Roster would be with the idea that Demon1 is already on the team with tex, kingg and c0m.

good bar forgot about that, probably get some sort of veteran for a team that doesn't really have one. Would maybe say Gaabx or maybe Heat

Not gonna cover:
SEN (done)
G2 (done)
2G (gonna keep the same team)
MIBR, FUR, KRU and 100T (strong rumors that seem likely)

NA teams:

C9: v1C
Rossy 1 for 1 fills for Runi, has a deep enough agent pool that C9 can afford to add a second star next to Oxy. v1C 11th in VCL S2 in ADR and KPR (1st among controllers) and top 5 in Rating. Already filled with them and has flexibility, which means Moose Rossy and he can create great double controller or potential Kay/O comps for v1C

NRG: Mada
No brainer, by far the best player in VCL this year in any fragging stat and plays all 3 main duelists, something NRG lacked last year from their fraggers

EG: Icy
Hard to find a really star to replace Jawgemo but Icy fits best. Previously on the team and fills the style they like of a flexible duelist. Kidna hard to replace a top 3-5 Raze ITW but NA T2 does not have a guy better IMO

Lev: shrug emoji
What do you do with this team? Do they need a Raze player? Do they want Kingg to be a flex or a controller? Do they want someone to play viper or gekko? I have no clue. Best free agents by overall skill are probably the NRG boys, heat, xxif, brawk and M80 FA's, but I just don't know where you go

LOUD: Aspas and Prince/maybe Heat
Let the homecoming happen, where else are you gonna go Aspas? No but for real what does this team do? They have two controller mains and a guy that can hopefully IGL. No matter what they need a duelist and some flexibility, and Aspas needs a new home. Prince plays sentinel for them, probably the best available at this point. Could very much also see Heat

guy has never had a shower beer before

Nature is exactly .500 as a T1 IGL, that's the definition of a middle of the pack T1 IGL lmfao

Supamen sure he's nothing special but he holds his own, I'd rather have guys like Zander or Skuba but it doesn't mean he's not right on the cusp of T1/ T1.5 level.

Skuba's or V1c are good pivots if Zander isn't available as well

G2 is one of the most talented 1-5 teams in the world because Valyn is one of the best fragging IGLs in the game. They can afford to have a role-playing duelist if it allows for Trent and Leaf to play to their strengths. It's why NFL teams still pay the Jared Goff, Brock Purdy types. They've got the statistically best KJ Viper player and the best scan initiator in NA. Pair that with Valyn who's second in ACS and K/D on the team and a top 5 APR player in the region and you don't need to have the best player in the world on your duelist spot. He's young, willing to grind non-duelists and is, from reports, a good teammate. That's far more valuable than the 5th best fragging duelist in the region.

Fitinho and Hoody need to relearn the basics in T2, Redgar's gotta go. The other 2 are the only ones who look like they belong at this level of play, and I feel bad for Purp0 that this is the team he has to make his first T1 impression in

The only guy that actually isn't Tier 1 level on this team is Apoth. Jawgemo is a star and the other three are genuinely strong role players. The IGLing has turned a corner, Derrek has some faults but his performance ceiling is high, and Supamen is consistent if nothing else. Sure maybe I can see your argument to add some fragging with Thief or XXif, the experience of NeT or the upside of Add3r instead of him but why are we changing the other 3?

damn bro this one banged

go outside loser

They're not going to keep replacing players. Beyn Mak0 and Foxy9 are almost assuredly playing together next year. How much of the FNC core from the year before had been playing together long term? Derke and Boaster sure, Alfajer had only been there for one year and then Leo and Chronicle come in. The best way to make a team good is to keep the good players and replace the bad ones. That's how most of the top teams have built their rosters up. Using SEN, a roster that has had immense turnover over the last 3 years, as your example of stability is laughable. Even teams like PRX, who has been known for having the same core for ages, replaced Benkai when he was performing poorly. That's just how you build teams and it has proven to work. They aren't desperate, and they don't care what the average reddit or vlr user says about them. They know that this team will not win champs in 2024, and when they ultimately lose people are going to say this was a poor plan. It wasn't. This is the correct way to go about things.

