as I said, im not saying BeYn is bad, far from it, he is a good player that deserves to play at tier 1 but when I look at the scan initiator role, the more I see it becoming more and more of a star rifler role rather than a secondary fragger one, it is a role very similar to the Closer in CS and we've seen a lot of teams thrive and make deep runs off of having an extraordinarily mechanically gifted closer of rounds, think of Leo in 2023/204, Trent, Riens, Trexx (no deep runs yet but you can clearly see how skilled he is), Sacy, Lakia, with EDG being the only big exception of last year (but they did win it all only at one event, the most important one but still)
BeYn is good but he doesnt have that much firepower in him as these superstar players that fill this position these days and even among younger prospects in the scan role you see teams looking for very mechanical scan/breach players (Verno, GSR, DaviH, Minny, Avez, Killua) rather than more gamesense oriented players, I think that BeYn could find a lot of success by kicking Flashback out of the sentinel role if Flashback keeps on being inconsistent though and i honestly would love to see him back on those roles because as you said, when he was filling in for Flashback he was looking very good

Free1ng looks amazing and hyunmin is definetely good from what we saw regionally but

• Hyunmin got to improve his play on LAN, I dont care that he was on Yoru almost all tournament, he was straight up losing duels youd expect him to win if it was PAcific kickoff
• Flashback needs to be more consistent from map to map (he struggled with this already last year, he needs to get it togheter cause sometimes he looks godly and sometimes he looks completely paniced)
• BeYn gotta step up overall, his play is definetely the most average out of the whole team and with so many good initiator players in Korea I honestly wouldnt be against trialing Ivy if he underperforms during stage 1

I think first 2 points can be pegged as development problems that will be dealt with experience (especially for Hyunmin) but for Beyn I am worried, cause while definetely a good tier 1 player, he hasnt shown those flashes of greatness you need to actually get on top of teams like EDG, G2 or even T1 and as I said before the competition in Korea for that Sova spot is fierce

N4rrate looked even more tilted on abyss but still pulled up 30+, i think the main problem rn is that Zellsis is doing nothing when the play is up to him, John is relying too much on Zekken to open up rounds and they get confused during retakes,i honestly think they need a stronger aimer on that flex sentinel role cause the team seems to default on relying on zekken too much and no wonder he gets overwhelmed and starts going flat

id say only EDG and FPX have great aimers (Dragon Ranger has some gifted players too but thats beside the point), domestically Trace is more of a structured team that executes a lot (thats why Kai looks so good on home soil) but i think that at an international level their strats are just easier to read and teams are already used to this kind of T side (think of APAC having to deal with PRX or RRQ which are very execute heavy teams with strong aimers).
I think trace just got outstratted and while i think they have some interesting players (Heybay, Kei, FengF) they need to evolve and start playing better comps and layer their game into a real team before they can start doing well at big events consistently

For VIT vs DRX depends a lot on Map selection imo, both of these teams dont want to play Pearl.
If we see something like Fracture - Split - Lotus i favor DRX cause their style of comps and utility use really lends itself to these maps but if we see something like Lotus - Abyss - Split then i favor Vitality cause Abyss really plays into their mechanics and their Split is solid.

EDG vs G2 i got G2, they really impressed me today and i think EDG depends a lot on Chichoo or kangkang popping off, if G2 plays their yoru comps and gets a decent map draft i see them shutting down atleast one of the two key players for EDG down and get a good win, but if EDG is prepared for the Jawgemo Yoru it might interesting (im going off the fact they kinda got fcked by Kamo on yoru on split and Jawg is way better than Kamo overall)

By defintion of impact thats gotta be Kangkang, his entries are great but Chichoo mechanics are just so clean, amazing aimer with great brain, if he can keep up this level they might win bangkok too (although i favor G2 for now)

Chichoo is so broken i swear EDG loses map 1 hard if he didnt play that well, i honestly think he might be the best player on EDG

true, i also hope my italian boys CaYden and Tag can show off in the League cause they are amazing support players

DaviH and Serial are gonna get poached so quickly its not even funny (Fnatic sign DaviH instead of that fraud crashies i beg you)

They were behind in the meta reads, look at how little Tejo and Vyse they played, Benjy was in horrific form mechanically, woot and boo traded roles and need to get comfortable with timings, I think with one month in the oven they should go back to being on top cause we know the mechanical skill form everyone is there, but honestly its fair their in a bit of a sophomore slump rn, happens to a lot of strong rookie players, hopefully the coiach gets their confidence up

WHAT, ok my bad then get unc out (i was conviced he was young cause he looks like an highschooler and only played in tier 2)

yea was talking about k1ng, forgot how his name was spelled and confused it with the leviatan IGL mb.
While i also like how Sin Prisa stayed togheter, i think Persia should eventually leave unless Nongshim promises to upgrade the roster because aside from him and Ivy i dont see them having the quality to get to big events considering Riot gives so few spots to teams for internationals (Francis might surprise me and keep developing but i dont like his eyetest), if Nongshim decides to invest heavily in the team and gives them new pieces id love to see him stay put tho

