nah that title belongs to Less
| Flag: | United States |
| Registered: | May 6, 2024 |
| Last post: | December 11, 2024 at 6:38 PM |
| Posts: | 1661 |
real shit - carrying a team with botster the way he does is herculean
The last game of this vod (sunset) : https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2263654790
Mf is actually the harbringer of death
The 4th round (starts 5:42:40) in particular is actually nuts like holy fuck
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Here's the 42 bomb (no OT) on sinatraa and inspire : https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2257271175 (starts 2:54:10, also sunset)
At long last
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Also note # of duelists has nothing to do with how aggressive a team is. It's somewhat correlated, but not a direct factor.
Yeah i'm not gonna lie, this is a pretty crazy take. I know I'm supposed to back this up with something, but in this case I think it's pretty self-evident why double duelist is inherently more aggressive. I think virtually everybody who follows val comp would say that double duelist being more aggressive than single/none is non-controversial.
And I heavily disagree with you pulling up Madrid stats. The first tournament always has an unclear meta. The second has a mostly developed meta. The third has the fully grown meta but also teams trying to counter the meta.(In general) It's why I heavily prefer using Tournament Two for any general claims about that year.
The exact same thing I said is still true even if we use your methodology.
Tokyo - 2 double duelist comps (Note: EG basically ran triple duelist on Bind) in a 3 game series
Shanghai - 1 double duelist comp in a 5 game series
R1-> R12 (not putting it all for readability)
So one of your big premises for why 2024 is more aggressive is by looking at the finals of Shanghai vs Tokyo, and comparing how many time they went aggro without masking it. One big problem with this analysis is that this aggressiveness is part of GEN.G's specific gameplan for for how TH plays split, where Benjy is usually isolated and trusted to 'get his' as a site anchor (with a player like benjy thats usually a good bet), but GENG realized this and realized they could overwhelm him by pushing the pace (Raze scatter nade to break his trips, double satchel and dunk on him). It's basically rinse and repeat of this specific strat that led to that difference in that stat. And don't take my word for it, take Sliggy's, from his analysis :
https://youtu.be/N-KeWu482yw?si=Tn2j39p4xzDDns9x&t=1100
At least some of your analysis (I'll be honest, I didn't go through everything) is a bit shaky/misleading too, for example:
R10 GENG vs TH, you say they (TH) don't take control of B-Main, but they literally did take control of B main. They start the round by instantly burning a (non-replenishing) Skye flash and One-waying the entrance (which missed lmao). The flash hits nothing, and since in their eyes they have B-main control - Boo's sitting behind a smoke at the entrance - they go and rotate the other players to A where GenG made alot of noise. Boo ends up losing a duel to Meteor and GENG gets a free site plant.
R11 GENG vs TH Then, the next round, they start by doing the exact same thing, one-waying and skye-flashing B main (the skye flash is a few secs delayed from the round before, but same thing basically). Even though this is the same thing, only now do you call it aggression. Then, the same thing happens, they send players to rotate A after hearing nothing. Instead of fighting back for that space, GENG just hits A, runs into a viper ult and site stack, and loses. The irony is that though you attribute this round to aggression from TH, they did the same thing as last round, but objectively were less aggressive - Boo straight up leaves B main and backs up to site to jiggle spot, giving up B main for free unlike the round directly prior! In some sense GENG were less aggressive as well, because if they fought back for that space or made their presence known instead of just instantly leaving, it's plausible it would have pulled rotates and their site hit would have worked better.
On top of that, you stated you wouldn't include ecos, yet you included R11 (a mastercard thrifty), because it purportedly helped your case about the importance of aggressiveness in 2024 (even though it was less aggressive from both sides in fighting for B main compared to the last round, in which you ignored entirely that they fought for B main), but excluded R9, where the aggression gets punished, this time in mid.
So in summary, in the span of three rounds (R9-R11) you
This is not even to mention the nuance of the entire analysis, such as GenG's specific strat to punish benjy.
