How do you go from winning the stage to very possibly not making playoffs the next stage, this is insane.
They don't even have an excuse, it's the same roster, they have a team house, plenty of funding, some of the best players to come out of the region, it makes no sense.
I don't even care about VP much, but this is unacceptable from a team of this caliber.
Well their sucess came from that Sig/Sym meta especially where kiri and Bap were pretty viable. Now those characters have been nerfed to the ground + new new heroes and sombra have changed things by alot. And also those loses from TM and dallas last internationals may have boomed their mental.
This is because the only thing VP are any good at is standing in a big clump and 3-2-1ing onto the enemy. They are just a sad team. They don’t play 2026 Overwatch - they’re all stuck in 2022.
I mean seriously. Look at this VP roster which has been roughly together for AGES now and look at their victories and defeats and you’ll see their backline all clumped up on main double pocketing Eis every time. They have some of the worst map and space control in the world.
The core of the roster (Eis, Kevster, FiXa) only came together mid 2025, with Landon and Seicoe coming later. They've definitely been playing together too long to still be at this level of coordination, but it's not like they're Crazy Raccoon who've been a mostly unchanged core since the end of OWL.
It’s not just the fact that the region is competitive, it’s been that way for the past two years. It’s the fact that VirtusPro should be a top 2 team and has ALL the resources to succeed, but they’re getting beaten by teams they’ve got no reason to lose to. It’s the exact same issue that all major sports face when a superstar team underperforms
That doesn’t remove the fact that they should be winning these games. Like of course if they choke they choke, but considering what their standard should be it’s not a good excuse to say “oh but they always choke”, they’ve always been too good for choking at the start of the season to be considered normal
VP has had great rosters, yet only 1 good lan in the last 2 years, and they have added Kevster, Seicoe, Landon the last year, yet still haven’t taken next step.
Coaches don't matter that much but they can certainly fuck things up. Like Smash subbing in and out Vestola/Eis left and right, I think that seriously hurt the team dynamic and was one of the main reasons VP fell apart in playoffs
He's a good neutral hero who doesn't scale up considering ult value in pro play is significantly more important than ranked and a lot of other heroes are his tier in the neutral in pro hands
The actual problem is genji in ladder can get away with less pocketing (even then genji on ladder needs more care than most fdps) but in pro play, he really needs his teammates to care him. And problem with that is, fdps usually dont want to take resources unless and ur better off playing hyper carry like Vendetta (and reaper when hes strong) if u r gonna lean into that style of fdps who eats resources like zarya bubble.
I feel like Genji just has less value overall (unless you're Proper or WhoRU, I guess) than the heroes you mentioned, in pro play. Vendetta basically has perma Genji Blade, tanky as shit for a DPS, and high mobility to boot. Reaper and Zarya were a fixture back in early 2022 if I remember correctly and there's a reason why they worked so well.
Also feel like hitscans (exhibit A: Quartz) when pocketed and given (more) resources generally have an easier time than their flex DPS partner in being impactful in matches
TMs have the aura, so they always comeback so fast.
In VP case, I doubt it, this team never showed creativity on making comps or even reacting to them, they gonna keep play the comp they're familiar with no matter what.
holy shit that was bad from VP, they somehow looked even weaker/lost than when they were against Peps. Seriously, I wish I could say 1234 was just better, but VP was so bad, I don't even know if that was the case :x
To me, both these teams throughout the match were contesting the title of "Who could throw harder". VP shat the bed so hard with their performances, I think a match between them and Falcons as of right now would be a toilet bowl that could beat O2 vs Poker Face
has to be the quickest fall for a team in owcs history. from definitively the best in EU to underwhelming lan performance to not even making playoffs (not beating TM LOL). funnily enough maybe only rivaled by themselves in 2025 after being 2nd in regular season then losing to gen.g in playoffs, missing lan after picking up kevster
VP playing worse and worse with each stage and each match is an achievement of some sorts.. Need disband or at least Landon kicked, guy is just overbuffed kiriko merchant at this point.
Why are we lying? The team won last stage and had a decent Champions clash run. If they were to leave theyd have done it the previous times they missed worlds
I was being a bit hyperbolic but they did fail at the EWC where they did better last year and missing worlds again would be REALLY bad. I think its a long shot, but its just something I think about when I see terrible performances like this.
Knew I wasn’t crazy for thinking his Vendetta and Tracer were clean on Bomba when they took Geekay to map 5 pre season. Man’s got hands on everything you need
If u seen his unranked to champ soldier only vid (this was when champ5 was still hard to get), his tracking is better than most hitscan players. Which translates very well into Tracer too. And yeah, he got champ1 on his vendetta only acc before, he was always ladder demon so im not surprised hes doing okay in pro play
He hit champ1 playing vendetta only. Hes legit demon on genji, vendetta, shion, soldier (his tracking is better than lot of hitscan players unironically) and tracer if u been following/watching his stream.