Their main intention isn't to make the best possible team they can at the moment. The are trying to figure out what they can do to make the best possible team starting January 1st of 2025. We don't know what their best roles are yet. Look at the best players this year, how many of them started on the role they currently play?

Zekken was a sova player the first time he came to T1
Mak0 was a duelist when DRX picked him up
Texture played sentinel last year
N4rrate was a T2 duelist player before KC got him
Tenz, Johnqt, Bang, Chronicle, Leaf. I can go on and on.

If they didn't think Stax was a part of their future then they were right to get him off the team. Would you rather they wait until they're trying to be good to see which of Flashback or Foxy9 is better for sentinel. How do we know Foxy9 won't end up better as an initiator long term? They're experimenting, and if flashback can't find a spot on the team then he won't be on the team. I'd rather they give him and foxy the trial period than to wait until its too late.

Ya it's a rebuild. I wish people on this site watched actual sports. Maybe they'd have even a sliver of understanding of roster construction and contending windows. Their contending window was 2022-2023. The failed in it and they understood that they did. They didn't bring out this team in 2024 expecting to win. Is there really that much of a difference between missing but getting close and losing early against superior teams? You know what's actually important? This is the best their region has ever been and they're letting the best team the region has ever seen be good. Who's to say Gen.G and PRX will be good next year? Who's to say DRX can't be good. They've gotten two playoff series this year and have seen the following results:

An over 1 rating from both BeYN and Foxy9 in stage 1 playoffs. Rating isn't everything, but its the best general stat we have atm. They both look great.

Mak0 was amazing in kickoff and still very good in Stage 1. He is still a core part of their team

They figured out Stax isn't the IGL of the future. It's better to figure that out than to be in denial.

So they have a core of three really good players and none of them play the easiest position to find, Duelist. Buzz is probably not going to be on the team next year, but if BeyN can IGL and they find the duelist of the future then the team will be fantastic in 2024. That's how you rebuild.

Rb is the exact opposite player you want in a rebuild, not sure why this site glazes him. The team he fits best on is T1 or RRQ if he's ok comming in English, but the whole point of moving away from these older players is to raise your ceiling. We have 8 LANs of info to have seen Rb is a playoff underperformer and you don't want that on a young team.

I beg people take one second to look at how RB performs in the playoffs at LANs before mass downvoting. There's a reason everyone's favorite mediocre flex player got dropped

Best way to fix a team that can't do well at LAN is by adding the worst playoff LAN performer the last 2 years! Great idea

Gotcha, not the most aware of some of those politics

Does anyone think ANGE1 makes it past 2024? I feel like this year is starting to become chalked and we may see a rebuild focused on Shao and Suygetsu. Maybe we see this team go towards a Russian speaking core, with Zeddy as the IGL and hoping to be able to poach any of Chronicle, Cloud, Trexx, Derke, or filling that last spot with someone like B1SK or D3ffo or Sayonara(from Moldova, I believe the speak Russian?)

Wow who would've thought that even without RB they'd still be good in APAC regular season. Problem with DRX has never been regular season, it's been LAN playoffs. Obviously we haven't seen Beyn yet but at least they made a change after RB has been the worst playoff LAN performer since the games inception.

What positives have you seen from mwzera since he returned to the duelist role? His raze used to be seen as one of the best in the world and it is legit unplayable these days, and we all know he isn't really built to be a Jett player. Team is awful of course so it's hard for any player to stand out but since kickoff ended he's just been a negative. He had those 4 popoff maps that he's riding a high on at the start of the year but since then it's been despicably bad

TLDR:

Duelist: Havoc/Dgzin/Sato
Flex (Gekko, Kayo, Breach, second duelist or senti): Askia
Info Initiator: NZR
Smokes: Pancada
Senti/IGL: Zap

It's already chalked, gotta look ahead. Only piece worth keeping is NZR but they are in desperate need of a non-recycled IGL and star power. Kon4n is legit awful, Mwzera is the worst duelist in Americas, Havoc doesn't know how to play any role he's on, and Khalil is just washed. Here's what I'd do:

Keep NZR as your main initiator
Get 2G's Zap as your IGL (has won 13 of his last 17 games IGLing in T2)
Get Pancada
Give Havoc a chance to compete for the duelist spot with dgzin or one of those tier 2 monsters, Sato being the most notable
Askia to add flexibility alongside the fragging

Not recycling the same washed T1.5 players, we get up and comers as well as adding the only 2 main BR scene guys that are good and available.

