Twitch Chat Analysis: most exciting moments of VCT Masters Madrid Group Stage
VCT 2024 Masters Madrid reached over 880K Peak Viewers and collected 15.6M hours of watch time throughout its groups stage. The event featured exciting matches as the best teams from around the globe competed to establish themselves as a dominant international force, and we can track some of the most popular moments of the event.
Usually, we use our Peak Viewers metric to establish which moments were broadcast to the highest number of concurrent viewers, but for this tournament, we wanted to do something different. We tracked the Twitch Chat data of all broadcasts, official Valorant accounts and community casters, and collated the amount of messages in each chat every minute. With this data, we have selected the hypest and most exciting moments for Twitch viewers, when they could not stop themselves from spamming the Chat.
French content creator Kamet0 is the founder of Karmine Corp, the #1 EMEA team according to Kickoff results. He went live on his personal Twitch channel to cast their games and support his roster, and his Twitch chat recorded over 203 average messages per minute. His Twitch Chat reached peak excitement during the game between KCorp and Sentinels.
During the second map, Karmine Corp was one map down after suffering a loss on Split and losing 10-11 on Lotus. During a round that looked like it would push Sentinels to match point, N4RRATE orchestrated a perfect 1v3 clutch, baiting Sentinels to peak him by fake-planting the bomb. Kamet’s chat exploded and 1200 messages were sent in a single minute.
The remaining top 3 moments were both recorded by American community caster and Valorant creator tarik. Tarik’s Chat was the most active of the entire stage, with over 70.9K individual Chatters and an average of 340.7 messages per minute. After N4RRATE’s 1v3 clutch, Sentinels shook it off and came back strong, winning the next two rounds and securing a 2-0 victory over Karmine Corp. Tarik is a streamer signed to Sentinels, and his Twitch Chat mirrored his support for the team. 1197 messages were sent in a single minute as tarik’s Chat celebrated Sentinels’ victory.
Of course, not everything on stage at a LAN event goes perfectly. The third most exciting moment of the event was recorded on the previous day when Sentinels faced the other EMEA team, Team Heretics. After two maps, Sentinels and Team Heretics went to Bind for the final map of their best-of-3 match. During a critical retake, zekken accidentally teamkilled his IGL johnqt.
Zekken’s teamkill could not have come at a worse time, at 11-11 with the round’s victor advancing to match point. After the teamkill Sentinels were left in a 2v2 situation, but they managed to secure the round and eventually win the game 13-11. Tarik’s Twitch Chat recorded 1095 messages as fans grieved the teamkill but ultimately celebrated the round win.
The most exciting moments of the Masters Madrid Group Stage, Community Casters
Valorant esports viewership is heavily supported by community casters, especially on Twitch. Many of the most-watched and popular broadcasts to cover the tournament on Twitch are community casters. Often in the case of larger creators like tarik, they can be more popular than the official broadcasts themselves. Below, we analysed the dynamics of Twitch Chat for three of the tournament’s most popular community casters: tarik, Kamet0, and Mixwell.
Three of tarik’s Chat’s peaks have already been covered in our top 3 breakdown: zekken’s unfortunate Raze ultimate teamkill, the moment Sentinels defeated Karmine Corp, and N4RRATE’s 1v3 clutch against Sentinels.
Naturally, N4RRATE’s clutch was celebrated more by Kamet0’s Chat, but tarik’s Chat also erupted with disbelief and grief at Sentinels losing a round that looked to be in their favour. 1035 messages were sent into the Chat as N4RRATE clutched the round, although this would be eclipsed by tarik’s most exciting moment when Sentinels ultimately defeated KCorp.
Sentinels defeating Team Heretics also followed directly after zekken’s teamkill. Interestingly, fans were more excited and chatty during the 11-11 teamkill than when Sentinels closed out the game at 13-11. Sentinels' victory brought tarik’s Chat 1027 messages in a minute, slightly falling behind the 1095 messages for the teamkill.
The final peak of tarik’s Chat is the odd one out, as it has nothing to do with Sentinels or their games. During LOUD’s game against FunPlus Phoenix, tarik showed off his Brazilian-Portuguese, saying some not-very-PG things and KKKKKK. “KKKKK” is how Brazilians show laughter over text, and tarik’s Chat echoed him by spamming KKKKKK and other Brazilian terms. In total, tarik’s Brazilian-Portuguese skills brought 1054 messages out of his Chat in a minute.
Just as tarik’s Chat supported Sentinels, Kamet’s French-speaking Twitch Chat was devout in their support of Karmine Corp. On the event’s first day, Kamet’s chat reached its peak excitement at 920 messages in a minute when his team defeated the Chinese FunPlus Phoenix roster.
Kamet took a break the next day as Karmine Corp had no games to play, but he returned on Day 3 with a vengeance and his Chat was one of the most active throughout the entire day. Firstly, Karmine Corp took the stage for their match against Sentinels and the Twitch Chat exploded with 991 messages.
Later, during Karmine Corp’s first map against Sentinels, sh1n executed a 1v2 clutch to earn KCorp their first round of the game. Not only did Kamet burst into celebrations in Madrid, but his Twitch Chat followed suit and recorded 962 messages in a single minute. Shortly after this, an interview clip of N4RRATE was shown on screen during a Timeout. The North American player thanked the French fans for being so supportive and coming to the stadium to cheer them on in person, and Kamet’s Twitch Chat responded kindly with 935 messages of thanks and praise.
After Sentinel’s victory over Karmine Corp, the Twitch Chat fell silent. Although their elimination match against Paper Rex was exciting and went into overtime for the final map, Kamet’s Chat was not as chatty as they had been before.