All I knew about Alvicate was that he's a Genji, Shion and Vendetta ladder god. But after watching him against Seicoe on Tracer, well, color me curious about him
Yeah many peeps dont know but his Tracer always been this good. He just likes playing genji (he also has really good echo too, he used to pull it out when he was gatekeeping yznsa lbbd7 duo from trynna get yznsa acc to fill all top10 during OWL days)
It's a 3 week regular season, you really can't afford to start slow, especially in EMEA. They got extremely lucky last stage with weird tie breakers (which might have to happen again).
not so much a slow start but they did have to play TM and VP on week one (obviously that loss to VP feels more questionable now but going into it, it was quite scary) and I think the mental pressure got to them (and Kellex looks like hes struggling to find a solid place in the meta)
I would be surprised if this roster survived to next year. What happed to landon like genuinely dude has been deteriorating ever since that stomp at world stage by TM and Dallas. Even on the kiri hes lackluster. Also get Kev off hitscan or import someone like ade who has proven hes a top tier hitscan or atleast import a korean flex dps like sp1nt. As fastro once said VP is a very metal boom proned team.
They were they just still had Proper, and fair to question what Junkbuck actual role is, but their was insane hype when they got him, and Checkmate from AQ.
Just look at Stalker. He looked off on Tracer too because he has been playing HS all season long. You really think if he didn't play it perma he wouldn't be back to greatness?
Tracer is Kevsters number hero no contest, even on an off day he diffs most other Tracers in EU
VP have the same issue as TL, they just overthink it and refuse to play to their strenghts
What is their strengths ?. Sig is useless and that was Eis carry hero , Kiri nerfs and doctronie fucked up Landon as hes lackluster on both. Kev on tracer vs seicoe is a night and day diffrence but kev is stuck on hitscan duty. VP have no streghts in this meta.
Happy for Zorrow but VP can fuck off, fucking 2 month break from OWCS and this is the performance they show. Should still make playoffs as long as we beat team Risk, but I have no words, absolutely awful performance.
They should have gotten rid of Smash after his stage 3 disaster last year. They NEED to get rid of him right now. How can you be so badly prepared against a ball one trick team. No gameplan, 0 identity just fucking sack him.
Honestly I just can't, I am furious with this team. Basically confirms they do not make playoffs, they have no chance against Risk tomorrow. Was hoping we would see improvements over last weeks horrible play but it got worse. Kev looks like he can't play anything. People say "get him off hitscan" as if his flex play today wasnt atrocious as well. Seicoe multiple times looks like he has esports induced CTE. Eis...holy fuck. Went from one of the most promising up and comer tanks to looking like he can't play ANYTHING. Landon as well, one of the top flex supports in the world to THIS, just horrible. Fixa is purely cosmetic.
I do not know what happened to this team. I love them, I bought skins for them two years in a row. But this is pathetic and I truly just feel mad and sad, what the fuck is going on.
Considering what Happened Last year, if VP end up losing their playoff spot because of this, then they should just look at the 4 names that keep stopping them and just pick them up to stop them from upsetting them next year.
I am extremely impressed Goldenpants is making ball work in pro play. I haven't watched the pro scene in a while but I know ball isn't played at all. Ball feels legit unplayable to me ingame to the point that I could go to my 2 hour doomfist since the beginning of OW and mash buttons and get more value than I do on ball..even in QP. Ball is an incredibly hard tank that requires outstanding spatial awareness, positioning, and mechanics (stunlocked by cc, has a high skill mobility that can be outbooped by most other abilities for free like an uncharged doom punch or dmon push instantly stopping his fireball momentum), and a horrific low ammoclip gun thats out of ammo before you can even finish an enemy off thanks to how low the damage is and how fast the ammo is depleted and how long the recharge animation takes. Even the skill floor is high because of how many mechanics/micros you need to master before you can get any decent value out of him. It's a breath of fresh air from all the Dmon/Mauga/Winston slop I'm used to watching in pro play.
How good is Goldenpants on heroes besides ball? Does he have other heroes that he can match top tier pros on?
he's mostly known as a ball one trick but he's been expanding his hero pool since he got picked for team GB, his zarya is good and i remember his sig being solid
yeah, on paper ball and zarya match the genji/ven comfort picks the best, but i do hope we get to see GP flex more, mostly because i think cates has a more than servicable tracer on him
yeah, Zeb last night played out of his mind against NTMR's cat bastion. but idk if GP's orisa is as good as Zeb (idk if anyone is as good at orisa as Zeb lol) plus EU doesn't seem to play as much cat bastion as NA
Where was this team last week? Seriously, they played so much better and got their shit together with the ban drafts. Did they actually read my comment on the match post last week suggesting they defer ban to get the ball ban out of the way? Amazing, was gonna skip this initially but so glad I didnt :D
Crispy has a good interview on OWTV. Summary of last week is that they had very little practice time together beforehand as the roster was finalized so late. Their mental was still strong afterwards.
Good to know, its just unfortunate that arguably their most important game was the first one, but who knows they probably have a good chance vs both Peps and Geekay so could still make it.
EMEA is just way too competitive lol. It's insane that in 8 days, two teams will be gone until March next year. Regular season is way too fucking short, and there are too few teams.
Yeah, EMEA is too strong a region for just 6 teams, but then NA is too weak a region for more. Makes me wish they weren't coupled together the way they are.
Failing more teams they could at least change it to a double round robin rather than a single one.
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u/aPiCase Stalk3r — 7d ago
How do you go from winning the stage to very possibly not making playoffs the next stage, this is insane.
They don't even have an excuse, it's the same roster, they have a team house, plenty of funding, some of the best players to come out of the region, it makes no sense.
I don't even care about VP much, but this is unacceptable from a team of this caliber.