All brain no aim is still viable for an igl.

NRG just also have Victor and Crashies.

All of the G2 players (-trent recently) make a strong case for being the most underrated player in their respective roles. All of them are really good, but they never make the top 5 lists of their roles.

It depends on if it works or not, for me. Seeing prx in games where they lose and it's not close is incredibly boring, but any win or close game they have is normally more entertaining for me.

I don't get it. What happened from 2022 when they were ahead of the curve on chamber, and somewhat neon? Did too much of the budget go to the chef tiktoks so they couldn't afford to turn on Chet's brain?

Tex is an American citizen but chooses to play under the German flag because his family is from there. Or at least that's what I understand.

I think if Reykjavik 2022 had a crowd, most people would rate it as top 3 event despite not having the full rosters of everyone.

The miracle zeta run. The start of the optic loud rivalry. Some of the chamber clips from Yay. It was incredibly enjoyable to watch, and was just let down by the fact that it was too soon for a crowd.

I think this was a large part, but people underestimate how much the omen meta killed sugarzer0s performance. I think he looked like one of, if not the best, smokes players in the world with his util and aim before the Astra nerf. His play style doesn't fit well with the omen aggressive play style.

My guess is that he really hasn't done anything in the past two years, despite having solid players on the roster and really good options to pickup.

Seems hell-bent on having an English speaking roster for not really any reason from what I can tell.

I think it's plausible. ENGH is the only one that I would rate as very unlikely.

Would be a nightmare if they ever qualified to a masters or champs though.

Fair enough

I don't know of a Russian igl better than him at the moment. Was trying to keep the language the same.

Who would you propose instead?

3 in one. Tried to make them all plausible given current trajectories of teams and rumours.

NRG
S0m
Ethan
Fns
Jawgemo
Verno/Derrek/crashies
Coach: Potter

Giantx
Sheydos
Redgar
Purp0
nAts
Cloud
Coach: ENGH possibly

T1
Stew
Stax
Yoman
iZu
Rb/Jinboong
Coach: Autumn

Playing viper =/= playing omen.

We've seen Duelists in the same position that can't play entry (best example being Tenz) slot into the smokes role well while still having the sentinel player play Viper.

I'm still of the opinion that he'd be a good smokes player. Focus on the rifle aim without being forced to be the entry. I really wish Bleed ran scary on viper and yay on omen after kickoff, think it would have been much better for them.

I think he definitely could go to a team like MIBR if they wanted to go to a mixed roster, but outside of that or being an import, I don't see much of a chance.

What if next year?

Giantx
nAts
Purp0
Cloud
Redgar
Sheydos

Could swap out redgar since it seems like it's not 2022 anymore.

I feel like

• saya (duelist)
• yoman (igl)
• stax (init)
• rb/ jinboong (senti)
• izu (smokes)

Could go kinda crazy if they could get all of them.

There are some CS fans that hate him for the iBuyPower drama that was around a decade ago almost. Man's had it rough.

Damn. Didn't see this.

Hope Derialy is able to come back.

He's one of the most underrated players in JP and has been around the scene for a long time. Hope he's able to bounce back.

Why?

This is the 2nd year in a row that they've looked like one of the best teams in Pacific ascension only to make a roster change for seemingly no reason, which they end up being worse after.

First Xdll last year, and now derialy this year. I don't get it.

I understand they may have felt pressure for the Xdll boosting issue last year, but come on, why do we need to bench Derialy for Tennn. unless Derialy wanted to step away, Fennel have successfully thrown another season.

I was really looking forward to a Achillios and Paperthin grand finals. You can look through my post history, it's something I've talked about since Champs 2021 when they casted an international lan for the first time.

If you could read more than five letters, you would see that I'm happy for Doug and Babybay, just would've rather seen something else.

No clue, just speculation.

I imagine it's less of a "clout" thing vs who is the casting duo they think will get them the most views.

Yeah, totally agree.

It feels really weird. Maybe they think that Doug and Babybay have more clout as casters, so they would help viewership in the final.

It's a real shame. I think the Achillios and Paperthin casted Paper Rex/EG UBF last year was more hype than the actual grand final.

GenG and Kr/Pacific winning their first trophy is cool and all, but how did Doug and Babybay end up casting the grand finals over Achillios and Paperthin?

I like Doug and Babybay and I'm glad they got this opportunity, but I feel Achillios/Paperthin kinda got snubbed here. Feels kinda wrong that the best Pacific casting duo wasn't there for when Pacific got their first win. Especially given the fact that Achillios' casting really shines when there's a lot of chaos with GenG and TH both being rather chaotic teams.

I hadn't been to a CS event before IEM Dallas, and I gotta say, being part of the crowd was incredibly fun. Never been to a valorant LAN so I don't know how it compares, but this one set the bar pretty high.

