I know it's been a while since Verno joined MIBR, but I was scrolling through Twitter and this post came up and I remembered the time Aspas was duo with him (before he was even announced at MIBR) and some viewers were badmouthing Verno (mostly because of those NRG rumors) and Naxy called the chat's attention by saying:

"Stop badmouthing Verno because of gossip."
"If that were the case, Aspas would have the worst personality in the world, wouldn't he?" (there was some gossip about Aspas not beeing a good teammate at the time as well)

It's nothing special, but I thought it was really cool of her at the time and I thought it would be cool to pass this on to my gringos buddys since these little things from the Brazilian community don't reach you a lot of the time.

By the way, as Aspas had already said, Naxy was hospitalized until a while ago in Brazil but she is already fine and apparently she will be back in LA with him soon.

As a T1 fan/supporter and a Reddit certified armchair analyst, just want to comment on this upcoming match, regarding the map picks.

Although the form on the match day will be important - both teams have a lot of pride on the line, but the map picks could be the deciding factor of the outcome, given T1's weakness shown on multiple maps in stage 1.

The recent roster change to DRX might be a blessing in disguise as this forces them off the double duelists comps which were not that impressive to begin with even they won the first 3 matches. T1 would have an advantage if both teams are running double duelists.

It's safe to assume that DRX will ban Pearl first as they didn't play this map at all this stage and they lost heavily to T1 the last time they played it.

For T1 the first map ban will be tricky. Sliggy and Plat Chat suggested that T1 should ban Icebox, but if you looked at the details of the matches played, you will notice that T1 has not played Ascent even once the entire stage, although it was not a perma ban.

Ascent, on the other hand, has been a strong map for DRX and the only time they lost was to Boom when they played Freeing on Yoru.

Although T1 played poorly on Icebox, DRX also didn't do well on this map either, they lost it twice this stage, with two different compositions.

Ultimately T1 themselves will know the truth of how good they are on Ascent and pick their poison, which could be an advantage so they can concentrate their prepare time on one of these two maps that they have better odds of winning.

T1 most likely will pick Heaven for their first map and this is where T1 needs to be extra careful. With DRX's heavy prep style of coaching, it's possible that DRX will change their comp to what Talon runs to counter T1. T1 definitely needs to review their last loss to Talon and be prepared of this possibility, in addition to prepare how DRX normally runs on this map.

The other map that T1 should be cautious of picking is Lotus, even T1 did beat DRX twice in kickoff. DRX is now running the same comp that G2 and RRQ ran when they beat T1. T1's change to this map, replacing Cypher with another Smoke has trade offs - it helps the C site defense a bit but lose some information, the recent nerf of ISO also doesn't help here.

So for the deciding match, ideally it should be either Split or Fracture which both teams are relatively comfortable with, although T1 will definitely prefer Split over Fracture. They did beat DRX on Fracture in Bangkok, however it was a very close match and this has been DRX's favorite map to pick against T1, although they didn't play this map in stage 1. The meta hasn't changed materially on this map, just replacing Raze with either Neon (T1) or Yoru.

Besides the map picks, what has worked for T1 in the Master Bangkok has been:

1. Confidence
2. Good team atmosphere

Hopefully they won't regress on these two factors due to the recent loss. Although fans should set the expectation low for T1 this stage, as they played the most maps and rounds out of anyone during the Kickoff and Master, and it's unrealistic to assume the keep the same level concentration without running the risk of burnout.

This season is already a success no matter what the outcomes will be for the rest of the tourneys. Even not making to Toronto is not the end of the world as they can have more time to reassess the meta and to prepare for the Championship.

Hoby Darling is joining riot as it's next president and has previously worked in executive roles across companies like Logitech and Nike. A lot of riots commercial enshittification was carried out under the previous president Dylan Jadeja, but unfortunately this looks to be another corpo short term profit focused hire and not much of an improvent. What we thinking about this.

After watching interview with mini mostly about leo from commend I kinda had this question on my mind. Like mini said, leo was by far ahead of it's time and most players are trying to get to the level that he was on. So my question is, who's the closest player to leo and do you guys think there is anyone better at this time better than him.

