so i watched from the timestamps u posted there because I don't really have time to watch the whole thing but tbh i do agree with the points he made about the thai scene lacking new ideas and professionalism, I've been complaining about the same thing for the past few years. however, it doesn't explain talon's bizarre roster-making decisions. like how do you explain picking up not one but TWO na imports as well as a singaporean player who has never been more than above average and was regularly getting rolled by xerxia while also playing with two imports on his team. I've always liked ban from when he played in na as well as when he was on t1 last year but no way both him and governor got picked up over all the other players because of another reason other than some sort of nepotism (or something like that, english isn't my first language so the correct isn't coming to mind). Like, the Thai scene isn't like the Indian scene where you need to have a bunch of imports to surround one great mechanical player to have a competitive team (no offense to the indian fans btw, for the record i've always thought that ge should have always been majority indian, and from watching the scene on and off myself i think that there's a bunch of players who deserve a shot but aren't getting one). We've always been a top region in asia and either the best or second best in SEA (and its not just my own bias, I've seen many non-Thai fans echo the same sentiment) we have talent here, you can't just throw in a bunch of imports who weren't super hyped up, call it a day, and expect the fanbase to be happy with it.
This roster just feels kind of lazy and comprised of players that the coaches knew could play well enough without actually putting in the work to find hidden gems (yes, i know they said they did go through a pretty extensive trial process) but there are a bunch of players on big thai teams that the fans have wanted to see on the next level for a while now and the fact that they picked up none of them feels so discouraging. boi basically ignored the whole drama about talon being shady and trying to get players out of their contracts without paying the buyout. like this is just looks like such a lazy view of the thai scene. we have a scene with a healthy level of org representation and talon can't just strong-arm their way into getting players just because they're in franchising, it's not our fault that good players in the country are on orgs instead of fa teams like na.
And even if they really can not afford to buy the players, simply dismissing young more unknown players with raw skill but maybe unrefined in terms game sense by saying they're just not good enough is just lazy roster building. Karon was literally someone nobody knew about who was picked from ranked, you're telling me he's the player that he is today the moment solo or hsk scouted him out? no way he was. you are supposed to find those types of players and turn them into stars and teach them about the game and teach them about being in a team, isn't that what they're saying they're trying to do? why not do it then? The xerxia/x10 core were able to do that with surf and brought him up from being an unknown ranked demon to a player who could at least hold his own internationally back in 2022 and even had some insane mechanical peaks, why can't they do that with someone else?
Also I really don't like the attitude he's had throughout the whole time he's talking about this stuff, where he was painting himself and frost as like the americans saviors of the thai scene (they did this in the interview on the talon esports channel as well) and that the players were straight up stupid and didn't know how to think about the game (they also said this in that video). like excuse me? I'll agree with you when you say that the players got better but not when you say they were shit before. The xerxia/x10 core achieved more than b0i ever did as both player and coach and had a way more sustained period of success than frost did, surely they were doing at least something right. surely they weren't straight up dumb when it came to the mental aspect of the game. hell, talon looked like a great team at lock in and that was way before b0i joined the team.
Edit: jesus christ why the fuck did I write that much bruh