Sheydos gotta move up a tier

you'd think LOUD of all teams would be the exception. QCK predates Less and Pancada in the comp scene, he went to a LAN in 2021. He's never been good since then and suddenly, when competition is better 1-10 than it has ever been, you think he's going to turn it around?

Worst built roster in the offseason doesn't perform well in the regular season once again, who would've thought!!

he had played 5 total matches, never even at a high T2 level, on sentinels before this year. He, alongside Supamen and sort of Jawg, are primary smokes players. His fit is rough

can't lie I feel bad for Melser but the writing on the wall is that MTA will eventually replace him. He's not igling anymore and isn't that great of a fragger, and the team obviously knows their ceiling is higher with the more cracked, younger player.

Ya pretty much if you're talking about who is THE BEST.

Who was the best NBA team last year, the Bucks who were the number 1 regular season team or the Nuggets who were the number 4 regular season team but dominated to win the championship?

biggest snooze fest in all of Americas

Team A:

1st place, 7th place, 9th place

Team B:

didn't qualify, 1st place, 2nd place

Team C:

didn't qualify, 5th place, 1st place

Blind resume wise what is the strongest? I personally value getting 2nd and not qualifying over getting 7th and 9th but qualifying to both

Apoth just doesn't fit, they already have 2 capable (and better) smokes players. Sign some star unknown stud, move Jawg to a new role like last year, and Derrek, Nature and Supa isn't far off on paper from Boostio Ethan and c0m (going into the year obviously not now). I wouldn't put it past Potter

would that not be literally perfect? Cryo Victor Crashies Bang Boostio is undeniably a stronger roster and 100T can buy a duo like that. Not saying there's a high chance but if there's a 1 in 3 chance they can do that the team would look very solid.

Raze is just way too important of a character to have him not perform on it AND have trouble with flexibility. What character do you trust him on these days? Kay/o maybe? Everyone else on 100T has an agent better than him. People will say Nismo doesn't have the best agent pool, but he's better on raze and is more flexible. They should've gotten him, but I still like the idea of at least giving a chance to Mada,Corey or Sym for the rest of the year if its still this bad midway through. Either way top of their list next offseason has to be a Nismo, Victor and Jawg to pair with Cryo.

Sen's pool is already so good, but the obvious two bad ones are Breeze and Ascent. Breeze may just be a perma ban from here on out, but Ascent is definitely fixable. I think adapting the PRX Ascent comp could actually be a sneaky way of turning a weakness into a strength because of how good SEN players are on specific agents.

The PRX comp went 3-2 with Monyet and features: Raze, Fade, Gekko, Omen and Viper

Here's why it can be so good.

TenZ can stay on Omen, his current best agent.
Zekken goes from Jett to Raze, an agent he is likely the best in the world at and is far more comfortable
SEN can put either John or Zellsis on Viper, their best agents and, in general, SEN is probably the best team ITW at utilizing viper (similar to FNC of last year)
The last spot can go a few ways
Sacy can play Fade or Gekko; IMO his fade is his best agent, so putting him on it makes the most sense to me
The biggest question mark with this idea is who plays Gekko, as both John and Zellsis aren't Gekko players. If they can, however, learn it in their next few weeks of practice, it could be a valuable agent for Zellsis to add to his kit.