I don't think we'll ever see stuff like that in Valorant, partly because of the community. However, Riot also tend to play very advertiser safe, and most American advertisers are the most puritan mfs you'll ever meet. No swearing, nothing remotely controversial or disrespectful. Tl;Dr, I think Riot wouldn't even allow or cater to this type of crowd even if Val community was like this.

That is so passive aggressive out of nowhere wtf

I think "Private universities* are a scam" is a little more fair.

To be fair, most of the time it happens it's like 3-4 people that post on every thread and get downvoted each time. Most people don't seem to think that way.

Holy uwukitten banger

One can only hope 🙏

Can both lose?

Do you know if IEM Dallas is going to be played with -overpass +dustII?

First CS event I bought tickets for, and am curious about the maps I'll see.

Fan base wise, navi. Not really a team I dislike, maybe was RRQ because they had fl0pzjder.

Better be ready to preorder.

If he wants to pursue a career at mcdonalds or some other profession, be my guest. But he can never be trusted in a position where he could abuse power dynamics ever again.

Not sure about that.

18 is probably just a blanket rule because it's considered the age of majority in a lot of countries. Plus most people will be done with primary education by then. They probably just let 18 year olds that aren't done with high school figure their own situation out.

It's much easier when you're in high school to take 1 week off vs five months. My guess is it's a mixture of liability and not wanting kids to sacrifice education for spots in esports.

I feel like it just kills off young talent so much and especially just makes people who win ascension less rewarding (bleed)

Just to add, the point of ascension from an org pov is almost strictly about qualifying. Riot is almost certainly going to expand partnership slots, so orgs want to interact with Riot as much as possible so they get selected. That's my guess as to why you'll see a lot of ascension teams field rosters with under 18 talent or more than one import (à la JDG). Even if they know their roster will be worse after they qualify, they still want to get that 2-year contract.

They've had issues in the past with curfew and work hours limits for under 18 talent.

Most under 18 also have obligations with school that will severely hamper their ability to travel to another state/country and play matches. Much easier to just have them play T2 from their bedrooms until they finish schooling .

JDG wanted to sign jkuro after they couldn't keep yoman. Not a terrible idea since Jkuro is good, but they didn't have an Igl. Every other chinese team picked up the good talent that was available during that time. Sure, they were able to get an igl in Yhchen, but they need more firepower on that roster since his calling isn't as good as Yoman's. The only issue is who is realistically an upgrade that is either not on a team, or would be willing to leave their team to join JDG.

The only hope would be to rebuild around the core of Yhchen, Viva, and Stew, and hope some players on franchised teams might want to play for a well respected org like JDG.

Loud higher than T1 :(

Reykjavik 2022 was the best imo. Start of the optic loud rivalry, Zeta miracle run, Jinggg debut and paper rex doing well at internationals.

Only people that give a shit about it rn are posters on VLR who think they've discovered a secret cabal of NA pros. Best to just let people forget imo.

Nah, tbh Yay doesn't gain anything by commenting at this point. The overwhelming majority of T1 pros that have commented have supported yay. The only ones that haven't have already been against him. If you don't have any bias looking at the situation, yay looks pretty innocent.

If Ghengsta posts some actual shit or ocean confirms it, then maybe, but I don't think he gains anything right now.

Like if this was serious, why the fuck would you include it in a "by the way" manner with a scrim clip being the highlight of the thread?

I would be willing to bet that Ghengsta was just scrolling through logs to find something to shit on yay with and saw the msg, was reminded of the messages and decided to misconstrue the nature of the 10k comment. They both probably knew yay was joking about it, but ghengsta thought he could use it to make Yay look bad.

Don't have any evidence for that, just a gut feeling.

Depends on the state. Some states have anti-bribery laws in sports, but most federal and state-level anti-bribery laws normally are about politicians being bribed.

And, most laws related to sports normally deal with bribing to win a game, not bribing to remove a teammate.

Nah, I don't really care either way whether or not Yay was toxic, that's something the team needs to talk about, and if Bleed think he's too toxic, they can kick him, none of my business.

I just get annoyed with this whole VLR thinking they've discovered some conspiracy of t1 players coming together to hide some bribe accusation.

Why would that make it true if it isn't his alt, what? Wouldn't it seem more suspicious if a legitimate bribe happened seven months ago but nobody took action on it? I'm not saying it proves it didn't happen, but were not even in the zip code as possible evidence with that.

Thinking about that one part of the FNS rant when he said something along the lines of, "You guys are under 15 and it shows." Starting to think it might be true.

You believe it because a random person posted about it 7 months ago? What...

At least wait for some tangible evidence man wtf.