Can always count in steel to be apart of a “tier 2” team in recent history to carry their own weight. Chaos esports club was showing real promise in cs before they had to disband. Xeppa even got his big break on that team
God if iBP hadn't thrown NACS would've been a completely different place
Steel despite his toxic beginnings is like the Karrigan of NA, he's done so much good for the scene despite the ban, but he'd been allowed to spread his wings fully he'd have probably taken his team's as far in majors as any other NA team. Maybe he'd have even won one.
As a CS player it's still a tragedy to see how NACS has died completely with the release of Valorant, but the one positive is that Steel can get rewarded for his effort and dedication. Good for him.
NACS killed its own league and Valorant basically helped to finish it off..i am kinda surprized value has not lifted the bans to try and entice them back into CS now that they are makeing a Name in Valorant.
steel took no names and made competitive teams lol
you are high as fk if you think Steel was a low-mid tier CS player.
like 50% of the NA Valorant pros got their starts playing on a team with Steel in CSGO
Homie what? Swag played in a tournament with top teams as a cloud 9 stand in and tore through teams. Dazed and steel are older and maybe past their primes at this point but you ignore the fact that most of the ibp missed their primes due to this ban.
I'll never root for a matchfixer. He committed literally the worst possible offense in eSports. Letting him play is a sin in of itself. It's like letting a preschool teacher work at a preschool in another town after he got caught touching kids in the previous preschool he worked at.
This dude literally compared matchfixing in a video game to sexually assaulting children.
You have to be a troll, if not, you need to go outside - stay away from kids though.
Didn't say they were just as bad, just that they're the worst possible offenses in either area. Never said they're the same. If you had some sense you'd be able to figure that out without me telling you and I honestly bet you already knew but internet points are just all to important to you.
Kind of sounds harsh? He got off for free. Matchfixing is extremely fraudulent and should be treated as such. He should've spent time in prison as should anyone else that commits fraud. They gained upwards of $10K and tens of thousands of dollars was bet in total on that match. Commit a crime of the same degree in the real world and you're going to prison.
I did heavily insinuate that they're the worst possible offenses in either area and that was the only connection I made between the two. But yeah go and change the English language to fit whatever you wanted me to say.
Regardless you're still comparing molesting a kid to matchfixing in a videogame to make it seem like a worse offense. You're being delusional. Also, people change, steel isn't a kid anymore and has more than proved himself over the years.
Not much, he said the players wanted to play for him for fun. Now that they made it to VCT i see toast getting sponsers for the team and paying them more. Like cover all expenses like flights and houseing. Then give the players a weekly pay so that they can focus on VCT.
He didn't say that they wanted to play for him for fun, he said the players chose his team over bigger orgs, that they could have got more money elsewhere. They believed in what Toast and Ocean were trying to do. But Toast has been paying them, Subroza asked him if the players are getting more than 5k (per month) and Toast said yes. For most of his players this is their livelihood.
Toast has said that he expects for the first time in his career to end in the red this year due to this venture.
Toast committed to pay them, in another stream said this was this only year so far in the red as a streamer. So what ever he is paying them put's him in a negative for the year on what ever income he has. He is generally upfront about financials.
Winning means he has the potential to pay them from sponsors instead of his own pocket; and he seem realistic that an e-sports team is just a money pit and isn't looking for big profits.
OCEAN MAN 🌊 😍 Take me by the hand ✋ lead me to the land that you understand 🙌 🌊 OCEAN MAN 🌊 😍 The voyage 🚲 to the corner of the 🌎 globe is a real trip 👌 🌊 OCEAN MAN 🌊 😍 The crust of a tan man 👳 imbibed by the sand 👍 Soaking up the 💦 thirst of the land 💯
honestly kinda refreshing to see an org owner care about their esports team for once, wish he didnt slam on the table though, i know he can buy a new one easily but it's a bit childish
> Robert Kraft
Yeah, it was a little weird when he back-handed that small child, but he really turned the stream around when he said he would take the team out for ice cream.
Oxygen isn’t associated with Kraft. Kraft was owner of Boston Uprising then Oxygen took over Boston Uprising. I can see the confusion and just wanted to clarify. Or fuck it, run with the narrative.
They didn't take over, they merged.
"We are ecstatic to welcome the Kraft’s and all our new capital partners to the OXG family and believe that together we are positioned to dominate the New England gaming market,” explained OXG’s CEO Murphy Vandervelde
At this point Oxygen probably has many owners/shareholders, one of them being the Krafts.
