zekken over Reduxx any day on any role

#1

athemys

Reduxx is looking hot mid in T2 but whats even more interesting is that ppl been calling zekken a system duelist for some reason and that Reduxx on duelist could do a better job with zekken on senti but that is diabolical considering how bad Reduxx looks in ranked. Even if he's barely trying, which I doubt he is getting slapped around and it shows that he lacks the firepower to replace s1 like zekken.

Not even gonna bring up Reduxx's T2 stats cuz they are pointless considering the last time zekken played against these T2 players he was averaging 300 ACS on fucking senti. T2 is a whole diff ballpark and I guarantee you zekken would be farming every team in challengers with bums on his team. No offense to him but, Reduxx is not that guy and stop comparing him to masters winning players
https://www.vlr.gg/459080/winthrop-university-vs-cubert-academy-challengers-league-2025-north-america-ace-stage-1-playoffs
the fact that SEN is struggling just shows how good and important TenZ and Sacy were for the team. TenZ especially was a key factor on attack, helping zekken wih entrying. Anyways, the individuals are good, SEN's problems run deeper than that and a roster move would just worsen the situation imo

#2

column1

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Water is wet post

#3

NRGSUPERFAN

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bro fell for the rage baits

#4

Disastered

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didnt reduxx play up to par in rbhg?

#18

grisx23

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I think it was some 'pick players from crowd' team tournaments.

#22

Disastered

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idk they played c9 and he looked solid, theres a reason everyone had stock in him at one point

#5

washedradiant

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The thing is zekken on paper, looking at ranked, t2, offseason is the best player in the world, but in franchise games he does ONLY above average lately. I think there is a big issue with zekken, that he might be an overthinker on lan. He was insane early 2024, but he doesnt reach my expectations. Some people like reduxx cause hes a wildcard but truth is theres some sort of problem with zekken I cant figure out.

#6

athemys

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zekken is not washed and if he is performing below his standards it's a team issue. He's the most hard working player on that SEN team by far.

#9

washedradiant

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highly doubt that. zekken isnt washed he just has a problem nobody has described yet

#14

athemys

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what problem are u talking abt cuz he was arguably the best performing duelist in champs. You can't blame bangkok on zekken. Watch back the 5 maps, he wasn't doing anything stupid nor did he look off mechanically.

#12

athemys

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he looked really good against KRU and also played really well in champs(2nd best ACS after Derke who played less rounds), you guys legit just start calling ppl washed based on 3 recent matches or whatever. No ball knowledge at all. IF you had actually watched their bangkok games you would know that the team as a whole looked off, not zekken as an individual. They didn't look like a T1 and you can't pin that on a single player, especially not on zekken.

#13

washedradiant

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im basing off this year, he has a 1.00 rating so far aggregated matches and thats just not the expectations I have for him considering how insane he is in. I have watched the sen games and see that hes not the same player I know. Athemys you have to understand something, zekken is supposed to be the best in the game. He is, anecdotally he is tiers ahead of anyone else I have played against. In scrims he drops 30-40 bombs pretty consistently, when he is in tier 2 subbing he shits on everyone, his ranked stats are probably the highest. Everything fits, but for him to have a 1.00 just doesnt make sense. The reason I have heard actual smart people say reduxx replace zekken on duelist is because they think zekken needs to go initatior since if you actually watch the sen games, his entry deaths dont give enough impact in the game as he could have. I know for some of yall this migth sound crazy but I agree with the opinion. Zekken can play almost any role at a very high level, many people dont know that. I understand he has good performances but considering what I ahve seen from him seperate from franchise he should have greatest of all time performances. I rank him above aspas any day but it just never translates into his franchise games.

#16

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My parasocial take is that he has a lack of trust in the current roster to be the heavy entry player he was last year. If he threw his life away he could trust tenz would take that space and hold it. Now he’s torn between making a lot of space and needing to stay alive to make hero plays to win rounds.

#28

Alint

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lwk valid take

#30

FrenchToast

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i like this theory a lot. it aligns with what zellsis was saying about mistrust in the team.

