By Arran "Halo" Spake
After having to wait for almost a year due to the ongoing pandemic, VALORANT esports officially arrived with the first major international LAN event in Reykjavík, Iceland when teams from the Europe & Middle East, North American, Latin America, Korean, Japanese, and Southeast Asian regions all competed for the VALORANT Champions Tour Stage 2 Masters title.
While North America’s Sentinels took their regional dominance of North America to the international stage, Fnatic and Team Liquid took the hard route through the lower bracket to show that the European & Middle East region is not one to overlook. Now with the qualifiers for Stage 3 close to starting. It is once again time to obtain the opinions of the coaches and team managers within the European region to once again give their opinions of which teams look the best coming into Stage 3.
As with the first European coaches and team managers poll which you can see here. Halo’s poll follows the same idea as American College sports when ranking the best teams in the region. I have asked coaches and team managers from both tier one and two for their top ten teams from Europe, based on their performances in the VCT Challengers stage. Coaches and Team Managers are not allowed to include their own teams and can only pick teams in Europe, with teams currently in the CIS and Turkish regions not included. All picks are anonymous.
A team will receive ten points for first, all the way down to one point for tenth. This will be updated monthly and I will comment on changes as we go throughout the season. The number of first-place votes will be included next to the teams that receive it and poll #2 includes how many places teams have moved. With two stages under our belts and a whole slew of roster changes happening before Stage 3, it’s time to see who the European scene believe are the top teams going into the new stage.
1. Fnatic - 206 points (17 1st place votes) [+8 Places]
2. FunPlus Phoenix - 166 points (3 1st place votes) [-1 Place]
3. Team Liquid - 156 points [+6 Places]
4. Acend - 122 points (1 1st place vote) [+6 Places]
5. BDS - 100 points [+1 Place]
6. Guild - 90 points [-1 Palce]
7. Heretics - 88 points [-4 Places]
8. Ninja's in Pyjamas - 73 points [-6 Places]
8. Ninja's in Pyjamas - 73 points [-6 Places]
9. G2 - 69 points [-5 Places]
10. Team Vitality - 31 points [New Entrant]
Other teams that received votes: Alliance, Vodaphone Giants, Megastitut, Wave, Finest, HEET, RixGG, Excel & Movistar Riders
The biggest changes have happened within the top three teams according to coaches and team managers as only FunPlus Phoenix (Previously the #1 team) remained in the top three. Despite their failure to consistently win the big events, they are meant to, they only dropped one place to second in the eyes of the coaches and team managers. However, G2, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Heretics have all dropped in dramatic fashion placing 9th, 8th and 7th respectively. It seems that there is a lot of uncertainty around the complete overhauls made by G2 & Team Heretics. It is also interesting to see that despite not making any changes, (though there was a lot of rumours change was coming), they have dropped the most out of any team on this list.
Fnatic is the biggest climber in the region after their roster changes and performance at the Stage 2 Masters. Going from 9th all the way up to being the best team in the region. Team Liquid was also a big gainer after their performance in Reykjavík as well after they gained eight places moving from 8th to 3rd. Although they didn't make it to the Stage 2 Masters LAN, Acend got a lot of recognition from winning the European Stage 1 Masters and also climbed 6 places to 4th.
While Guild and BDS swapped places and stayed strong in 5th and 6th, Alliance completely dropped out of the top ten and were replaced by Team Vitality. After both teams made changes to their rosters, the coaches and team managers seemed more impressed with the progress Team Vitality has made, compared to Alliance.
With the roster moves completed, the new patch starting to settle and the road to the Stage 3 Masters in Berlin starting on the 28th of June with the Stage 3 Challengers Open Qualifiers. It will be interesting to see if these top teams can continue to keep their grip at the top, or if new Challengers will rise from the ashes of the recent roster mania. Finally, keep an eye on the teams from the CIS and Turkish regions, as poll #3 will be the first poll for the EMEA region.
(For more VALORANT content, follow @haloofthoughts on Twitter)
(Images: RiotGames)
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