I don't want to spend the time to write (and you prob don't want to read) a bajillion lines going through every detail of fakes, reclears, aggression, of two games in an entire two year period (look at the wall of text it takes to just break down 3 rounds on just one topic). Let's get back to the big picture, which you summarize in the last lines:
The Meta Change IS what made FNC not good this year. If FNC played the same way they did in 2023 in 2024, they would've been crushed. Why do you think FNC did so bad this year? Sure, you can argue Champs, but 2024 does not apply
If I understand correctly, you're arguing that because the 2023 meta is different from the 2024, meta, comparing performances from the latter and backpropogating them as a judge of strength isn't appropriate. But the problem is, as you allude to, Champs did happen. We saw that PRX at full strength outperformed Fnatic - in the meta that you say favors them. In fact, the only data we have from the 2023 meta of PRX vs FNC's true level (no asterisks) is PRX performing better, they got 2nd, FNC got 4th.
And if you think we can't backpropogate Madrid and Shanghai as further (and yes, weaker, but its still something) evidence because the meta change harms Fnatic, why can't we raise the same objection about how it harmed PRX? if anything the meta change was much more harmful to PRX, we saw them fall off a cliff over the course of 2024, they weren't even a top 2 pacific team by the end, and jingg in particular got basically his career ruined by the changes to skye and raze. If the 2024 meta hurt Fnatic, it almost certainly hurt PRX more, so the trend of PRX being better with something is bolstered by the meta changing and them still being better during those events, let alone their case for how they would've done at Tokyo in the 2023 meta.
man put an allat alert on a 5 sentence post
tiktok has done irreversible damage to the world's youth
I'll get to 113 within 3 days, promise (inshallah)
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Eh. It depends. Although a good chamber COULD be really strong, PRX also showed that they could easily beat chamber when needed.
Easily is a bit of a stretch
f0rsakeN was a perfectly respectable chamber
I agree, he definitely wasn't bad, but when you think of the top chambers you think of Yay, Ardiss, Cryo, Derke, and even Laz before thinking of Forsaken
Huh? I've been trying to explain that FNC >> PRX due to playstyle. PRX >> most of EMEA is fair, but PRX vs FNC isn't the same, especially during 2023, as most of EMEA that year was complete shit
Yes but your reasoning for why FNC >>> PRX playstyle was circular (see below). In their only previous encounter PRX won, and PRX has generally done well against european teams across multiple years, not just 2023.
I think FNC is a really bad matchup for PRX and FNC basically always wins, especially during 2023
So not only was your argument for this circular, but we've gone full circle and started at the beginning.
Your evidence for why FNC would beat full-strength PRX at Tokyo due to matchup/style advantage was solely based on Tokyo. That is circular reasoning (or at least super close).
I hate that people call cgrs a streamer when talking about him. It's true that he used to stream. But he quickly learned during Tokyo and managed to become a perfectly respectable player during Tokyo. He wasn't a complete liability or anything, he was just slightly worse than average.
Well, he was basically a streamer until that point. He wasn't even in challengers, despite trying. And even though he (miraculously) exceeded what you could've reasonably expected from him, he was still bottom 5 statistically for the whole tournament.
'Fnatic was never considered the best in the world prior to franchising' Means absolutely nothing. It's true, but what people think is going to happen has no real effect on what will happen
That line is a quick summary from the original post('Fnatic was never great') of pre-franchising Fnatic. Basically just says Fnatic was never great (#1 in the world) at any point pre-franchising. Nobody really argues that anyways, which is why the bulk of it focuses on franchising.
'Lock In was mickey mouse for multiple clear reasons' Not going to debate this too much, but you have to keep in mind FNC got first and would've been top two even with said asterisks in both Tokyo and Lock//In
Yeah and? Doesn't matter if LOUD, NAVI, NRG, DRX or even C9 won it. It's mickey mouse regardless, and therefore I don't take any result from it seriously.