Mixwell is an ex-professional Counter-Strike player turned streamer, and he was the most popular Spanish-speaking community caster of the Groups. Although you would expect the Spanish streamer’s Chat to explode for Team Heretics, this was not the case for the majority of the peaks we recorded.
Firstly, Yinsu came over to Mixwell’s streaming setup at the event to host a short interview with him for the official broadcast. Mixwell finished the interview by praising the fans and the atmosphere of the event in Spanish, earning himself plenty of cheers from the Madrid crowd. His Twitch Chat was also extremely excited about the interview and the streamer’s kind words, reaching 625 messages in a single minute, the most exciting moment for his Chat throughout the entire group stage.
Unfortunately for Mixwell, his stream was plagued with technical issues during the event. Firstly, during Sentinels' game against Team Heretics, his broadcast froze for a short time and his fans missed the ending of a round. 511 messages were recorded in the Chat, largely his stream spamming F: a meme coming from “press F to pay respects”. This happened again two days later when his stream began to lag and buffer during LOUD’s game against Paper Rex. This time even more Fs were spammed; 526 messages were recorded during a single minute.
The final peak of Mixwell’s broadcasts was recorded during Paper Rex’s game against Team Heretics. The game was quite heated, with players of both teams standing up and shouting across at the other team in between rounds, and the Team Heretics coach was seen on stream shouting at a Paper Rex player while walking off the stage between maps. Of course, this was all in good fun and players from both teams came forward after the match to explain it came from the game's competitive nature, and nothing personal was intended from either side.
As Paper Rex pushed the final map of the best-of-3 to 11-7 in their favour, Monyet stood up from his desk and began to shout at the Team Heretics players, asking them to stand up now. The Indonesian player’s taunts sent Mixwell’s Chat into overdrive, and 461 messages were the peak of the entire match.
The most exciting moments of the Masters Madrid Group Stage, Official Broadcasts
Community casters are integral to Valorant viewership, but they are often biased and supportive of one particular team, as can be seen above in their Twitch Chat dynamics. Aiming for a more neutral view of the most exciting moments for the average Valorant fan, we also analysed the Twitch Chats of the two most chatty Valorant broadcasts of the stage: the official English-language broadcast and the Japanese-language broadcast.
The first two peaks recorded by the official English-language broadcast’s Twitch Chat were the same two moments recorded by tarik’s Chat: zekken’s team kill and Sentinels' eventual victory over Team Heretics. However, whereas tarik’s chat grieved the teamkill more than they celebrated the win, the inverse was true for the official broadcast. Zekken’s teamkill caused 595 messages, whereas Sentinels’ victory brought 672 messages to the Chat.
Sentinels’ victory over Karmine Corp was the most exciting moment for the English-language official broadcast, recording 815 messages in a minute. Sentinels’ are the most popular team in North America, so unsurprisingly, their advancement to the playoffs stage was the most exciting moment for English-speaking fans.
The final two peaks of the Chat were in support of Paper Rex. Paper Rex are one of the world’s best-known Valorant teams, thanks to their consistent appearance at top international events over the years, and the English-language official broadcast cried out in support of the roster. Firstly, when they defeated Team Heretics 655 messages were sent to Chat. The mixture of PRX's popularity and the heated nature of the match was likely the cause of this peak, and it led to Paper Rex players exploding in joy and catharsis as the game ended.
Finally, Paper Rex’s defeat of Karmine Corp was a peak moment for the Chat. The Singaporean-based team eliminated Karmine Corp from the event and advanced to the playoffs with this victory, and the match between EMEA and the Pacific region was extremely close. The amazing match ended in overtime, with Paper Rex securing a 14-12 victory on Ascent, and the official Twitch Chat recorded 621 messages celebrating their win, and grieving Karmine Corp’s elimination.
Last but not least, the official Japanese-language broadcast of the event was hugely supportive of their Asian compatriots. The dynamics peaks show immediate support for Asian teams, with Paper Rex being the most popular attendee. Perhaps surprisingly, the #1 Pacific team from the Kickoffs Gen.G Esports was significantly less popular in Twitch Chat than Paper Rex.
The first three peaks of the Japanese broadcast’s Twitch Chat were all recorded during Paper Rex’s game against EDward Gaming. Paper Rex initially defeated the Chinese roster on Sunset, with a 13-8 scoreline the Japanese Chat sent 217 messages in a single minute.
However, things took a turn for the worse for Paper Rex. They lost Bind 9-13, and on the final map Split, they were often on their backfoot and relied on clutches to close out rounds. F0rsakeN achieved an unbelievable 1v5 ace clutch on Bind to put Paper Rex’s first round on the board. The Japanese commentators could hardly believe what they were watching, and the Twitch Chat erupted with 241 messages.
Although Paper Rex valiantly attempted many clutches to win the game, they ultimately lost to EDward Gaming. Many considered this an unbelievable upset, for whom Paper Rex was a favourite to advance to the Playoffs. The moment EDward Gaming secured the 2-1 victory was one of the event’s most exciting moments, and 234 messages were sent to the Japanese Twitch Chat.
Paper Rex came back strong after the loss, and the final two peak moments of Twitch Chat were both celebrating the rosters’ victories against both EMEA teams at the event. Paper Rex’s relatively straight-forward 2-1 victory against Team Heretics saw 230 messages, but their overtime 2-1 win against Karmine Corp was the most exciting moment for Japanese fans. 273 messages were recorded in Chat, as Japanese fans spammed and celebrated an Asian team advancing to the playoffs of the tournament.
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