it's not harder apart from maybe on breeze, but even then you can just avoid mid and you are chilling. Phantom is just as good as vandal for like 90 % of interactions and is better at close ranges

roasters will likely change fairly regularly, i can't see many of the teams that don't make it to Tokyo staying together for next year

If keloqz was consistent then TH would probably be up there with them. He just seems to drop 40 kills 1 map and 3 then next.

Honestly i think they just need time which they sadly don't have. Having this weird mix of Sayf and Redgar IGL clearly isn't consistent. Soulcas gets way too much hate for a support player. He has like the most average assists per round in EMEA. Honestly their problem is just their strats. If they fix their strats and work out how to mid round as a team then they could get to and potential go fairly deep at Tokyo. If not then i doubt they make top 4 with how well BONECOLD is igling for VIT and how well FUT is playing.

honestly i think Vitality, FUT, Liquid and maybe Giants (once we see then play the other teams) are all really close in skill and could make it to Tokyo. There are 4 slots so realistically we should expect 2 of them to make it unless one of the other teams seriously improves before next week.

idk about that. The teams are probably the closest in level in the americas whereas EMEA and APAC both have very fast drop offs from the top teams.
But Fnatic, Navi and DRX are all just as good as the top teams in the americas.

Yeah i mean the random smoke pushes etc on Ascent is kind of just desperation plays to try and win a round, i don't hate it. It defintely is the correct play in ranked, i think in pro play he could have commed some util or something to make that play actually make sense, but it did look like throwing.

idk i think the americas is probably a little stronger than EMEA, but NA alone is weaker, the difference between regions isn't as great as people think it is. Although APAC is slightly behind the top teams (Loud, NRG, Fnatic, NAVI and LEV). DRX and PRX(when they were good last year) were both showing promise last year so in a year or so i could imagine all regions being roughly as good as each other.

such a good point, It's literally past midnight here, I only watched the SEN game because it started earlier in the day, most people in Europe will probably just watch a rebroadcast in the morning if they want to watch the series

the only problem with vlr is that people jump to conclusions too quickly without thinking, people see a player miss like 4 shots and then call him washed, he then aces the next round and someone calls him the best player of all time. I know that some of these posts are exaggeration but it just kills all the actual conversation about the players and strats.
also people think they understand the nuances of these strategies, lets me honest like 90% of us are silvers(like myself) and have no clue if they have used a good strategy and just got unlucky or if they misplayed.

nah, for awpers yeah it's pointless, but you can clearly see the best clutch players have high hs% i doubt shao would win half the clutch he does if he didn't click heads like 33% of the time. it matters for intiators and flex but for controllers and entry it's kinda whatever. You deal like 50% of your ACS through smokes with controller and entry is more about being setup right so they can't hs you

I doubt they will lose their mental from a few loses, it just kind of sucks that they will have to show prep so early on for such small chances of winning. If they had easier matches then they could save some of the strats and only use them for important close games they should win

Him playing sentinel could just mean he plays viper on every map while marvel plays harbor, I wouldn't read into it too much

i don't think he's that bad for overheating, i only noticed it when they are losing rounds and I guess he feels desperate to try and get his team an advantage

i think his assists are like 80% of the reason why he is on the roster, he just flashes at the perfect times to set up his team

I'd have to pick
Sheydos, Derke, nAts, Redgar, Chronicle

I'm a big fan of the old gambit roster, would probably put deffo somewhere in the top 10 as well

I think the problem was more who they replaced, I think replacing Sova or Fade with gekko wasn't great, maybe if they had skye instead of kayo for the reacon it would have been better on ascent. On lotus i think it worked well, hard to say why they had such a bad attack, i think they still don't have a solid plan for the attacking side of lotus.

It was definitely one of the most memorable tournament finals i've seen. The dominance on the first two maps, Less carrying loud on Lotus and Split and the 9-3 first half of icebox. People joke about "the script" but it really felt like there was one for this final

that's the smaller issue, not going to non Brazillian games is at least understandable, not staying for 10 minutes to give a crowd to the winners is just dissrespectful. Not cheering is fine but at least clap for them. They spent hours on that stage at the very least recognise the dedication and time they put in to win this tournament.