The final comp is:
Zekken Raze
Zellsis Gekko
Sacy Fade
Tenz Omen
John Viper

If they play in a more up-tempo pace on this map, they could dominate with their already strong retake ability

bro said gmd

We're really gonna act like Enzo didn't go 24-2 in T2 last year? Act like Mistic didn't average over a 1.2 rating over the whole year? What more do they need to prove in T2 to deserve another T1 shot? They literally were the most successful players that weren't on the team that got ascended. It is very rare that a team can just pickup 4 young players and an unproven IGL and it works. For every Kcorp there's a TS, a KRU, an MIBR. You can't expect a team to be good because other teams were outliers. They didn't have the chance to pickup Leo and Chronicle, but they pretty much did as well as they could given their situation, minus the Sayf decision.

Keiko was the best duelist they could've gotten
Jamppi and Nats were by far their best two players last year that weren't Sayf(again that was botched)
Enzo was the best IGL in T2
Mistic was the highest rated controller player in all of EMEA, and historically how many controller players are better than Mistic?

No one expects them to win a LAN with this team, and its unrealistic to expect that. But if 3/5 of these guys look like true building blocks, why can't they be a true competitor as soon as early 2025? Let's say Keiko, Enzo and Nats are all still great players and they have to replace Jamppi and Mistic. If any of the NAVI or FNC boys becomes a free agent they would be the top destination, same with someone like Trexx, Cloud, N4rrate, Kicks, Riens etc. Add one of those guys, a young T2 player and is that any different than how FNC did it? Not really.

The way to build rosters, in any sport, is to start with a strong supporting staff and find individual players that work. They've finally STARTED that side of it. They've been stuck on a poor roster construction since 2022 Champs when L1nk got dropped. Even if you don't love eMil, they've gotten a full staff and have gotten rid of most of the old guard. From there, you go the full season and see what works. Keiko already looks like a smash pickup, I still have confidence in nats and enzo. If they don't win this year, they can drop 1-2 dead weight pieces and dip their finger into either T2, or get a splash pickup on the lines of a dropped NAVI or FNC player. IDK why you're complaining now when this is the first time in over a year that it seems like they have the right plan.

Well I guess Will is playing lol, IG replace him in here with Subroza lol

FNS
s0m
jakee(not fully sure what's going on with this but sounds like Runi and Moose are replacing he and Wippie)
NeT (speculation)
Shahzam
Wippie
Babybay
bjor my king

Retired from T1 last year:
Dephh
Ayrin

Notable names from 2022:
Will
Dicey
Tigg
Dazzle
Hazed

What's the best team you can make out of these names, and why are so many not playing? Most of these are pretty self explanatory (dropped or personal choices) but I don't understand what's going on with Shahzam. He's obviously a top 18 IGL in NA, surprised he didn't find anywhere to play and stuck with G2 instead.

tuyz is better ATP

Something should be raze for sure, but realistically if he isn't comfortable on it they should just drop Monyet and grab a T2 raze with flexibility to play a different agent on Breeze, Ascent and Icebox, preferably Kay/O or Sova. I would look into Indo or Phillipines T2 for that. Famouz is the obvious choice in my mind, has been a top T2 duelist for nearly 2 years and has had action on Kay/o and Sova. In the Philippines, Patmen is fragging on both Raze and Kay/o for one of the best teams in the league, while KellyS is another veteran who is maybe the best raze flex in APAC T2 atm (1.28 rating, 184 ADR). All 3 of these guys allow you to actually play Kay/o or Sova (the 2 worst agents in the PRX agent pool) and giving something the ability to really only have to worry about Jett.

Nukkye would thrive on a Yoru team. Can play the sentinel role to a pretty good degree but on maps like Bind and Split you can run double duelist and have him fry on Raze. Depending on how you work your map picks and map pool he could be playing raze 50% of the time. He can still play KJ and likely Sova at a high level, just have to find a way to integrate that into a team(like I said, Yoru player as well as a controller/viper that can play Cypher). I actually think he would be really good on KOI instead of Shadow, help ease Kamo into his role as a star duelist, play Sova when needed and work with Grubinho and Sheydos on maps that need a cypher player.

