Don’t let this distract you

#1

snowconedeity

from the fact G2 were in fucking Tier 2 last year. Their first year in tier one they make top 3 Masters and top 8 Champs. Absolutely unheard of and i’m super proud of this team for showing how good tier 2 is. I mean the entirety of TGRD made champs this year think about it, just imagine what would happen if Riot gave two shits about Tier 2 and invested, teams like G2 would become the norm. (I am sad they went out like that though, they fucked my pickens up bad lmao)

#2

snowconedeity

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huge props to FNC tho they look rly good :)

#23

Shuaaaa

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Based anti-bait.

#3

patuj

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G2 literally just signed The Guard roster who at time were top 2 NA team and added leaf who was among the best NA players and Ice who came from somewhere.

Team Heretics is type of team you're describing.

#7

catNmouse

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icy was from the eg reserve roster

#8

snowconedeity

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Yeah but still, I mean JohnQT and Valyn are seen as two of the best IGLS in the game and they were both in T2 last year, and tgrd were not top 2 NA last year they evolved drastically, he’ll most people didn’t even expect them to ascend cuz M80 looked unbeatable

#25

Shuaaaa

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Yk, I'm sitting here trying to think of who the best NA team was last year besides EG (in franchising).

I can't think of anyone. I guess maybe NRG?

But calling them top 2 in NA when they weren't even clear favorites to win ascension is kinda incorrect. M80 actually looked like a better team through most of the year imo.

#31

KyLZi

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top 2 for a month in 2022 with 3/5 players staying the same. but it shows the team is consistent. People forget they bombed out of playoffs like they did here and then played really bad and almost lost to Sen Shroud, Faze, and 100t

#4

Paraplant

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as impressive as it is
there’s a simple reason for that - they didn’t get selected to t1 and stayed the same and qualified in the first year - which means they were t1 level this whole time
they weren’t t2 because they weren’t good enough - they were t2 because they chose the team over all the offers from t1

#11

snowconedeity

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oh for sure, but that shouldn’t detract from their progress this year becoming a top 3 NA team and at points the best in Americas. Like i’m sure M80 will do similar things next year, but it clearly shows the NA T2 system has incredible talent and riot should pay way more attention to it (i mean even N4RRATE, Rossy, and Governor were T2 NA last year and both made internationals)

#15

Paraplant

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definitely
huge props to them, i hope NA teams will actually start giving t2 players chances, instead of holding on to the main core that is clearly failing (looking at you nrg)

#16

snowconedeity

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100%. If the OXG members and DZ members don’t get picked up there’s something fucked with NA orgs (Verno and Skuba NEED to be in T1

#26

Shuaaaa

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Crazy how teams didn't jump at n4rrate and Rossy because they were in pretty mid VCL teams att.

I'm going to stick with my opinion that the NA trio on talon were bad signings though. If they don't go full Thai next year, then one of ban, gov, or frost have seduced their owner.

Definitely frost.

#5

Wezzaa

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It’s looking really good for not just them but other ascension teams coming up

#6

911dot

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Guard core was already promising but I didn't expected G2 to be Top 3 (maybe top 6) since icY addition

#9

snowconedeity

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for sure, i was gonna be happy if they were like top 5 but doing this good is insane first year of franchising especially with icy who has been a relatively quiet player

#12

911dot

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I was expecting icY to be only Regional merchant but he is decent imo

#10

YerdaSelzavon

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So NA is tier 2 region

#14

snowconedeity

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bro i was giving props to ur team no need to be an arse abt it

#17

YerdaSelzavon

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I’m just saying respectfully

#19

snowconedeity

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tbf ur regions top team is also comprised of T2 players from last year so all the regions are T2 (even DRX).

#21

YerdaSelzavon

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Heretics just built different with young talent not tier 2 veterans like G2

#13

Ullyr

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Ok I'll be honest the guard should never have been tier 2 in the first place. It's cause riot franchising fked them.

#22

CookieMania

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In hindsight bias The Guards financials were poor, seeing how they laid-off their personnel earlier last year (they were running on a shoestring budget) and disbanded quickly soon after their ascension win, which made them a bad candidate for franchising.

#24

snowconedeity

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tbf that shouldn’t have been the case they were run by a fucking billionaire Kroenicke was just a moron

#27

Shuaaaa

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Damn, didn't realize they had THAT much money.

Teams he owned collectively won the biggest tournaments in like 4 different sports, how tf did they have no budget?

#30

snowconedeity

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cuz the billionaire funding them didn’t actually care and probably realized he was just losing money and chose to pull out and cut his losses cuz he didn’t actually care about esports, just about making money and teams.

#32

LycheeBlade

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that's probably what happened. esports orgs typically hemorrhage a ton of money because of few sponsors and unless the owner is a diehard esports fan willing to put that money in / grow the brand to make it work outside of esports, it's eventually going to fail

TGRD was not really advertised outside of esports despite being owned by the Kroenkes. Hell, I didn't even know what the Kroenkes owned TGRD until after Ascension, I just thought that they were allowed to play in SoFi as part of like a sponsor deal. That in itself was a massive failure. A few collab events with like Arsenal or the Denver Nuggets would've probably raised a lot of money and given a lot of outreach, sort of like how KRU gained some traction when Messi became an investor.

When there's no passion where the money is, there's no money where the passion is

#18

BUFF163

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they were tier 1 in 2022

#20

snowconedeity

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and then had a massive crumble, and lost their star duelist in Sayaplayer. I mean a lot of people lost hope for them after their inability to qualify to Champs 2022 over 100T

#28

Er3ngenes1s

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and Leo fartia almost made them to not enter franchise....

#29

snowconedeity

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to be fair TGRD is equally to blame for droppping them after a successful year for no reason other than billionaire got bored

#33

pepthefrog

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Props to them but they're not your typical tier 2 team who was built in a year. the core (valyn/trent/jonahp) been sticking together since beginnings of 2022