Congratulation, Leviatán! VCT Americas 2024 Champions!

Well what can I say ASPAS might be the actual GOAT. I doubted that the team of ASPAS, Tex, Mazino, c0m and Kingg could accomplish a trophy win, but much like my predictions for the rest of the year it's been proven wrong. They defeated G2 with JonahP, Valyn, Trent, Icy and Leaf in a banger match to end VCT Americas Stage 2 and send us straight to Valorant Champions 2024: Seoul and I'm excited to for this tournament. Congratulations, Leviatan! Valorant Americas Champions 2024!
Twitter: @ ZephVLR

[@TTChala]

I don't understand the hate to lev for picking players from other regions, yeah it's a shame they can't dedicate fully to develop local talent but i think we all can agree it's mostly riot's fault I think the main reason for the hate is they are winning cause i dont remember anyone hating on nrg for picking ardiis or bleed for signing yay...

[@ferxas]

Its not that they pick like "foreign" talent its how they do it, like kicking nzr on Christmas is insane. For example imagine you are a young latam talent that their dream its just to get to vct, how you demonstrate that you are better that aspas, trex or c0m a friking world champion. You only option its kru and damn that's only 5 spots. That's why at least for me they get the hate, but riot has some fault to.

[@Vinicius_T_Sousa]

@@ferxas Riot has all the fault in this bro. bringing players from Brazil or Latam is so much more expensive and troublesome. Depending on the US imigration to issue you visas is a nightmare. there's gotta be a better option, maybe a league for NA and one for SA, or just move everything to Brazil, probably easier to get visas and have everyone there to play.

[@ferxas]

@@Vinicius_T_Sousa oh of course I think riot has done a bad job. I was talking more like in the mind of a latam talent and obviusly how lev the org deal with the nzr situation that was really wild.

[@Browniev2]

"there's only 1 el classico and you know what it is" BUT ZEPH, LEV vs. KRU happened 2x more than NRG/OpTic vs. LOUD...

[@henriquenunes4451]

yeah but optic loud were always bangers and higher stakes and the matches were always super close, it was the best rivalry in valorant no other comes close imo

[@joaoangelo8092]

Not same core, like, you cannt say "el classico" to Lev x Kru, cause is 4 news players to Lev and 3 new players to Kru Classic for org? Yeah, classic for team? No.

[@Browniev2]

@@joaoangelo8092 all the 2022 and 2023 games have relatively same players, it's only 2024 where LEV made massive changes, similar to how NRG did the same this year.

[@Browniev2]

@@henriquenunes4451 I agree, but saying "el classico" is only reserved for one rivalry is crazy when there's rivalries like LEV KRU and PRX DRX that have been going on for just as long and are also always fighting at grand finals; the only reason OpTic LOUD is higher stakes is because the teams could only meet in int'ls for the majority of their rivalry, and when it was in the league it was one-sided.

[@tekstego9654]

"leviatan as an org has set a precedence that im not particularly a fan of and that is picking up players outside of their region in order to create a stronger team" i plainly dont agree with this statement, lev is a business so why would we shame them from importing better players to create a stronger team? and yeah i've seen someones vid on how south america has gotten screwed over by riot. And sure that sucks, it doesnt give local talent a fair chance since the teams are all in L.A. but it's the same situation in EMEA, the teams are all in berlin. so most of the local talent from africa and the middle east also dont get seen as much. same for pacific being in seoul, so talent from oceania also has a difficult time standing out. All of these smaller regions DO have ascension, so the players that really want to play in a tier one team can just look to be so far ahead of the rest of T2 so they get picked up by an org in T1. and yes you can use karon as a counterargument, but he's so far the only player that went from ranked/premier to t1 in one fell swoop. besides that, radiant/immortal ranked is very different from pro play.

[@Sg190th]

They did it strategically like 100T did. NRG just stacks too much.

