bro KC looked horrible, they had really good mechanics but most of their strats were taken straight from CS GO lmfaoo, like nobody used any util at all and just relied on decent fundamentals to win rounds which wont work against the best teams and scream's IGLing is super questionable too. They either need to make roster changes orrr they need to change their mind about how the game needs to be played

oh fuck yeah true, they are probably going to be top 3 with the likes of nrg and loud

After every team gets to their respective locations like LA, Berlin and Seoul. Which region will be the most stacked as in which region will have the closest competition and which teams will be at the top echelon

imo,
Americas is gonna be the closest probably with SEN, NRG, LOUD, FURIA and 100T being at the top 5 (LEV is also there I completely forgot about them)

EMEA is obviously gonna have FNC, NAVI at the top but the rest are coin tosses and teams like GIANTS and KOI could do some serious damage and if TL do well then they could be top 3 as well but I doubt it would be as close as Americas

APAC is probably just gonna be DRX, GENG, ZETA and Talon (if PRX look the same as they looked at LOCK//IN) and the rest of them are just playing for 5th place

Overall, Franchising is going to be prove that its going to make the competition super close and teams that cant keep up will be forced to make changes earlier and its way better than what we had before interms of pure competition

thanks and its all g, its vlr I expected most of them to be stupid but I knew there would be some who wanted to disagree/agree with my take and have a discussion about it yk

I mean kinda true, I just dont see the team meshing that well because they dont that guy whos loud and funny and like tries to talk a lot but if someone decides to step up and do that then that would make the team a whole lot better because I watched the new unSensored video and it was dead silent most of the times lmfao

every 4 or 5 years or so it would be fun but doing it every year would take away from the unique experience it provides to the viewer

for 100T you can try putting cryo on raze but like when you have asuna on the team its just a waste of potential no? and I'd be hella disappointed if top 5 is all sen can achieve with the current roster they have even AFTER they gel well

watch the stellar interview with wyatt (if u havent already), stellar seemed to be happier working with mikes than sean because sean was apparently very stratbook heavy and stellar wasnt really a big fan of that which is weird considering the fact that those strats along with their polished fundamentals was the reason they got to champions in the first place and so far i hate to say this but will > cryo but that can and most definitely will change

This is going to be a long ass read! prepare yourselfs (or don't)
I'm gonna try and discuss the problems that NA teams have and potentially find a solution for them (I have vod-reviewed basically the entirety of LOCK//IN other than boring games)

SO first up is

1. NRG - This team is really fucking good no surprise there and NRG don't need any changes or a "fix" because with more practice they are going to only get better from here but if I were to nit-pick then I'd like to see s0m be more consistent with his site anchoring and fragging because he made a lot of good decisions on almost all of the games but he also made a lot of confusing/bad decisions which played a part in them losing the round and also, victor, he NEEDS to step up a bit on the fragging department, he is no longer the guinea pig in the team so he needs to frag more because even fns has started to hold his own against top competition.

2. C9 - GGs for C9 wrap it up, give your slot to someone else like M80 or smthng, jokes aside C9 with the addition of runi and icy/nerve is a toss up but for the most part, this team on paper has gotten significantly worse. Either runi and the other replacement amaze us with their potential or what we all think happens and they shit the bed and C9 gets even messier and they trial several players and end up being the same as Sentinels from 2022 where they have SOME good players but other players in the team are just holding them back from their full potential
   but their old team did seem alright and had potential especially considering that jett was coming back into meta and they had yay who is one of the best jetts.

3. 100T - I have no idea what happened to this team but they definitely are not the team we know they can be, nobody seemed to have an incredible individual performance and cryo was so unbelievably mid at raze and he felt so uncomfortable in the team. They did a lot of good things but made way too many mistakes, their fundamentals have seemed to go backwards after sean left the team, we saw glimpses of it at RBHG but it definitely wasn't as bad as what we saw at LOCK//IN. Stellar had an interview with wyatt from platchat and stellar said that sean and him had some disagreements over how the game should be played and that the team thinks mike is a better fit as a coach for them and he also talked about how sean made stellar do uncomfortable plays which didn't lead him to do well individually but whats funny is that ONLY stellar did well individually this tournament, he was the only one who got a lot of impact kills while cryo wasn't being setup properly, asuna seemed lost a lot of the times, bang was average which is not what bang usually is and derrek was nowhere to be seen, he had a few clips but derrek seemed like he wasn't even a part of the team (not talking about his stats but the way he was playing with the team felt really off) but saying all that with given enough time and changing the roles to Cryo jett and making him flex to kayo or skye on maps that asuna can run raze would be the way forward.

4. EG - Where do I even start with these guys, they aren't bad but they definitely aren't good either. We expected EG to be mediocre but they kinda showed that they can be a good team and then just went onto play like an average team against Talon. First of all, Ethan, he feels like he isnt comfortable being there like something about him is off and they just seem like a team that hasn't had much prac even tho they basically can prac with themselves but with that being said, given enough time and a lot of comp changes they can be a team who is pretty good but I'm afraid they will always be stuck in mediocrity and never be able to pull themselves out of it with their current roster unless they replace boostio with someone more experienced and get yay, A team with Ethan, Vanity, Yay, Bcj and demon1 or c0m could be really good but I doubt that would ever happen especially because jawgemo is a really good player

