XSET
Won 2-1 against Luminosity Gaming
- L 2-13 Haven
- W 13-8 Ascent
- W 13-10 Split
Lost 2-1 to 100 Thieves - W 13-9 Split
- L 8-13 Breeze
- L 9-13 Ascent
Won 2-0 against Version1 - W 13-7 Bind
- W 13-4 Icebox
Lost 2-0 to Cloud9 Blue - L 7-13 Bind
- L 12-14 Ascent
PureR
PureR ended up playing mostly Jett but switched to Skye on Bind and Split. Statistically, he isn't the most impressive Jett and consistent Jett player but the presence of the Jett/Operator at any point allows Zekken to play looser which overall benefits the team. He had a slightly strange middle of the tournament but he picked it up in the end and ended up being XSET's best player in that final series vs. Cloud9. He was really the main thing that allowed them to even get to overtime on Ascent where he finished with 28 kills and went +8 in First Kills/First Deaths.
The only issue I have with switching PureR to Skye on certain maps is that, well, it didn't really work. It could be that PureR isn't really comfortable on the Skye just yet and could make me eat my words next tournament or that XSET is still figuring out their strategies on those maps but something did not look right. For context, PureR was roughly 8 % points better in terms of ACS as % of Team Total on Jett than he was on Skye. That's an insane difference in value, one that may even outweigh the value that Skye provides in terms of information gathering. After this tournament, XSET is genuinely one of the few teams that I would maybe say could actually play most maps without a Skye in their comp. Their Icebox game against Version1 and that final map against Cloud9 were the only gamps where they did not have a Skye and they looked completely functional, if not better. Given that a Skye nerf may be soon to come, I think XSET should start building their comps and strategies around PureR on the Jett.
Average ACS as % of Team Total on Jett vs. Skye PureR
dephh
First off, dephh as an IGL looked really good this tournament. The mid-round calls and switchups looked solid from XSET. My only issue with dephh is with his rifling. He is well-aware that he is very good at shooting people in the head and that can sometimes hurt the team. Steel pointed out when he was watching Cloud9 vs. XSET that dephh was getting involved in way too many of the first engagements for an IGL and smoker. Your Astra being the first player to go down on your team is not ideal on defence or attack and that situation was a little bit too common for XSET. Now, of course, because dephh is an incredible rifler he still went +8 in first engagements over the course of the tournament and +5 in that game against Cloud9 but it's an unnecessary risk especially when it is happening in key rounds. There is a visualisation of those first engagements rates below:
Aside from my nagging, dephh played really well throughout the tournament and, alongside PureR, was a bright spot in that game against Cloud9.
BcJ
BcJ ended up having a very BcJ-esque tournament. I thought after the first game against Luminosity that it was kind of strange to flex him onto the Sage when he didn't look particularly experience and wasn't playing too well. He clearly heard that comment and proceeded to have one of his best games against 100 Thieves whilst playing Sage. I think he has cemented himself as an A-Tier NA Sova, just in case anyone was still underrating him but he's not quite at S-Tier yet which is a shame because I'm not sure what he can really do to be any better. He was consistently above 20% of team total ACS bar 3 maps, one of which was the downright painful Cloud9 Ascent game where he just kept getting killed. Strong tournament.
AYRIN
AYRIN plays the anchor role very well for this team and is quietly one of the most important parts of this team. He is one of the few 'Sentinel' players that has moved completely away from Cypher and now exclusively plays Killjoy and Viper which I like. There are a few times where the Viper walls are a bit strange, as in choosing to hold angles that don't entirely utilise it but they are rare (Lothar has some really strong Viper setups and strategies, all explained if you want tips). The statistics don't bounce off the page but there are very few players in AYRIN's role that do put up eye-popping numbers.
Zekken
You know how I said in the Version1 stats write-up that Penny is one of the most inconsistently great players in Valorant, Zekken might just own that category. Even without the Operator in his hands, Zekken puts up monstrous numbers like 38 kills in 37 rounds against Penny and Version1 and then bottom frags the very next series against Cloud9. He is an incredibly fun player to watch when he is 'on' and if he can somehow work on his consistency then he and XSET could go very far next year.
In penny's section I showed the graph of penny's First Kills/First Deaths +/- which was pretty up and down. Just to consolidate the point that Zekken has a similar consistency issue, this is the same graph but for Zekken:
First Kills/First Deaths +/- zekken
Overall Team
I really don't think XSET should be thinking about making any roster changes at the moment. Instead, it should be about figuring out what lost them the maps in this tournament and fixing those issues. The players that they currently have work well together and the roles that each of them are on works (as long as PureR stays on Jett). It's not about rebuilding or even retooling for this team, it's about rethinking. Thinking about how Fracture is going to affect their map pool and how the introduction of Chamber is going to affect them. If they get a head start on all of these things whilst Sentinels, NV and Cloud9 are otherwise occupied, they could cause some real upsets at the start of next year.
Some more interesting graphs:
ACS Throughout Tournament XSET
ACS Totals Throughout Tournament XSET
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Other completed threads are linked below:
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