'EG and PRX obviously weren't at full strength at tokyo' Fair, but FNC is always >> PRX imo even at full strength.
and we've come full circle
'EG and PRX obviously weren't at full strength at tokyo' Again, even if EG were better and would've won, FNC still gets 2nd
2nd is good, but not enough to be great. Winning matters. The only reason Mako isn't the unquestionable goat controller is because he couldn't win.
Lock//In - 2nd (LOUD wins)
Lock-in doesn't matter regardless
Tokyo - 2nd (EG wins)
Could even be 3rd, behind PRX and EG
Champions - 3rd (EG and LOUD would beat FNC)
You know we actually know what happened at champs without hypotheticals, right? All teams were full strength, they got 4th.
FNC are clearly a top team of 2023
True, but they were never great. Gotta definitively prove you're the best, like others before and after you (SEN, GMB, LOUD, EG, etc) to be in that convo
This is really cool but some of the numbers for the simulator are really off
Like really off
For example the Fnatic 23' team: Derke has a 92 rating vs Leo's 80 and Alfajer's 82, his aim stat (94) is also higher than Alfajer's (87)
Jawgemo 23' is 69/69 Overall Rating/Aim vs boaster's 62/64
In fact, all of 23' NRG except FNS is higher rated than Jawgemo
Zander
Higher Floor than both, already has experience playing with john
I distinctly remember it to this day. It was lotus and he was like 'Who is this skye this guys a god' and when chat told him its xeppaa he's like 'oh yeah that makes sense, xeppaa is the best player in the world in games that don't matter'
"Xeppaa is the best player in the world in games that don't matter" - FNS, in a ranked game a long time ago...
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Americas Kickoff Group Stage : https://www.vlr.gg/event/stats/1923/champions-tour-2024-americas-kickoff?exclude=23029.23030.23818&min_rounds=0&agent=all - 1.03 Rating
Americas Stage 1: https://www.vlr.gg/event/stats/2004/champions-tour-2024-americas-stage-1 - 0.99 Rating
Amercias Stage 2: https://www.vlr.gg/event/stats/2095/champions-tour-2024-americas-stage-2 - 0.90 Rating
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Red Bull NA Play-Ins: https://www.vlr.gg/event/stats/2171/red-bull-home-ground-5?exclude=26767.26768.26769&min_rounds=0&agent=all - 1.32 Rating (#1)
Karon Primmie N4rrate are all rare talents that are exceptions to the rule
don't know where this narrative came from
It came from the mouths of actual pros who play the game at the highest level
As probably the #1 Neon hater on this site (credentials), Chamber was more broken.
But as other's have said, neon has an 'annoying' factor which makes it feel more AIDS to play against imo.
*when the other top teams couldn't fully practice with or outright play with their best players
If anything, I would rather use indirect evidence. You're comparing two games in different metas with different teams over a year apart. There is so much different, it's basically two completely separate games. Indirect isn't much better, but it's not as bad as these two games are.
If anything the chamber meta favored fnatic. A good chamber could absolutely tear you apart if you weren't careful (not exactly how PRX plays). On top of that, Forsaken wasn't a great chamber, Derke was.
Sure, but it's always, playing against somewhat similar teams doesn't mean you're going to be good against that specific one. Being good against EMEA is not the same as playing FNC
Original point from #103 that started this chain is claim that we have reason to believe PRX's playstyle is successful/matches up well against fnatic's. If you have a good track record against teams that play similar, that's evidence in favor of that point, even if it's not a magical 100% guarantee.
PRX got absolutely crushed at Tokyo(Basically their only rounds was when they were one loss away from losing the map)
This is almost circular reasoning:
Arguing over how PRX would have done vs Fnatic at Tokyo if they weren't nerfed -> Discussing Sub-topic about how their styles matchup -> You don't think PRX is a bad matchup (or think Fnatic is advantaged) -> you back this up by talking about how they did at Tokyo against nerfed PRX
when FNC had worse support players
Not gonna pretend for a second that they're as good as their replacements, but it's not like they were bums either. They're still active t1 pros (as of the end of last season), not like they were playing streamers...