With the news of c0m likely heading to LEV, EG likely is down to just Jawgemo from the champs roster. Jaw definitely has a chance to get picked up elsewhere now IMO, but it's hard to tell where. Either way, there is some direction this team can go to not be a total failure in NA! And still possibly be better than MIBR and compete with teams like Furia, KRU and C9.

IGL Potential:
Screwface: Highest likelihood, still rostered by the team and was their backup IGL for ages. Most likely case and would probably flex with initators and sentinels(look at his recent matches)
Upsides: Knows the team, familiar with the system and pretty cracked aimer
Downsides: No T1 experience

Runi:
Upsides: 10-5 record as IGL for C9 in T1 last year, has a wide array of champs he can play
Downsides: Seen as less of a leader and midrounder than your average IGL

Stellar:
Got off a stint with 100T that went so, so. Has been in T1 for a while and is mechanically really solid.

Poised and Shahzam:
Similar upsides, veterans in the community with Shaz having hit super high heights. Both fairly good agent pools(Shaz is a lot worse IMO) and can lead a team
Downsides: Likely capped ceilings, both have taken a step back mechanically

Duelist Potential:
Jawgemo: Best case scenario is he stays and they move him to full time duelist, it suits him better anyway.

Sym:
Upsides: super high potential, mega cracked duelist with a pretty big agent pool
Downsides: Extremely inconsistent with less experience, often looked like a weak link on MXS

Penny:
Super good on V1 a while ago and was always a really smart player
Hasn't played duelist in over a year, however

Corey/Babybay:
Similar players, just one excells more as Jett while the other as Raze. We mostly know what they are, High Tier 2 duelists with long term skill but never major success

Initiator Options:
Derrek:
Still a great sova and breach, has been a T1 player for 2+ years now
Really struggled on skye and with flexibility

Nature:
Super super good on TSM but plays more of a flex role, less experience on Skye

Tigg: Pretty average player but has T1 experience and extremely flexible

Controller:
Jawgemo: Could switch to it full time

Wedid: Great with TTR and a guy whose deserved an org for a while

gMd: has been an average player for a while with a ton of experience and has secondary IGLing capabilities

Sentinel:
Aproto: Amazing player for MXS and likely deserved T1 play anyway, smash pickup

Moose: Very similar to Aproto, picking up both and putting one on smokes is also a good option

Flex:

Kanpeki: Really the only NA FA that works in this role and I rate him really highly. Genuinly fantastic on flash iniators.

My preferred lineup:

Jawgemo: Duelist
Kanpeki: Flex
Derrek: Initiator
Aproto: Smokes
Stellar: Sent IGL

Aproto can definitely move to smokes comfortably and that team is still very solid and isn't that much different than what C9 put together. I think it's not great, but its something and these guys get another year to prove that they are T1 level for 2025.

Again my whole points were about the teams ceilings. I don't think 100T is going to win a championship, but whose ceiling is higher? The one whos igl just won a LAN and has Cryo, Asuna type players or a team like T1 starting Rossy and iZu? And the NZR disrespect is crazy, if you change NZR's name to cloud you'd be calling it one of the best teams in the world, and he and NZR are the same type of player. Super good initator for a long time that hasn't played anywhere that is elite. There's no denying that LEV's ceiling is higher than that of any non-PRX apac team, and I still think their realistic floor (25% of strength on the bell curve) is higher than most teams as well. The whole point is comparing the strength between the two regions and my whole point is that NA has soooo many more teams with championship potential and looking at any APAC team outside of PRX and saying they would be betting favorites to win the Americas league would be disingenuous.

