Top 5 IGLs | VLR.gg

#1

zardinez

Disclaimer: I'm caring more about their igling ability not their fragging, but obviously fragging does matter some.

#1: FNS. His midrounding at Masters was an absolute masterclass. He might not be a big fragger, but he's definitely not ALWAYS dead weight, and you can tell he really leads outside of the game as well. Any team that picks him up will do well, and with Optic, he's formed them into one of the best teams in the world.

#2: Redgar. A great fragger, super wholesome dude, and fantastic within M3C's structure (a lot of which he made). One of the few IGLs that can clutch just as well as a star fragger, and his and ENGH's strats set the meta. Ofc with M3C he won Masters 3 last year and was a finalist at Champs. Excited to see more of his team next masters hopefully!

#3: Saadhak. A fantastic kayo player, and undoubtably the greatest IGL in South and Central America (yes ik Loud is a Brazillian team I'm talking geographically). With Loud, he plays and calls incredibly. I wish I knew more about him out of game too, but sadly I don't speak Spanish or Portuguese, so it's harder to find info.

#4: Boaster. I'm gonna get a lot of flack for this one, but even though his individual performances can be lackluster and his strats overcomplicated, he's absolutely the centerpiece of Fnatic both in and out of the game. He's the emotional glue AND he shapes the team along with Mini. Their victory over M3C last qualifier shows the peaks he can reach individually and his team's structure can reach as a whole.

#5: Vanity. In terms of roster building, he makes such a difference. The only igl to lead TWO seperate rosters with different core players to international tournaments (V1 and C9). Once again, he's not the strongest fragger, but he's proven himself able to create a team and get them to compete on the highest level. That's a super rare achievement, and I hope C9 qualifies so we can see more of him.

#2

edtheking12

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NOOOOO
ratzam n1 igl

#35

zardinez

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Alright some people are gonna flame me for this, but I think Shaz last year was a good igl and a top tier player. Even in the first challengers of this year he looked really good individually, and had some great sova utill. He fell off HARD this qualification.

#50

elayaCL

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This statement is really accurate. What happened here is that when Sen started to go down, people bashed the team, especially Shaz with no mercy... You know, internet hoard mentality

#56

xSlqme

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man i feel bad for shaz. loved watching sen winning, especially with dapr's stupid shit. im hoping with the addition of kanpeki and rawkus can bring sen back and not form tenz and friends part 2

edit: dapr's stupid shit = knifing, teabagging etc.

#57

zardinez

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Yeah I don’t see that team going anywhere atm tho. There’s really strong competition in NA and I don’t think they could beat TSM or NRG much less C9 or Optic

#58

JustHunter

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C9 are looking more shaky than last time tho and Sen have a buffer in EG and Faze so I'd say they can at least make it in 4th. I think LG is probably gonna finish 2nd and C9 3rd.

#59

JustHunter

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That is very true though. People just don't wanna accept it cause it's sentinels. I don't know exactly what happened to him cause the thing is he used to be super consistent and his midrounding was insane. Sen used to be so successful solely off of the fact that shahz used to have the best counterstrating in the scene even tho they had no coach and he also had the best midrounding. Ppl often forego giving credit to sens strats but in all honesty their strats were so complimentary to shahzs mid rounding. They would poke holes throughout the opponent's defense so that they would be able to exploit certain areas and they would just explode onto wherever they were going. On the defense as well they tend to delay really hard which allowed the rotates and they never had to retake. The loss of zombs tho has clearly created a hole in their defense

#3

harooo0913

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RATzam owns all of them

#4

patuj

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Bonkar
Bonkar
Bonkar
Bonkar
Bonkar

#16

minte

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this is the only list

#5

sweetdreams11

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FNS def. not #1

#6

Just_1uck

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Ange1 deserve some respect too

#12

zardinez

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True but I don't know enough about FPX and how much he contributes.

#26

TakoSaki

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ange1 is on a whole other level with his strats and reads

#28

DaDoar

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yea, theres a reason why he was rated so highly in Cs without ever winning a major, amazing caller and most importanly incredible at growing talents and making them look great, think about how versatile both Shao and Zyppan became under his guide and he also completely revived Ardiis career, incredible leader in and out the game

#7

Vertic

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I think that Vanity is a really good IGL his breach on fracture was really important as well. The only thing that I have not seen from him is his ability to adjust to a team after losing to them except for rise months ago. Unfortunately we wont be able to see how he handles the guard unless they both qualify. but yeah I agree with 5 but could def see him lower.