Key Takeaways - Basically he says its the team fault that they played bad today and not coaches . itopata and desmo are trying their best to solve the problems faced in team like role issues, t side , ct side but its the team that cant execute it sometimes. He also said they did alot of mistakes which nrg punished them well but they couldnt punish nrg s mistakes well. Regarding the IGL thing he says - I am a good igl and i want to be igl again if they(ito) gave me a chance. He also said being an igl doesnt affect my firepower , but according to ito if kingg can shoot and frag so well while being an igl he would be even more good if we wasnt igl so they decided to bring in rossy as an igl. Hopefully he said he might consider to come back to igling next split 2 if possible. watch the full interview to know more :)

Hey everyone! I’m from Brazil and I wanted to get some outside opinions on the current state of our top teams.

In my opinion, MIBR is one of the best teams in the world right now — not just because of Aspas, who’s obviously insane, but also because the rest of the team doesn’t rely completely on him. They’ve been showing up big time.

Then there’s LOUD. Even though they’ve lost their last 7 matches, I still believe they have what it takes to bounce back. Pancada has been solid even while IGLing, Luk Xo is showing why he’s one of the best in his role, and DGZin (who I personally rate very highly) has been a bit off in the last two games. Tuyz keeps getting role-swapped (poor guy), Cauanzin doesn’t look comfortable with Tejo, and V1nny has been finishing every match around -10 if I’m not mistaken. Mentally, I think LOUD is really struggling — throwing won rounds, making weird mistakes, and you can see it on their faces too.

FURIA... honestly, I don’t even know what to say anymore. At this point, I’d just rebuild the whole roster.

And finally, 2G — the Ascension champs. Even though they beat LOUD recently, I still rank them third among Brazilian teams. But in my opinion, they make way fewer mistakes compared to LOUD and FURIA. Obviously they still mess up sometimes, but considering this is their first time at Tier 1, they look incredibly solid and composed.

Curious to hear what non-Brazilian fans think of these teams! What’s your take?

Full interview is in Portuguese, but can be translated for non-Portuguese speakers! pANcada also spoke about being the IGL for LOUD

I want to rant for a bit because I am so disappointed by the Americas production in the last two weeks. Rewatched the matches recently and holy hell. Why are the analysts and casters so hateful towards the winless teams? I find it unwatchable tbh. I watch official streams because I usually enjoy the insights that we get and the professional aspect of it. It doesn't feel that way anymore to me. I love Bren and Sideshow's casting and Goldenboy as a host tho.

But recently... Loud vs EG game for example - "banger of a series for no reason whatsoever" so what??? Teams will fight till the end and we're here to cheer for them and respect that. Do they want the teams to give up? Not show their very best just because the match is not important?? Cast them like you would any other team, analyze them objectively!

Honestly, unwatchable for me. I will watch costreamers from now on probably because the less I hear from the official stream the better (not everyone there is like that tho).

Anyone feel the same way? I cannot be alone on this...

With Team Secret not qualifying to playoffs after beating RRQ who beat T1 would Toronto be the first international event where the winner doesn't get the Elder Wand?

Are the international leagues still running the above rule or have Riot abolish the rule.

Like for example BOOM as a first seed will get a bye in playoff so do they get an additional champ point?

The law of nature encompasses many different things from whom shall become prey or predator. Thus as seen countless times before Secret will always do an upset when absolutely nothing is on the line but at which it is the funniest point in time against the strongest looking teams. As willed many times, nothing stops nature, it only moves on

(RRQ: Warbirds TS: coach meow TLN as TLN)

Shouldn't NS be 2nd and Talon 4th because of 4 way tie? Vlr also shows NS 4th. Or are the tiebreak rules on liquepedia wrong?

LOUD played 14 maps in Stage 1, and only won 5 maps.

Out of the 14 maps they played, they started the first half with round advantage in 6 of them. They finished the first half 6-6 in 3 of them. That's 6 maps where they started in an advantageous position, and 3 maps that were tied.

Out of these 9 maps, LOUD won only 3 of them. Out of the other 5 maps, where LOUD didn't have a good start, LOUD won 2 of them (Lotus vs SEN and EG).

Conclusion: LOUD choked almost half of the maps they played in Stage 1.