ofc he's a downgrade from Chronicle right now. However we dont know what the future will be like. PEople thought kaajak was a downgrade, but I'd argue he's better than Derke right now.

People shine in different metas and teams. So far he's shown he's filled chrons shoes in kickoff. We dont know how stage 1 will be, so we'll have to see. It is big shoes to fit, so either he'll do so, or not.

kaajak kickoff he had 1.16 across 200 rounds.
Veqaj has 1.1 over 400 rounds.

He played fine. he isn't chronicle, but he certainly isn't a huge downgrade. At kickoff chronicle only had 0.02 rating increase, despite playing nearly 200 rounds less.

Yes, not a lot of time to adjust. It took Kaajak stage1 to truely reach his form.

The point that you're struggling to get, is Veqaj might be a downgrade to chronicle, but we dont know what his future is like.
Kaajak was a downgrade from derke, but adjusted and became the best duelist and player of 2025, while derke was at home for every international event.

Kaajak got the exact same treatment Veqaj is having. Replacing one of the best players of the game, and not even having a bad performance at an event. Just to get flamed despite playing well.

When kaajak first joined, people said the same shit.
This website, reddit, twitter. All saying how Fnatic downgraded.

The result. Kaajak was the best individual player last year.

Now people are shit talking Veqaj, when he's barely had time to adjust.
It also took kaajak more than the first event to fully warmup, and get into form.

also pretty much any initiator is worse than what Leo was. Leo was arguably the perfect player in val. Most pros say his gamesense, and gameplay was above and beyond anything others had. It's sad what happened to him, as he was in the GOAT conversations before winning anything with Fnatic.

Like Ethan is a phenomenal player, but was never THE win condition of the team. He isn't the catalyst that suddenly brought success. Bonkar was the main catalyst to NRG changing as a team, and finding peak form. EG was Demon1 being the catalyst, and potter. Ethan is a great player, who managed to find two teams where their system activated him as a flex, and now igl.
Aspas joined a meh Lev, went on a deep run. He joined a arguably meh MIBR, and went on a deep run. All throughout weak teams, his form never dropped. Across 5 years, his form has never dropped.
Even though I'm not a big Aspas fan, I have to admit he's the best individual to touch the game since Leo. However we cant include Leo in these talks anymore, as he's a big 'What If' player now

brother. Ethan did not lead EG to the champs win. Demon1 putting in one of the best individual performances we saw to date, led them to the win.

He led his team to 1 win, I'll admit. The last map he won them the series. Played his heart out, and was phenomenal. His read on Fnatic was insane, and the adaptations NRG made throughout the series was great.

With champs 22, Less was on a tear and was the best sentinel in the world, and was one of the best for 3 years after that. It's only his vitality performance that took him out of the conversation for that. Before that he was always a top3 sentinel main.
As an individual, which is what GOAT conversations are always on about. Aspas is clearly the best individual player to touch Valorant. 5 years of consistency, taking what is considered weak rosters on deep runs.
Hell, s1mple was called the goat for 6 years before his first major win. He was called the goat over players with 4 majors. Hell, dupree which has the most major wins, isn't even in the top 5 conversation for best CSGO player of all time. Dev1ce is barely in the top5 conversation as is, and he has 4, with multiple MVP awards for each event.

Nobody is saying he's deadweight. He does his job, and has had a great resurgence in his career from the 100t days.

he however, isn't in the goat discussions. It's why Dupree isn't in the goat discussion in CS. It's why Beryl isn't in goat discussions in League for supp.

Hell, in CS even dev1ce is barely mentioned in Goat discussions. Who is though? A player with 1 major. He was in the conversation before he even won a major. That's what Goat discussions should be about. Not distinct accolades. They help. It's more individuality as a player.

Ethan is a great player, with a great career. He has also been in the right team, at the right time. he was in the EG team before most of the players fell off the planet. He struggled at NRG, then Bonkar turned the team around and they've been on a tear ever since. He deserves his dues, but he isn't one of the goats. His individual game as a player isn't the best, and there's other players who do it better. Him as an IGL in his system, is working wonders and he'll achieve far more than what he currently has. However I doubt it would put him in top3 as an individual player. He'll be apart of the best team of all time if NRG stay consistent. Best player of all time, no shot.

Since coming to T1, this is the first time Marteen actually looks top tier. IF he leaves this team for another system, he'll most likely go back to what he was like before.