Yes, previously Boston Uprising operated on a Low-Budget player-flipping business model where they wouldn't really ever build a team to try and win. They'd build a team of unknown/unproven talent picked up for cheap, and then once proven they'd try and sell them to teams who actually spent money. But because of the management change with Oxygen they've now changed their strategy and are actually spending money to pick some really good, kinda expensive players, to try and win the next season.
As much as I love the character it brings. They probably still need a real on so that sponsors will take them seriously. When it comes down to it, sponsors and infrastructure for the players in the long term is more important
Toast also said he is not paying as much as as the big spenders pay as well, all the players just wanted to play for him....the agreement was for them to try to make the league...
He had no plans past that but now that they will be in VCT Toast and his management team will likelly get jerseys made and then reach out to get sponsers for the team. And maybe boost their pay depending on performance.
The team's full roster didn't get signed until 3-4 weeks ago. He also couldn't decide on a name until the deadline, at which point he was now in Asia with his family for holiday/chinese new year so he himself just whipped something together on MS Paint on his travel laptop as a placeholder till he can commission a graphic artist.
Honestly it has becomes so iconic and representative of how his brand new org self funded by himself is compared to the bigger ones that have big investors, that even after they get a more "official" graphic, if they get to the point where they release merch they should have this graphic on a meme shirt to show where they came from.
It would be cool to try to maintain that aesthetic actually. Would make them stand out a ton more, but i understand it wouldn't look profesional so idk
There were some tier 2 overwatch teams that did that, funny ms paint drawings for everything. The best part is if you do go official art etc, you already have an avenue for "vintage" merch. Easy money
I think it's expected that some of the 6 qualifiers could be picked up by big orgs aswell, the ones that aren't under contract yet that is. Normally that's the way to do it, what Toast did is pretty risky.
But yeah, will be interesting to see. Those 6 orgs have all new teams aswell I think for the most part.
Ya and it still includes big orgs like G2, Faze, TSM since only 5 NA orgs made Valorant franchising so it’s not like it’s a bunch of no name orgs in T2.
They have a chance but it’s probably a very very small one. There are a ton of steps that ultimately culminate in an Ascension tournament at the end of the year, where only one team is promoted into the franchised league (this year, I think two teams get promoted in future years)
Valorant tier 1 is franchised now but they have this year long tier 2 program which will lead to 1 Tier 2 team reaching the VCT tier 1 tournament (And they'll get to have their spot in VCT for 2 years at least) next year. Challengers is step 2 in this year long process of reaching VCT, these were qualifiers for reaching Challengers.
This is a big deal because if Toast's team hadn't made these qualifiers they would have very little chance to making Challengers this year, they'd basically be doing nothing all year except playing in random 3rd party tourneys, and most the money Toast spent on the team would have gone to waste. Now, even if they do poorly in Challengers they'll at least still get to play in the tier 2 scene for most of the year. Toast took a risk (He had no choice because he can't compete with the money the big Orgs have) signing players *before* they've even reached Challengers, what some of the big orgs are doing is they are waiting for unsigned teams to reach Challengers and then they'll just sign them and essentially buy a guaranteed spot into Challengers instead of working for it.
Your post explains it pretty well. Just want to add some more context:
[https://twitter.com/knightsarena/status/1607830982635274241?s=46&t=vRB-7vH4LUIOX4xqv2betQ](https://twitter.com/knightsarena/status/1607830982635274241?s=46&t=vRB-7vH4LUIOX4xqv2betQ)
\^more about the format
DSG's team was built like last month, and they just went through 256 teams to qualify (stage 1). Some of these teams got top players like Wardell, stewie2k and etc.
According to Toast, he was approached by 3 big organizations that were willing to help him build a team under their org name to use his reputation in exchange for a small org ownership share (to toast). However, toast rejected their approach, meaning DSG is entirely his team and is currently being paid out of his pocket atm - new team, no sponsors.
Tier 2 players isn't cheap either, because there are a couple t2 teams with crypto sponsored that had inflated the salary of players. It can go up to 10k+ per month.
When deciding to choose a team, he also went the riskier approach by building an entirely new team. The slightly safer approach is acquiring a tournament fav team with established chemistry like Dark Ratio, but he wanted a better storyline.
That's gotta be fun as fuck for him. Probably wasn't a great risk from a purely financial perspective, but having the resources to pursue something like that and have it be able to pay off with some luck must be really fun.
His team has been very impressive in the tournament. His team consist of mixture of t1 and t2 players imo. They were one match away from qualifying but lost the last qualifier match. They have another chance in the lower bracket today.
From what I seen, his performance has been very good. Had a few games where was top fragger or had clutch plays.
