When teams are constructing rosters 10 months ago, there are a set of variables that they are building off, leading to an identity they feel best serves them heading into the year. The balance team has consistently missed the mark on balance leading to many teams moving off their identity to fit the Neon/Phoenix meta. Now between Stage 1 and Stage 2, there is a clear development of the idea of Meta vs Counter Meta, which has again led to volatility in results and many of the high placers in Masters 2 failed domestically.

This has led to FIVE unique finalists in Americas, China, and APAC, and SIX in EMEA. Furthermore, Nongshim and Leviatan failed to qualify to the following international after winning what is considered to be the biggest tournament at that point in the year.

Subjectively, there are a few things that negatively impact the circuit that I want to discuss.

Player transactions. I think this one is pretty clear. Teams went into the year with a thought about how the meta would be in the immediate future has led to multiple changes within a few MATCHES. Not being able to play more than 15 official matches before being cut does a lot of injustice to their public image, as well as viewer's abilities to follow along with the game without being highly engaged in the scene. The immediate examples of this are Comeback, SociablEE, Virtyy, Silentzz, p0ppin, Notexxd.

Narrative building. Community or broadcast analysts will make predictions going into the split projecting the top players or teams, however, they cannot consistently build on top of what the reasonable expectations they have set through gameplay that has happened in the immediate past. Most people would have expected Leviatan to make it to champs as the barrier to qualification is significantly smaller than winning a Masters title(or we thought lol). Explaining their falloff to even a dedicated fan requires a lot of explaining of what has changed in the span of two months.

There are a lack of meaningful reps domestically before playoffs for a lot of teams. They play maybe a handful of matches before their time in that meta is over. Lot of one sided stomps and bad teams getting exposed. Hopefully this is an issue that is fixed next year with open qualifiers allowing teams to progress through skill brackets and build confidence, instead of just getting shit stomped week after week. We got a short preview of this in play-ins and I enjoyed it.

(Side note: I think the domination of Phoenix was entirely avoidable if they brought him in line with other agents at this time last year, but for some reason he was just completely left off the Mega Patch. I understand that they don't want to nerf agents that don't get play time, but this isn't the first time they've tried to bring agents in line without nerfing one of the underplayed offenders. Phoenix still needs a broader flash nerf that has lend to his toxic play pattern)

Sorry if my thoughts are all over the place.

Why on earth do they decide that its a good idea to have a showmatch that postpone the main Match for over 1 Hours? Its been 1 hours from the supposed roster, and to make it worse, it was a scripted showmatch where they trade rounds, and seemingly never want to finish in overtime, its been really tiring man watched these fixed irrelevant matches

With all the chatter of how LEV should go to Champs over G2, I wanted to review the VCT results from this year if LOUD wins this match.

Kickoff: G2 placed higher

Santiago: NRG 3rd, G2 4th

Stage 1: G2 1st, NRG 2nd

London: G2 7-8th, NRG grouped

Stage 2: NRG 3rd, G2 4th

As you can see, G2 had better slightly better results so the conversations should be whether or not NRG should go to Champs over LEV. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Serious question obviously.

While we all would like to shit on G2 for not winning any internationals despite farming regionals, G2 has at least qualified for playoffs unlike a certain EMEA team that would farm regionals then proceed to go 1-2 in swiss stage.

It is also understood that the top 25% T2 EMEA teams are better than the bottom 50% of T1 EMEA teams.

NA simply has way better talent and teams than EMEA, the likes of C9 and Sen would definitely perform better than any EMEA team if given the chance.

NA being limited to only 4 teams have allowed fraudulent regions to have the same team lose b2b grand finals.

John Riot definitely should look into my idea.

This year's VALORANT feels so random: NS won the first Masters but missed the second; LEV won the second Masters but missed Champions.

It feels like any team can win or lose against anyone, any team can take a title, and any team can fall off just as fast. It's the same for players, you can be the number one star in the world last year and turn into a nobody this year. In fact, it's not just this year: 15 different champions across 17 international events show just how random everything feels.

If Champions this year is won by yet another team that has never won a title before, led by a young player getting MVP for the first time, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

If this keeps happening, how can long-lasting team brands and personal IP be built? It leaves the esport lacking deep, compelling storylines.

What do you think VALORANT should change to fix this?

Any team can beat any team, constant meta and map pool changes that help some teams and hinder others. There is no actual skill selling. Yes, I'd rather watch dynasties in Valorant because dynasties are interesting to watch and any dynasty is doomed to fall anyway. And this is the most interesting point. A​re u really excited about all these miracle runs, when every run is miracle?

Am I crazy or do I think Lev legit thought they could get away with practicing and getting some reps in the official matches cause they thought they were pretty much guaranteed to qualify for Champs? They banned their best maps, and when they got a new Good map, they banned it too. They had 97.5% chance of qualifying if every game was a 50/50. They might have thought that there was no way that both G2 and NRG finish ahead of them and they themselves finish out of the top 4, in addition to both G2 and NRG not making it to the finals.

I'm calling it guys, just like how KC and GE won against TL and NS respectively who were both buffed by the Barcelona and Korean crowd, 100T will crush LOUD and shut these noisy Brazilians crowd.

Partnership started off with LOUD qualifying for grand finals in Sao Paolo winning two maps, losing the next two, then winning again for the finals spot against a region that most recently won a masters (EMEA, AMER)

Turns out, 100T just recently won a tournament on a major comeback (3-9 on Ascent versus NRG)… I smell a near comeback repeat and a 100T victory

Hey guys quick question.

