I heard somewhere that the way they selected all the EDG players was by trialing a bunch of players and only selected ones that absolutely dominated and carried their lobbies individually

It's a matter of how much confidence you have in your own play.

If you respected KRU's best maps then you'd have to prioritize playing their bad maps vs playing your good maps.

For teams that are contenders to win Madrid, they have to have a certain amount of ego in their map selection otherwise you might be inhibiting yourself

KKKKKK Brasil #1

LOUD and EDG are definitely the dark horses of this tournament right now.

I have way more faith in LOUD tho in Saadhak we trust

Derke would've set records in the First death category

you see, what SaltyMcNutty demonstrated here was the expert use of sarcasm to poke fun at old allegations that TenZ was a jett one-trick, the punchline being his very obviously great and recent performance on Sentinels without the use of Jett

I hope this explains it

FNS doesnt even know who wo0t is, he said that about zellsis.

it's unknown whether or not wo0t meshes with heretics or if those off season tournaments were the result of not enough practice together

WHERE ARE ALL MY DOUBTERS AT

mfers thought ethan was playing yoru optimally

you play a duelist like a duelist not an initiator

@Redwiz

Smarter is the man who avoids danger than he who knows how to get out of it.

Saadhak, however, can do both.

Life is the most inconsistent player in all of CN; there's a reason EDG replaced him with Smoggy. You're literally rating him off of one performance, in the same way you're criticizing others for doing with KangKang

Kangkang is the best duelist in CN right now undisputably and has proven it throughout all 3 int. lans he's participated in, both via his consistency and actual results (Aaaay and Life have never beaten another team outside of China, much less anything close to NAVI or LOUD's level. As for Nobody, he regularly throws games sometimes he's the most inconsistent player on the team).

One map and the shitty takes are already in lol

Delusional ass calling the best IGL in the world unfit to igl

It's better to make a bad play with confidence and make yourself as hard as possible to punish, than to make a good play nervously

They still play the same way, but they're so used to playing this way that it's difficult for international teams to counter them. They've done the same plays thousands of times already and they never thought to change their strat instead of perfecting the bad plays

That's the result of being isolated, and cut-off from the rest of the scene, for so long.

It's like, yes from a macro perspective the plays are bad, and there is a theoretical way to punish it, but when it comes to using those theoretical punishes, the international teams don't have as much experience punishing them as FPX have experience perfecting the micro of those plays--because no scrim partner in any other region ever does those plays lol

FPX :handshake: FPX

I remember when he was dumpstering EDG singlehandedly

They run a standard pacific comp for the first time and they start owning

I think it'll be more effective against PRX and EDG on bind; it's really good at countering aggressive and proactive play from the CT side. It basically shut down LEV on their defense half

Aspas, t3xture, Smoggy, Zekken, Marteen, Derke, Oxy

EDG and Gen.G so i can prove apac supremacy to someonee

Steel is a good IGL with anger issues but vanity is really bad I'm sorry

2 imports

Heartbreaking: the worst baiter you know supports the same team as you

El diablo is dead there's a new king of hell

his viper is really good

w

half right, it was a genuinely good strategy in early 2023 but it's unreliable now after stinger nerfs

There was something magical about Tokyo

es bait xd

Shin has a 90% Clutch percentage over 300+ confirmed rounds this season

His FK/FD is in the triple digits

He is the best player to ever touch the game

Kcorp will easily roll through madrid

Ive heard a lot about G2 but JonahP's viper being good was not one of them

no lol

bro by that logic tarik should be the best valorant player itw rn

1. t3xture
2. Zmjjkk
3. marteen
4. Karon
5. Chichoo
6. Autumn

I guess that's fair

Brazil has only exported two players out of its region ever in its valorant history

I prioritize the amount of regions they've been been in, and Australians have been in APAC, China, NA, and technically EMEA if you count elmapuddy

Not really part of a diaspora if you're playing close to home

1. Russians

They show up everywhere; whether it be EMEA, NA, SEA, Japan, or China, if you see a random russian player(s) on a team, there's an 80-90% chance they're deadlifting their teammates

2. Koreans

A mainstay; 3 Korean teams isn't enough for the overwhelming amount of talent in this sub-region. From Xeta putting up numbers on Cloud9 in early 2022, stew becoming the crown jewel of Rare Atom and subsequently JDG, to Zest getting signed by Bleed, the Korean talent pool is deep.