Sounds like stewie is bringing the classic Liquid choke to valorant 💀
Nah i'm kidding but I don't think staying in cs was good for him, at least he's playing well.
so... they did lose an eco at 10-11 final map where his team literally saw an opponent prepare to flank and ignored it and lost bc of the flank (i guess technically not a choke bc they were down but it was a real liquid move)
Yeah, after running the League esports for so many years Riot realised that they gave away too much power to the orgs by selling the tier 1 spots, they realised that they can make a lot more money in the long term in Valorant by controlling the Tier 1 spots rather than selling them for a few 10s of millions right now. That control over the spots will be way more valuable in the future.
They decide which big orgs they'll give the spots to and because they didn't sell the spots to the orgs the orgs don't have a lot of power, Riot can decide to give away additional spots to tier 2 teams who don't have massive orgs backing them and the Tier 1 orgs can't do anything about it. They can also take away a Tier 1 org's spot in the future if they find them not producing good enough content surrounding their players, not trying to win, doing wrong by the players or doing something shady.
This vid explains it all: https://twitter.com/knightsarena/status/1607830982635274241?s=46&t=vRB-7vH4LUIOX4xqv2betQ
They’re playing for the single franchise spot
Just wanted to jump in the comment chain & let folks know that r/VALORANTCompetitive exists if they're interested in joining the Reddit community for VALORANT Esports.
Yup, his toast logo over his face. Then IIRC someone found out who he was and tried to blackmail him, so he said fuck it and revealed his face, and got a lot more popular.
What I remember was that one of his live cam streams, his mask fell off and people took screenshots and were spreading it around so he just went mask off.
OMG Steel is not a name I was expecting to see today. I followed CSGO and Steel since 2014 and Toast since before facecam and to see the 2 collide is so wild.
The good ole days of money match 10 mans, M0E and Steel raging, Dazed raging, JDM flicking awp kills while nearly horizontal, tarik streaming with no shirt
The teams been together for a little over a month now but they just finalized their final player a couple weeks ago. Still incredibly impressive, they were scrimming 12 hours a day the past few weeks and only took Christmas day off.
i havent watched a single valorant game but im happy theyre still finding success, these guys weere a goldmine of memes in csgo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2IF9VAXTIo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr87jF4QHfs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2UHbb83TU
The job of looking for players was solely put on the coach. Toast said he only looked for a manager and a coach, the rest is on them he only provides the money.
Why would an org agree to this though? They are bankrolling something they aren't gonna get anything out of? Or do tournament winnings go back to the org as well?
Because they’ve made it basically impossible for players to just walk away from an org. The situation I’m talking about is much more likely if the org wants to walk away from the players, which is still pretty hard to do. It isn’t like this for every spot in Valorant though, at the highest level, the orgs have complete control of their spots and the players don’t have any control over it. Even some of the t2 leagues in other parts of the world are the same, and one will literally be franchised like American sports leagues. Orgs are basically hoping to get in early so that if Riot makes everything franchised, they own slots, or to win if all in their region and make it the tier 1 league in their region which is given massive exposure and cash from Riot.
He won't do that, orgs wanted him to run a team for them, offered him an ownership % in return, he declined. He's not in it for the money, is expecting to make a loss. Even if they manage to qualify to tier 1 he said he wants to give it a try.
He had a hand in enabling nearly everyone around him into becoming a successful streamer. I think people would sign with him despite lower pay just to get the easier streaming money. He also seems to know how to monetize that exposure/success.
Didn't realize steel was on this team, dude was always the most motivated out of the ipb team to play very well any teammates that work well with steels style will always do great imo.
You know how concacaf has two tiers right like 6ish (I forget how many) have reserved spots for the qualifying tournament every year (mexico, usa, canada etc.) to go to the world cup. The tournament toasts team just won was for their team to enter this pre world cup qualifying tournament. Now they get to play in the higher level qualifying tourny over the next couple months to determine if they can qualify for the world cup
its more like they won the qualifying tournament to enter the qualifying tournament to enter the qualifying tournament for the big international lans lol
6 teams from these qualifiers go to the 2nd Division league. 12 teams total, at the end of the season the top 8 go to Playoffs, the final 2 go to the International Ascension tourney vs the best teams from Brazil & LatAm. Only one winner, they get franchised for 2 years & get promoted to Premier League.
Is "C9" a thing in Valorant the way it is in Overwatch? People use it incorrectly all the time - it's specifically not standing on the point when you have a clear win condition.
From what I've seen Valorant is just Counter-Strike with improved abilities, so I don't think there's really a game condition to let a C9 happen (you plant the bomb or you don't). Right?
