Now that FENNEL have just barely failed to qualify for ascension for the second year in a row, I think ZETA should really consider picking up some of their players. Apparently they did try last year but the FENNEL core wanted to stick together. So in that case ZETA’s best move would be to pickup the FENNEL’s 3 best players (incidentally the 3 that have stayed together the longest and the aforementioned core): SyouTa, Xdll, and CLZ, dropping SugarZ3r0, hiroronn, and yuran, replacing each other’s roles respectively. This paired with the fact that the main thing holding ZETA back was seemingly the lack of a dedicated IGL.
As a caveat, the players on ZETA, notably SugarZ3r0 and hiroronn, could probably do well on DFM; SugarZ3r0 already has good chem with Meiy and Astell from their days together on NORTHEPTION in 2021, and hiroronn is, and always has been, more comfortable on sentinel (so he and Laz are incompatible).
The JP franchising teams would be so much more competitive with these players/rosters:
ZETA DIVISION
Duel: Dep
Init: Xdll
Senti: Laz
Contr: SyouTa
Flex: CLZ [IGL]
DETONATION FOCUSME
Duel: Meiy
Init: TENNN
Senti: hiroronn
Contr: SugarZ3r0 [IGL]
Flex: neth (?)
(this is excluding players from RIDDLE ORDER as they actually have a non-zero chance of winning ascension)