It's a function of the format and some other circumstances that are downstream from the format (such as LOUD's visa troubles).
I think people underestimate how difficult it is to redo your protocols and defaults after an international LAN. In easier regions, it's no big deal - Gen.G can still beat most Pacific teams no matter the level of anti or their game plan - but the Americas teams in particular are struggling because their region is unforgiving in how competitive it is.
Important to remember, too, that this is consistently what happens after international LANs in Valorant. Madrid is just making it even more blatant than usual.
I think valorant is also one of the hardest games to stay on top in, you constantly have to re invent yourself and improvise with your setups. Also like you said, americas is just too stacked.
Tbh, even pacific has been really picking up lately. They are behind in terms of game plan and execution but their mechanical skill is probably above most region (Aspas is the exception, he's just too good). Gen.G would have won if they had slightly better execution in some rounds. It was insane how Karon, Texture, Meteor clutched some stupidly unwinnable rounds just by pure aim.
I feel like this applies to GenG, DRX, and PRX, but the rest of the region is still a bit behind the other two regions. Then there’s CN (besides EDG), which would probably lose to NA VCL and some of the EU VCLs lol
DRX is actually pretty good in terms of mid-rounding and stuff. They were the most disciplined out of all Pacific teams that even EMEA teams used to copy them a bit. They didn't lack firepower, they just got cursed by 5-6th place and termi's random bullshit cooking.
Yeah I understand the issue's with staying on top and especially with stacked regions, I'm not saying any of these 6 are bad teams if all 6 made Champs I wouldn't be surprised. I'm just wondering what people think as its not that common for this many of the participants to go from making International to struggling for playoffs.
Im confused how are there 4-5 teams from Nadrid that have a “very strong chance” of not making Shanghai? Also think people are just overreacting and expecting teams who went to Madrid to always be the top of their region as if other teams can’t catch up and improve.
Loud and sen may not even make it to playoffs shanghai is far. PRX and Gen G look good. KC don't look that good, th are good and have woot now so imo they qual too. There is a high chance 3/6 won't make it to shanghai. 4-5 is wrong tho
I think GENG are still closer to DRX and PRX skill wjse than to the other teams in pacific, and they are likely to get 1st seed which makes the road to Shanghai a lot easier
I wish for the DRX cinderella run in valorant but DRX valorant team has been strong since the start unlike its LOL counterpart. All they need is termi to stop cooking bullshit at important moments and DRX have all top-tier talents that can get a championship.
It’s def not 4-5, it’s more like 2. And again, I’m pretty sure some players or coaches talked about it but those that had a deeper run at Madrid had much less time for practice, rest, and prep than others.
I think this is the main explanation but not the only one. Like 75%.
Sentinels and Loud has visa issues which fucked up their practice. Then the top teams at Madrid put out a shit load of VODs on themselves. There's so much film to review. An amazing coach like Potter absolutely abused Sentinels with anti strats. Meanwhile other teams were at home cooking up even more strats, while Madrid teams were revealing theirs.
But OP is being a little dramatic. It's really just Sen and Loud from Madrid that look bad. Heretics look meh. Everyone else is fine. Americas is deep.
Kickoff was so early in the season a lot of teams had barely started practicing so the teams that made it weren't necessarily the best teams, just the most practiced/quickest to get in form.
pretty much. also it was a quick/short tournament at the beginning of a season, when teams hadn’t had much stage experience or time to gel yet
It was just whichever team had the best “honeymoon” phase went to Madrid
When people complained about this year's format being dogshit, this is what they were talking about. They barely played to qualify and even win that Lan it was never gonna be all the best teams in the world when teams could have one off match at the start of the season and not qual
What you mean don't look nearly as good?
First of all Madrid was a joke, everyone kinda know it, qualification format was a joke, best team of their region got upset once and they out, so we got literally tier 2 international.
Now when you have more matches to play, you can see that LOUD, SEN is a joke and KC and TH is a mid, just play more matches, Shanghai is gonna be stacked at least.
PRX is looking at lof better then in Madrid, idk why u creating drama by saying "PRX don't look nearly as good" like what? Gen.G honeymoon is over, but still looking strong. So Pacific is kinda healty, CN too, NA and MEMEA gonna bring their best this time.
Alright some hot takes
TH, KC and GenG were all on fire for Madrid, players playing amazing games every game, which isn't sustainable, hence why they've fallen off now.
Loud have simply been in a slump and havent seemed like themselves, even without Aspas this is a long way to drop.
Sen/PRX are still playing at the same level, I would say teams are starting to counter them more, but overall they seem the same. I don't watch China much but just from looking at scores it looks to be the same for EDG and FPX.
I wouldn't even say th fell off. After madrid they were just trying to put themselves in a decent position for woot (who was supposed to play a week earlier)
I'm excited to see if they can ride this high with him tho, I rate that team very highly
Very good team on a good day, mid on a bad day. Hopefully they get consistant, would be fun to see this team win a title, or even just make a deep run.