I still think you have to look at the ceiling of each region and see that LEV has the closest team we have to a super team that isn't FNC rn. We can run in circles about how teams will place next year, but NA has a really high ceiling with 4 teams. LEV looks like a super team, the CEILING(very important word here) of SEN and NRG's rumored roster is insanely high. Loud still has a top 3 IGL ITW, no matter the roster Saadhak is taking them to LANs. Then you add on G2 being the best ascended team and 100T adding their first good IGL since they were a top 8 team ITW and we have really high ceilings. I see UP TO(UP TO) 6/11 teams that have super high ceilings with championship level players. I see MAYBE 2 of those in APAC. I do think some teams in Americas will struggle, EG will obviously tank, Loud probably isn't as good, MIBR KRU are both bad and C9 and Furia probably aren't championship teams, but are they any different than T1? The consensus 3rd best team in APAC? If I had to place 8 bets right now on what 8 teams from these 2 regions I think would win Champions, 6 of my 8 would be from Americas. I'm betting on Aspas, Saadhak, Sen's ceiling, the ENRG mix, G2's cohesion and Boostio over T1 or Bleed type teams. I don't think that is a crazy statement either. IMO America has the most depth of contending and ceilings, and obviously some will crash or burn, but wouldn't you rather have the team with the ceiling to be elite? 6 of these teams will have LAN winners on them, with proven ceilings, 0 APAC teams have LAN winners.

As much as this is a shit post you're not exactly...wrong I guess? Let's look at the facts of these teams

Worst Lan performance of any region: Their best team was never as good as EG or FNC, and DRX had a pretty meh year. Loud was better, EDG was better and at individual times they were behind NRG and TL. The third best team in T1 never made it past groups, and their LCQ team was a disaster. It's pretty obvious they were a step behind in 2023. Now in 2024.

PRX: just lost their best player, still will be very good but Jingg had absurd impact that will be very obvious when we watch them starting out
DRX: Are entering a (much needed) rebuild, will likely be a touch weaker this year
T1, GE, TLN, BLD are all grabbing imports instead of T2 talent
Zeta GenG RRQ all made upgrades, but they still lack star players that many NA or EMEA teams have
And TS and DFM are set to be mediocre again

There's so little excitement in this region outside of maybe Zeta and Bleed. Most teams imported from elsewhere, and the best teams look objectively weaker in the short term.
The best rated T2 players like YESicaN, Juicy, exy, Kr1stal, Kadoom, Famouz and stew were not allowed to play/not signed for one reason or the other. Instead their teams went for T2 NA and EU players. Seems like a bit of a waste year in the region when teams like FNC, EDG, NRG, SEN, LEV and Navi all look like they're getting stronger and stronger.

Lennytime

Rb still being the most overrated player in the world when he's been mediocre in internationals for 3 years is baffling. I know rating isn't everything, but in playoffs of his last lan's:

2023 Champs: Bottom 5, .77 rating. No player on a top 6 team was lower
2023 Tokyo: Not as bad, but still a rating under 1(.97) but wasn't the problem for DRX in their worst performance of the last two years
Top 8 games in Lock In: .94 rating, 2nd worst non IGL in the top 4
2022 Champs: DRX came TOP 3 and his rating was .87, only top 6 team players rated lower was Ange1 and Zekken
2022 Copenhagen: Bottom 5 with a .82 rating, his company was dephh ayrin seider and russ, only one of those guys is in T1 next year(and Russ sucks)
2022 Iceland: 2ND WORST RATING, .76 rating. No one else on DRX was under 1

His best rating in a playoff setting was .97, that has been his peak when playing against high levels of competition. He averaged a .86 rating in these 6 tournaments. We all know he's in the top half of talent in APAC and that he can beat the talons and gengs of the world, but the reason DRX doesn't get over the hump is because after Mak0 and Buzz they don't have a single individual that is a game changer. He was doing more harm than good in these tournaments.

He is one of the best 30 players in NA and would have a spot on one of the six teams if he didn't go to SEN for stability reasons. I don't think he's one for one better than Pancada but he had a better 2023 and he's pretty clearly one of the better players at KJ Kayo and Breach in all of NA.

Duelist: Babybay
Flex IGL: Shahzam
Initiator: Derrek
Smokes: Supamen
Sentinel: Aproto

This team ain't winning ascension but would be crazy entertaining, basically the most accomplished/experienced players at every role.
I know Shaz isn't really a flex(he should switch roles in the future IMO) but needed both he and Derrek in the team. If you wanted it to be better you could do Poised/Ayrin/Stellar at sentinel and any of Corey/Penny/Tigg (fuck it bring Sick back) at the flex instead.