Can you link the video? Not sure which one you mean here
https://youtu.be/2YVsAMmnaBY?si=EPKjx-kFxMD1Hsli
In 2024, yeah, but it was the best strategy in 2023.
I was talking about the european playstyle being generally unsuccessfull against PRX's here
I'm pretty sure he is, but even in the small chance he doesn't it doesn't affect the prompt lol
no its just as a joke, since it's offseason there's no team in particular to root for
yet by commenting you are helping keep the thread alive
I'll get to #113 sometime later, because as you definitely understand from writing it, it takes a lot of time and energy.
But this one will be relatively short so I'll do it now
The "most direct evidence" you are claiming is that PRX beat FNC about a year before, when they had completely different teams. That is not a good example at all.
That is quite literally the most direct evidence you can have. It's the same teams with 7/10 of the players being identical. Any other comparison would have to be more indirect (how X did against Z vs how Y did against Z).
PRX being good against other EMEA teams is also completely pointless, teams have different playstyles and unless EVERYOBE from EMEA had the same playstyle this means nothing.
Not everybody from the same region plays EXACTLY the same, but it's not controversial that there are general characteristics that define the regional playstyles. EMEA is famously slow placed. That almost certainly has something to do with PRX's success against those teams (unfamiliar/uncomfortable with that type of pace). From Sideshow's casting of PRX vs Guild :
"The bull against the matador. And we'll see if the matador ends up getting gored at the end of this... PRX are gonna charge in, play aggressive, get most of their kills in the first 10 seconds of the round, and plant within 20 ... no one else in the tournament plays like that"
Compare that with the plant time from the previously linked video (60 seconds), literally 3x the pace.
The FNC >> PRX part I thought was obvious. PRX are an extremely agressive team, but FNC's defaults are able to counter very well and also ensure they have the info to make a quick retake/attempted site hold.
This is kinda just restating/summarizing your previous points, so i'll just do the same. That didn't work in their last matchup - which is the most direct comparison you can get (also if you listen to their comms video, especially on bind, you can hear them get kinda tilted by it "I don't know what is going on" "This is so funny... They will do this for 10 more rounds") - and this general playstyle has been mostly unsuccesfull as well.
damn thats crazy, but the mickey mouse clubhouse still don't count
1>1*
now that I think about it, ShanksFan69 is probably a no
I have one and i'm sure many others do too. I like to think not every person on this site is a babysasuke or sentinelmain
And stop skipping leg day, stronger legs/glutes = harder you can smash your girl
1 International Major > 1*
You're basically asking about periodization, in which there is literally a giant literature and no single answer. I personally like the 5/3/1 protocol. If you wanna read about it in general you can go to jim wendler's website. Here's a quick write-up/review
But you're probably lazy and want me to just give you a full guide, so Ill do that
Go to this website - https://blackironbeast.com/5/3/1/calculator
Click Calculate Program
The idea behind this program is that each day you will have a main lift (Press - Deadlift - Bench - Squat), which you will work up to a '+' set which you will take to max effort and do as many possible reps as you can (and another max effort set after that that i've added, this one is called AMRAP - as many reps as possible - which you do the same thing. This was what was added by clicking "First set last").
The website will tell you exactly how many reps/weight you will do each set with. 5 x 95 means 5 reps at 95 pounds. The numbers in brackets are what weight plates go on each side of the barbell, which is a nice touch.
These + sets work in 4 week cycles, a 5+ week, a 3+ week, a 1+ week, and a deload which you take easy. It sounds complicated, but if you look at the program that was printed, it makes sense pretty quickly. It is crucial that you do the '+' sets with max effort, as that is what your progression depends on.
After the main lift, you do accessory work. This is what the different templates change. This particular one which I made you do has close grip bench, front squats, etc. After that it just names a body part, eg: Lats or Triceps. You choose an exercise of your liking which targets these parts (i.e. Lat pulldown, Tricep Pushdown), and do the prescribed reps. These should obviously be done at or close to failure, after a couple warmup sets of course.