I could see it going either way. Both teams played insane throughout the whole tournament with barely any teams even presenting challenges to them

they could go 4 from each league+2china+both winners(/runnerup if the same team wins)

people will try him because he's new and then after like 2 weeks his useage will drop, but he will definitely still be played. He looks like a fairly balanced agent to me although its hard to say having seen half a map

why does supporting a team have to be all about nationality, I like Navi because i like the strategies and the indiviuals. I would support them over Boaster even though he is British

Reyna doesn't help you get the first kill. Her util is one of the worst flashes in the game and a a bunch on things that don't matter unless she gets a kill. Jett, Raze, Neon etc all have movement abilities that help them take space more effectively positioning themselves into better odd fights. Reyna has a bad flash that can be broken in like 3 shots. Pheonix and Yoru have much greater potential than Reyna because they have better flashes and other useful util, Pheonix has the best ult in the game, Yoru has a lot of suprise factor.

fair enough, Liquid definitely underperformed peoples expectation. It just kind of felt like TS had better strategies and understood the maps better

you're sleeping on Team Secret, at least they should be like B+ if not A. They had great strats and worked well as a team

watch the C9 match again and then compare it to Copenhagen. You will clearly notice a difference in how they took fights. They use to use utility (i.e teamwork) to make fights favorable whereas against C9 they took mostly 50s. Don't get me wrong they still liked to take aggressive fights it was just more orchestrated.

In the C9 game they barely used utility combos outside the main executes and it cost them

back in Copenhagen they didn't have the same problems they do now. Sure i agree they weren't playing well at Champions or the other day but they can definitely recover their old form and start working together again. Literally all need to change is to start playing as a team again

PRX has show that other APAC teams can get results, a bad showing at this tournament means nothing. Yes they made a lot of questionable decisions and didn't work as a team but once they realise this it shouldn't be hard to fix. Maybe they won't look good at this tournament but at Tokyo APAC will hopefully have more signs of life.

I can't agree, DRX has only played 1 series and looked fairly dominate apart from on Ascent and if you know the old BBL you would know they are probably the best team on Ascent in EMEA they just weren't great on other maps. Liquid, Navi and Fnatic haven't played yet and the other EMEA teams were always going to be less impressive. I think every region has some promising teams

you can either watch a rebroadcast or watch the vod later/ the day after.

I wouldn't say they looked great, but it looks more than recoverable. I think with a few weeks more practise and so better coordination and strats they could easily be winning against most EMEA teams

it's quite common for non duelist players that get a lot of kills to have high hs% look at suygetsu or nAts, most players that get lots of either have very high hs% or use duelist where movement, awping and flashes help to compensate

FPX will probably ban breeze this time so the map veto won't be so one sided, I assume drx ban pearl so we'll probably have haven (drx pick) and bind or icebox (fpx pick) with ascent (decider) which could go either way depends on ascent

I mean I do agree Yay or Derke would probably be better, you could argue even nAts is a better chamber but I just enjoy how he plays, and he was much stronger in previous tournaments, at champions he clearly lost some of his confidence

nAts - Smokes
Forsaken - Chamber
KiNgg - Kayo
Shao - Sova/Fade
Alfajer - Entry(Raze/Neon)

Something feels a little off putting nAts on smokes but i but he plays both Astra and Viper so I think it works

init

I wouldn't call it a fluke, although i do think i rematch would go towards FPX. I feel like some good preperation and respect(not ego peeking) gave XSET so many rounds that other teams would have lost. They managed to shut down shao by trading well. FPX also just didn't give XSET enough respect, especially in the breeze game they threw many games just repeeking angles and dying.

XSET also had a good map vito. FPX is well know as a great counter strating team, so the pearl pick from XSET was an expectional choice. They had no idea how XSET plays so they never really had a chance.

Fnatic v 100T is so even i have no idea who's favoured, FPX v KRU i could see an upset happening although after the lose to XSET i imagine they have worked hard to fix any issues they have so i have to favour FPX

Honestly M3C with nAts and Derke or Alfajer would probably be a near unstoppable team, 4 of the best aimers in EMEA with one of the best IGLs