#17

athemys

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That is peak recency bias. The year barely started yet youre making big assumptions about his performance. Also I know about all those things that you've mentioned and that is exactly the reason why I blame their teamplay/system instead of the individual. I've also vod reviewed all of their recent games for the same reason because I couldn't believe zekken went negative and I came to the conclusion that they as a team were making questionable decisions and couldn't set him up properly. I also think you underestimate the gap between T1 and every other level. Zekken could very well be the closest player we've got to Zywoo/S1mple in terms of pure potential in valorant but every T1 teams knows this. Zekken dropping 40s in scrims has been a known fact for ages and they hard anti a lot of their strats. T1 teams actually have the resources and time to anti and prepare against players like zekken. SEN last year looked that good because they had another key factor besides zekken, TenZ, who was doing a lot of dirty work for them that helped zekken out by a lot. T1 has Meteor when Buzz can't entry, EDG has Smoggy, G2 has Jawgemo, but SEN rn looks like all they have is zekken and if he dies they are basically lost. The fact that N4RRATE looks uncomfy on initiator this year doesn't really help zekken so no wonder he can't play to his standards, but that is something they can work on in the future. S1mple was the best player in 2018 but astralis antid the fuck out of Navi and beat them 2-0 while making s1mple look miserable. No one was blaming s1mple for the loss cuz everyone knew he had it in him and he could still be the best player. Also, zekken is the type of player who does well on his own, without an IGL telling him what to do but giving more freedom to your starplayer isn't really thing/option in valorant. G2, VIT and T1 are the only teams that come to mind but they have the teamlay and strats to back it up. I think SEN is lacking that department and they could experiment with giving him more freedom like T1 does with Meteor. Zekkens problem might actually be that he's too disciplined to call for a play that he thinks is right, or high risk - high reward.

#20

MrBlooBloom

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you clearly don't know ball, I think you should stop arguing bc it's becoming kinda ridiculous

#24

athemys

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yeah honestly I should give up arguing with these ppl, after checking their recent messages I'm not sure why I made this post, cuz half the people here are calling for players to get dropped on a daily after 1 bad game and they are not baiting. I mean, average vlr dwellers, idk what I expecetd

#26

washedradiant

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Aye bro I usually only bait on vlr but this is the only thread where Ive actually been serious since zekken is a topic I always never understood

#25

washedradiant

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Tbh i dont know what is the cause. I dont think its recency bias tho because he doesnt unlock the potential i see in him, while there are players I would place lower gapping him. It could be a team environment issue, im not sure if player antistrating is a reason since his yoru tech is new to this year which could be a problem itself. I do think yoru itself does cap players individual performance somewhat, but even first game against 100t should of have been free for zekken. It is a problem that sen has barely any aggressive players, losing tenz is part of that problem. Sen players are all the type to play off their teammates to get value. For your last sentence is what I think is the reason why he never translates to the game is he overthinks. I honestly have been trying to understand whats the right way to play valorant. Zekken does often overvalute his situations and isnt hyperaggresive which i always thought hyperaggression is wrong, but it seems to work a lot of times and watching canezerra do the most ridiculous things have made me second guess how valorant should be played. overall Im not sure but I wouldnt be against switching zekkens role and placing a hyperaggresive duelist along him.

#27

athemys

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I'm very confident that all of the players you would name also have bad performances if not worse consistently. Also I'm pretty sure ppl leaked the sen - envy scrim and sen was up by a LOT. Sure you could argue maybe Zelssis was just killing everyone but zekken slapping them around is way more likely. I'm sure he would also diff any1 on envy in an official. I still think you underestimate T1 teams and their preparations against SEN. You said you've scrimmed them so you must have been tryharding against them cuz thats what most people do. Good players push bad players to be better and it's hard to perform really good every single game. So I'm sure most T1 teams are focusing on how to play against zekken even if they say otherwise. Especially G2, they like to joke around about how bad SEN and zekken is but they also probably the same team that puts in the most effort to neutralize him and SEN. Losers focus on winners, winners focus on winning and zekken often sacrifices for his team and overvalues his life, but that is how their system works so you can't blame him for not going for more and risky kills. Winning masters makes you and your team a target and they can vod review the fuck out of you. Sure they have 2 new players but fundementally they are very similar. Even if you have a player like zekken you need the team to change things up cuz every winner becomes a target. There is a reason fnatic is the only team that won 2 consecutive events. They need to adapt to this situation and it's not easy. A roster change wouldn't solve anything

#29

athemys

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I also forgot to link you this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L3zIU5J9Qk&t=655s
Hope this helps cuz you mentioned multiple times how zekken isn't performing in franchising lol

#7

foythvlr

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is this just the mw stats copy all over again

#8

n1zf

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good job you fell for the baits

#10

envyz

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who the FUCK is saying this bro?

