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Analysis and Opinion

Core Contributors: The statistical best player on each Valorant Champions 2023 team

In Valorant, you can’t become a good team without a baseline of a skill; you can’t become a great team without strong comms, coordination, and playbooks; and you can’t become champions unless you add a heroic star performance as the cherry on top.

With Champions 2023 about to kick off, let’s look at each team’s strongest statistical performer from the year so far. I’ve selected one player per team, based on their numbers since the start of the 2023 VCT regular season. Continue reading Core Contributors: The statistical best player on each Valorant Champions 2023 team →

Analysis and Opinion

Three Points of Interest for 2020 LCS Academy

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Academy has been slowly but consistently rising in priority for the LCS over time, with the goal of creating a more productive pipeline for domestic North American talent. According to information first reported by Parkes Ousley of Inven Global and officially confirmed this week, that trend is continuing in 2020, with five on-stage Academy games every week. In addition to giving Academy players more experience in LCS-like competitive environments, the league is clearly hoping to draw more fan eyeballs onto Academy.

One of my personal goals for 2020 is to watch Academy more closely and provide some level of content and coverage around it. To kick off that coverage, I’m presenting three points of interest for the 2020 season.

Oceanic Influx

The LCS implemented a rule change during the offseason that allows Academy teams to field one “extra” import, if that player comes from Turkey, Brazil, Latin America, Oceania, or the Commonwealth of Independent States. That change, paired with a dramatic scaling-back of the OPL, created a flood of Oceanic talent into North America.

The most visible highlight of that movement is ry0ma, who landed a starting role in the 100 Thieves mid lane. Continue reading Three Points of Interest for 2020 LCS Academy →

Analysis and Opinion

Key Clashes: CLG vs KOO and OG vs KT

At an international event like the League of Legends World Championships, there are usually some obvious power imbalances, but there are always a few key group stage matchups that could go either way, unpredictable games that will have huge effects on the later stages of the tournament.

At Worlds 2015, two of those key matchups are Counter Logic Gaming vs. the KOO Tigers in Group A, and KT Rolster vs. Origen in Group D. Both are scheduled for their first meetings on Sunday, October 4.

Let’s get ready for the matches with some head-to-head comparisons of the teams. I also ran a reader poll to get some popular opinion on these two matchups, and I’ll share the results below.

Continue reading on Unikrn →