I agree that he has a chance to prove himself but a comparison to jingg and forsaken at this point makes no sense. Those 2 have proved themselves on the highest levels while xan is still climbing up. It could happen in the future, but not for a while

A lot of teams are using an analyst/assistant on the staff as a sixth man rather than an actual pro

Mans actually trying to shit on a 19 year old kid for remembering his first ever achievement in his esports career

Fnatic chose Pearl cuz 100T had no time to scrim cuz of Covid and LCQ. Its not fair that you hold that against the team cuz Fnatic was trying to be big brain and it failed cuz 100T is a lot more technical and disciplined than the other NA teams.

I agree with all of ur takes except 100T. They beat Fnatic , who picked Pearl because 100T couldn't practice any of it cuz lack of time between LCQ and champs, and clearly outplayed them on Haven. Their loss to DRX was 18-16 Breeze and 13-9 Fracture. Its not luck that they played well those 2 games.

I get ur a Vitality fan, hence the bias, but a team that qualified and did fairly well in champs and retaining the same core roster should be favored over a new Vitality team where none of the members have had the success that the 100T players had. I agree that Vitality is underrated but saying 100T has to prove themselves and are overrated when Vitality (and all the other teams) haven't done much either isn't a good take

i mean sure yay is better but nadeshot can't say on stream that "yeah yay is so much better than cryo so sucks we are stuck with him". DDK felt cryo is better fit for the team chemistry wise than yay (cryo and stellar played on soar together and cryo asuna and bang are all under 19). Doesn't mean cryo is better than yay, just a better team fit

Tex announced F/A so he won't be with NRG

All indications are that they will keep stellar

why supamen over Marved? Is marved planning to sign elsewhere?

Unpopular opinion, but I think Shahz is fine as an IGL. I think the issue with Shahz is that he doesn't have someone else to bounce ideas off of/provide fresh stuff during the game. When watching the games during LCQ, it is clear that they have interesting ideas and set plays, but there were many times when it looked like he ran out of ideas and no one else on the team could help out. I think they should target someone like zander so they could both split the duties. Both are mechanically good and zander can provide fresh stuff alongside the structure Rawkus has in place with Shahz. Thoughts?

Zekken is better for sure. Also, do you think instead of supamen, they go after someone like zander? Cuz I feel sentinel's problem was that they didn't have anyone secondary igl. Shaz was responsible for everything which is a lot for someone who also needs to perform well mechanically. Zander could help share the duties and can come up with new ideas/mid-game calls better

Eeiu is good but with guys like bcj and trent available, it may make sense to cut him. Ethan is interesting cuz he is a flex but he doesn't play duelist, so NRG would need to pick up someone who can play both jett and raze which is somehow rare cuz of chamber

Well, 100T beat FNC when they first played. Not saying 100t better than FNC or Furia but lets not forget that FNC needed a rematch against a team that has never played on LAN before (except for Asuna)

While I do agree EMEA has put up better performances, lets not forget that EMEA has had 1 more slot in every tournament than NA with the exception of Iceland 2021. So even though they have 4 more Top 4 finishes, they also had 4 more teams compete than NA. I would look at EMEA vs NA head to head as a better indicator of which region is better (I think its 6-8 in favor of EMEA).

its looking like Will plays raze and asuna plays breach/kayo/skye on the "raze maps" (bind, split, fracture) with stellar picking up the chamber

As good as it can seem, an over-committed and over-emotional owner can lead to immense pressure and rash decisions (ex. dropping ec1s and babyj after 2 games)

Any possibilities for SEN Ethan? Obv zombs not practicing and sick has been playing smokes recently in ranked so they prob r going for a flex player. Sinatraa makes the most sense on paper, but sentinels may not wanna go through the PR trouble

replace tex on nrg

idk he did provide some insane moments in 2021 (1 v 4 vs TSM, 1 v 3 Gambit). May not have been the best player, but can't deny how well the steel, nitro, ethan, hiko, asuna core did together

"about to start" yeah ok buddy

I mean stellar and ethan play different roles. Sure ethan may be a better player, but there is ton of role overlap with ethan, bang, and derrek.

they did for exactly 2 matches

It'll be tough to get bang and jcstani up to speed, but a core fragging trio of asuna, bang, and ethan is pretty solid. Also jcstani frags much better than ec1s. Either way, we'll see what happens but I actually think this move may end up working

It is shitty to babyj and ec1s tho, and no respectable org should do this but ig this is what it has come down to

hes been playing sova in ranked/scrims for a while now

ethan sova

I think his struggles with T1 comes down to change in personality that he dealt with. With 100t, he had 3 veteran csgo players [hiko,nitr0,ethan] that had been through a lot in the scene and had a ton of experience. He didn't need to hand-hold them and he could get more creative with his calling. With T1, he has young kids who he can't treat like he did the 100t guys. Maybe by next qual the team can perform better

.

A may be more interesting.... curious to see the new 100T roster, and if all the favorites play normally, it'll be a 3 way battle [Guard, LG, EG] for 1 spot between evenly matched teams

According to Dot Esports...

Group A: 100T, C9B, XSET, Guard, LG, EG
Group B: NV, Sen, V1, NRG, Knights, Rise

Cuz Chet put something out about how Boaster's IGLing wasn't good in Iceland

Its a bad system no doubt, but keloqz ego peeked a lot. I think he got complacent cuz of all the bad t3 teams he shat on. No doubt tho he is a better jett than mixwell

After shitting on t3 teams, keloqz didn't take Alliance seriously and they almost lost cuz of it. If G2 wants to compete with the top EU teams, he needs to perform more consistently

Its kind of weird though that Rossy hasn't been announced but has already put TSM in his twitch streams. I would have thought TSM would have done what 100T did and not have any of the players say anything until it is officially announced

While I don't buy so much into the TenZ hype that others do, he is still one of the best JETTs in the world. He had one poor tournament, but if you look at his career, his problem has always been his inability to move away from jett and reyna.

