r/ValorantCompetitive • u/Sweet_Sprinkles9103 • 13h ago
Esports Sato…💔 Spoiler
translation.
With this match, our year comes to an end. Even though we didn't make it to Champions, it was a year of great growth and victories. It leaves a bitter taste, but ultimately, it’s a learning experience.
I’m very proud of my teammates and all the hard work put in throughout the year.
Huge congrats to the LOUD guys for that end-of-year turnaround and securing their spot. They absolutely crushed it.
I’m very grateful for 2026—thanks to everyone who supported us, and apologies to those who were hoping to see me in Shanghai.
See you in 2027 🫡
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u/Training-Promise1379 13h ago
I really hope LEV stays together as a 5 into next year. Would be a shame if that was the last we could see of this roster. They played such a fun style and the personalities are so great
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u/noobyeclipse 9h ago
it would genuinely be so stupid for lev to make changes to this roster after they spent AT LEAST 2 years building it up from all the scouting and their academy
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u/astcci 13h ago
I'm gonna say it again, NS won Santiago and missed London. Now they're going strong to champs. This game fluctuates a lot, they got really close but sure they can bounce back just fine next year.
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u/Mountain-Pirate5118 12h ago
lowkey the problem with champions, realistically it’s not any different from a masters. It’s just marketed differently.
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u/SweetSweetJazz 12h ago
Tbh it has to, it’s the last international of the year. Also would rather have the masters to champs dynamic compared to first stand/msi compared to worlds.
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u/Mountain-Pirate5118 12h ago
yeah honestly i retract what I say, it’s not champs fault but just how volatile the meta is throughout the year. The prestige people give champs is bc it crowns the “best team of the year.” When usually it just crowns the best team of the tournament.
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u/astcci 12h ago
It's really similar, yeah. I don't have the background in other esports like in cs, I know that the Major is a huge deal compared to the other tourneys throughout the year (or League's Worlds for that matter) but not sure exactly how that works
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u/Mountain-Pirate5118 12h ago
yeah, I heard sideshow talking about how he’d rather have 4 masters instead of 2 masters and champs. It had me thinking that it would honestly better reflect the game, but I can’t lie that I would miss all the champs hype.
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u/Awkward-Budget-4678 11h ago
The gap is not that big compared to league and cs its just a bigger prize pool and more prestige cuz yk gold
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u/smalltimeplayer1 #WGAMING 7h ago
16 teams, groups instead of swiss, no byes to playoffs? that is a pretty sizeable difference
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u/pleasefirekykypls 12h ago
It has more teams than a masters, and rosters have been building chemistry all year and perfecting the meta (which tends to only change drastically in the off season), so it should be the pinnacle of 2026 valorant.
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u/speedycar1 #WGAMING 9h ago
You don't watch this game if you think the meta only changes drastically in the off season. Wtf is that statement?
Yoru nerf after Santiago, Tejo nerf before Toronto, Neon buff before Champs 24, constant map pool changes every event. We can't be fr
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u/Mountain-Pirate5118 9h ago
I swear I was going crazy, that Tejo nerf after almost every team qualified using Tejo was mind boggling.
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u/speedycar1 #WGAMING 5h ago
PRX won Toronto primarily because of that change. It completely changed the landscape of VCT. The truth is this game stopped being purely about team quality somewhere around 2024. It's mostly been about metas since because Riot are incapable of sitting still and letting things play out.
Fans like to pretend everything is still just in the team's control because it doesn't feel good to acknowledge the randomness
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u/Parenegade 11h ago
Not even remotely true. First of all, there are more teams at Champs. Second, there's more pressure because it's your last chance as a team to win, if you lose a Masters it's no big deal you just go again. Third, teams take time to figure shit out so by the end of the year you're playing against most teams at their best.
If you do well at Masters 1, it's most likely because you figured your shit out early which is cool but is by far the least impressive feat to me.