I mean, when Kaajak was first picked up for Derke, people said he was a huge downgrade.
instead he turned out to be the best player in the world last year, and still looks great. He's not an upgrade to Derke, but is a sidegrade.

Veqaj we dont know too much. So far he's mixing well with the team, and not enough has been seen to say he's a sidegrade.

I did as well then had to double check haha

brother, re read the post "hes far on top in the stats leaderboard"

I mean, during his time on NRG Chamber was dogshit, and his Jett was dogshit. He just couldn't adapt to the meta at the time, which was shifting off of Jett, and more on Raze.

With Lev, it was going towards Yoru + Raze. Both of which, Demon1 is ass on.

I'm just glad he's finally finding some form now. His peak was way too short, and sucked to see him go from the very peak, to struggling to adapt. It's good he's finding a rhythm again.

what do you mean, people know him for running it down as omen and dying first consistently.

Brother was such a good igl he'd sacrifice his team having smokes so he can focus on igling.

Fnatic threw their mappick by putting alfa on sage. Legit 2/3 ascent games they've lost, his sage has been meh. Like, utalise him on anyone other than a sage, who got such little impact across all 3 games this event.

Iceland first masters. He was in window smoking and got caught by a flank on Haven.

bro, he's plays life games against every region that isn't NA.

What did lose them this game is shitty comps. idk who decided alfa should play sage over Chamber. That trolled their ascent game more than anything.

abyss was just a throw out there in hopes they get through to map3.

Faker is the GOAT because he has the legacy along with the awards, and recognition.
From being THE best in the world for nearly 10 straight years, is enough to put the goat on him. Chovy has been the best midlaner itw for probably 2 years or so. Faker hasn't been the best mechanical midlaner for probably 5 years. However, he makes up for that in leading his team, and his individual moments in international events. Chovy would never be in contention with faker as the goat, just because chovy has choked on far too many worlds events to be considered. His mechanical peak is what every individual midlaner wishes to see. However despite how good Chovy is. He'll never get close to Fakers achievements, or legacy.

Alfa is a far better mechanical player than chron is. There's no doubt. In terms of goat player, I wouldn't put them against eachother. Just as Alfa has a far bigger peak than chron, but chron has one of the most consistent careers, all whilst changing roles multiple times.

Bro went from initiator main, to duelist, to sentinel, and now flexes controller and whoever they need to fill. All whilst performing well on every role. I also believe that neither of them are the goat of val. The closest two arguments was Aspas vs Leo. Leo is the peak mechanical rifler this game has ever seen, and is the blueprint for how people play the game. Aspas is the peak duelist to ever touch the game. Bro had peaks in events, and never fell from form. He's had 1 bad event his whole career, and has been a menace ever since. Plus the guy didn't abuse chamber like other duelists did, and still forced Jett during that meta.

Enzo was awful for fnatic. Hiro was decent and became better after leaving Fnatic. Enzo had like 5 good games for fnatic then went to farm tier2 where he's going to remain for the rest of his career.

Hiro is good. You're forgetting about Enzo though.

idk. When I first watched tarik when he first started watch partying, he was never a deep analytic guy. the guy would just watch a game, overreact to insane plays, and waffle about whatever chat was saying.

Just nwo he waffles during matches that dont have a humongous amount of hype behind. If he match is a stomp, or not neck to neck close, he'd just go on about some offtopic shit he'd do inbetween matches. Yesterday was the t1 documentry. Guy has always been like this, just now he doesn't pay attention to matches that aren't highlight matches.

It's why fns, sliggy are far better co-streamers, because you learn watching them. SAme with Caedrel in league. He's passionate about the game itself, not being a stream personality.

Honestly probably Kingen, unless they wanted to pump out millions to buyout contracts.

They went from not wanting to pay more for a back to back worlds winning top laner who performed well across the past two years. Doran honestly seems like the option they took because they were limited in what they could get.

Like Doran isn't awful, but he is a downgrade from Zeus, no doubt. T1 do look a lot better now than they did during the recent domestic split.

Edit: TheShy would have been the ideal person t1 could have gotten, but china pay BANK to their players, and he's been there for like 8 years.

Faker was consistent, but not Zeus consistent during those two years. Faker would lose lane quite often, and even be far behind the other mid laner, quite often. Zeus rarely would be far behind the other top laner.
Although Faker is the most clutch player, and has that it factor with his plays. However the few standout moments doesn't take away that Zeus and Oner were the best players on t1(not including Keria in this), and were the primary carries since guma was struggling with consistency issues after 22 worlds finals. He did step up later, but he's have quite a few off games.