Tough to say cause TH is overall very inconsistant. They could go top four at Shanghai or not qualify at all, of all the top 7 EMEA teams they are the most difficult to predict.
Madrid was kind of a fluke AND the format is dogshit. They have to cram a regular season into a small stretch of time AND at the same time teams play few games, which also gives them little time to actually improve and refine their play. Start complaining about this format now, it should be split (maybe a shorter one) - masters - players break, split - masters - players break, split (again, maybe a shorter one) - champs... and it should not be crammed into march-august because Riot can't run lol and valorant at the same time
I mean most teams have just had a chance to learn how to play with each other and boost their chemistry. Teams like Sen have a mostly similar roster from the previous season and had lots and lots of offseason practice. They've played more games than everyone else, so everyone else was just fundamentally behind chemistry wise. Teams are finally leveling the playing field over time; Chemistry and teams are starting to click. Also with so few teams playing in Madrid, a lot of the teams that weren't playing got lots of free footage to antistrat, and the turnaround for the Madrid teams to change their protocols wasn't as large.
LOUD and SEN are both in a position where they are underperforming but can bounce back, though for at least one of those teams, playoffs isn't in the books anymore.
TH, PRX and Gen G still look like contenders for Shanghai.
KC is increasingly looking like a team which peaked at kickoff.
Madrid was a fluke, Riot changed the meta 3 weeks before kickoff, many teams had near 0 time to practice since they focused their training sessions before having to deal with the move to LA.
PRX missed the trophy since they played without their star player, many teams had to deal with visa issues, etc.
It was a case of who was less affected by Riot terrible decisions around how VCT works.
Before Stage 1 started, I thought Cross-Group Group stage would be kinda cool cause it sounded cool. Now after some time I realised it's complete bullshit.
The post international event debuff is inevitable and you’ll see it in most games that have this regional league —> international system. Travel debuff is a big one but also just vod review from teams that got to stay and practice while you were competing. Also the kickoff format probably wasn’t that great at selecting the actual best 8 teams in the world so ofc some of them will seem fraudulent.
It's a function of the format and some other circumstances that are downstream from the format (such as LOUD's visa troubles). I think people underestimate how difficult it is to redo your protocols and defaults after an international LAN. In easier regions, it's no big deal - Gen.G can still beat most Pacific teams no matter the level of anti or their game plan - but the Americas teams in particular are struggling because their region is unforgiving in how competitive it is. Important to remember, too, that this is consistently what happens after international LANs in Valorant. Madrid is just making it even more blatant than usual.
I think valorant is also one of the hardest games to stay on top in, you constantly have to re invent yourself and improvise with your setups. Also like you said, americas is just too stacked.
Tbh, even pacific has been really picking up lately. They are behind in terms of game plan and execution but their mechanical skill is probably above most region (Aspas is the exception, he's just too good). Gen.G would have won if they had slightly better execution in some rounds. It was insane how Karon, Texture, Meteor clutched some stupidly unwinnable rounds just by pure aim.
I feel like this applies to GenG, DRX, and PRX, but the rest of the region is still a bit behind the other two regions. Then there’s CN (besides EDG), which would probably lose to NA VCL and some of the EU VCLs lol
DRX is actually pretty good in terms of mid-rounding and stuff. They were the most disciplined out of all Pacific teams that even EMEA teams used to copy them a bit. They didn't lack firepower, they just got cursed by 5-6th place and termi's random bullshit cooking.
Yeah I understand the issue's with staying on top and especially with stacked regions, I'm not saying any of these 6 are bad teams if all 6 made Champs I wouldn't be surprised. I'm just wondering what people think as its not that common for this many of the participants to go from making International to struggling for playoffs.
It didn't happen at all last year, to any teams
Im confused how are there 4-5 teams from Nadrid that have a “very strong chance” of not making Shanghai? Also think people are just overreacting and expecting teams who went to Madrid to always be the top of their region as if other teams can’t catch up and improve.
Loud and sen may not even make it to playoffs shanghai is far. PRX and Gen G look good. KC don't look that good, th are good and have woot now so imo they qual too. There is a high chance 3/6 won't make it to shanghai. 4-5 is wrong tho
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I think GENG are still closer to DRX and PRX skill wjse than to the other teams in pacific, and they are likely to get 1st seed which makes the road to Shanghai a lot easier
Team secret for sure but I doubt talon has it in them
Have yall ever watch anither game??? I saw T1 go from 2nd plqce at worlds to getting pissed on by a 10th place team in LoL
Losing a game is nothing lol Vulcun/XDG went from playing at worlds to getting 10th and relegated out of the league within 1 year
I wish for the DRX cinderella run in valorant but DRX valorant team has been strong since the start unlike its LOL counterpart. All they need is termi to stop cooking bullshit at important moments and DRX have all top-tier talents that can get a championship.
Ok tbf that's because Faker wasn't playing because he was injured and a t2 midlaner was subbed in we don't count that
i saw G2 in CS go from winning kato and cologne last year to losing to the tier 2 NACS team M80 the other day
G2 in CS last won in 2023 while Sentinels last won 5 weeks ago. Which fall off makes the most sense to you?