#9

zardinez

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I'm very sad becuase I want 4 teams from NA to be in masters and we can only have 2 :(

#10

Omega_lul

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Bruh all of us want more teams in tournaments but rito wants to host 12 team Mickey mouse tournaments in Mickey mouse locations

#13

zardinez

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If I could get Guard, C9, and Optic, I'd be happy asf. 100T would be a nice bonus. Then we could also have Fnatic, M3C, FPX, and Liquid/Ascend/Guild from EMEA. Loud, NiP, Vivo Keyd from Brazil. Zeta and Crazy Racoons from Japan. OnSlayers and DRX from Korea. PRX, Xerxia, and some other team from SEA. Then have three matches a day. That would be so fucking hype.

#30

Kezu

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vanity breach?

#8

jimjam789

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lan zest

#11

DaDoar

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I agree with your top 5, but I would like to shout out some other excellent IGLs in my opinion
Boo from OGLDN is a great igl, LDN thrives mostly off amazing utility usage and smart calls which is why I rate both Boo and their coach Joynt very highly, their style reminds me of an european DRX, sadly except for MOLSI they lack firepower but everytime they play their set plays and midrounds always impress me even if they struggle to get the work done in more thrilling and mechanical situations

Stax is probably the best IGL at calling utility setplays, DRX entire playstyle revolves around doing what he dictates and enabling the fraggers, its a very cerebral style and Stax basically created it during VS domination in korea

Crow from ZETA is definetely the most overlooked part of their run, utility usage was amazing all tournament from ZETA and most importantly he called some very good rotations and stacks on CT side that influenced greatly ZETA's 3rd place run, domestically he's even more dominant, you can tell he preps a lot and ZETA many counters to strong teams showed his prowess

C0M is imo the best IGL rising up from NA's tier 2, I feel like he has a great understanding on how to make players give their best performance and how to make their strenghts shine, just look at how well Jawgemo is set up in the recent EG games and how well hes been performing since C0M joined and you can tell that this guy can only get better at IGLing, especially in a Superstar-heavy region like NA

#15

zardinez

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Isn't Zest the IGL for DRX at the moment tho? I definitely agree Crow is amazing, I'd put him 6th. And for C0M, I'd say yes he's on the rise but I'd rate Zander and Valyn as better IGLs in NA rn even with Zander's underperformance last qual.

#20

DaDoar

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Stax has historically been the Caller for DRX so im going off that, if Zest has been IGLing recently then he takes that spot because Masters DRX played the best valorant in koprea as of yet.
Regarding Zander I think that his performance at challengers 1 kinda skewed perception on him, for sure he is amazing and he can frag out, but the lat qual he looked way worse, especially in the calling department, consistency is key for an IGL and seeing the questionable setups and lack of prep from V1 made me lose a lot of confidence in him

#46

080305

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Dude you are literally writing essays.....i appreciate that actually

#72

HXZRD

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EG's IGL is actually Boostio right now, not COM, per Sideshow.

#73

DaDoar

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Wow, i assumed it was C0M since he was doing god's work with akrew, but if its boostio then huge props to him for improving so much with his calls and role assignment, I suspect that C0M is giving him a lot of input too

#14

idkbro

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FNS cant be first, that spot is reserved for Redgar, his team plays the best valorant itw, insane firepower while Optic just go for duels and fns is a zero to the left individually
No way boaster can be top5, gimmick merchant cant call shit
NO ANGE1? HOW?

#18

zardinez

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I'm sorry did you just say Optic just go for duels??? They're insanely structured dude, nearly as much as M3C. Besides, I don't think Redgar is as good as FNS at midrounding and calling even if he's a better fragger.

Abt Ange1 just check my other comment. I don't know enough.

#60

idkbro

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they arent structured m8, maybe for NA standards which are very poor but they basically just go for duels, if they dont win them they look like shit if they are on point they look great, literally a cointoss

#61

idkbro

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Just two things:

We cant say who is better at midrounding at the of the day because we dont have comms but if we take every midrounding decision from optic/m3c redgar is clear of fns lol, m3c midrounding shits on every other team
How can you possibly say optic is structured? They are anything but structured, they literally just take fights, common knowledge for any high tier analysts, have you even watched their vods? do you understand what you are watching? I would suggest casual fans like you with gold level understanding of the game to not comment on these things, it makes you look stupid, also technically structured =/= playing good valorant, you can be structured and just rely on duels to win rounds like optic

#77

zardinez

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This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, thank you. I am in fact a M3C fan but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate when other teams (like optic) play well. If you think optic’s just pugging it out idk what to tell you.