I missed his retirement! Damn i really liked him, well if hes out i think investing in young talents like yoman should be the priority, maybe get a very young sentinel player, put him in a sub position like Drx did with flashback, make him play scrims and wait until foxy9 fucks up again to give the youngster a chance, Wolverine from Sherpa would be my choice

atleast with yoman you can say hes young and this is is first serious torunament, for a first timer i think he performed fine, but Foxy9 has been around the tier 1 scene for almost 2 years now, he has no excuses imo

No idea why Gen.G allowed him to be poached, definetely best lurker in Korea, Munchkin and Karon should really pressure the organization to get KinGg )or persia if hes willing to switch roles, he has sduper strong mechanics) in cause foxy9 has been by far the weakest player on roster

Great job at gathering stats, I wish stats showed how good imo players like Tag, Waddle, Neptuno and Lele are playing in the spots they are playing for their teams but thats the destiny for more anchro oriented players

hes just a twitch streamer dude, if he was serious about competing hed be grinding tier 3 but he isnt, controller is becoming more and more of a star rifler rifler role with players like Keiko, Profek, Gobera, Melser, s0m, Persia and MaKo rtunning around on Omen and Brim, you gotta have a very strong aimer on controller to perform these days

PRX bigger disappointment, this tournament is showing that their playstyle is outdated and cant work anymore now that players are getting better at tyhe game and switching star roles away from Duelists to Sentinel/controller players.
FNC was disappointing but they had to play with super ultra washed up Crashies, honest to god 4v5 games.
NRG disappointed but had the decency to lose to some good teams and sent home 100 thieves, they will be fine in the long run i think.
Wolves hype train was real but honestly they were just overrated in offseason, i think they performed well enough for the roster is, China talent is super top heavy stacked in EDG and Trace so its really hard to get actual good players until the scene expands in tier 2

hes been on Furia for 4 years man.... He just plays decently sometimes and avoids kicks but has never shown actual Tier 1 level yet hes been getting paid for 4 years

if you paid attention to his CS career this was the inevitable endpoint, in CS he was a decent rifler that trasitioned to AWP and back to rifle, was extremely mid if not bad by tier 1 standards, he switched to Valorant and made the best of the headstart him and all the other Envy guys had over the other players and when people caught up skill wise he disappeared, relegated to the the potential he always had in his previous game,, just like all ther frauds from envy (Victor especially, Crashies too, FNS managed to stay relevant cause hes a smart IGL)

any team that plays with a franchise spot and financed Riots horrible format, only teams i support are the ones that grinded and made it from tier 2 into tier 1 like a real org is supposed to do, nothing against the players tho, excpet for some protected ass paycheck stealers (Hype, Sheydos, mitch, khalil, Crashies, the entirety of Zeta divison)

i think C9 is taking Pancada and moving Jake to sentinel, i just have this feeling

I think replacing neT is sadly the way to go, Sentinel is becoming qwuickly oen of the most stacked positions in pro play and hes been really underwhelming, Wippie opened up so hes an option but i think they should go for a young player with strong mechanics, id even import from brazil or EU honestly (obviously only if english is good), Swag from Legacy would be my pick if he knows english well, but i could see a player like Skuba working out if they rearrange roles (very good VIper player could free JonahP to play sentinels) or Verno if they prefer to keep the lineup american

agree on Nukkye, he's not a great lurker, he should utilize his great aim and play more trade-heavy roles, I think in general GIANTX has some potential, i think Fitinho isnt that bad and could be good, Cloud is amazing and we all know that, i think that out of all the team the one that id look to replace is Hoody, he feels like a very average player for the VCT and a strong Sentinel player could help them a lot by freeing up Nukkye to play Flash agents

Watching GiantX and especially Redgar in this Kickoff tournament for EMEA made me feel really sad, how can one of the strongest IGLs during year 2 of competitive look so ineffective and bring down a very decent to the point where the only fighting chance they get is when Cloud pops off?
This got me thinking and now i have a theory for why Redgar's system looked so good in Gambit/M3C and why it looks so bad for GiantX.
Redgar comes from CSGO and he IGL'd even there, when he came to Valorant he decided to transpose the traditional CSGO roles to Valorant and that worked out great, as we saw during 2022, mainly the distinguishing features of said system where
-Huge enphasis on creating space for a Lurker (nAts) on T side
-The duelist used as an info tool both on T and CT side (D3ffo)
-Executes built around getting info from D3ffo and feeding it to good trade killers (Sheydos, Chronicle)
this sytem mimics perfectly CS where the star player is not the entry fragger but either the lurker or the trade fragger.
While at first this system worked great, problems started to arise when people started figuring out just how strong Valorant's utility is compared to CSGO and thus more and more enphasis started to be placed in making entry fraggers shine the most out of everyone thanks to very coordinated utility (Skye flashes, Omen Paranoia, etc) and the strenght of anti-flank utility and good coaching made getting lurks off way harder (nAts while still a good player cant get away with the things he did 2 years ago).
Despite the meta evolving, Redgar, very clearly didn't as we can see by him trying to make Nukkye into a decisive lurking threat and sacrifing Fitinho very often to create space (just hink of the FUT game where Fitinho had 13 first deaths), i think this is the problem with Redgar's calling and i dont know if he will adapt or die.

