performed at a surprisingly "similar" level in terms of individual performance:
lowest ACS across the series was 171, highest was 213 which is only a 42 ACS gap
lowest rating across the series was 0.92, highest was 1.14 which is only a 0.22 rating gap
lowest kill differential across the series was -5, highest was +6 which is only an 11 kill differential gap
lowest ADR across the series was 109, highest was 145 which is only a 36 ADR gap
a different player team/match mvp'd on every single map (nzr/Derrek on map 1, kIngg/Cryo on map 2, Mazino/Asuna on map 3)

kills were basically even across both teams, 100T ended with 1 more kill than LEV

no team had a particularly dominant half on any map, the closest to a dominant half was 100T going 8-4 on Lotus attack to win after being down 5-7

each team won 3 pistols

6 different players had 4K's, 8 different players had at least 3 3K's/4K's combined, 5 different players had clutches with 3 different players having 1v3 clutches

extremely competitive series without any specific individual carrying or performing extremely poorly

EDIT: since some people lack reading comprehension, i'm not saying that 100T and LEV are the best teams in the league... you can have the highest quality and most competitive match without it involving the best teams, and just because a match has top teams playing against each other doesn't mean it'll automatically be the best match

will any japanese teams even make it to tokyo

okay but actually mwzera went fucking nuts that series and is showing that trembo might've had a point about him

STATS

mwzera https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/VK%20mwzera%234324/overview?playlist=competitive&season=all
cNed https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/ACE%20cNed%23carry/overview?season=all
TenZ https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/SEN%20TenZ%230505/overview?playlist=competitive&season=all

DEATHMATCH STATS
mwzera - 86% win rate (thats the insaniest thing ive seen in a while)
cNed - stats not availiable
TenZ - 73% win rate

RANKED STATS
mwzera - 66.3% winrate (MVP of 95% of the matches) proof here https://imgur.com/StiJmpg
cNed - 53.5% winrate (MVP of 13% of the matches)
TenZ - 60.4% winrate (MVP of 15% of the matches)

can you take your time to appreciate how insane mwzera is? without a doubt the most talented player to ever touch the game

I'll try to explain briefly why I think he is the best player in the world
Despite his insane aim and movement
The best way to know if a player is a good INITIATOR is SKYE. There is a BIG difference between a good INITIATOR and a KAYO abuser
If he is a good INITIATOR, he needs to be good with SKYE.

heat? not good with SKYE
aspas? not good with SKYE
xand? not good with SKYE
tenz? not good with SKYE
cned? not good with SKYE
scream? not good with SKYE
d3ffo? not good with SKYE
derke? not good with SKYE

Thats why I think he is undoubtely the best player in the world. If RIOT by any means decides to nerf OTHER INITIATORS and shift the meta we prolly not gonna even hear other names again
He is not killing 40+ per map because when he joined VK he was forced to play a different role because heat is already a main jett... and lets be honest, every single duelist nowadays gets 20+ kills per map because team and setups are basically built around you (even steel managed to get 20 kills with it https://www.vlr.gg/29398/sentinels-vs-100-thieves-champions-tour-north-america-stage-3-challengers-playoffs-gf/?game=46692&tab=overview)

where are map 1 stats?

NT KCORP YOU TRIED YOUR BEST AND YOU PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT (unlike the last 3 weeks)

i addressed this exact point if you read my comment... cypher is just not good, killjoy wasn't meta beforehand because chamber was ridiculously strong and there was almost no reason to pick her over chamber. now that chamber is bad killjoy is the clear best sentinel, yes partially because she's strong but also largely because the other options are not worth picking 9.9/10 times

buff ult to ping more like a sova dart like Ricegum said
decrease the cooldown when cam is broken (currently 45s, maybe reduce to 30 or 35s?)
cypher cage slows enemies that walk through it

there is so much counterplay to killjoy utility though, i'm not saying she isn't strong but i think her high pick rate if anything is because the other sentinel options are just not very good. she hasn't really changed very much at all recently but the reason her pick rates have skyrocketed is because there was previously almost no reason to play her over chamber since chamber was insanely good.

even now when teams DON'T use killjoy it's usually not because they choose to use a different sentinel, they just don't use one at all

yes i know the ult changes were huge but a lot of the time enemy teams have a way to counter killjoy ults anyways (your own kj ult, brim ult, sova ult, raze grenade, kayo grenade can still break it if it's directly on it, combinations of damaging util, etc.)

GC NA series 1 main event starts pretty soon, can we get pickems?

my bad

sorry

i got downvoted for being right

you literally cannot be 10-15 in maps with a 5-4 record, it is not possible since you can only lose 1 map at most in each of your wins and 2 maps in each of your losses. 5 + (4 * 2) = 13 is elementary school math guys

Boo

hey @OP, you edited TL's map record to be 10-15 but that still doesn't add up with them being 5-4. even if all 5 of their wins are 2-1 (5 map losses) they'll still only have 8 map losses from the 4 losses, which only adds up to 13. also, you have 108 total map wins and 112 map losses which doesn't work. you could change TL's map prediction to be 10-11 to fix both problems though

that's also not possible, if they lose 4 games they have to lose at least 8 maps

what are the parentheses? i thought they were map differential but it's impossible for TL to be 5-4 and 6-15 in maps

9-3 curse x2

oh for sure, i'm not saying it's unlucky that they keep losing like that, but i'm saying that as a 1-3 team they are remarkably close to being 4-0 and a top seed

everyone's mentioning bdog on smokes which is fair, but it's also kind of notable that every single ones of their losses was extremely close, all of their losses went to map 3 and the map 3s that they lost were 11-13, 14-16, 11-13, so they could easily be 4-0 right now if a handful of rounds went their way

can we stop with the skrossi threads no one asked and no one cares

stop

on lotus victor played skye, ardiis could easily play kay/o instead (crashies would still play sova or maybe skye) and yay could play chamber, or they could go single controller and have FNS play killjoy while yay plays jett

either kj/sova/kayo/omen/jett or kj/skye/kayo/omen/jett, both would be perfectly normal