[@Lucaz99]

The only thing I didn’t particularly like is that they went for COM just because he is a world champion (afaik). As good as COM is, I think the team was fine with Nowzer. It’s hard to say because the team never played an official so it’s a bit of a “what if”. It took awhile for them to gel completely, they could have used that offseason practice that helped Sentinels in the beginning of the year. But they decided to restart when COM became available and they’re looking strong now though. Can’t knock them too much for it.

[@tekstego9654]

@@Lucaz99 i completely agree, they already had the prac runs in with nzr, and yeah its a big "what if". still i think its bizar for someone who's not the igl to only have a few matches where he went positive across all maps. but hey its hard to judge impact from stats alone

[@Browniev2]

what about primmie? for the last bit.

[@greenmuffin1343]

MENA has no teams, LATAM does (look how people clown GE for not having any Indian players). SA gets no trials against good teams = harder to improve in order to win ascension (along with their orgs being more unstable and constantly cycling players compared to NA who will usually keep a core every season). Primmie, N4RRATE (caught enghh’s attention from consistently being rank 1-10 in NA for a while), mta, and then you have players like keiko and oxy who went from ranked -> t2 mid season -> instantly t1

[@bongo_6664]

The assistant coach black magic is putting COM back on Sova x)

[@soraorganik]

Imagine what would had happen if Itopata was the Head coach from the beginning?

[@orlandoandresaravenarivera7820]

Hating on an org for trying to compete on par with the rest of the region is just a shortsighted take drowned in pure bias. Sure, you'll have less latam representation for this and maybe the next year, but that doesn't mean the org will be capable of retaining the current latam players (mazino and kingg), hence new slots for latam upcoming talents; and the same goes for trying to keep tex, aspas or c0m if they dont like the project or receive better offers in the future. Developing talent is a slow and expensive task (even more for latam), so if you have the opportunity to build something, gain experience as an org and resources while you train new talent, you take it. Lev as an org even have an academy team full of young talented latam players, which have beem receiving support for at least a couple of years (now they're partnered with furious gaming cuz of the new vct rules). Spain for example have 3 teams competing in vct and combined have like one or two spanish players. No one gives a damn shit, because across all sports, fans support orgs, not the ammount of players from their region. Heck, look at the LCS, with their imports taking NA slots and no one caring as long as their team get wins. Stop being mad for others lmao.

[@guilhermzjzjsjdjsjiwms]

Also aspas is technically from Latam since Brazil is from Latin America

[@BrickhouseBob28]

Tbf, 60% of their team is LATAM

[@allxlan]

it’s a business jit so many orgs pick up imports cuz they’re jus better then inner region players

[@allxlan]

also it’s so weird to make this video when the team u glaze in nrg picked up a import last year to be their main duelist

[@Lucaz99]

True, that and you won’t have any constantly visa issues if pick up Americans (Americas) and Koreans (Pacific) or EU citizens (EMEA). It’s just the reality.

[@Reactivity760]

If you ask who im rooting for is TH and FNC From EMEA SEN LEV KRU From Americas TLN just cuz i wanna see if this team can make primmie work in the roster and PRX Ig FPX thats it honestly not even that hype for china tbh

[@chacarilla9128]

I was always a Goked doubter 😊

[@AnonymousGamer7777]

Dammit Zeph, I don't want to feel good about Lev winning, I want to be upset G2 lost! /j In all seriousness, great vid. While I won't be rooting for Lev over ALL non Americas teams (Fnatic will show up, trust), I will be happy for the players if they make a good run or even win (the org, not so much).

[@aR0ttenBANANA]

This tournament was a perfect example of what Tenz’s biggest complaint about this game compared to CS. KRÜ shits the bed during season and somehow almost wins the whole thing, 100T has a bad day and randomly gets eliminated, G2 are constant AF and then get fucked, Sentinels almost turn it around only to lose, etc. this game has so many random variables that make having a bad game impossible to come back from. Idk, I don’t like it.