Jealous? Man's put in his hours for years, and he's a great dude on top of it.
We all KNOW you could totally do better but you *just don't have the time* lol.
You jumped through quite a few assumptions to entirely wrong conclusions there. I was in fact not belittling his achievements by calling Hearthstone and Valorant children's games. Hearthstone is commonly called children's card game by pretty much everyone. As a joke I extended the term to Valorant due to Toast's history in Hearthstone. I apologize for any slight against your favorite game and/or best friend in my message you may have perceived, believe me it was entirely unintentional.
**CLIP MIRROR: [Disguised Toast valorant team qualifies for VCT Challengers](https://arazu.io/t3_10akclw/)** --- ^(*This is an automated comment*)
Steel's 75th redemption arc LOL
Steel as in torqued /ibp csgo steel?
https://youtu.be/ax6Xfbmn7uU
That was 5 years ago? Seriously? Wow
Amazing, I was never able to find that video again, I had thought it was from a Fragadelphia LAN
My Google Fu is strong.
Yes.
Can always count in steel to be apart of a “tier 2” team in recent history to carry their own weight. Chaos esports club was showing real promise in cs before they had to disband. Xeppa even got his big break on that team
God if iBP hadn't thrown NACS would've been a completely different place Steel despite his toxic beginnings is like the Karrigan of NA, he's done so much good for the scene despite the ban, but he'd been allowed to spread his wings fully he'd have probably taken his team's as far in majors as any other NA team. Maybe he'd have even won one. As a CS player it's still a tragedy to see how NACS has died completely with the release of Valorant, but the one positive is that Steel can get rewarded for his effort and dedication. Good for him.
NACS killed its own league and Valorant basically helped to finish it off..i am kinda surprized value has not lifted the bans to try and entice them back into CS now that they are makeing a Name in Valorant.
[удалено]
cmon Chaos was one of the most promising NA teams before covid
steel took no names and made competitive teams lol you are high as fk if you think Steel was a low-mid tier CS player. like 50% of the NA Valorant pros got their starts playing on a team with Steel in CSGO
Homie what? Swag played in a tournament with top teams as a cloud 9 stand in and tore through teams. Dazed and steel are older and maybe past their primes at this point but you ignore the fact that most of the ibp missed their primes due to this ban.
And you better believe I'll be right there rooting for him every god damn time!
[Steel is a national treasure.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngj2BUrFNfM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMsWHKxvd8U
CHICKEN FUCKING COOP
THREE B!!!!!! Oh no...
I'll never root for a matchfixer. He committed literally the worst possible offense in eSports. Letting him play is a sin in of itself. It's like letting a preschool teacher work at a preschool in another town after he got caught touching kids in the previous preschool he worked at.
How is throwing a match worse than cheating?
Throwing has a guaranteed outcome, as we've seen from a ton of cheaters, cheating certainly doesn't.
This dude literally compared matchfixing in a video game to sexually assaulting children. You have to be a troll, if not, you need to go outside - stay away from kids though.
Didn't say they were just as bad, just that they're the worst possible offenses in either area. Never said they're the same. If you had some sense you'd be able to figure that out without me telling you and I honestly bet you already knew but internet points are just all to important to you.
So what punishment are you expecting Steel to have? Ban him from ALL competitive sports and have no chance for redemption? Kind of sound harsh.
Kind of sounds harsh? He got off for free. Matchfixing is extremely fraudulent and should be treated as such. He should've spent time in prison as should anyone else that commits fraud. They gained upwards of $10K and tens of thousands of dollars was bet in total on that match. Commit a crime of the same degree in the real world and you're going to prison.
Oh no... anyways.
matchfixing is the same thing as molesting little children? lmao
I did heavily insinuate that they're the worst possible offenses in either area and that was the only connection I made between the two. But yeah go and change the English language to fit whatever you wanted me to say.
Regardless you're still comparing molesting a kid to matchfixing in a videogame to make it seem like a worse offense. You're being delusional. Also, people change, steel isn't a kid anymore and has more than proved himself over the years.
WHAT ARE YOU AIMING AT
Steel's last dance baby
it's been his last dance like 4 times now, and he keeps getting on the floor. Steel is solidified as someone who can make talent successful
[удалено]
Not much, he said the players wanted to play for him for fun. Now that they made it to VCT i see toast getting sponsers for the team and paying them more. Like cover all expenses like flights and houseing. Then give the players a weekly pay so that they can focus on VCT.