3. Americans

A new addition; from N4rrate in EMEA with kcorp to Rossy performing incredibly on T1, Governor going 25/6 in his debut match with talon, NA t2 is proving to have been much more competitive than it seemed last year

4. Australians

A people without a region to call their own, cursed by Leo Faria; forever doomed to wander from roster to roster, be it Indian, American, or Chinese.

5. Turks

Mainly imported from within EMEA, a lot of Turkish pickups become the mechanical superstars for their teams; the most obvious example being Alfajer, but also CNed in 2021, and hopefully wo0t once (or if) we see him play

HM: Brazil

LATAM is struggling and has to dig into the Brazilian talent pool from time to time to make up for our shallow talent pool. Brazilian talent rampant and very talented in LATAM. Plus Sacy and Pancada two members of the best NA team rn

If so there's a chance they put Leaf on Sentinel and clear on duelist

Gaia vandal
Recon phantom
Ion op

I experiment too much in ranked; I try out stupid shit on the off chance that its repeatable and the moment that someone counters me I keep doing the same thing over and over again seeing if there's some way to account for it and make it work still

I've gotten some cool lineups out of it tho

Gridshot is done standing still, in valorant you're gonna have to be constantly moving and able to stop and shoot at a small target in quick succession

Improving your aim definitely helps, but I also recommend doing a bunch of deathmatches until you internalize where head level is for most angles that you'll peek, that way you only have to move your mouse horizontally when you want to kill someone and not have to memorize a bunch of ways to flick someone vertically at an angle.

my #1 tip is to improve your horizontal tracking with a very small target (I suggest learning to move your mouse with your arm a bit more; the best way to do this I've found is to do a bunch of gridshot with just your arm making sure your wrist is stiff, and make sure that you only move in straight lines and don't wiggle around too much)

make sure your aim is as least shaky as possible, be able to move front left to right in a horizontal 180 degree line as best as possible and once you get it practice following faster and faster targets. From there your crosshair placement and horizontal flicks are theoretically all you should need to get good. You'll need to learn to strafe and combine your aim with movement in the actual game as well, although some tracking scenarios allow you to move so I recommend finding one like that.

optionally you can try adding verticality to your skillset for situations like jett updrafts or simply getting caught off guard by someone on an off-angle on top of a box or something, but that bears less fruit imo

P.S. Don't expect to see results after just one session, give it like a week and you'll notice visible improvement

k1ng the epitome of amazing player who's horrible at working with others

Sayf has issues with teammates who don't share his particular vision for the game, but when he gets teammates that share that vision that's no issue

Yay has issues with undisciplined teammates

Marved can play on any team and perform well, he just goes for his own plays on top of his team's plans for the round without anyone asking him or telling him to do them. He has a good understanding of timings and exploiting weak spots in a team's defense

Zellsis is good on any team he plays with

Steel ironically enough has similar issues with teammates as yay

Chronicle is a perfect teammate

they talk to each other using their IGNs which i think is interesting

@FrenchToast

im telling you man those Titan Esports Club flairs are vicious

I feel like there's less storylines at the start of the year; that's how I felt about lock-in

all the forum really has going for it rn is SEN fans and NRG fans acting like english football fans in every thread

I sense a lot of hostility in this thread...

DDK's minigod and Derrek interviews were interesting,

Sean interviews a lot of interesting people in esports aside from just players so they're really insightful

I guess that's true for players like Flyuh, Rossy, and aproto, but thi3f, sym, brawk, and governor were all up-and-comers.

ngl tho I kind of agree that winthrop won't be good but its not bc of the players I just think it's going to be hard for them to get enough practice in compared to other teams while also having to juggle their classes--since they're like actually attending college while playing lol