I wouldn't call T1 failing contract negotiations a snake move from Zeus. His contract ran out, and he wanted a better contract considering he was the best top laner in the world, and the most consistent player on T1 from 2023-2024.

It's not just prizepool.

I feel the main thing that constitutes an S tier among even pro players, is the level of competition.

Like there was a year ago or so in CS, where even pro players didn't see it as a T1/S event because the competition wasn't as good as other events that year.

With who's at this event, I consider it an S tier. the best teams have attended, prizepool is high. The only thing lacking imo is a legacy, and production of the earlier stages were pretty ass, plus having one bo1 then into a bo2. If it was bo2 all the way through until finals, it would be a lot better.

S tier is mainly the scale of the even. CS has it, but even S tier events aren't as prestigious as a major, or a grand slam.

Even if masters champs and ewc are S tier. The legacy left behind from winning champs or a masters will always reign more important over EWC.

1-13 fk/fd ange1 omen. I miss the inting king.

Ange1 2022 wym

wym, this is normal for boaster.

Bro can activate other players, but individually he makes the worst decisions for his own game.

I retract what I said.

The two main liabilities of the season stepped tf up.

HLE.

top gap and adc gap.

Just like how you told me earlier to look on hltv and reddit, you show me where the legacy is what defines an S tier event. Because everything I could find, was all opinion as there's no strict definition of what an S tier is, only what general communities consider S tier.

You're right, the definition has never been challenged. It's just been considered that S tier events are the biggest events during the year. This tends to be linked to the level of competition, the scale of the event, prize pool, production, etc etc. it's been like that since star craft in the early 2000s. The legacy means nothing, it comes along with it.

I agree that so far valorant has only had S tier events that have been apart of the vct tour. However that doesn't mean that S tier is only restricted to first party events. I think apex is the only esport where they only have official events as S tier.

The definition of what constitutes an S tier event is also community driven, and so far you're the only person I've seen only define it as official first party hosted events, that stick to a specific criteria.
I wont lie that first party events tend to have a larger impact on a players legacy, that's undeniable. However that doesn't mean those events are the only S tier events.

You're just changing your view of S tier events. first it has to the be hosted by the dev/publishers, and now it has to define someones legacy.
Just because an event doesn't live up to your definition of what constitutes S tier, doesn't mean it's not counted as one by the majority.
I also never said this even is an S tier. The production of it has been ass during the qual stage. Streams missing, low production value, etc.

If S tier events are the ones that defined a winners legacy, then the Dreamhack Shroud won is S tier. It's the only event he ever won, and that defined his CS legacy.

Like I understand what you're saying, but it's just not what the general consensus is.
The general consensus is that what makes an S tier event is the level of competition, the prize pool, and the scale of the event itself.

Shitty formatting was the only issue with kickoff.
Kickoff also gave circuit points and was a qual event for masters. It fits every theoretical bill for an S tier. I dont see it as an S tier, but on paper it counts as one.
Just like cs fans say, some majors aren't S tier because of the lack of competition, however the general rule is that the event itself, is due to level of competition and scale of the event. PGL Astana for example.

However like you said, CS is a different ecosystem. It doesn't have a version of "worlds/champions", and only has majors. However each major has it's own prestige behind it.

Also by your definition kickoff and stages are S tier. Hosted events, offline, by riot, part of the vct tour?

I'm also not saying liquipedia is the definitive answer for every event. I'm saying their rules on their rankings is the general consensus of what makes an S tier. They also said lockin is S tier, and I honestly believe that was A at most. They're not 100% right with some tournament tiers, but it's usually based on who's attending. you're seeing the best of the best, with S tier teams facing against each other, on a grand stage. It's not the best way we have to describe metrics, but it's the only loose definition that most esport scenes go by.

I was going by what any google search of "what makes an esports event S tier"
Most reports came up with what I said, including liquipedias definition of S tier event. Especially considering liquipedia is the primary source for labelling events as S tier, or Tier1 in esports, aswell as the primary source for overall esports esports information online.

hltv doesn't have any threads on it from what I could find, but on the CS subreddit, it seems to be based on the teams participating, size of the event, and money. It's why some majors are considered

League doesn't have S/A/B tier events, is similar to val, where EWC is the only other event that is non-riot hosted. However even liquipedia considers it an S tier event due to the level of competition.

