I'm only considering players on lock in teams. This is a very opinionated list, people are free to make their own. I'm only saying a lot about the first person bc I got things to do yk. Maybe I'll update it more later.
Duelists:
1. Aspas
His performance was fucking unbelievable in that semifinal. More than that, he's been incredibly consistent ever since we've seen him on the international scene. The sole reason I rated him higher than Derke (the other god duelist in this tourney) is because he's been putting up insane numbers in CLOSE MATCHES (3-2 vs DRX, 2-1 vs NRG with that giga overtime). Loud has also been supporting him a little bit less than Fnatic has been supporting Derke and he's still been going WILD. This guy is one of the few players in a top team who's allowed to ego peak whenever he wants because he wins all the fucking time.
2. Derke
I don't think anything needs to be said here :)
3. Cned
This guy's good. Pretty damn good
Initiators:
1. Leo
Holy fuck. I knew this guy was good. I didn't know he was THAT good. Not only has Leo been demonstrating insane individual performances for Fnatic this tournament (winning duels, clutching, just putting up insane numbers), but he's also been an insane TEAM player. His util is almost always perfect. He trades extremely well. His game sense is elite among the elite, and there's no way I could justify putting anyone above this guy (even Shao who's insanely consistent with a ridiculous clutch factor).
2. Shao
Nothing needs to be said here also.
3. Crashies
Some of you might disagree here, and I did really consider other players for this third slot (stax, saadhak, cauanzin, mwzera, cloud, Zyppan?), but come on this guy's so consistently great. You can't ignore this dude.
Controllers:
1. Mako
I do not take criticism on this pick. The only guys with the record to maybe compete simply aren't in this tournament anymore (Marved + Pancada imo). Mako is the absolute backbone of DRX, and a key reason for their top 4 finish this tournament. Utility? Absurdly good. Clutching? Unreal. Teamplay? Top fucking tier. Aim? Gigachad. This guy has it all, and MUST be respected.
2 + 3
Lets be real there's such a big tier gap here, I'm not gonna bother to select people. Kinggg or nats on viper maybe if you count that. S0m was pretty impressive as well. Tuyz is fantastic. But none of them even come close to Mako, and I'm not gonna pretend they do for the sake of a list.
Sentinels:
1. Less
Phenomenal player. He was the worthy MVP of champs 2022 while having a life performance, and even now that he's cooled off a bit, he's barely slowed down. Incredible player with insane gamesense, aim, talent, you name it he's got it. Sentinel players at lock-in, despite having hard meta agents like killjoy, haven't had any consistent "standout" players, but Less comes as close as you can to one. This closeness makes ranking these guys hard af tho.
2. Shyy
This young god is 70% of the reason Lev looked unstoppable (till they met Navi). You can't deny his talent.
3. Alfajer
I still have no clue how tf mini's this good at scouting, but this dude hasn't disappointed all tournament. Because Fnatic is so unbelievably stacked, Alfajer hasn't shone as much as in the past, but he's the real fucking deal.
BONUS CATAGORY:
IGLS:
1. FNS
I don't give a flying fuck about his aim. If aliens came to earth and were like, we need the brain of your most talented valorant IGL or we'll kill everyone, we'd give them FNS's brain 99% of the time. This dude RARELY misses when it comes to midrounding. He's shown again and again and again how he's able to run around just about ANYONE. In a pure IGL ranking, if you don't say FNS, you're either tripping or baiting.
2. Saadhak
This dude's fucking insane. He's like if you took a slightly less experienced FNS, made him brazillian, and taught him to frag. I don't think he's the best at midrounding....yet. But he very well could be in the future. Also massive props to his player development skills. He took the rookies of Aspas and Less and made them into stars with Sacy, and he's fucking done it again with Tuyz and Cauanzin, alone this time. You can't ignore talent like that.
3. Ange1/Boaster
I rate these two equally. It feels like they switch on and off on fragging, but what they're both really great at is stratmaking. Boaster is insane with just making creative and effective strats in general, while Ange1 is the god of antistratting. Can't ignore those abilities one bit (although they both do like feeding for some reason).
Here's my list. Enjoy!
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