saw people call boaster overrated (likely bait, it worked), here's my take on it and comparing FNS vs Boaster and why people shittalk boaster a lot more
One of the major differences between them and why people favor fns vs boaster as an igl is just due to who is around them. Obviously fnatic had the crazy 2023 run, but during that time fnatic had 4/6 best players in the world on one team with boaster, so people will think that he had all the tools to win it all, and was able to do the expected outcome with the player quality on that team.
Obviously boaster and mini were an insane duo together, but the more I look back at fnatic 2024 and see that they had similar results to their 2022 season, with essentailly the same players -leo at champs (hiro is obviously still a good player, but not leo caliber), the more i start to have doubts in his igling specifically. Once mini left the team, we could immediately see how in kickoff their strats were stale and that got heavily exploited, leading to the best team of 2023 with their full roster and no excuses to just miss the first tournament of the year.
Even after that, they did play really well in EMEA regionally, and were able to win both emea splits, which obviously is a testament to how they bounced back, but if we are being real, that really doesn't matter at all once it comes time to play on the international stage, which they bombed out of, even losing to EMEA cohorts. This team again, had no excuses to be playing this badly, and the only difference between 2023 and 2024 at this point was mini leaving, which I think again solidifies either:
A. Boaster's igling was very good, but Mini was what made it god tier and kept the team winning
B. Elmapuddy is just a bad coach, and is the reason why they were not doing well, and Boaster's igling just slipped because of it
I think that these two points both lead to the conclusion that: 2024 Boaster's calling was just simply not good compared to where he is supposed to be in terms of IGLs all time, and it leads people to start noticing that Fnatic was heavily stacked in 2023, and people start thinking that Boaster is overrated.
I personally (just at an IGLing level, not firepower level), would put him at 3rd all time, with Saadhak and FNS being above him (whatever order). I also think that in 2025 he could end up potentially slipping to being the 6th best caller in the world, potentially even worse if boostio comes back to form (FNS, johnqt, munchkin, sadhaak, boaster, nobody, boostio, valyn)
I also think that the reason FNS doesn't get flack isn't because of his personality, it's because people understand what player quality he has had to work with. In 2024, he came in with a team that was basically dead, needing to win a crazy streak to put them into playoffs, and completely rebuild it with crashies (not even in t1 anymore), and victor duelist (there are probably well over 20 straight duelists in americas better than victor)(he should swap to a flex role). It's obvious that they would fail, and even when they did, one of the brightest things on the team was how fucking insanely well they were able to set up rounds and execute on them. Even on optic, when they won their trophy and were the best team of 2022, crashies wasn't 2023 split 1 crashies, and victor was basically a miniboo. They had yay to carry them entirely and marved who stepped up in rekjavic but wasn't himself at champs. They won most of their games basically just outcalling the opponent into yay, and allowing him to take over with their calls. They didn't have the 'Oh yeah [insert any 2023 fnatic player here] is in a 1v3, they're likely gonna win it' factor for anyone but marved and yay.
We also joke about "Boaster and time", but it's a real thing, where Boaster will spend so much time trying to set up a round, that they will run out of time and have to speedrun an execute or just lose because of it, whereas the term "Masterclass round" literally comes from FNS's haven, and very rarely do we ever see an Attack round where FNS will get out called. I would also like to point out that on the NRG team in 2024 that collapsed, their attack side was incredibly good, and one of the best attack sides in Americas, even with how dysfunctional that team should have been, showing people that, yes, fns is not washed, but their defense sides were just shit which comes down to prep more than igling.
Obviously take this all with a grain of salt, as we are (hopefully) about to see both of these 2 very incredible igls play in 2025 with teams that should enable them to win a lot, so we should (hopefully) be able to see these two clash it out on even footing. (be real 2023 tokyo was such a firepower gap, fns called well on fracture and his team just fell over) Should be able to watch some masterclass valorant from both of these teams, as well as all of the crazy good igls from 2024 as well. If the teams that these insane 2022/3 igls are on are able to help them out, we might be in for some of the greatest valorant of all time this year, god willing
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