I mean, your definition of the term isn't what is widely considered as correct, so I highly doubt I'm wrong.

CS does have a different ecosystem. Just like pretty much any other esport from a different developer.

However, what makes an S tier event has remained the same for other games aswell, regardless of the ecosystem.

Just being hosted or part of the main circuit isn't mandatory for the levels of events.

Nah, I think that's not it. By that you can say in CS only Valve hosted events are S tier, which doesn't make sense.

S tier is only the highest level events. High prize pool, production, and prestige.
Just being a vct event doesn't make something an S tier event.

I'll agree it's not a S-Tier event. It has an S-Tier prizepool, but so far the production has been ass.

It's lacking good production, and tenure. Give it a few events, and only then will it be S tier. rn it's probably A tier, just carried by prizepool.

No, but esports relies on investments, and as shitty as Saudi are, they're investing in the esports.

Worst player to play in t1 - Russ

Stax has to be above fns man.
Fns had a solid year and a half of results, and as soon as yey left, the team crumbled internationally.

Stax was relevant in shaping set plays in the beginning of the game, and has remained relevant as an igl since then, attending most LAN events the game has. Kinda nuts people still rate fns so high after being carried by yay, and crashies.

Bro, I honestly think it's worse than the viper astra meta. At least you had to know lineups. All Tejo is, is be in range and click the ipad.

They released the total prize pool including skin sales/battlepass sales.
The year spirit won, the total prizepool was 40mil.

Me

His narrative for being a baiter came from his numerous 1vX situations.
As a duelist he was the last alive on his team as a crazy high rate compared to his counterpart on other teams.

He also slowed down on hard entrying on Lev, compared to what he used to do on Loud.

Bro isn't even a baiter though. his playstyle just isn't the hard entry anymore. he's not like miniboo who'd run it down to make space, or like Texture who'd just sprint it down as Jett and somehow make it work. Aspas has always been a balanced duelist. He could go aggressive at times, but would also play a bit passive. People just overreacted to him, despite him being the main reasons Lev achieved anything last year.

He didn't get to fame in valorant only because of his brother though.
He came to valorant with fame already behind him, and a name already behind him. Sure being forsakens brother helped bring attention to him when he swapped.

Also he wasn't overhyped because of his CS mechanics. he was overhyped because he was the most successful Susanto brother out of them. He had the most reputation and prestige behind his career than forsaken. that's what overhyped him when he swapped. Nobody overhyped him because of his cs skills, because the past 2 years in cs for him looked awful.
It's why most people who knew him from cs, knew he wouldn't be some godsend player. He was going to be average and slightly above average than most people. Never a top5 player.

Plus his team with t1 was disfunctional af. Going from being a main awper in CS, to being a flex who rifles, while having saya on main op. It didn't make any sense.
Also he was the most consistent player on his t1 behind rossy until they relegated him to rifling on smokers only.

tldr; His brother isn't the reason he's known. His career is why he's known. Forsaken brought new gens to overhype him, because of the status be brought with him from cs.

He got fame because he's one of the most decorated and successful CS asian players in the history of the game, wym.

He had hype moving over because there were only a handful of asian players in CS who were regarded better mechanically than him.
Him being forsakens brother was only attributed by new gens who know nothing about his time in CS

wym going +18 across 4 maps is goat level performance. Bro is up there with Aspas and Leo.

She was never in the dumpster when it came to professional play though.
She had her place, i.e. fracture and pearl which were by far her best maps, and she ended up becoming meta on them during 2023.
the removal of those two maps from the map pool, is what dumpstered her. That as she wasn't more useful to the game than a Jett, or pre nerf raze.
Now after her buff, you see her on everymap but split, bind, and abyss. Two of those maps being the only maps being Raze meta maps. The last being a Jett map.

Look at it this way Pearl and Fracture were a perfect example in 2023 on how Neon was a good agent
Instead of making her slide making haven a pretty much perma pick for her, given the astuns clearing pretty much all of garage, and the slides clearing any side tight corners with full accuracy.
Pearl she was always a secondary duelist pick, given she worked well in cohesion with an oping Jett.
Sunset the fast rotates, sharp corners into sites, and narrow corridors makes her stuns, sprint and slide all too oppressive.

Never thought I'd see a day where Ethan was a downgrade to Boostio.
Unlucky that demon1 got all the blame from the team underperforming, instead of the system NRG made where no there was no real igl.

So you're saying, by them fixing their role issues, utalising the current meta. EDG overall, improved as a team in performances?