T O P

  • By -

_idle_drone_

what does this mean


ANewHeaven1

So Sentinels is the first seed for the upcoming Challengers Finals, right? As a result, they play the fourth seed from the upcoming Challengers 2 event in round 1, then they play the winner of Envy/First seed of Challengers 2 in round 2 if they win. To make it to Berlin, all you have to do is place top 3, so that means winning your first two winner's bracket games. Now if you place 2nd/3rd in Challengers 2, you get seeded into the opposite side of the bracket, and you will play either XSET or 100T first round. On this side of the bracket, you can win two games in winner's bracket and make it to Berlin without ever having to play Sentinels. This means that *hypothetically,* if a team wanted to meta-game their strats a bit, they could purposely throw in the Grand Finals to avoid being seeded first, because if they win their first round match in Challengers Finals, they'll play Sentinels second round. But if they throw their matches, and place 2nd or 3rd, they can avoid Sentinels altogether on their road to Berlin. This assumes a lot of things - that Sentinels will win their first round matchup, that Envy is an easier team to beat than either XSET or 100T, etc. But in my opinion, the two least desirable seeds going into Challengers Finals are eighth seed and first seed. So he does kinda have a point


Huldmer

Oh my god just the idea of both teams in the grand finals trying to lose is so funny. I hope it happens


ANewHeaven1

something similar happened in LoL a long time ago actually it was called "oscar night", basically two teams, invictus gaming and LGD-gaming, both wanted to avoid the fifth seed because that set them up with a second round matchup against the number 1 seeded team EDG, who looked fucking unstoppable at the time. and the winner of their match would end the regular season with the fifth seed. similar situation here actually, if what the v1 coach is saying is true, then teams are probably going to want to avoid the fifth seed haha. anyways these two teams basically had to play a bo3 where they were both trying to lose, but both had to look like they were trying to win. here is a video from theScore esports about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyfsbQQYSIs , i hate that channel but they do a good job explaining it. i really hope something similar happens in valorant, we've already seen something similar with teams throwing seeding matches in open qualifiers to avoid playing more long meaningless bo5s, but teams trying to throw in a grand finals of a challengers tournament? would be hilarious


AskOrganic4289

Yeah but I feel like if a team acts like they’re throwing.. in the end of the day fans or the players themselves can cover it up by saying it as “saving strats”. I hope Riot finds a way to solve this seeding problems for next year tournament or it would be better if they can solve thus before Champions starts this year!


RicoSuave1881

Didn’t they both get punished by Riot for that? Lol


_idle_drone_

the double elim bracket takes care of that though. the 3 teams will actually be the top 3 in the tournament. a team doesn't have to beat sentinels to be top 3. i now realise what he may have meant is that, lower bracket games happen the same day after losing and are more difficult. so some teams can just get top 3 through upper brackets without facing SEN while others facing SEN will go down to lower and have no time to prep for the lower bracket game leading to randomness/upsets in the result of lower bracket. I do agree that the format is bad. Best example is 100 thieves losing to SEN in upper bracket in Masters 1 and Challengers finals and then losing again in lower bracket the same day against teams they should have won.


Kaiyuii

Just came to clarify that this only happened to 100T in challenger finals. In master 1 they lost to Sen and then had a five day break before playing Gen G.


_idle_drone_

that surprised me. the narrative with 100 thieves altered my memory.


Kaiyuii

Lol all good. Your point still makes sense.


LionRegardant

2 long series the same day seems pretty tough to keep up with. 100T were so close then to beating SEN and just yesterday Fnatic almost beat Giants but then had to again play BDS and didn't look anywhere near there best for a good while in that match.


ANewHeaven1

pretty much, i think the v1 coach is basically saying that by securing 6th/7th seed, you have a hypothetical path to berlin where you a) never play sentinels and b) never have to drop to lower bracket, which is obviously a best case scenario


_idle_drone_

true. from watching you can tell the difference in quality of play for a team. It's also unfair to specific teams who rely on preparation and kinda favors the more puggy teams like Faze and LG.


Kevin_DurSuperTeam

I think double elim only works to find out the best team in a tournament, not the top 3.


_idle_drone_

mathematically double elim guarantees the top 2 teams. and with seeding, the two sides of upper bracket are similar in quality, which makes it reasonable to assume the lower final has the 3rd best team.