[@pavezxxD]

100T didn't get eliminated 'randomly', they lost two matches in a row in playoffs, the point system was made to reward consistency over form, that's why sentinels got in instead of teams in better form such as EG and 100T.

[@vincebiro]

KRÜ had a better regular season that 100T, so i dont get the "100T lost randomly and the KRÜ shat the bed whole season" thing. And G2 lost against a team that had a better regular season aswell. If we give the 4 Champions slot to the 4 most consistent team by stats, surprise Leviathan, G2, Sen and KRÜ are the ones to go to Seoul. Its a well maid system. The only thing i dont get is the amount of games they play. 10 games before the playoffs is pretty bad. Should be 20, so everyone plays everyone twice.

[@dpm848]

Lastima que la org no te guste y no puedas festejar aun siendo latino, pero tranquilo que ya llego el defensor #1 de lev 😂, leviatan dejo de ser un roaster 100% latino y se convertio en uno internacional en el momento que ficharon a aspas, el cual es el mejor fichaje del mercado con diferencia, solo habian dos idiomas que podian hablar al fichar a aspas, ingles o portugués, pero como trajeron staff extranjero (gokked es español) entonces a diferencia de un staff de brazil querian que el team hablara ingles, ya tenemos lock de idioma, lock de coach y lock aspas en este momento, en papel leviatan sin tacolilla pero con aspas y nuevo staff es un equipo absyrdo representa a latam, pero tenian que hablar ingles por la mezcla de aspas + coaching staff decente, de ahi se va shyy y todo se va al carajo, ahi fue donde lev tuvo que buscar talento que igualara al que dejo atras, el cual no hay en latam tristemente y formar talento en 12 partidos (el minimo de partidos por año de muchos equipos) es imposible, lo de nzwr me parece una cagada pero fue una desición del staff para jugar mas emea y estructurado, no fue magia negra zeph, simplemente lev no estaba jugando con la identidad de sus players, itopata si lo esta haciendo por eso el cambio tan grande

[@SirCarmelli]

why u dont like mixed region teams? its pretty cool. loud will do it too and it will be good

[@ayayasussy3576]

I legit don't understand the hate of lev. I understand that it's picking up different players in different regions but the whole point of esports is to win? Wow shocking in general LATAM only have a few player are really good and the whole is mediocre that's why furia and mibr exist that's why they picked different regions, like i don't get the hate at all and it's still 3 LATAM players and two different ones and 3 is greater than two

[@Sirclassic]

What's wrong when teams pick up players from other regions?

[@philipdawson7800]

When it comes to a region like LATAM, bringing in players from North America could lead to fewer paths for local talents into franchising, which could lead to a stagnation of the region. It's not just LEV that is at fault though, RIOT themselves are at fault, because everything about Americas is based in North America, which leaves not only the LATAM region, but also Brazil, to base a lot of their focus & prep in NA, instead of being able to base their operations more locally.

[@Sirclassic]

@@philipdawson7800 yeah I would also prefer LATAM being its own region again but for example SEN also picked up two brazilian players back when franchising started

[@philipdawson7800]

@@Sirclassic I don't know if LATAM is deep enough for it's own league, but it should have been North America & South America (LATAM & Brazil) as separate leagues. But they didn't wanna do that, because they wanted to have LOUD competing with all the NA teams, so they fucked it up.

[@Reixuria]

lead to things like ge which is tryna rep india but 4/5 is not of indian nationality (russ despite being of indian descent has british nationality), their fans take it out harsh on the other players.

[@computercat122]

@philipdawson7800 only one person from LEV is from NA, tex is from germany

[@lamp88]

Krupped incoming

[@derrickcoleman3122]

if nrg are the Steelers of VCT does that make LEV the Ravens? or are they the chiefs and aspas is Patrick Mahomes? 🤔

[@ZephYanezVal]

Good question. I’m not sure but NRG definitely looked like the Chargers letting playoffs slip from their hands. I’m cursed 💀

[@drewxpd]

as a chiefs fan we'll take aspas for sure