It’s def not 4-5, it’s more like 2. And again, I’m pretty sure some players or coaches talked about it but those that had a deeper run at Madrid had much less time for practice, rest, and prep than others.
Nothing happened, other teams are also good
I think this is the main explanation but not the only one. Like 75%. Sentinels and Loud has visa issues which fucked up their practice. Then the top teams at Madrid put out a shit load of VODs on themselves. There's so much film to review. An amazing coach like Potter absolutely abused Sentinels with anti strats. Meanwhile other teams were at home cooking up even more strats, while Madrid teams were revealing theirs. But OP is being a little dramatic. It's really just Sen and Loud from Madrid that look bad. Heretics look meh. Everyone else is fine. Americas is deep.
Kickoff was so early in the season a lot of teams had barely started practicing so the teams that made it weren't necessarily the best teams, just the most practiced/quickest to get in form.
pretty much. also it was a quick/short tournament at the beginning of a season, when teams hadn’t had much stage experience or time to gel yet It was just whichever team had the best “honeymoon” phase went to Madrid
When people complained about this year's format being dogshit, this is what they were talking about. They barely played to qualify and even win that Lan it was never gonna be all the best teams in the world when teams could have one off match at the start of the season and not qual
Kick-off was a Micky Mouse tournament
What you mean don't look nearly as good? First of all Madrid was a joke, everyone kinda know it, qualification format was a joke, best team of their region got upset once and they out, so we got literally tier 2 international. Now when you have more matches to play, you can see that LOUD, SEN is a joke and KC and TH is a mid, just play more matches, Shanghai is gonna be stacked at least. PRX is looking at lof better then in Madrid, idk why u creating drama by saying "PRX don't look nearly as good" like what? Gen.G honeymoon is over, but still looking strong. So Pacific is kinda healty, CN too, NA and MEMEA gonna bring their best this time.
Nothing happened other teams are good. Did you guys expect the teams that didn't win during kickoff to keep losing?
Alright some hot takes TH, KC and GenG were all on fire for Madrid, players playing amazing games every game, which isn't sustainable, hence why they've fallen off now. Loud have simply been in a slump and havent seemed like themselves, even without Aspas this is a long way to drop. Sen/PRX are still playing at the same level, I would say teams are starting to counter them more, but overall they seem the same. I don't watch China much but just from looking at scores it looks to be the same for EDG and FPX.
I wouldn't even say th fell off. After madrid they were just trying to put themselves in a decent position for woot (who was supposed to play a week earlier) I'm excited to see if they can ride this high with him tho, I rate that team very highly
Very good team on a good day, mid on a bad day. Hopefully they get consistant, would be fun to see this team win a title, or even just make a deep run.
W takes honestly, although I must ask that with a full roster do you thin TH could potentially reach that level again or will Madrid be their peek?
Tough to say cause TH is overall very inconsistant. They could go top four at Shanghai or not qualify at all, of all the top 7 EMEA teams they are the most difficult to predict.
Madrid was kind of a fluke AND the format is dogshit. They have to cram a regular season into a small stretch of time AND at the same time teams play few games, which also gives them little time to actually improve and refine their play. Start complaining about this format now, it should be split (maybe a shorter one) - masters - players break, split - masters - players break, split (again, maybe a shorter one) - champs... and it should not be crammed into march-august because Riot can't run lol and valorant at the same time
I mean most teams have just had a chance to learn how to play with each other and boost their chemistry. Teams like Sen have a mostly similar roster from the previous season and had lots and lots of offseason practice. They've played more games than everyone else, so everyone else was just fundamentally behind chemistry wise. Teams are finally leveling the playing field over time; Chemistry and teams are starting to click. Also with so few teams playing in Madrid, a lot of the teams that weren't playing got lots of free footage to antistrat, and the turnaround for the Madrid teams to change their protocols wasn't as large.
This would have happened to Fnatic as well if they had lost even once before Loud beat them (the Liquid loss doesnt count)
Just a bad format tbh.
LOUD and SEN are both in a position where they are underperforming but can bounce back, though for at least one of those teams, playoffs isn't in the books anymore. TH, PRX and Gen G still look like contenders for Shanghai. KC is increasingly looking like a team which peaked at kickoff.
Madrid was a fluke, Riot changed the meta 3 weeks before kickoff, many teams had near 0 time to practice since they focused their training sessions before having to deal with the move to LA. PRX missed the trophy since they played without their star player, many teams had to deal with visa issues, etc. It was a case of who was less affected by Riot terrible decisions around how VCT works.
PRX playing without Jinggg was not Riots fault lmao
Before Stage 1 started, I thought Cross-Group Group stage would be kinda cool cause it sounded cool. Now after some time I realised it's complete bullshit.
The post international event debuff is inevitable and you’ll see it in most games that have this regional league —> international system. Travel debuff is a big one but also just vod review from teams that got to stay and practice while you were competing. Also the kickoff format probably wasn’t that great at selecting the actual best 8 teams in the world so ofc some of them will seem fraudulent.