So if it says hamstrings 10-20, 10-20, 10-20, after warming up you're doing 3 hard sets of 10-20 reps (whatever weight is appropriate for that) of hamstring curls for example.
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How you progress depends on how you did on your '+' set for the day on the main lift
If on the 5+ day, you managed 8 or more reps on the + set, you're good
If on the 3+ day, you managed 6 or more reps on the + set, you're good
If on the 1+ day you managed 3 or more reps on the + set, you're good
If you fail to meet those rep goals at any time, multiply your input for the relevant lift(s) by 0.9, at the end of the 4 - week training cycle
Remember that this recalibrating is only done once every 4 weeks, after you've fully gone through the entire printed cycle that came when you hit "Calculate Program".
Probably the mechanically best NA T2 duelist (reduxx included). Has alot of experience too, he's been in t2 grinding for a LONG time. Definitely not getting as much spotlight as he deserves in rostermania (everyone focused on N4rrate Verno Zander Derke, etc). But alot of teams (especially G2, NRG, and EG) should be looking to try to pick him up.
You failed to meet the conditions for a successful rebuttal (see the last paragraph, but you did it generally too).
But since this clearly took a lot of effort, I'll give a semi-serious reply
I'm gonna stick to everything between 'first : ' and 'essentially at champs' so I keep this under the character limit, but I will get to the rest in follow-up
2024 requires a much more aggressive playstyle, you need to do mid round reclears, more fakes, etc… to be able to do well. 2023 Valorant was more about the info game. Being able to check where they are, deny/gain information, etc… was the most important things. FNC were really good at 2023 Valorant. They mostly suck at 2024 Valorant. It’s a big reason why they started to do much worse in 2024 vs 2023. (Though part of it is also the anti-strat). Every Top 2024 Team was very good at knowing when to take space/push out. Every Top 2023 Team(outside of maybe PRX) was good at the info game
Everybody did mid round reclears and fakes in 2023 (fns had somebody retaking the wrong site in 2023).
Alot of these points are too general (by what basis can you say denying/gaining info the most important thing, or even more important in 2023 vs 2024?).
But the bigger problem is that some of them are straight up wrong - 2024 was by far less aggressive than 2023, until arguably the emergence of Neon at the very end.
The biggest factor being the nerf of skye killing double duelist comps. Compare the LA grand final vs the Madrid grand final
LA: 6 double duelist comps - Both on Split, PRX on Ascent, Both on Bind, PRX on Lotus (counting chamber as a duelist because lets be real, he is and always was, 1 trip ain't stopping a site hit)
Madrid : 2 double duelist comps - GENG on Breeze and Split (and at shanghai finals they only kept the double duelist on breeze, which was the only 1 in that entire series)
Besides the death of double duelist, 2024 Valorant was extremely retake heavy - SEN's Madrid run was a shining example of this.
Furthermore, we saw stuff like no duelist comps altogether become popular on icebox. So your claim isn't really matching reality.
This directly leads to the problem of that 2024 performance is not a good indicator of what might have happened in 2023, which makes A14-18 and B5 mostly irrelevant. (Part of this is an opinon, but I think it makes sense.)
The more time further out, the less weight we can put on it, obviously. But let's imagine for a sec if the shoes were on the other foot. Imagine If Alfajer (at the time EMEA MVP) (and eventual Tokyo MVP) wasn't at Tokyo with Fnatic. Then imagine a pubg streamer replaced him, not even a pro or a streamer that mainly plays val. Then, PRX smacked FNC around. Finally, imagine at the very next tournament (just a month later with no matches in-between), FNC with Alfajer is better than PRX, and this trend continues for a long time afterwards, regardless of meta change. What do you think this implies?