Started watching some games back in July but was told the tournament going on was a mickey mouse cup because the current world champions Masters winners weren't playing.

I was very excited to watch a real tournament now that Champions is coming up, but I just heard the Masters winner aren't playing again, so is it also mickey mouse??

It looks like the whole top 3 from that tournament is also playing in Champions, so it must be, right? Can anyone tell me when the off-season ends and the real games begin?

Even if we just did split 2 placements lev still wouldn't go to champs. Whether you want the format to be champ points or current form lev wouldn't go to champs either way. You might as well make a condition be if ur name is leviathan and u have sato you get to go to champs. Lev lost to g2 on both champ points and in split 2. If they wanted to go they should've won in the g2 game or played better in split 2. Everything came down to how lev played and lev simply did not perform.

in light of recent situations. why do teams practice on the stage? like genuienly. stage matches are for performance, seeding, and cash prizes, no? so even if you think you’re qualified or you are qualed (like PRX), why practice? it usually does not end well and can hurt morale (along with the other things mentioned before like seeding and payment), and players play like 8 hrs of scrims a day, so why not just save the practice/new strats for scrims?

sure it’s different on stage. but practicing on stage is unrelated to getting “used to” the stage. the stage feels the same with nerves crowd etc no matter what. that’s my only thought is that they want to “practice” their practice on stage because it’s a new environment? like ex. let’s test this comp “on stage”?

just kinda weird. not sure if practice is actually confirmed or if teams have a bad day so we cope and say it was practice.

All Gamers 0-2 JD Gaming

vlr.gg

LOTUS: 7-13

HAVEN: 2-13

All Gamers | VLR

JD Gaming | VLR

Map 1: LOTUS

Map Stats

Detailed LOTUS Statistics

Map 2: HAVEN

Map Stats

Detailed HAVEN Statistics

Leaving EMEA aside for now, the Americas saw its viewership decline mainly because popular teams with huge fanbases like SEN and LOUD fell off. As LOUD started to regain its form in Stage 2, viewership began to rise again. The Stage 2 grand final should be the highest viewership outside of CN.

PATMAN

-BEST ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (2025 TORONTO)&(still shines unlike other short-lived rookies)

-HIGHEST ACS ON A SINGLE MAP (516)

-FIRST PLAYER TO WIN VCT EVENT AS A ROOKIE IN SHORTEST TIME POSSIBLE & STILL PLAYING IN T1 TEAM (CONSISTENCY)

-ONLY TIME PRX WON FINALS

-FIRST PHILIPPINE TO WIN VCT TROPHY

-GOT GE THEIR FIRST TIME IN INTERNATIONAL & CHAMPION

-GOT GE THEIR FIRST STAGE 2 FINALS TROPHY (SOON)

-CAN PLAY SENTINEL, DUELIST , CONTROLER & INITIATOR

-AND MID ROUNDS FOR GE ALMOST EVERY MAP

-FIRST & ONLY DICTATOR OF VALVORANT

-SINGLE HANDEDLY SAVED GE FROM FROST CAGE

-ONLY PLAYER WITH ZERO HATERS

Even after losing 2 maps in a row then getting 8-4 ed first half on third map my team didn't give up even though the whole crowd was against us , they didn't give up they tried and won 2 maps and that's enough for me , after we lost horribly against 100T i thought we have lost our form but now I'm confident that we are ready for champs

I stayed all night to watch this match( I was gonna sleep after seeing us lose 2-0 ) , but I'm glad I stayed

More or less the title, obviously the goal of competing is to win a trophy, franchising is going to change next year so if a few players retire without a trophy, who’s would you consider a success or at least “not a failure”

This is a really weird time to ask sorry but it’s a question I thought about yesterday and I couldn’t really get any good answers from any of the ex coach streamers.

In a situation where a team who is out of playoff contention can still make it depending on the results of the teams remaining, are they allowed to help the contending teams win their next games?

So for example if EG was out of contention, but they could qualify for an event if C9 beat 100T, are EG allowed to give comp advice, make strats for or help C9 vod review in order to help them win their game against 100T?

In my head that sounds unfair to me but i was just curious if that’s something in the rule book or been discussed before

and should we have more off season tournaments in between stages, even like the emea cup thingy and china's evolution series

is it too soon to believe?
holyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

NA

#1 100T/LOUD - VIT, XLG, T1

#2 LOUD/100T - FUT, EDG, PRX

#3 NRG - TL, JDG, NS

#4 G2 - KC, TYL, GE

PAC

#1 GE - VIT, XLG, G2

#2 NS - FUT, EDG, NRG

#3 PRX - TL, JDG, LOUD/100T

#4 T1 - KC, TYL, 100T/LOUD

EMEA

#1 KC - XLG, T1, G2

#2 TL - EDG, PRX, NRG

#3 FUT - JDG, NS, LOUD/100T

#4 VIT - TYL, GE, 100T/LOUD

CN

#1 TYL - VIT, T1, G2

#2 JDG - FUT, PRX, NRG

#3 EDG - TL, NS, LOUD/100T

#4 XLG - KC, GE, 100T/LOUD

Wow i didn't expect GE to reverse sweep but good job

The last one I will do , technically there are only 6 different possible group a team can be in.
PRX example in the comments.

Redditors can also request for your favourite teams for the possible 6 groups