#11

Yistyy

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Dude is fighting ghosts

#15

Gyoppkyg

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STATS

mwzera https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/VK%20mwzera%234324/overview?playlist=competitive&season=all
cNed https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/ACE%20cNed%23carry/overview?season=all
TenZ https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/SEN%20TenZ%230505/overview?playlist=competitive&season=all

DEATHMATCH STATS
mwzera - 86% win rate (thats the insaniest thing ive seen in a while)
cNed - stats not availiable
TenZ - 73% win rate

RANKED STATS
mwzera - 66.3% winrate (MVP of 95% of the matches) proof here https://imgur.com/StiJmpg
cNed - 53.5% winrate (MVP of 13% of the matches)
TenZ - 60.4% winrate (MVP of 15% of the matches)

can you take your time to appreciate how insane mwzera is? without a doubt the most talented player to ever touch the game

I'll try to explain briefly why I think he is the best player in the world
Despite his insane aim and movement
The best way to know if a player is a good duelist is RAZE. There is a BIG difference between a good duelist and a jett abuser
If he is a good duelist, he needs to be good with raze.

heat? not good with raze
aspas? not good with raze
xand? not good with raze
tenz? not good with raze
cned? not good with raze
scream? not good with raze
d3ffo? not good with raze
derke? not good with raze

Thats why I think he is undoubtely the best player in the world. If RIOT by any means decides to nerf jett and shift the meta we prolly not gonna even hear names like cned and tenz again :>
He is not killing 40+ per map because when he joined VK he was forced to play a different role because heat is already a main jett... and lets be honest, every single duelist nowadays gets 20+ kills per map because team and setups are basically built around you (even steel managed to get 20 kills with it https://www.vlr.gg/29398/sentinels-vs-100-thieves-champions-tour-north-america-stage-3-challengers-playoffs-gf/?game=46692&tab=overview)

#19

grisx23

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STATS

mwzera https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/VK%20mwzera%234324/overview?playlist=competitive&season=all
cNed https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/ACE%20cNed%23carry/overview?season=all
TenZ https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/SEN%20TenZ%230505/overview?playlist=competitive&season=all

DEATHMATCH STATS
mwzera - 86% win rate (thats the insaniest thing ive seen in a while)
cNed - stats not availiable
TenZ - 73% win rate

RANKED STATS
mwzera - 66.3% winrate (MVP of 95% of the matches) proof here https://imgur.com/StiJmpg
cNed - 53.5% winrate (MVP of 13% of the matches)
TenZ - 60.4% winrate (MVP of 15% of the matches)

can you take your time to appreciate how insane mwzera is? without a doubt the most talented player to ever touch the game

I'll try to explain briefly why I think he is the best player in the world
Despite his insane aim and movement
The best way to know if a player is a good duelist is RAZE. There is a BIG difference between a good duelist and a jett abuser
If he is a good duelist, he needs to be good with raze.

heat? not good with raze
aspas? not good with raze
xand? not good with raze
tenz? not good with raze
cned? not good with raze
scream? not good with raze
d3ffo? not good with raze
derke? not good with raze

Thats why I think he is undoubtely the best player in the world. If RIOT by any means decides to nerf jett and shift the meta we prolly not gonna even hear names like cned and tenz again :>
He is not killing 40+ per map because when he joined VK he was forced to play a different role because heat is already a main jett... and lets be honest, every single duelist nowadays gets 20+ kills per map because team and setups are basically built around you (even steel managed to get 20 kills with it https://www.vlr.gg/29398/sentinels-vs-100-thieves-champions-tour-north-america-stage-3-challengers-playoffs-gf/?game=46692&tab=overview)

#21

TheAceGamer30

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bro it’s to easy to bait people 😭

#23

Dhrom49

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Stop overestimating reduxx, he is an average tier2 duelist while zekken is one of the best duelists in the world