Valorant exception cause of cartoon artstyle and no blood, yes im serious, its the same reason some University competitions allow valorant and not Counter Strike

thanks for response! Im always curious about upcoming talent ill check some of these players out

havoc clears both i fear

who would you get as the indian talent tho? Is the talent pool deep and strong enough for tier 1? DEATHMAKER looks promising and Lightningfast doesnt look that bad but idk if they are tier 1 material

just realized Lumo and Kr1stal aint the same guy lmao, they are doomed then

EMEA: Apeks
APAC: Probably SCARZ since they retained the russians
America: M80 if they dont sell zander

CaYdeN drops 30 on these washed Overwatch players

custom game on Sh1n's tracker (https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/KC%20sz1n%23SZN/customs-) actually show him on Controllers and MAGNUM on initiators, MAGNUM played under Enzo in the last year and now he's igling, i think he might have picked up the initiator IGL mindset from him, which id like to see.
Still roles look good to me, the 3 kids they got as a fragging core have insane aim, if they pop off this team is dangerous

They all have robot aim, as long as Engh does his job they should be able to transition into other roles without much issue since the most utility heavy roles (intiiator, controller) are already occupied by Sh1n and MAGNUM most likely, just need one of the duelist kids to learn flashes and the other to learn some lurk timings

Dsyre 13-0 i fear

My personal theory is that termi wants to turn Flashback into the next IGL for DRX and to do so he needs exposure to Tier 1 gameplay, regarding -RB + Foxy9 i think its just because of Foxy's allegedly superior mechanical abilities and ability to play Jett (allowing Buzz to focus on sentinel or flex initiator i f they prefer Flashback on sentinels)

Duelist: B1SK (i think this guy has insane mechanics, might be the enxt big russian player after something if he smooths out his decisionmaking)
Sentinel: Tag (very good gamesense, willing to sacrifice, has shown he can hang with the best of tier 2)
Controller: Cayden (most underrated controller in European tier 2)
Initiator (IGL): SEIDER (I think hes been doing very good work on FOKUS with his calling)
Flex: Musashi (the most flexible player in Europe)

off/season performances have been below expectations and they have no intention of making roster changes, i think its fair to say the team has reached its peak and will now be surpassed by the rest of the region unless they do something

APAC: PRX, T1
EMEA: FNC, FUT
China: EDG, BLG
America: LEV, FURIA (Bold prediciton but i think havoc might be insane)

I think FUT, Heretics and Vitality can be very entertaining, give them a chance pèlease! I have to admit EMEA doesnt have the best talent tho, i fear most of the very talented FPS kids in europe prefer Counter-Strike rather than Valorant

lets compare the workload of EDG, a very average CS top 30 team and an upcoming team in CS

EDG played 22 official matches since Champions in August, most of them being regional matches versus chinese teams

BIG Clan, a pretty average team that attends both Tier 1 and Tier 2 tournaments both online and LAN has played 33 official matches
https://www.hltv.org/results?startDate=2023-09-08&endDate=2023-12-08&team=7532

Preasy are an upcoming Danish team, currently ranked 34, to achieve such a ranking in the past 3 months they played 53 official matches (they play one more today)
https://www.hltv.org/results?startDate=2023-09-08&endDate=2023-12-08&team=12334

The levels of grinding official matches are completely different in these esports, not trying to downplay EDG, but 22 officials in 3 months is definetely doable, especially when you are salaried (and according to reports EDG salaries are p decent)

cNed doesnt look the same since 2021, but theres no way hes worse than qw1, yetujey is great and qraxs-mrfalin-atakaptan is probably the most mechanically gifted "support" core in europe, they will do great

Dsyre owns Mid80

ITALIAN VALORANT IS REAL LETS GOOOOOO

hope fusion wins, dont wanna see Pancc anywhere near tier 1

not surprised that one of the worst CS player to ever reach tier 1 somehow and that leeched off the valorant pro scene by getting in early enough ends up finally being exposed for what he is, hopefully all the other ex CS tier 2-3 leechers fianlly get all exposed like him

agree, hes just an awkward nerd as youd expect in DMs, the girl is 18 and while some may say he comes off as creepy, i just think he's not very adept at flirting and leave it at that

if gekko died as last player while wingman defusing, attackers still won the round, but gekko would get a ult point if wingman completed the defuse, this just takes away a confusing thing

1. Marteen 1.22
2. Cayden 1.20
3. Bipo 1.08
4. AFoxx 1.10
5. Feqew 1.21
6. Wackie 1.18
7. Denzo 1.11
8. Loom 1.08
9. Tag 1.07
10. Heartbeat 1.02 (best igl)

GE fix
disband pacific roster, relocate to EU
+JoYnT(coach)
+HeartBeat
+Bipo
+Cayden
+NAISS
+Braso
easy champions trust