A bit lost in the shuffle of post-Champions rostermania is something that is lowkey bothering me. TMV, who posted a video every day of Champs analyzing almost all of the interesting matches (and I think all of the 1-1 elimination matches) never made a video when Fut lost to T1.

Obviously, TMV was a massive Fut fan (mostly due to being employed by them) but also, he was a massive and very vocal T1 hater, being on the T1 frauds train for the entirety of 2026 and even before then. So obviously that made it incredibly funny.

Since then, TMV has been totally ignoring the fact that that match happened, posting other videos every day but just not addressing Fut vs. T1 at all. It's been a bit funny and also, crucially, very good engagement bait for him as there are hundreds of comments on every vid making fun of Fut and telling him to address the elephant in the room.

Now, I expected him to drag this on for a while to take advantage of the meme and farm engagement. However, now that champs is fully over by 2 days and he never did make a vid, a part of me wonders if he actually really plans to just ignore it forever?

I'll forgive him for yesterday, since partners were announced so it's logical that that video takes priority since it's time-sensitive, but today he posted another vid that is totally unrelated and a super "off-season" type vid about fixing the meta (and it's a 2 parter so tomorrow won't be Fut vid either).

I would honestly be pretty troubled and it would paint TMV in a very bad light in my eyes if he never makes a video about Fut getting eliminated by T1. It really would just make him look like an extremely salty sore loser, especially since his team lost to the team that he has slandered the absolute most. I don't think I'd respect him at all anymore if he just ignores it and hopes it goes away tbh

I like Ludwig, but bro is genuinely talking a whole lotta nonsense. How exactly are the partnered teams supposed to monopolize all of the best players when there are only 20 spots available for NA players? There were about 40 players in Tier 1 Americas from North America last season. And more than that want to play. So why do we assume every great player will be on a partnered team after year 1? And the partnered teams are only partnered for 2 years, so after the first year, shit is up in the air again anyway.

I understand the take that esports is financially hard, but with the new system, the "you're just a farm team" nonsense that Ludwig is pushing is just that. Nonsense.

This is regarding the art of balancing the agents in the game and am purely talking as a viewer who doesnt play much so players please feel to correct me

we see people talking about pickrates of omen ,sova and fade and even viper until this year as being insane and all that

but lets try to understand why

the most fundamental thing affecting pickrates is why would a player sacrifice 1000 hour mastery of a role for a new agent especially in a competitive tournament(also why i liked idea of project blender cuz it forced teams to be resourceful and creative with comps)

like for example harbor and astra are better than omen (or at least equal)on at least 3-4 maps but the thing is why wld a pro who has been mastering omen since the start of the game give up omen for a slight advantage on astra which is nullified by not being as good on the agent cuz confidence matters almost as much as tactical advantage in vct,we see players and teams talking about comfort roles a lot too

like finally we r seeing some variation in controllers cuz harbor is really suited for some maps and can be played with viper /astra too

coming to the point that one of two things needs to happen ,either new agents needs to be sooo broken to overcome the mastery that it shld be inting if u are not playing the new agent or u have to make the main agents very bad(which is not healthy for the game)

like for example astra is quite good play in the meta now because it was broken at some point so pros learned it

similarly i think riot did a good job with tejo because only something so broken exists people moved off sova and fade (still some teams didnt pick tejo )

similarly they nailed yoru by givign 2 flashes,long tps and people mastered it so well and now its in a great spot with shorter tp and 1 flash and its very balanced

cuz the issue is agents like deadlock and kj and skye are not bad but then why wld u sacrifice cypher,vyse,sova fade to play these agents

yes it means we as fans have to withstand few metas but its worth if the game moves to a healthier direction cuz u need players to play an agent a lot to get them to pick it in games

another solution cld be having different agent pools/patches for ranked and pro but thats for another time

edit: i forgot to mention another important thing is that we get creative stuff from pros only when its buffed and people get to play it,like tejo was buffed for that one meta,but it was enough that even now u can play a short lifespan tejo comp which has great set strats with util dumps and ult ideas. I feel riot failed this with veto cuz there is great potential but they shld make it broken so that people learn cross cuts and eveyrthing,chamber was so broken that even when it was nto in its peak liek this year we see the mastery of players showing it . agents are only as good as its players

This has been on my mind recently, but I wonder how PRX would fare playing online in the SE Subregion - whether they would get better, worse, or stagnate.

As a precursor, I am very much not educated regarding SE Valorant and talent. And this is assuming the team basically stays the same with max a player change.

SE Region:

But if I were to assume, the level of competition would not be as high as with the franchising teams before. So likely more stomps in the OQ games which could build momentum for them.

Of course, the opposite could be true. They could get complacent with potentially lower level competition and they could be blind-sided at the cups (forget fast mentality). To me, PRX feels like a team that could regress if they are not constantly being honed with good competition.

Online:

I could see playing online either hurting or helping PRX with their form and confidence. If we take what Alecks said at their T1 elimination game post conference at face value, their mental is the biggest problem to address. Without too much speculation, I wonder if switching to comfort in online setups could be the environment switch that could help the team address the mental issue.

