His value comes from both? People were glazing Boaster for that match against Vitality but that’s how Valyn plays every game.

I got bad news for you. You’re gonna be here for a while

He plays trigger discipline and the crowd griefs him. You’re not very bright are you?

Looks good to me! All of them are so flexible though that you could jumble up their roles every map and they’d still be relatively competitive. It’s honestly quite funny how Valyn is their least flexible player when so many other IGLs have been attempting role swaps.

For Example:

Bind
Jawg: Raze
Leaf: Skye
Valyn: Astra
Trent: Viper
JonahP: Vyse

Split
Leaf: Jett
Trent: Raze
JonahP: Breach
Jawg: Omen
Valyn: Cypher

Icebox
Jawg: Gekko
Trent: Sova
Valyn: Harbor
JonahP: Viper
Leaf: Killjoy

Trent has a surprisingly good Raze. They used to run him on it for Split and Bind for TGRD when Tex would play Jett or Chamber respectively.

G2 could do last minute role swaps across the board and still beat LEV.

Yeah it’s G2. There’s nothing biased about my comment though. You should come up with something more substantive bud

His fixation is really weird considering Jawgemo is considered the best Raze player right now. He’s arguably a top 3 Neon and Yoru as well, and leading the pack on Waylay. His Jett and Iso aren’t particularly notable but they’re sufficient for a trophy aspiring team.

There’s no other world class duelist that doesn’t have a glaring hole in their agent pool.

T1 lost Pearl to EDG and barely took it in OT against G2.

Pick up Flor.
Pick up Sinatraa.

Flor | Sinatraa | NaturE | Supamen | Yay

Did I cook?

He’s just Cryo

Alternatively, a variation of this comp on every map:
Cryo: Jett/Iso
Eeiu: Tejo
Asuna: Kayo/Gekko
Boostio: Breach
Zander: Smokes

Have Boostio take the eco hit every round and ensure Cryo can always buy and is taking a fight with all of his team’s util behind him.

Yeah, they’re not shit but it’s unlikely they find themselves at champs until they fix their game plans. I haven’t watched enough of them to give solid suggestions but they seem to heavily rely on Cryo fragging without necessarily setting him up the best they can.

IMO, it might be better to just have him play Jett/Iso only and just accept that double duelist will be necessary on non-Jett maps. They can have Asuna pick up Yoru for some maps and use Vyse for supportive flashes as well.

It’d also be pretty funny if they just had Asuna on full time stinger/bucky so Cryo can have rifles even on ecos but what do I know?

100T sit between 6th-8th in the region. I could see them losing to NRG or Loud and they won’t break past SEN or any of the teams above.

That’s hardly “upper mid”.

Like 3%

TH last year

TGRD to G2. Two player swaps but the same core. The difference isn’t really that big when you pull from the top talents of the T2 pool. Keep in mind they all scrim each other.

Have you not watched G2’s Ascent?

Edit: they’ve played it for three matches now so there’s plenty to watch if you wanna see how fleshed out their playbook is. It looks like it could replace the old Meta comp ngl.

Speak up, be bold, and take risks, I’m an atheist.

I don’t think an Americas team outside of G2 make a GF this year — it’s just statistically unlikely for both grand finalists to be from the same region.

Flag checks out

It’s really hard to judge a region’s strength because we only get to see relative performance. Unless you’re eye-checking every single team and account for style matchups, some teams are bound to be over/underrated because of local competition variance. Think of how SEN and VIT were overhyped going into Bangkok only to get exposed pretty hard.

• Americas only looks top heavy because G2 is so overwhelmingly dominant while the bottom 8 teams are still inconsistent. We’ve got one of the top two teams itw and one of the bottom two (Furia).

• Pacific is definitely the strongest region overall though with two trophy contenders (T1 and DRX) while the rest tend to be competitive. They have the highest floor across all of their teams.

• CN is going through some dramatic shifts right now with the majority of teams improving into “middle pack” status with real upset potential. I still think they’re behind on average but at least EDG is a trophy contender.

• EMEA is probably second behind Pacific for the most “middle pack” teams but they lack a serious trophy contender right now. At the same time, it’s not like their bottom four teams are much better than that of other regions’.

On the bright side, LANs aren’t about each regions’ weakest teams competing. Until I see more from China’s top teams at internationals, they’ll be the weakest followed by EMEA, then AMER, with PAC at the top.

Ah yes. That one map of sunset with Jawg playing with the worst iteration of EG in its history. The same map where Jawg went 7-6 in their h2h.

The only agent Aspas is better at is Jett — and while he might be the more consistent fragger across his history — Jawgemo is the better entry on literally every other agent. The better Yoru, Raze, Neon, and Waylay.

And it was true then too. T1 rapidly improved since the Pacific GF during Bangkok and were undoubtably underdogs. They were definitely the better team that day but by margins so slim they’re basically statistically insignificant. I’d still bet on G2 if you ran that GF back 10 times.