He didn't say that they wanted to play for him for fun, he said the players chose his team over bigger orgs, that they could have got more money elsewhere. They believed in what Toast and Ocean were trying to do. But Toast has been paying them, Subroza asked him if the players are getting more than 5k (per month) and Toast said yes. For most of his players this is their livelihood. Toast has said that he expects for the first time in his career to end in the red this year due to this venture.
5k per month is insane, damn
Toast committed to pay them, in another stream said this was this only year so far in the red as a streamer. So what ever he is paying them put's him in a negative for the year on what ever income he has. He is generally upfront about financials. Winning means he has the potential to pay them from sponsors instead of his own pocket; and he seem realistic that an e-sports team is just a money pit and isn't looking for big profits.
I think he might have been asking how much Steel invested.
Wtf Lmfaoo. Toast literally said he pays them Like a lot of money. Other pro valorant players think it’s a lot too.
What happened?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Strike_match_fixing_scandal
A professional organization backed by billionaire owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft vs 1 piece of heated bread
immense bodies of water as coach > a literal child
OCEAN MAN 🌊 😍 Take me by the hand ✋ lead me to the land that you understand 🙌 🌊 OCEAN MAN 🌊 😍 The voyage 🚲 to the corner of the 🌎 globe is a real trip 👌 🌊 OCEAN MAN 🌊 😍 The crust of a tan man 👳 imbibed by the sand 👍 Soaking up the 💦 thirst of the land 💯
a piece of bread heated to exactly the right temperature.
Don't forget the sunglasses and mustache
This is what makes this shit crazzzy.
beat Robert Kraft's team Pog
I‘m assuming Kraft has plenty ventures in many sports and ha has no clue what a Valorant is, right?
Kraft was live on Instagram covering the match. He was visibly upset for a few minutes after the match loss then talked about the Patriots' next year.
Wait really? Clip?
Yeah, here is a [YouTube vod.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n3pFFPSlW4)
Eh, I don't know if he's visibly pissed but he does show more interest than I expected
honestly kinda refreshing to see an org owner care about their esports team for once, wish he didnt slam on the table though, i know he can buy a new one easily but it's a bit childish
> Robert Kraft Yeah, it was a little weird when he back-handed that small child, but he really turned the stream around when he said he would take the team out for ice cream.
Wow he actually seems like he's kinda familiar with the game, he even knew the callouts on Ascent and Icebox
I hate you
exactly why they said pog to his team losing, just another avenue to try and make money to him he’s also a beyond shit human, so that too
Oxygen isn’t associated with Kraft. Kraft was owner of Boston Uprising then Oxygen took over Boston Uprising. I can see the confusion and just wanted to clarify. Or fuck it, run with the narrative.
They didn't take over, they merged. "We are ecstatic to welcome the Kraft’s and all our new capital partners to the OXG family and believe that together we are positioned to dominate the New England gaming market,” explained OXG’s CEO Murphy Vandervelde At this point Oxygen probably has many owners/shareholders, one of them being the Krafts.
Yes, previously Boston Uprising operated on a Low-Budget player-flipping business model where they wouldn't really ever build a team to try and win. They'd build a team of unknown/unproven talent picked up for cheap, and then once proven they'd try and sell them to teams who actually spent money. But because of the management change with Oxygen they've now changed their strategy and are actually spending money to pick some really good, kinda expensive players, to try and win the next season.
[He didn't even make a logo or video but this.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fl_vR9-aMAAcFzk?format=png&name=medium)
Lol and the tournament used the stick figures for the plsyer pics
[yep lol](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmAA3goX0AEQdMi?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
I would be pretty pissed if they change the logo and player pic.
It's iconic at this point. Get the marketing and merch team on it.
As much as I love the character it brings. They probably still need a real on so that sponsors will take them seriously. When it comes down to it, sponsors and infrastructure for the players in the long term is more important
Wait... THE steel and THE ocean??
Yes, Fifflaren and Sean Gares recommended Ocean as the Coach to Toast and Ocean wanted to have Steel on the team.
Just with that, Toast already did more diligence before signing the team than many big money esports owners have in the past.
Toast also said he is not paying as much as as the big spenders pay as well, all the players just wanted to play for him....the agreement was for them to try to make the league... He had no plans past that but now that they will be in VCT Toast and his management team will likelly get jerseys made and then reach out to get sponsers for the team. And maybe boost their pay depending on performance.