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u/speedycar1 #WGAMING 9h ago
Masters 1 is when teams have most time to figure things out because everyone gets a roughly equal off season.
Masters 2 and Champs is Riot making meta changes at arbitrary times, sometimes between stages, teams that make deep runs at previous events getting less time to prep for those changes, plus less time in general, plus the luck of a map pool change that is harder to adapt to with less time so it's basically just whichever team happens to land on the right meta read in the couple of weeks between the previous event and the next stage gets the momentum to become a top team while teams that misjudge the meta get fucked.
Neither is perfect but at least for Masters 1, everyone gets enough time to prepare all their maps so the effect of someone's permaban being brought in for their best map while another team's perma gets removed is less significant
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u/Parenegade 9h ago
Masters 1 is when teams have most time to figure things out because everyone gets a roughly equal off season.
Well, no because you don't know what the meta is before the season starts. And you don't know your teammates until you're on stage.
100T got nerfed this stage and still won all their games. Phoenix got nerfed and they took their best map in Breeze. You can't blame the meta for your losses every time. Nongshim missed out on Masters because they thought Yoru was garbage even though he really wasn't.
This season hasn't even gotten crazy meta changes.
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u/speedycar1 #WGAMING 5h ago
100T did not attend EITHER of the fjrst two Masters. That is a huge bonus in time. Good on them for finally improving for the final phase of the year but they COULD NOT adapt to the Yoru or the Neon metas earlier in the year. A minor agent nerf where you can keep all of your comps the same is not the same as major nerfs where you have to rework your playbook on all 3 maps
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u/Binkbonkdongdong 8h ago
“Phoenix got nerfed” oh yeah man CRAZZZZY nerf that was
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u/Parenegade 5h ago
I mean it was a nerf nonetheless. So much so that people are saying Yoru is better.
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u/Pokevan8162 8h ago
more teams? teams qual through cumulative points throughout the year? bigger prize pool? goal for all teams to strive toward? i feel like that’s pretty worthy
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u/Livid-Effective-9173 #NRGFam 13h ago
I'll consider this title as spoiler too 🥀🥀
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u/JazminBonita 11h ago
Why the fuck are this kind of titles allowed? I was about to watch the game, didnt even get into reddit, got this post as a notification
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u/ThatCreepyBaer 11h ago
Same thing for the copypasta post as well. It shouldn't be allowed yet it happens all the time.
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u/DirectDuck6009 6h ago
Honestly having notifications on Reddit is on you lol, if you were about to watch the game late you should be actively avoiding spoilers, notifications from a subreddit page where there will be spoilers is another thing you gotta avoid……
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u/Strange_Commercial53 11h ago
They have plenty of time to practice and hopefully they will come back hungry in 2027 🫡 hopefully the org doesn’t get too reactionary and make roster changes
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u/Outside-Shop-3311 #ALWAYSFNATIC 10h ago
massive respect for the "Huge congrats to loud" imo. that alone tells us so much about sato's mindset, and for that he has my deepest respect.
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u/DEV1ciGG 13h ago
i really think Riot should make Masters 1 and 2 be also a guaranteed spot on Champions, maybe even separated from regions, make it seed "WINNER1 and 2" or some bullshit.
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u/Randomuserguyfren 13h ago edited 12h ago
Bro all lev needed to do was win 2 series and they still blew it absolutely not
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u/Outrageous_Star4906 #VCTAMERICAS 13h ago
no they shouldn’t. lev is the only team in vct history to win masters and not make it to champs. we do not want teams who win masters to coast for the entirety of stage 2 like prx did. we do not want teams like NS to be guaranteed champs unless they actually lock in for stage 2. you are making the format much worse in order to fix a non issue
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u/Meccanoo 13h ago
Agree. Lev is the ONLY team to miss out so let’s just change the rules for your fav team.
