This is going to be a long ass read! prepare yourselfs (or don't)
I'm gonna try and discuss the problems that NA teams have and potentially find a solution for them (I have vod-reviewed basically the entirety of LOCK//IN other than boring games)
SO first up is
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NRG - This team is really fucking good no surprise there and NRG don't need any changes or a "fix" because with more practice they are going to only get better from here but if I were to nit-pick then I'd like to see s0m be more consistent with his site anchoring and fragging because he made a lot of good decisions on almost all of the games but he also made a lot of confusing/bad decisions which played a part in them losing the round and also, victor, he NEEDS to step up a bit on the fragging department, he is no longer the guinea pig in the team so he needs to frag more because even fns has started to hold his own against top competition.
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C9 - GGs for C9 wrap it up, give your slot to someone else like M80 or smthng, jokes aside C9 with the addition of runi and icy/nerve is a toss up but for the most part, this team on paper has gotten significantly worse. Either runi and the other replacement amaze us with their potential or what we all think happens and they shit the bed and C9 gets even messier and they trial several players and end up being the same as Sentinels from 2022 where they have SOME good players but other players in the team are just holding them back from their full potential
but their old team did seem alright and had potential especially considering that jett was coming back into meta and they had yay who is one of the best jetts. -
100T - I have no idea what happened to this team but they definitely are not the team we know they can be, nobody seemed to have an incredible individual performance and cryo was so unbelievably mid at raze and he felt so uncomfortable in the team. They did a lot of good things but made way too many mistakes, their fundamentals have seemed to go backwards after sean left the team, we saw glimpses of it at RBHG but it definitely wasn't as bad as what we saw at LOCK//IN. Stellar had an interview with wyatt from platchat and stellar said that sean and him had some disagreements over how the game should be played and that the team thinks mike is a better fit as a coach for them and he also talked about how sean made stellar do uncomfortable plays which didn't lead him to do well individually but whats funny is that ONLY stellar did well individually this tournament, he was the only one who got a lot of impact kills while cryo wasn't being setup properly, asuna seemed lost a lot of the times, bang was average which is not what bang usually is and derrek was nowhere to be seen, he had a few clips but derrek seemed like he wasn't even a part of the team (not talking about his stats but the way he was playing with the team felt really off) but saying all that with given enough time and changing the roles to Cryo jett and making him flex to kayo or skye on maps that asuna can run raze would be the way forward.
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EG - Where do I even start with these guys, they aren't bad but they definitely aren't good either. We expected EG to be mediocre but they kinda showed that they can be a good team and then just went onto play like an average team against Talon. First of all, Ethan, he feels like he isnt comfortable being there like something about him is off and they just seem like a team that hasn't had much prac even tho they basically can prac with themselves but with that being said, given enough time and a lot of comp changes they can be a team who is pretty good but I'm afraid they will always be stuck in mediocrity and never be able to pull themselves out of it with their current roster unless they replace boostio with someone more experienced and get yay, A team with Ethan, Vanity, Yay, Bcj and demon1 or c0m could be really good but I doubt that would ever happen especially because jawgemo is a really good player
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Sentinels - This team is probably the best team on paper in the whole of Americas but they still need way more experience as a team, zekken seemed so lost on both maps they played and dephh's calling was mediocre at best and the only rounds they won were when pancada and tenz got either a 2k or 3k or 4k which is very convincing when you have other great talents like zekken and sacy on the team but the weird thing is they lost to FNC on the first fucking round so like we have no idea how good SEN are right now but that bein said, TenZ and Pancada looked great, TenZ has much better spacing now which was a problem he had but now hes super patient and very methodical on the way he takes gun fights and if he keeps this up we could see a resurgence and ofc, why pancada doesnt miss a shot. SEN are probably the team with the highest skill ceiling in the entire region but a lot of it depends on if dephh is good enough as an IGL if not then getting sacy to IGL could be great because he seems to be a great leader is former teammates with sadhaak who is one of the best IGLs in the game rn and then replacing dephh with marved, the roles will be fine because a lot of the maps have double controller now so imagine a game where you have marved on omen or astra but you also have pancada on viper or harbor and in maps that need only 1 controller marved could easily flex to a sentinel or initiator like kayo or skye.
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