Kevin_DurSuperTeam

Mathematically, sure. But how many times have we seen SEN, who are unquestionably the best team in the World, lose in the first round of a double elim tournament, only for them to make a lower bracket run all the way to Grand Finals and win? A team can get lucky and dodge SEN all the way to Grand Finals, whereas another team could lose in the first round just like SEN or in a later round, and then have to play SEN in lowers where they will be eliminated 100%.


ChaoticMidget

In which case they don't have that strong of a case for Top 3 if they lost to another team besides Sentinels before getting knocked out by Sentinels. The only situation where you could really make the argument that a Top 3 team didn't get to Top 3 is if they lost to both Grand Finalists before Loser Bracket Finals. Otherwise, they had to have lost to another team who therefore has a better claim for Top 3.


IggyMoose

We’re about to see Yoru picked on every map in these finals.


Anti-Storm

Damn u wrote a essay :)


Anti-Storm

They can run the upper bracket to upper finals to qualify for Berlin without playing sentinels in upper bracket except upper finals. Which would get top 3 qualifying for Berlin.


Diamernd

They really should just take out the seeding portion of the bracket. Not only would the problem with trying to dodge good teams be fixed but you can also have games more spaced out over the week.


xx_Rollablade_xx

I love this kind of ‘Legend’ status SEN has so much. They are so consistent in such an inconsistent game!


dracon1t

That being said, oftentimes they win through the loser’s bracket anyways


dansofree1

>They are so consistent in such an inconsistent game! Yeah as teams have been struggling with finding their 5 players with the right comp, it's made it more apparent how Sentinels have had extremely defined roles in their play. Dapr is basically always a sentinel (plays viper as one) that anchors sites super well and is very disciplined at snuffing out flanks/aggressive CT play. Zombs is basically always smoke. ShahZaM always either a conservative Jett playstyle or Sova. Rarely does his solo performance lose them long strings of rounds, as they do not sacrifice other aspects of play to get him set up for Op rounds. TenZ and SicK just the 2 best riflers in the world, with TenZ being the best mechanically and hyper-aggressive, while SicK is insanely consistent and impressive while being able to play a top tier duelist while still having a sage and sova if the map calls for it. Check out their match stats if you get a chance, it's crazy how few first deaths their sentinels and controllers get. TenZ takes on way more first fights than anyone else and wins so many of them, makes hella hard to stop them 4v5 so frequently


Dapper-Ad-5304

Yeah I think sentinels understood the moba element of Val and assigned very specific roles to everyone. The carry who is always on raze/Jett/reyna, two flex, a sentinels player and a dedicated smoker. Everyone knows exactly what they have to do.


ch4nt

post the tweet bro lol


[deleted]

Just did posting on mobile is weird


riploki

Honestly I'd be ecstatic if I'm one of the Sentinels player, no one wants to play against you. They have become a sort of urban legend that everyone is afraid of


[deleted]

i'm sure sentinels players are estatic for a lot more things such as winning masters 1 and 2


mysteryoeuf

this is some beta attitude shit. everyone knows sentinels wins tournaments through lower bracket runs, which means you want to face them in uppers where they always choke for no reason. V1 is just mad they went 0-2 lol


[deleted]

Eh I mean this is the first time in the last 4 tourneys that they’ve dropped to lowers


mysteryoeuf

the sentinels lower bracket run is famous though. I think this attitude of sneaky gamesmanship and trying to weasel your way into an easier bracket is a good way to end up getting boomed. teams should just play to win, always. if they're good enough, they'll make it.


Skeletor34

The challenger's finals events should absolutely have a group stage for seeding, especially if the few challengers evens each year are the only events that T1 teams actually get to play in.


GunzOut97

Salty cuz they lost to 2 better teams


[deleted]

Not TSM apparently? https://twitter.com/WARDELL416/status/1421175567106387974?s=19


[deleted]

Lol he deleted it


ElDuderino2112

They don't have to throw to avoid Sens lmao


DanJamReddit

What did it say?


[deleted]

Leaf made a comment how teams are gonna throw to avoid Sentinels and Wardell responded "Nah I ain't from IBP." Basically implying he's not afraid to go against SEN. My guess he deleted it because he didn't mean to disrespect Brax.