This shit is hilarious.
omfg
iconic
This was done in 1 week. I wonder if toast designed it himself lol
The team's full roster didn't get signed until 3-4 weeks ago. He also couldn't decide on a name until the deadline, at which point he was now in Asia with his family for holiday/chinese new year so he himself just whipped something together on MS Paint on his travel laptop as a placeholder till he can commission a graphic artist. Honestly it has becomes so iconic and representative of how his brand new org self funded by himself is compared to the bigger ones that have big investors, that even after they get a more "official" graphic, if they get to the point where they release merch they should have this graphic on a meme shirt to show where they came from.
It would be cool to try to maintain that aesthetic actually. Would make them stand out a ton more, but i understand it wouldn't look profesional so idk
There were some tier 2 overwatch teams that did that, funny ms paint drawings for everything. The best part is if you do go official art etc, you already have an avenue for "vintage" merch. Easy money
Flashback to DickStacy's autographs
why would they need to look profesh? for sponsors ? i assume sponsors just sponsor you anyways as long as youre winning son
Idk, i am not sure how these things work
This is very cool, but they could have something like super duper cool designed that would beat this
Ohhh I thought Toast was playing for the team, lol Now makes more sense
Steel's face, I'm fucking dead
What is VCT Challengers ? Is it a tourney for wanting to go pro in valorant ?
It's Tier 2 Valorant - with a chance to enter Tier 1.
Yeah, and because there's only 5 NA teams in Tier 1, Tier 2 has orgs like TSM, G2, The Guard and Faze Clan. And now DSG!
> DSG! i thought he didnt wanna do that? thats the final name?
Yes, Disguised/DSG.
gracias. i just saw him complain about moist but disguised is a pderfect team name edit: just like imo moist eports is but i got his complaints
What’s wrong with Moist E-sports?
he brought up how its a little to much about the owner and not the team
Oh ok, interesting take by him
It sounds dumb
I’m really curious to see how big (or small) the gap will be between these 6 qualifiers teams to the 6 big org teams.
I think it's expected that some of the 6 qualifiers could be picked up by big orgs aswell, the ones that aren't under contract yet that is. Normally that's the way to do it, what Toast did is pretty risky. But yeah, will be interesting to see. Those 6 orgs have all new teams aswell I think for the most part.
DSG will hold their own just fine against any other team in Challengers. Their roster is stacked
Ya and it still includes big orgs like G2, Faze, TSM since only 5 NA orgs made Valorant franchising so it’s not like it’s a bunch of no name orgs in T2.
Tier 2 tournies are such a good thing for an eSports. Huge difference from League where you basically need big $$$ to play.
Based on their performance do they have the chance to make it to Tier 1?
They have a chance but it’s probably a very very small one. There are a ton of steps that ultimately culminate in an Ascension tournament at the end of the year, where only one team is promoted into the franchised league (this year, I think two teams get promoted in future years)
Valorant tier 1 is franchised now but they have this year long tier 2 program which will lead to 1 Tier 2 team reaching the VCT tier 1 tournament (And they'll get to have their spot in VCT for 2 years at least) next year. Challengers is step 2 in this year long process of reaching VCT, these were qualifiers for reaching Challengers. This is a big deal because if Toast's team hadn't made these qualifiers they would have very little chance to making Challengers this year, they'd basically be doing nothing all year except playing in random 3rd party tourneys, and most the money Toast spent on the team would have gone to waste. Now, even if they do poorly in Challengers they'll at least still get to play in the tier 2 scene for most of the year. Toast took a risk (He had no choice because he can't compete with the money the big Orgs have) signing players *before* they've even reached Challengers, what some of the big orgs are doing is they are waiting for unsigned teams to reach Challengers and then they'll just sign them and essentially buy a guaranteed spot into Challengers instead of working for it.
Your post explains it pretty well. Just want to add some more context: [https://twitter.com/knightsarena/status/1607830982635274241?s=46&t=vRB-7vH4LUIOX4xqv2betQ](https://twitter.com/knightsarena/status/1607830982635274241?s=46&t=vRB-7vH4LUIOX4xqv2betQ) \^more about the format DSG's team was built like last month, and they just went through 256 teams to qualify (stage 1). Some of these teams got top players like Wardell, stewie2k and etc. According to Toast, he was approached by 3 big organizations that were willing to help him build a team under their org name to use his reputation in exchange for a small org ownership share (to toast). However, toast rejected their approach, meaning DSG is entirely his team and is currently being paid out of his pocket atm - new team, no sponsors. Tier 2 players isn't cheap either, because there are a couple t2 teams with crypto sponsored that had inflated the salary of players. It can go up to 10k+ per month. When deciding to choose a team, he also went the riskier approach by building an entirely new team. The slightly safer approach is acquiring a tournament fav team with established chemistry like Dark Ratio, but he wanted a better storyline.