Just watch his Breeze game against F4Q and the Haven game against NV from Berlin

They also only play in Feb while other teams play next week so they have some time to play with each other

Playing t2 tourneys only pits you against t2 players. The question is how will he stack up against guys like TenZ, leaf, Asuna, and yay

T1 does seem decent on paper, but the roles are kind of weird (pwny on smokes???)

Considering the fact that they wiped the floor with NA teams in the Challengers playoffs [dropped only 1 map the whole tournament] for Masters 3, their success is still relevant. I'm not trying to say Sen is the best team in the world, which they are clearly not. But, its unfair to put other NA teams in front of them when only 2 NA teams has beaten them since Masters 2 opens and having won every NA challengers finals

My point though is that Sen losing to Kru is not some massive game changing upset. Sure the expectations may have been higher for Sen, but Kru showed in the big stage that they were a contender for the title

Supa is not an IGL, plus it's reported that Rise is trying to sell the core to a different org so not sure if the deal would work for just 1 player

Its crazy how Sen losing to Kru who ended up almost beating Gambit in the semis has everyone saying they are done. They still consistently ran through NA competition and finished first in Masters 1 & 2. Their only NA losses in major tourneys were BBG (the GOAT), AndBox when they first got TenZ, and NV at Berlin.

My ranking would be
1a. NV - Still think they are the most fundamentally sound aim and strats wise, and will give them benefit of the doubt for poor performance at Champs w/ Victor getting covid
1b. Sen - Consistently top results but concerns w/ players not being comfortable w/ agents that fit meta. The gap between NV and Sen is razor thin

3. C9 - Very good late year performance but will need to see more consistency from Xeppa and the team in 2022
4. 100T - People are heavily discounting 100T but BabyJ is prob one of the best fragging sentinel players and ec1s EU IGL experience can provide a unique perspective. If Asuna and Ethan continue to play great together, 100T is a dark house to become a top team in NA.

What about XSET? Cryo is a great player but he hasn't played in any t1 tourneys. Going up against t2 and unsigned orgs is one thing, but at XSET he will have to go up against guys like TenZ, yay, Asuna, leaf, Sick, Ethan, crashies, ShahZ, etc. So until we see him play at the level people expect him to play at, XSET is still a team that had consistently struggled against the top teams so its tough to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Curious to see how Cryo performs against t1 competition cuz SoaR only played t2 tourneys.

Its a huge downgrade from nitr0, but I am not sure about steel. Nitr0 explained in his Liquid interview that the team was having problems with steel and the environment wasn't that great. Steel is a mastermind at calling, but if the team isn't in the right headspace it isn't going to work. Also BabyJ is a very good sentinel player who can honestly frag better than steel. I think the nitr0 to ec1s change was a clear downgrade, but its not like 100T had any choice

Honestly, I think 100T has a decent chance to compete at the top of the NA scene. Asuna and Ethan are still top players in the scene, Hiko is a decent Sova and its not like there are other Sovas with his utility usage out there (Sinatraa is prob the only one but 100T would never sign him), and BabyJ was the best sentinel out on the market is a good fragger for the role

The only question mark is ec1s who struggled with Liquid, but found success at NIP against Tier 2 and lower Tier 1 teams. Obviously he is a downgrade from nitr0, but are there any experienced IGL's out there in NA? For those saying zander would have been a better option, lets keep in mind that SoaR has not sniffed Tier 1 competition so we don't really know how he would stack up against guys like ShahZ, FNS, dephh, etc.

I think 100T wanted to go into the year with a roster of Asuna, Hiko, nitr0, Ethan, and BabyJ which would have been a top 3 or 4 roster in NA. However, with nitr0 unexpectedly leaving, this is probably the best they could have gone with and we'll have to see what happens.

G2 can't compete in Challengers 2, missing out on Masters 1
Pipson is suspended for a year
Depending on Nukkye's involvement, he should also be suspended for a year

I mean Sentinels in game stuff relies purely on them out-aiming their opponents. If you watch their game, they use their utility specifically to set up gun fight because they all believe that they can win their aim duels.

However, with teams now playing more structured and getting more used to the game, other teams are able to use utility much better than Sentinels and avoid the 1 v 1 gun fights against TenZ or Shahz.

Either way, they will most likely run through open quals pretty easily due to the talent gap but it will be interesting to see how they stack up to up and coming teams like KCP, Akrew who will have better strats but not have the talent

Keloqz is a great young talent and no doubt shouldn't have dropped by G2, but people are acting as if this dude is the savior of G2. The roles are still unclear, they have no IGL and rely solely on a coach, and their competition has taken a clear step above them. In all honesty, the G2 roster that placed 3rd-4th at Berlin is probably the best roster they had all year, and they should use that as a template for the next iteration cuz you know that's coming real soon

Nukkye looked straight dogshit on sova. He fragged decent but had no idea wtf he was doing with his utility
Mixwell thought he was playing kj or something cuz the entry for both maps was hoody.
Hoody looked fine on breach but is clearly wasting his talent on that agent, if he played jett they prob would have won

Everyone else was fine

Also for those shitting on Meddo, mans ended up with 5 less kills than his Jett so.......

There really isn't any good IGLs left on the market, especially for cheap team like Andbox.

Seven has been playing initiator agents (skye & kay-o) and chamber a lot recently so wouldn't be surprising if pwny ends up playing jett