Yeah but G2 are probably the favorites against literally everyone else. This is the closest we’ve seen to 2023 FNC dominance since Tokyo.

T1: None
T2: VIT • FNC • FUT
T3: M8 • TL • TH
T4: KC • GX • BBL
T5: NAVI • KOI • APK

Duelist | Jemkin
Initiator | Trexx
Flex | Chronicle
Smokes | Shao
Sentinel | Nats

G2 • MIBR • KRU

T1 • DRX • RRQ

VIT • FUT • TH

EDG • BLG • WOL

It’s all about hype and whether or not a player under or over delivers on it. El Diablo became y0y because he couldn’t keep up with the “best player from 2022” hype and it’s happening to Demon1 rn too. Aspas has consistent individual performance but some people (Bren + Mimi) have rightly called out his tendencies to take minimal risk at the expense of his teams after 2023.

Only a number of players have escaped this by redeeming themselves after hitting lows. To name some: Jawgemo, Nats , Stax, and Tenz.

That would be a massive pick up for EG though. They’ve built a roster of hungry players with something to prove and Flor fits perfectly there and would be a straight firepower upgrade over Icy.

You say that like they didn’t have multiple chances to close out the Bangkok GF. Anderzz is a win-more pick up so long as the players maintain form in high pressure situations.

Sliggy has strict rules so that players who want to VOD review with his streams aren’t dealing with a slew of toxicity.

TMV does meta analysis videos every now and then. His last one was prior to Bangkok though so there’s no Waylay. It’s a two-part video:

Part 1

Part 2

Valoplant to workshop comps on each map. If you just need a spreadsheet, use google sheets so your teammates can see it too.

Americas is a G2-2G sandwich based on a normal distribution

G2
MIBR • KRU
SEN • LOUD • C9
NRG • LEV • 100T
EG • FUR
2G

Edit: not sure if 2G are good now or if LOUD shit the bed

I suspect 2027 will be a whole new referendum like the start of franchising was in 2023. Whether the grouping is 6-6 or 8-4, there’s likely going to be new orgs jumping into the scene hoping to secure a partnered slot and I wouldn’t be surprised if Riot tried to expand the market by considering unrepresented regions and giving them a slot: DACH, MENA, Aus, etc.

I do think some orgs are just staple locks though because they represent the most popular brands for their region.

AMER) G2 • SEN • LOUD • KRU
EMEA) VIT • FNC • TL • FUT
PAC) T1 • PRX • RRQ • ZETA

Just pick up xavi8k and put Patmen on starter. Drop Jingg and Something and all your roles work out until you can rebuild in 2027 when you can grab Juicy, Kushy, and Grumble as free agents.

I also choose this guy’s mother

PRX should:

1. Drop both Something and Jingg
2. Pick up xavi8k and make Patmen a starter
3. Aim for these roles:

Forsaken | Duelist
xavi8k | Initiator
Patmen | Flex
Mindfreak | Smokes
D4v41 | Sentinel/Viper

It would be awesome if they could also plan for 2027 with a rebuild once Grumble is done with NS and Juicy and Kushy become free agents. I’d love to see:

Juicy | Duelist
Kushy | Initiator
Forsaken | Flex
Mindfreak | Smokes
Grumble | Sentinel

Jingg should go back to T2.

Outer Wilds
Elden Ring
Hollow Knight

Between Furia and EG it seems.

2025 G2

Hard to say given I’d choose them for different reasons.

Aspas is undoubtably a fragging machine but he takes minimal individual risk with a smaller agent pool but unmatched duel conversions. Jawgemo is the opposite and his impact usually shows in terms of hyper-aggro space creation and agent flexibility.

I’d rank those two in 1st and 2nd right now and the rest in a similar category — without a truly unique value proposition over their peers.

1. Aspas
2. Jawgemo
3. KK | Derke | Zekken | T3xture | BuzZ | Keznit

9th and 10th probably go to Mada and Hyunmin as the top of the next generation of duelists.

Oh they’re definitely more flexible than PRX. I just have more faith that G2 and EDG will maintain dominance in their respective regions than T1 will in Pacific. Tbh, I’m still unconvinced by that Bangkok GF and think G2 would be favored 7/10 times if you ran it back — I’m definitely biased but there’s some truth to it.

They’re too scrappy.

In my opinion, Bangkok was their peak performance while their floor tends to be far shakier with the majority of their matches being 2-1’s. The further the season and meta develops, the more teams will catch up with cleaner protocols and macro. Double duelist will undoubtably fall to the wayside as more utility protocols develop to suffocate burst-heavy teams — it’s the same paradigm PRX faced going into 2024.

I hope I’m wrong and T1 maintains their form but I’m skeptical.

T1 is gonna end up like Acend in the history books.

Derke
Izu
Riens
Valyn
Chichoo
JoshRT

I genuinely think Toronto is a lock for G2. You don’t get that close to a trophy and not become the hungriest team in the league — especially when you’re known for being grinders.

Dark Horses would be Nongshim and Loud.

Hope to see y’all back again in Toronto.