The NRG VALORANT team was assembled to win. Victor, Crashies, and Marved have won a Masters trophy as members of the 2022 OPTIC squad, while Ethan and Demon1 were arguably the two most important players in EG’s Champions triumph last year. When asked post-announcement if they might be the strongest roster, Finesse replied:
“Yes, they are the strongest roster – there is no ‘might be’”.
Expectations were clearly high, but a 3-2 record in the first 5 matches of split 1 does not do justice to the incompetence on display. A brutal combination of atrocious macro, questionable mid-rounding, poor trading, and a lack of adaptation has led to some frankly embarrassing moments for the team and their fans. NRG’s first two matches were relatively easy wins against a sleep deprived LOUD and a confidence deprived FURIA (who have only won a single map so far this split). Every game since then (aside from MIBR) has been a disasterclass.
Losses against Leviatán and EG have exposed NRG’s complete lack of understanding of many aspects of competitive VALORANT. The most obvious of which is the poor attack side macro calling. Take round 3 map 1 in their game against LEV: NRG start out in a 1-1-3 default towards A, Crashies and Ethan use a Gekko flash and KAY/O knife – but don’t take space. Demon1 is running against the start barrier but then immediately turns and runs away as it drops, Ethan walks by himself to take a solo fight in A main while Crashies is retrieving his flash: THEY’RE ON DIFFERENT PAGES IN THE FIRST 5 SECONDS OF THE ROUND. This says that the pre-round call from Ethan (if there even is one) is overcomplicated or his delivery is extremely poor.
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxcPMGw21UUzrMvZYqNMoyyXlJyLzYFxAT?si=mkhwrDqB6LdVq9eJ
Even more basic is trading your teammates. KC provided a spectacle of excellent trading and non-ability micro play at Kick-Off – seemingly always coordinating a double-face or high-low when taking gunfights. NRG on the other hand seem to be sending in their entry (both Demon1 and Victor) alone and THEN deciding if they want to follow through onto the site. Look no further than round 3 of Ascent vs EG:
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxTBrX2SE1cMyZLfIElu7-ObtypHdFMn7z?si=OdwqQS2m8fXbR9jP
Demon1 dashes in with a recon for stairs/site and a flash that blinds the lane player: he dashes in at 1:25, dies at 1:23 and nobody else ran out of the smoke. If you’re reading this and thinking “of course they didn’t come out of the smoke, there’s a Killjoy molly at the choke!” - the ONLY player that the molly actually stopped was Victor (Ethan isn’t ready to flood out until 1:17, 6 seconds after Demon1 dies).
I can’t even begin to explain the mid-round calls and the shocking fake attempts we witnessed on Lotus and Sunset against EG. It's embarrassing for tier 1 VALORANT if NRG continue to play at this level.
- hbake
Discord