The other one major point is that LOUD’s playstyle hardcounters FNC. FNC like to play slow, have one person at every contestion point, and then decide what to do based on what the opponents give up. (E.g, being able to rotate from hearing where PRX pushed out, or using Utility to find them doubled up somewhere, or where the op is) But, LOUD like to do solo/double pushes, which means LOUD is often taking 2v1s or 1v1s before FNC can get set up, which in turn make the round spiral out of control. This is why DRX 13-1’d FNC, if you watch the game, DRX just kept doing these solo/double pushes, getting a man advantage, then each player of FNC feels pressured to make a play to even it, but fails, making the round worse and worse. Combined with Val’s snowball problem, it just became a complete disaster.
Even if we assume it was purely LOUD's playstyle which led to their victory (they were also just better). It's not like LOUD is the only team capable of doing those things, or that other playstyle's can't be successful vs FNC. In fact, the most direct evidence that we have suggests PRX's playstyle is successful against Fnatic. Further still, PRX are famously successful against the EMEA playstyle, with a literal reputation as the 'European Reapers'.
FNC also hard counters PRX, but this time you can probably guess why. I don’t think I need to explain it, and PRX got absolutely stomped on by FNC at Tokyo, I do not believe for a second PRX could’ve won with something unless he somehow becomes god and gets three every round.
Total Bullshit. Re-read everything in the paragraph above. There is literally nothing to support this view. In fact, every single piece of evidence available (B5/A11-A18) contradicts this view. And this exact type of low-effort sentence was banned for a reason in the rules (and your exact argument was used as an example). 'I don't need to explain it' Then you can't prove Fnatic was great.
Will do a part 2 sometime soon
And most importantly
people wonder why Lock in is 🐁 when their best defense of the format is 'Just dont lose'
LMAO
Maybe RIOT can host a Lock-In 2.0 where you only play a single elim bo1, and instead of the full game its just the first pistol round. The team that wins it can be called the best in the world right? Just don't lose amirite?
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SEN wasn't considered the best until they won madrid, no matter how they looked in the offseason. Right after kickoff and before Madrid who was the best team in the world? Nobody knew, but there were 8 contenders. SEN became the best when they proved it vs the best, under conditions of competitive integrity.
https://www.vlr.gg/406839/underrated-agent-map-combos
I tried to put yall on game, he's so good for attack if you can get bomb down without man disadvantage
Yes you do have not to choke, if not choking wasn't a requirement for winning, prx would have 2 trophies
You missed the point. You can't just dismiss the problem of a non-competitive format by saying it just "requires your team not to choke" like you did. That's why I compared it to a Random Agent Select tourney, because the exact same dismissal can be made.
Whether it is representative to the rest of the year is meaningless
Actually, if the tourney has serious issues, and the results don't match up with the experience of the rest of the year, that's extremely strong evidence that we shouldn't have taken it seriously. There's a reason we didn't crown 100T the best team in the world just cause of RBHG, or whoever else woulda won it. To actually prove you're the best, you have to be the best under conditions of high competitive integrity (do it at a real event)
N4rrate if you wanna hear him flame both teams nonstop lmao
Associate Data Scientist (basically between junior and a full level 1) for just over a year
I was moreso inspired by your use of the phrase "World Champions"
scroll up to the top of ur page to see why thats wrong
The only non 🐁 event they won they only won because the other best teams at the time couldn't practice with or play with their best players
Random agent select is completely different as players specialise in certain agents, single elim just means you play a normal series 1 time
You still just have to not choke though? Or do you now understand the difference between a format designed to select for the best team vs one that doesn't?
At the time of them playing, yes
We don't actually know who was good/bad at the time of Lock-In. That's why you need a regular season to establish yourself, a qualifier to identify the top contenders, and a format designed to select for the best team. That's how we know FPX was the best team at the time of Copenhagen, LOUD the best at Istanbul, etc. Without those things you have a wild west. Do you actually seriously believe 2023 KC's (might be the worst franchise team ever) performance vs LOUD was a serious result, achieved under conditions of competitive integrity?
you have a chance to seriously prove that. Go for it. The great wall of text remains strong, with the only flaw being a minor point about cauanzin being a rookie
all that profit and they've still never been #1 team ever 🥶🥶🥶
Difference is SEN was undeniably the best team in the world at some point (twice) in time. Fnatic.....
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