#25

Vertic

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well to be fair FNS just won masters so and his mid round calls really changed the game. The games vs loud in the grand finals in all the maps he was only negative by 11 kills for all the maps which is not terrible at that level of play. Also recently Redgar has been taking some surprising losses to fnatic and G2 and they are down one map rn. Do I think FNS is number one prolly not but hes def high up on this list

#32

zardinez

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Just curious who WOULD you say is #1 then

#64

idkbro

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its clearly redgar lol, there should really be no discussion, he beats fns in everything:

m3c midrounding better than optic
better playstyle, they dont just rely on winning their duels
10 times more firepower than FNS
more achievements: EMEA champion, Masters 3 Champion beating FNS team 3-0 and WORLDS finalist

#63

idkbro

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this doesnt make any sense, you clearly dont watch emea vct or anything outside na, how can we say fns mid round calls changed the game? he was playing really poor teams this masters and his team playstyle relies on winning the individual duels there is no backup plan, losing to fnc is suprising? how? fnatic and gambit were the two best teams in emea groups, it was 50/50, they probably shouldnt have lost to g2 but how can you blame them? they had to play 4 out of 5 groups matches in 4 days while other teams studied them and to top that they played a really tiring series against fnatic where they gave everything they had and were 0.02 seconds of qualifying, g2 is still a top team in the world, if you give this much data to a team that of that caliber you are gonna be in a huge disadvantage + not really much time to prepare for any match for gambit

#78

zardinez

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WHAT IS THIS EMEA COPIUM HOW TF ARE YOU SO CONVINCED ABT THIS

#81

YouDii

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Tell me you dont watch na vct without telling me you dont watch na vct.

#34

AllMight

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W take but boaster is kinda good sometimes

#65

idkbro

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would be a good assistant coach or analyst tbh but still a gimmicks merchant, his teams are glorified drx, same thing with both, they start tournaments looking really good because no1 knows their gimmicks and then fall apart once every1 knows what they do, probably enzo gonna become igl in the future and get an upgrade from boaster, you got alfajer+derke duo and enzo/mistic who are very strong support players but then boaster as IGL KEKW

#17

trembolonaRage

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LOUD vs. OpTic (in both bo3s) was the most embarrasing thing ive seen in competitive gaming
saadhak got igl diff by fns so hard, it was hard to watch, even in the first bo3 they won

#21

zen-o

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Decent trembleAnna take

#24

sweetdreams11

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anna?

#23

DaDoar

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While its undeniable that saadhak was red pretty well by FNS, I dont think LOUD should beat themselves to hard, they were easy to read but they were a really new team that clearly had some lacks in the map pool that made them run very similar setups on CT all the time, especially Less, not to say they are bad players, but they clearly preffered to play rfamiliar setups rather than go for counters, making them really easy to read for an experienced IGL like FNS, but im sure that with time LOUD will have more strategic depth and Saadhak will be able to throw more curveballs and surprise even the best IGLs

#67

idkbro

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saadhak overrated igl tbh, good player but his igling looked pretty mid, loud play very simple valorant

#19

StormX

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fns kekw

#22

kapteN

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No ANGE1 lmao, immediately shit list.

Half of the strats and meta plays you know have been invented by ANGE1

#27

Shownu

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Shahzam not number 1? I'm downvoting this list.

#29

SaltyMcNulty

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Man sneaked in Sadhaak as if we wouldn't notice LMAO

#31

WinterZ

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ScreaM: Jamppi/ScreaM/soulcas go kill >>>>>>>>>> every other strat

#41

kapteN

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jamppi is igling liquid not scream

with your flair you should know this

#43

Omega_lul

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Scream IGL during Iceland
They are trying L1NK as IGL now i think

#45

WinterZ

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he is currently igling for Liquid they said it on the stream against BIG

#33

GiancioZ

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nukkye?

#38

zardinez

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Fantastic player, meh igl imo

#36

mikemike

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if you want learn about LOUD and Saadhak i recommended you watch this documentary, contain subtitles in english

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmGRPzNu7L8&list=UU7iwNp4GUynlGXvK-6KD0Rw

#37

zardinez

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I'll def check it out, thank you!

