3 very similar players with a style that specializes on slow calm. All very mechanically talented but with a flaw of struggling on entries. With all due respect, playing a hard entry duelist is probably the hardest role possible. Your basically expected to make room, maybe get a kill. All these players (except Zekken) shined in the chamber meta because of this, you can get in, get out and get kills, but still able to lurk, and play a more supportive role. Even on XSET days, Cryo and Zekken shared entries and even Bcj to do that. But after that it got shaky. I think the only reason demon1 was able to do well in 2023, was because of Jaw and Boosti- taking a lot of these entries, and even putting him on Astra and brim which were able to get a lot of value off the site, and allowed him to lurk. If you look at the vods, demon1 barely entries for EG. And even when he does, it's quickly followed or used as a distraction for a flood. He acted as the perfect decoy on EG. But the problem is how NRG used him last year and how LEV are using him this year. Putting him exclusively on hard entry, which he has struggled on before. The team comps, lev and NRG used/are using, are based around setting demon1 up to entry and make space for the team, which is just not where Demon1 shines. Demon1 needs an Initiator, Omen or secondary duelist to do that job for him and for him to just find timings and get kills. Imo that's what won them Champs. If Jaw or Boostio weren't on that roster to entry for demon1- I just don't think demon1 would've done well in 2023 either. I think Zekken is also facing a similar problem. Sentinels style last year, was for him, tenz, and John to poke around and lurk to get timings while Zellsis and Sacy held extremities, and off that they would shift back and forward based on information. But now it just seems like sentinels can't do that as effectively. Zekken is either stuck as a hard entry or a fully supportive duelist. He doesn't have Tenz to make those crazy tp plays that John would call around. Bang is just not that kind of player that would go for those things as often as Tenz. Sure Narrate is an great entry and has proven he could be a solo entry well, but he just can't really play those kind of agents on SEN except for Gekko (it's almost like they had a good attack on bind because of it) on map 1 and 3 of 100T v SEN he was basically stuck in util jail, since they needed the fade and breach utility forcing him to be unable to entry since they need the util later and they need him alive. With all due respect, if JohnQT didn't look like one of the best Tejo players so far, they wouldn't have won map3. But on the other side of the coin 100 thieves was the only org to fix the duelist. Moving Cryo exclusively to flex or Jett and having Zandar and Asuna make most of the plays. 100T rn look a lot like EG 2023 to me, mad respects to Boostio to be able to use Cryo effectively. It's like what they did with Tenz but not really since I think he just lost that ability to entry as the meta changed. The agents 100T are putting Cryo on, allow him to go for aim duels when you run out of util, or be that secondary entry for asuna. I think if 100T can change more comps, put Eeiu on Tejo more, they can be the best 100%. SEN as well, if either using Bang more like Tenz or putting Narrate on agents that can secondary entry more like Gekko, the SEN formula from last year can be used. As for Leviatan, I think it will work out eventually since King is already doing a lot on Omen, they just need to click.
Thanks for listening to my tedtalk.
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