They lost against two teams but finished 4th in champs. The one team they lost to at champs lost to two other teams (thats not a matter of luck).

I’m not insisting that FNC isn’t a top 4 team. I’m saying they’ll be at the bottom of those four if they don’t innovate. It means nothing to “dominate” your region when your goal is supposed to be the best.

FNC definitely earned those two trophies but not nearly as dominantly as many remember.

Lock-In ended with a comeback from a 3-11 score line on the final map. It easily could have gone LOUD’s way.

Tokyo featured a PRX with a substitute that still placed 3rd and an EG with no practice with their primary duelist due to Visa issues — still managing two close maps.

I think FNC are a phenomenal team with at least three players in the top 3 of their respective roles. I’m worried that very strength will make them complacent as a team as it did during Champs.

Look at EG’s conversion rate after losing a first blood, where no loss of any single player had a significant impact on their round wins — they had the best protocols and mid rounding of any team. Platoon’s video on the best player in the world illustrates this.

If FNC wants to maintain global dominance, they need to compensate for their immense mechanical advantage over their competition by innovating. The mindset to relentlessly refine their “basics” instead of pushing the needle is going to punish them when they run into international teams that can match them mechanically.

I keep seeing cope about how FNC would have won champs if they didn’t run into LOUD — perhaps even having the mental edge against EG. With an eye test though, you could tell FNC was becoming readable and had issues with spacing for trades properly. Even with their most recent match they looked sloppy against Vitality on Lotus.

Here’s the map pool break down of the hypothetical champs matchup by comparing the respective teams’ performances against LOUD and accounting for each other’s bans.

EG Take: Pearl, Fracture, Lotus, and Bind.

FNC Take: Haven.

Toss Up: Split and Ascent

It’s clear that FNC has 4 mechanical superstars (sorry boaster, Boostio and Saadhak clear), but there’s too much cope about hiding strats — It was the same last year when they took the exact same comps from Tokyo to Champs. EG did the opposite and experimented until they fixed their Lotus, Bind, and Split.

I’m praying that the Gekko and Yoru rumors are true because seeing FNC has been stale and I firmly believe that they’re becoming complacent because of weaker competition in their region.

Edit: Changed Breeze to Haven as I mistook which map was in the pool.

Hard to argue that Jinggg is the best Raze when he’s lost the head to head against Jawgemo in both Tokyo and Champions. Re-watch the Champs finals and peeps their stats. You could say that Jinggg is more consistent but Jawgemo has a higher ceiling.

EG lower bracket run to beat all of the top 5 teams before finishing it out with a revenge match against LOUD. Final map will be a 13-0. Boostio tournament MVP and best IGL.

https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/8b90507d