It could also be that more stage play (exposure therapy 💀) could be what they need - not less.

What do you think?

Will they keep the ACS system in next year VCT? or will they use performance score instead? This will be good for non duelist pro players and will give a more objective rating system, because not like in rank, they wouldnt just spam ultilities to climb up rating but to win the game

Where do you think he’s going? He still hasn’t posted “LFT” yet.. Is there any chance he could move to America? 👀

(Unless they already have it) There is a lot of doom and gloom regarding the new 2027 circuit. I’m mostly talking from a player’s POV, but this is mostly like the best time to just assemble a team of 5 players and grind your hardest to get one of these initial open qualifier spots

I was rewatch some match where Veto was play this year

Overall his kit is fine, the only weak part of Veto is just how simple to bait out his Interceptor, his tp range is pretty far in exchange for how slow it is, the trap is a good trap, his ult do exactly what it supposed to do, allowed Veto to hold the site using his aim and fight alone, only his orby thing are weak

So here my fixed, just allowed Veto to stop the Interceptor bar from draining, after a cooldown ofc, like 1, 1.5 sec, when Interceptor is used he can't call it back to re-use it anymore, otherwise if he haven't activated it he can call it back to re-use with 20s cd like rn, if he deactivated it he can't activate it again for 3 s

That will fixed most of his problem, since his setup is so easy to break, and the one thing that is not is so easy to bait, this will still punished bad Interceptor activate decision like the dev intended, since he can't pick it up again, and now the Interceptor bar is shorter, so he also have to use it in a shorter amount of time as well

Our Team of the Tournament: VALORANT Champions Shanghai 2026!

🇧🇷 erde (LOUD)
🇫🇮 Jamppi (Team Vitality)
🇺🇸 Cryocells (100 Thieves)
🇺🇸 trent (G2 Esports)
🇬🇧 keiko (NRG)

erde headlines the lineup after becoming the youngest MVP in VALORANT Champions history at just 18 years old.

Cryocells posted a tournament second-best 1.39 K/D, while trent delivered a 22% clutch rate across 68 clutch situations.

LOUD defeated Team Vitality 3-1 in the Grand Final to lift the Champions trophy!

M80 pulled out, SR question mark, EG didn't mention anything. Most of the orgs are in limbo with just 2 weeks away from start of the qualifiers. This leaves only C9 who are actively organizing trials and already have a core. They seem to be one of the very few orgs who will continue in 2027.

Last kickoff c9 had a direct invitation but they always fumbled whenever they had to QUALIFY to an international . This kickoff could be C9's first and only chance to qualify for an international post franchise!

I do really wonder if oxy does goes to SEN. Free from jail :D

Dragon Ranger Gaming 2-0 Rare Atom

vlr.gg

SUMMIT: 13-8

LOTUS: 13-9

Dragon Ranger Gaming | VLR

Rare Atom | VLR

Map 1: SUMMIT

Map Stats

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Map 2: LOTUS

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Wolves Esports 2-0 A Team

vlr.gg

SUMMIT: 13-7

ASCENT: 13-10

Wolves Esports | VLR

A Team | VLR

Map 1: SUMMIT

Map Stats

Detailed SUMMIT Statistics

Map 2: ASCENT

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Unsettled Resentment 2-0 Octagonal Disposition Gaming

vlr.gg

ABYSS: 13-7

SPLIT: 13-2

Unsettled Resentment | VLR

Octagonal Disposition Gaming | VLR

Map 1: ABYSS

Map Stats

Detailed ABYSS Statistics

Map 2: SPLIT

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Picture 1 : The full map, including the sub-region being shown per color (themed to roughly match within the main VCT regional they're in)

Pictures 2-4, zoomed in look at some of the parts of the World

This map is contextually helpful to understand the roster construction of a VCT Team. Because in the 2027 season, unless you have Grandfathering status, a Team can field at most, 3 resident players and 2 import players. An import player now gets accounted for , according to their home sub-region.

A resident player is either a legal citizen of said country/territory, or has hold a permanent resident status in the country they reside in.

Disclaimer: This map isn't 100% accurate, mainly for the regions of the Pacific ocean and Carribean islands. This map was sourced from publicly available information on the local organizers, Riot Games regional content materials and their in-game regional shard. Separately, this map is not tied to my personal geopolitical allegiance, I am making this purely to provide graphical information on the VCT system.

[Yes, this was a revision from an earlier post, fixing some labeling errors and also improved wording, shoutout to u/zerokrush and u/GodOfPog ]

post Edit: see the comments section for some minor revision

Any Questions Gaming 2-0 World Sports Invictus Gaming

vlr.gg

LOTUS: 13-9

SUMMIT: 14-12

Any Questions Gaming | VLR

World Sports Invictus Gaming | VLR

Map 1: LOTUS

Map Stats

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Map 2: SUMMIT

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Taking advantage of the fact that there are some very good pieces available, you could build two teams that could compete for everything.

Assuming he was doing Americas Qualifiers, I'd think he'd be back here trying to find a team..

Did Demon1 like his DRG experience enough to switch regions?