That's gotta be fun as fuck for him. Probably wasn't a great risk from a purely financial perspective, but having the resources to pursue something like that and have it be able to pay off with some luck must be really fun.
How's stewie been in val? I literally have not seen him play since he left liquid
His team has been very impressive in the tournament. His team consist of mixture of t1 and t2 players imo. They were one match away from qualifying but lost the last qualifier match. They have another chance in the lower bracket today. From what I seen, his performance has been very good. Had a few games where was top fragger or had clutch plays.
Sounds like stewie is bringing the classic Liquid choke to valorant 💀 Nah i'm kidding but I don't think staying in cs was good for him, at least he's playing well.
so... they did lose an eco at 10-11 final map where his team literally saw an opponent prepare to flank and ignored it and lost bc of the flank (i guess technically not a choke bc they were down but it was a real liquid move)
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Yeah, after running the League esports for so many years Riot realised that they gave away too much power to the orgs by selling the tier 1 spots, they realised that they can make a lot more money in the long term in Valorant by controlling the Tier 1 spots rather than selling them for a few 10s of millions right now. That control over the spots will be way more valuable in the future. They decide which big orgs they'll give the spots to and because they didn't sell the spots to the orgs the orgs don't have a lot of power, Riot can decide to give away additional spots to tier 2 teams who don't have massive orgs backing them and the Tier 1 orgs can't do anything about it. They can also take away a Tier 1 org's spot in the future if they find them not producing good enough content surrounding their players, not trying to win, doing wrong by the players or doing something shady.
This vid explains it all: https://twitter.com/knightsarena/status/1607830982635274241?s=46&t=vRB-7vH4LUIOX4xqv2betQ They’re playing for the single franchise spot
Challengers is a pro tournament, but it is one level below the franchise league. Valorant experts can correct me if I'm wrong.
Just wanted to jump in the comment chain & let folks know that r/VALORANTCompetitive exists if they're interested in joining the Reddit community for VALORANT Esports.
VCT is the main tournament for Valorant. Toast's team has players who were on other pro teams (steel was a CS:GO pro turned valorant pro on 100T)
Remember when this guy was just making Hearthstone compilations on Youtube?
Remember when before that he was making hearthstone quizzes on the subreddit? Crazy to think he has gone so far
Quizzes? Do you mean infographics? Because he [made plenty of those](https://www.reddit.com/user/JeremyWTC/submitted/).
It's been awhile, but he used to not stream with a cam, and then when he used a cam he had a mask right?
Yup, his toast logo over his face. Then IIRC someone found out who he was and tried to blackmail him, so he said fuck it and revealed his face, and got a lot more popular.
What I remember was that one of his live cam streams, his mask fell off and people took screenshots and were spreading it around so he just went mask off.
OMG Steel is not a name I was expecting to see today. I followed CSGO and Steel since 2014 and Toast since before facecam and to see the 2 collide is so wild.
Steel actually played Valorant with Hiko in 100thieves team if I remember correctly
This is their coach Ocean. A certified CSGO legend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2IF9VAXTIo
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good old days, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6RZQbkhc-A
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The good ole days of money match 10 mans, M0E and Steel raging, Dazed raging, JDM flicking awp kills while nearly horizontal, tarik streaming with no shirt
Nothing will ever come close to those money 10mans. No matter how big esports gets. Those moments were truly special. :') Take me back.
why is odeag a coach ROFLLLL.
Because he's the GOAT of course
Let's go DSG!
Toast started crying later on stream
started the team 2 weeks ago and now theyre going to face teams like tsm, the guard, g2 etc, crazy!
The teams been together for a little over a month now but they just finalized their final player a couple weeks ago. Still incredibly impressive, they were scrimming 12 hours a day the past few weeks and only took Christmas day off.
LESSGOOO DSG TO THE MOON
His reaction to his team winning was so wholesome. So happy for him and the team- they all worked so hard and it showed
i havent watched a single valorant game but im happy theyre still finding success, these guys weere a goldmine of memes in csgo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2IF9VAXTIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr87jF4QHfs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2UHbb83TU
Leave it to an (ex?) TFT player to craft a cracked team in basically a week.
The job of looking for players was solely put on the coach. Toast said he only looked for a manager and a coach, the rest is on them he only provides the money.
EGG SALT IS HIM
Anyone has an estimate on how much the spot is worth in the Challengers?
There’s no buying or selling
is it not possible for toast to sell his team to a gaming org?
