Sadge.
they just brought in Ethan, their core isnt bad just other teams have been able to outperform them thus far.
On paper the best they were expected to do was 3-2 (realistically) and still can make playoffs if they beat Guard next week. 100T are just playing on another level, Ghost have upset expectations for them, and XSET beating NRG is like TSM beating 100T, it always happens.
Still seems like they have a bunch of good ish players but no one spectacular which has hampered them for a while. EEIU and Ethan are both great initators, Ethan a bit inflexible but its not that big of a deal. I think that core can cover all initators and probably some snippets of sentinel and smokes which is huge
It gets a bit shaky after tho
s0m and has probably been the worst fragging duo in the first 4 weeks so far, and Tex has been the worst main chamber, sorry to be rude its just been so shaky so far, extremely inconsistent. S0m flexs a lot which is nice but he honestly just needs to be put onto a more solid role. We all know he's good but he's been a bit behind in fragging recently.
Hazed is an alright IGL and a pretty bad fragger but plays the very deep support role alright. they're kind just stuck with 3 guys who are all better than the t2 players at their position(aside from maybe v1 and knights) but the sum of the team is just behind the avg fragging power and overall tactics of the teams like xset
I agree.
Eeiu is like a top 8 initiator player in NA and probably the best Fade
Ethan is a pretty good flex
s0m and Tex are both really solid players in their roles, but yeah Tex might be the worst chamber main but he's still NRGs best option since he's still the best aimer. With the meta shifting away from Duelists S0m has experimented with non duelist options and its worked at times but more often than not it hasnt.
Hazed good IGL just plays heavy support, moving to assistant coach would prob fit him more at this point of the career.
Overall they're kind of in the purgatory where their roster is good enough to make VCT and better than T2 teams, but not enough to be an international level NA squad.
Ya theyre probably gonna keep it together for LCQ if they qual(idk if they will) and maybe have s0m switch to chamber and tex to entry but I expect a big blowup for 2023. Tex and hazed prob aren't top 12 in their role and s0m needs a role change IMO. We'll probably(unless the meta changes like crazy) see them pick up a harder fragging igl, put s0m on a non duelist role(chamber or smokes) and get a star young t2 fragger
Yeah I agree that Tex and Hazed aren't top of their role anymore.
Picking up a fragging IGL, someone like Zander immediately comes to mind as somebody that I'd wanna see.
But yeah I'm sure we'll see changes going into next year, but I think they at least make LCQ. They're guaranteed to if they beat Guard next week, not only because playoffs but they're basically guaranteed 20+ circuit points in stage 2 to put them at 50 overall which kinda secures them for LCQ.