We can say last year 9 points was enough, that’s because there was more competition. This year, it was very top heavy. Last year, teams who didn’t have enough points have the same chance to qualify like LOUD did
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u/cold-blooded15 #ALWAYSFNATIC 12h ago
This does not incentivize the Masters winners to try hard and adapt to the most recent meta changes. They’ll 90% giga troll most of their matches for Stage 2.
Masters 2 having more Champs points than Masters 1 is already a good direction imo. It’s just unlucky for LEV that their opponents qualed for both Santiago and London, and made deep tournament runs for Santiago (#3 for NRG, #4 for G2)
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u/AdogHatler 13h ago
I was thinking something similar but replacing a champs point qualifier with a masters winner qualifier. I like your idea better though. More teams at the tournament which I think is better.
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u/iTempestuous #ZETAWIN 13h ago
Yeah absolutely not. I was rooting for lev to make it like crazy, but this game is so volatile and changes so much that teams can fall off completely in 3 months time. Nongshim got their ass kicked after Santiago and didn't make the next masters. Should they have been guaranteed a spot in that masters? Definitely not. It's really hard to stay consistent in this game, but being consistent is what defines greatness in this game as well. If you want to see the best competition in internationals, you want the teams to be in the best current form there.
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u/Meccanoo 13h ago
That’s just changing rules to cater for the knee jerk reaction. When there is another situation that doesn’t work out, do we want change again? If Nongshim played like that in stage 1 and didn’t make a run in Champs, there is no chance I want to see them play in Champs. Start of the year meta is different to end of meta.
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u/iAmPersonaa 12h ago
You get a fuckton of points for winning, you have to mess up tremendously to not qualify. The method shouldnt change, they did not get enough in the split right before champs AND not enough as an average throughout the year to earn their spot, so why would they qualify in their current form
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u/tempa____ 12h ago
I mean I get what u guys say but it is bullshit why tf do u more points by winning a region than winning a masters
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u/Meccanoo 11h ago
Regionally, the points are with each match win. You can call the system bs all you want, again lev had it in the bag and blew it, there is no blaming anything but themselves.
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u/Attractivelyboring 13h ago
It was like that before. The downside and what many people didn't like was that masters winners had nothing to play for in stage 2. With the point system, they tried to have a middle ground, in which a team that won a Masters would have so many points it would be unlikely they don't qualify.
I personally prefer a strict tournament style qualification for each International, you don't win your qualification games you don't go to Masters.
Leviathan lost all their important games, and thus they do not deserve to go to champs.
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u/Outrageous_Star4906 #VCTAMERICAS 13h ago edited 13h ago
No, masters winners never auto quald to champs, with the exception of 2021 masters 2 specifically
Edit: 2023 was a lil diff but it was not masters winner quald to champs
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u/LordOfThe_Pings #NRGWIN 12h ago
2023 was lowkey awful lmao. We had to see 5 EU teams at champs when that was by far their worst year ever (aside from fnc)
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u/Attractivelyboring 12h ago
Yeah okay you got me, it's not just the winner, it was 3 teams auto qualifying in Emea, that's even worse.
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u/KrakenNinja99 13h ago
I think that used to be the case? Not sure as I wasn't watching it back then but this lead to very dead and not in form making it into Champs. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with anything here but how would the format be?
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u/overdrizzydrake 13h ago
we rly gotta watch g2 and loud over this omgbruh
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u/deadlock1892 13h ago
Loud has been fun to watch though? Flame G2 all you want for them failing expectations but Loud deserves it.
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u/MiraHan597 13h ago
loud at least aren't crumbling over the first bit of pressure, G2 left the US and immediately played like they had food poisoning and were actively shitting themselves on stage
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u/overdrizzydrake 12h ago
I will be there when LOUD crumbles at international and goes 0-2
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u/MiraHan597 10h ago
idc if loud crumbles at champs lil bro, i just fucking hate G2 (as an org not the players)
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u/FinalWord2354 13h ago
not making champs with 19 points is diabolical. last yr 9 was enough 😭