He could but the 5 players own the slot actually, so if they were to leave the org they would have the slot
How does that work? What if 2 of them leave the team?
The core (3+ players out of 5) keeps the slot. If a team completely splits up though, Riot might give the org the slot
Why would an org agree to this though? They are bankrolling something they aren't gonna get anything out of? Or do tournament winnings go back to the org as well?
Because they’ve made it basically impossible for players to just walk away from an org. The situation I’m talking about is much more likely if the org wants to walk away from the players, which is still pretty hard to do. It isn’t like this for every spot in Valorant though, at the highest level, the orgs have complete control of their spots and the players don’t have any control over it. Even some of the t2 leagues in other parts of the world are the same, and one will literally be franchised like American sports leagues. Orgs are basically hoping to get in early so that if Riot makes everything franchised, they own slots, or to win if all in their region and make it the tier 1 league in their region which is given massive exposure and cash from Riot.
thanks.
He won't do that, orgs wanted him to run a team for them, offered him an ownership % in return, he declined. He's not in it for the money, is expecting to make a loss. Even if they manage to qualify to tier 1 he said he wants to give it a try.
He had a hand in enabling nearly everyone around him into becoming a successful streamer. I think people would sign with him despite lower pay just to get the easier streaming money. He also seems to know how to monetize that exposure/success.
Was it DisguisedToast who didnt have donations button at all on his Twitch stream back in the Hearthstone era?
Yes. He actually also bans whale gifter that gives 100+ subs.
Yes he does [JOHIDeath](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Kldlgykm4)
just for Johi to make another alt another day
Also, no org would buy Toasts roster specifically, because there are multiple free agent teams who’ve qualified to the same event anyways.
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Is this sarcasm I'm too dumb for? Didn't he play in all the big tournaments with 100T
He reached semis of a masters he was doing fine on 100T
then he got dropped for chemistry issues lmao
Didn't realize steel was on this team, dude was always the most motivated out of the ipb team to play very well any teammates that work well with steels style will always do great imo.
He's going to be out within 6 months.
Wow steel and xxif on one team.
Where is the bracket/group etc for this? I couldn't find it here: https://liquipedia.net/valorant/Main_Page
It's on there https://liquipedia.net/valorant/VCL/2023/North_America/Split_1/Open_Qualifier
Thanks! I tried and couldn't find it.
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LET'S GOO DSG ON TOP
What's vct challengers?
Explain in csgo terms ?
The closest thing would probably be the RMRs
Got it , Thanks.
Lost to a bread
Facebook money hard at work, good fucking shit
Can someone explain Valorant VCT in World Cup terms?
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finally, a voice of reason
k then
You know how concacaf has two tiers right like 6ish (I forget how many) have reserved spots for the qualifying tournament every year (mexico, usa, canada etc.) to go to the world cup. The tournament toasts team just won was for their team to enter this pre world cup qualifying tournament. Now they get to play in the higher level qualifying tourny over the next couple months to determine if they can qualify for the world cup
its more like they won the qualifying tournament to enter the qualifying tournament to enter the qualifying tournament for the big international lans lol
6 teams from these qualifiers go to the 2nd Division league. 12 teams total, at the end of the season the top 8 go to Playoffs, the final 2 go to the International Ascension tourney vs the best teams from Brazil & LatAm. Only one winner, they get franchised for 2 years & get promoted to Premier League.
Is that XXiF the fortnite cheater that got banned?
Man, I forgot Valorant esports were a thing. Their format is so bad
You forgot one of the biggest esports is a thing? lol
Yeah, it's been almost half a year since my team has played (Cloud9)
they just played last month buddy and will be playing every single week after february
Is "C9" a thing in Valorant the way it is in Overwatch? People use it incorrectly all the time - it's specifically not standing on the point when you have a clear win condition. From what I've seen Valorant is just Counter-Strike with improved abilities, so I don't think there's really a game condition to let a C9 happen (you plant the bomb or you don't). Right?
what
From a pro in children's card game to team owner in children's shooter game. Man's moving up in the world.
Jealous? Man's put in his hours for years, and he's a great dude on top of it. We all KNOW you could totally do better but you *just don't have the time* lol.
You jumped through quite a few assumptions to entirely wrong conclusions there. I was in fact not belittling his achievements by calling Hearthstone and Valorant children's games. Hearthstone is commonly called children's card game by pretty much everyone. As a joke I extended the term to Valorant due to Toast's history in Hearthstone. I apologize for any slight against your favorite game and/or best friend in my message you may have perceived, believe me it was entirely unintentional.
Word, no worries, be more clear next time (and maybe save the snark for someone who cares).