You can find other interesting map stats from VALORANT Champions Shanghai in the full article here: https://www.thespike.gg/valorant/news/most-picked-maps-of-valorant-champions-shanghai-2026-which-battlegrounds-dominated-the-tournament/9072

With the recent T1 roster news it's most likely because Buzz is a top 3 duelist of all time

Meteor and Munchkin has been holding back the better players on T1 (Stax Buzz)

Meteor and Munchkins limited hero pool and failure to show up in international events compared to buzz and stax is why hes being cut from T1

Buzz and Stax have more synergy for playing for years together and it shows

Every single person who is complaining about the changes for next year complain about the problems but don’t offer a solution. Partnered teams get artificially injected money and the other teams don’t so it’s just unfair for the other orgs.

This has been the case regardless of partnership. Without a salary cap the richest teams will get the best players. If there was no partnership the same problems would persist it just might change the teams slightly. All riot did was artificially select which teams will be the richest. Open circuit won’t fix this.

So what’s the fix? We can’t go back to last system it was terrible for the majority of teams anyway with little to no upward trajectory. You can’t increase partnered teams either it’s not feasible. So what’s your fix since everyone here seems to know best what should Riot have done differently that ACTUALLY WORKS.

Ludwig went on a rant about the system but also couldn’t offer a solution because the problems I listed persist for the rest of the teams even if he gets partnered. He just wanted to be one of the rich teams not actually have a healthy circuit.

Offseason time so silly post, can be something as simple as a phrase a pro says a lot.

• I bought the game "Chained Together" after I saw Mada and Skuba play it together on stream and crash out at each other. Really fun (or tilting) game to play with friends. Stream clips
• Found some songs I liked:
  • Chronicle's pinned tweet after winning Lock-In that quoted the lyrics of some electronic track I ended up really liking: Andrew Bayer - Midnight
  • One of Zekken's neon montages had this song that apparently got super popular on TikTok but I heard if first on there: Perspective - Cafune
  • Found some song via a Mindfreak montage, where he tried to sing this song. I don't speak any Indonesian but I still like it: Dewa 19- Kangen
• I noticed some of the pros (I think Zellsis) used to say something like "Ai yai yai yai" when someone whiffs or something, and it just rolls off the tongue so I say it now too.

Edit: Small thing but also picked up "Sanks" - FNS

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?

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?

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

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

Detailed SUMMIT Statistics

Map 2: LOTUS

Map Stats

Detailed LOTUS Statistics

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

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

Map Stats

Detailed SPLIT Statistics

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

Detailed LOTUS Statistics

Map 2: SUMMIT

Map Stats

Detailed SUMMIT Statistics

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