spyder switched to duelist on bind and it's looking so sick to have rn for T1. switching azk to omen was def the play. the amount of space spyder made compared to ska's raze so far has been immeasurable

honestly saya on duelist on haven is more beneficial. i think on split and ascent keep him on omen but otherwise yea let him play duelist

no sentinel on haven? this is an interesting comp to see

ruin: "I don't see how you can look at [Group C] and think we're not the favorite."

Definitely agree, it is the underdog group compared to the rest. All the teams in this group have a lot to prove

wow

lets be real. do we think this is a fluke for 100 thieves because there isn't much material or vods to go off of them or are they truly a top 5 (or 3) team in NA atm?

what the fuck

this match is where i feel like what map is banned is important. if ascent and bind are the first 2 maps there's a world where t1 wins 2-0. Tho, 2-1 sentinels imo

edit: yayI FINALLY GOT A PREDICTION RIGHT

WOOOHOOO SLIMEY BOOGERMEN!!

WTF

i am sad

i'm guessing both maps will be 13-9+ scorelines. spot up can def make this close

Good interview!

I think for anyone reading, this was an interesting part of the interview:

We already know about the next patch which will launch in a few days, your main hero — Cypher has undergone a change, in your opinion, is he greatly weakened, and are you thinking of changing the hero?

(I won't put the answer here to take away link clicks)

true. i feel like it was an outlier though but i'd love to be proved wrong esp. given renegades' track record

2-1 100t

t1 has a major anti eco problem ngl

coL's pickups have been great but I'm still on the fence about Xp3. I wonder if there is a better replacement for him and his role atm (assuming coL does not make it to First Strike)

I would argue that TSM got a way easier group than C9. Wow. They'll definitely smash their group

i agree. tbh considering that cutler played cypher i think it would be better for him to learn breach and swap with drone on sova. i'd rather have drone being one of the first guys in instead of the last w wardell, and i dont think breach is the playstyle for it. then again im sure tsm have time to work on their composition

Damn. I was hyped when I saw the initial announcement w/ yay and ANDROID but seb is an underwhelming pickup. This roster feels like a circlejerk of NA Tier 3 CS players. Was hoping they'd pickup new talent

i wanna wwatch these... stream them PLEASE

Seems like JUPITER learned a lot after the loss to Vision Strikers. An absolutely dominating grand final after showing early signs of struggle in the tournament.

It seems Japanese teams run Reyna in their comp a lot. Potentially suggests a more aggressive aim-based strategy? I wanna watch the VODs sometime later and study, because the Reyna picks this tournament should be high in comparison to NA and EU.

I for one welcome our korean overlords

2-1 Jupiter. Jupiter to blow a 8+ round lead on at least 2 of the maps

WAIT what?

I think it really depends on the team and map comp.

Sage's wall also is very reliant on the map. You see Sage mainly picked in NA on split (even TSM picks Sage), just because her wall at mid is so crucial to grabbing information and delaying a push for a few seconds. Even though the wall is so weak after past nerfs, there isn't an ability like Sage's wall to play mid safely on split.

You saw how in most Haven games, most of the teams used smokes to exec. Early on in the beta, a Sage wall was used to block off the sightline from either A or C link to allow teams to focus on one side of the B site, but the recent meta has changed to where full control of the site and smoking off both links is more important.

Ascent's map comp is more suited to a team's strengths. For example, Gen.G will sacrifice a sage for gMd's raze because Gen.G's comp setup (and huynh imo isn't strong enough) relies on two entry fraggers, and having gMd not on a entry agent would be less fortunate

I'm surprised less teams are running Sage on bind, though. I think she has a lot of usefulness with her wall on site takes and defense, specifically on retakes or Hookah control