#39

Zorontom

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I would keep benkai in top 5. Its hard to keep a reign on demons like Forsaken and Jingg

#68

idkbro

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lol what

#40

BBL_Wtcn

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FNS not number 1 but understandable from a NA fan

#44

zardinez

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Bro then who is

#66

BBL_Wtcn

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Ange1,Redgar are better IGL’s then FNS just because they won a tournament recently doesn’t mean that FNS is the best this is such a recency bias

#74

Crackyoudown

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besides recent events he has always maintained the team within the top 3-5 in NA since the start of val. that kind of consistency must mean that he is doing something right. His shot calling has always been on point, his most recent result confirms he is one of the better IGLs in the world. You have a bias for EMEA IGLs, FNS is clearly doing something right because neither ENVY nor Optic ever fell off the way Gambit/M3C or FPX did in their respective stages

#79

ItsMeDio

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bias
u exactly know if shit didn't happen in Europe
FPX, Gambit, or Fnatic is the clear winner of master 1

#83

YouDii

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You're also basing ANGE1 off of recency bias as well, FPX looked way worse all through late mid to late 2021, and now they have come back to their masters 1 form, FNS being at the top is about longevity, and literally watching the games as well.

#86

BBL_Wtcn

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Ok on Ange1 you are right idk why I put him there but Redgar has allowed his team to achieve more overall

#42

Kiklop

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Wait for new acend

#47

MerkFreeks

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Ange1
Valyn
Stax/Zest
all def deserve honorable mentions if not in the top 5

#48

zardinez

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Yes I agree

#62

BBL_Wtcn

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Good list

#69

idkbro

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stax and zest LOL, gimmicks merchants dogshit IGLs, DRX are shit, they play set plays simulator

#49

chesimac

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W

#51

andrewdamf

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#1 - Redgar Good fragger when needed, mental built of steel and is one of the most wholesome and humble players in valorant, its not easy to make your team with such good players and be consistently good specially when everyone tries to copy/defeat your team in any way.

#2 - Ange1 Despite the situation in ukraine, this dude made FPX have an insane improvement in such low time to beating regional teams to beating gambit which was considered to be the best team in the world at the time, also is one of the most flexible IGL's the game has.

#3 - Saadhak Always has been one of the best IGL'S since VKS old days making them the best BR team and the first one to beat an international team, also coming close to beating EU teams, sadly he didnt have a good performance in masters 2022 but there is no doubt this guy is one of the best kay-os in the world and also has insane set-plays making many teams copy him. only because of him LOUD in just 3 months could become a finalist in masters.

#4 - Stax probably one of the most underrated IGL'S of valorant, easily the best mechanically with the best stats among any igl, sadly due to something i dont know, him and drx just cant go further in international events despite always being so close to winning against other teams from other regions.

#5 - Boaster isnt a really good mechanical player but his strats has to be the most elaborated and creative. Its basically impossible to predict what hes going to do with the team, also making fnatic one of the most consistent teams in the world since masters 1 is really not easy, in masters 2022 he really had a unlucky time, despite losing to teams that everyone thought they werent going to lose in 1000 years, in just short time he made fnatic one of the best AGAIN, by beating FPX. And the decisions he does by dropping/picking up players is one of the best, with alfajer in the team they are going to be easily a top 5 team.

#54

zardinez

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I feel like Stax is very good at drilling util combos but no one on DRX is good at midrounding (just look at what FNS did to em)

#52

akami

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accurate

#53

elayaCL

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So far in the short history of Valorant, in my list i have Redgar and FNS.
Saadhak up there too.

#55

Mca

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@zardinez If you want to know more about SaadHak you Can always watch the documentarys made by Loud:

There is two:
1° One
https://youtu.be/msKAiU_qE8Y

2° One
https://youtu.be/VmGRPzNu7L8

#70

insertyourname

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reccomend to add Benkai
He organises the chaos with crazy fraggers

#71

ninz

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ITT: people who sleep on Koldamenta.

#75

Sem1-

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Gla1ve
The rest is irrelevant

#76

zardinez

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Omg a cs dude you’re so quirky and different

#80

r0xi3

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Redgar
FNS
Boaster
Vanity
Ange1
Honarable mention: Stax

#85

zardinez

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I respect it

#82

Ploodle_Shankypoo

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BENKAI

#84

NoobFlick

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vanity ftw

#87

kiyeo

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ANGE1, koldamenta too

#88

deathlyclaws

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Benkai also

#89

Ullyr

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Benkai

#90

Xerol

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I mean, they def could beat any team, its just a matter of them getting lucky in their current form (lucky calls, lucky peeks, etc). Soon after this next masters, they could definitely have enough time to get back in decent form. They've just seemed a bit slow on taking up and getting used to the current metas, and finding the same tempo with one another to regain their coordination.