5. Sentinels - This team is probably the best team on paper in the whole of Americas but they still need way more experience as a team, zekken seemed so lost on both maps they played and dephh's calling was mediocre at best and the only rounds they won were when pancada and tenz got either a 2k or 3k or 4k which is very convincing when you have other great talents like zekken and sacy on the team but the weird thing is they lost to FNC on the first fucking round so like we have no idea how good SEN are right now but that bein said, TenZ and Pancada looked great, TenZ has much better spacing now which was a problem he had but now hes super patient and very methodical on the way he takes gun fights and if he keeps this up we could see a resurgence and ofc, why pancada doesnt miss a shot. SEN are probably the team with the highest skill ceiling in the entire region but a lot of it depends on if dephh is good enough as an IGL if not then getting sacy to IGL could be great because he seems to be a great leader is former teammates with sadhaak who is one of the best IGLs in the game rn and then replacing dephh with marved, the roles will be fine because a lot of the maps have double controller now so imagine a game where you have marved on omen or astra but you also have pancada on viper or harbor and in maps that need only 1 controller marved could easily flex to a sentinel or initiator like kayo or skye.

subroza provides more to a team than will coz he has more experience and is a really good secondary caller according to his ex teammates

ah yes someone is acting out and is clearly in mental agony but instead of talking to his family or friends lets just call him out on twitter and join hands with his ex and continously talk trash about him! such a nice thing to do as a fellow human being

doubt marved wants to IGL and idt sykko will let dephh to be dropped this early on, its a mixed roster they are gonna need more time together

sen marved is currently being discussed and if they get marved as their sub then theres no way they have enough funds to get yay or vanity and i dont even think they want to do a roster change unless tenz wants to step back but even then i doubt thy would get yay

zander was forced to switch his IGL role when he was in v1 because of his bad igling, just coz an igl can shoot doesnt mean hes a good igl

derke got omega bodied by tenz multiple times when sen were actually good and people forgot tenz fucking dragged sen to the finish line when they were on their downfall but nope guys tenz overrated yay better! aspas better! derke better! when infact a players level depends on the team as a whole coz no matter how good u are, you arent gonna 1v5 multiple games in a row

bro thinks we are agents sent by the matrix lmfaooo

idk what sykko sees in dephh and also every single igl dry peeks a lot like ange1, dephh, bonecold all of em just swing when they are supposed to and take fb fights as a controller which is weird as hell, ange1 did it so much so that people thought he died on purpose to focus on igling more lmfaooo, but even if u wrre to replace dephh who would u get? valyn? doubt hed leave tgrd? who else?

idt the lawyer he hired is for sen, i think its for his ex and also sick has been struggling mentally for a long time and sen management and riot disrespected him and he didnt even react that badly he just said he was disappointed in them? he didnt even say anything that bad about them

their team play and strats miles superior to liquid and every emea team in the alpha bracket other than MAYBE koi

Their roles issues might now be fixed if marved joins because, he can be their fragging smokes player and vanity (if hes on the roster) can play initiator and IGL which he always wanted to and zellsis and xeppa can swap between primary duelist and flex while leaf is on sentinel

sick was at his lowest point and was contemplaying suicide several times and he did everything to keep the person she loved which is toxic but his mental prolly didnt allow him to think straight and all he did was try to keep the person he loved no matter the cost but she took advantage of it and she said she only met up with one guy but who knows? she lied several times and she couldve been with so many people and imagine what that can do to someones mental??

boasters always been good for it when theres barely any pressure, when he gets into those high pressure situatons thats when he starts to get bad and thats something that will show in this tournament too but it wont be muc of a problem this time coz u litierally have top 3 playrrs in their respective roles

that was a troll lmfaooi

sick.. yes definitely

sykko definitely accounted for it, the first ever interview sykko did he literally said that he knew dephh wasnt that great at IGL-ing both halves but he said that he believes in himself and his coaching staff to mould him into an even better IGL

Didn't get a single round when tenz or pancada didnt get a 2k,3k or a 4k

definitely not going to NRG, NRG just put up a world class performance and even tho yay wouldnt make NRG worse, the fact that they might have to change the comps and their entire playstyle AGAIN would not be fun for NRG and they are better off with the current roster

ironic coming from paNcada49 lmfaoo

yeah guys he was the little brother of bzka who was in teamspeak when they were playing against kru and optic in copenhagen and he heard sacy giving false information to his teammates

petition to change ur name to just delusional

maybe but i feel like smthng is just on a diff level whenever hes playing compared to others

yeah ik im just asking coz im too lazy to look it up lmaoo

didnt something play against like good competition and get bodied?

vanity, xeppa, leaf and mCe went to MANY lans and played well a lot of times in cs then NA cs fell apart

you are kinda right, what c9 did on pearl was hard antistrat, they didnt allow drx to exec on site and did fast retakes when drx werent ready for it but after pearl they tried to do the same thing on haven and it didnt work because 1. drx were ready for it (buzz posting up on ct smoke to catch someone trying to fast retake and small stuff like that) 2.c9 werent nearly coordinated as they were on pearl 3.their comp like idt i need to explain further and finally stax just had picture perfect reads a lot of the time and like you said it seems like c9 was making individual plays because c9 was going for fast retakes 90% of the time (worked on pearl but didnt on haven) and thats why it felt like they were individually trying to make plays overall drx just understood what c9 were trying to do in haven and countered it and 3rd map c9 lost because drx went for a gimmicky comp and c9 had no idea how to play against it

v1 he beat TL and few other teams and went out to nuturn and bro its zellsis he literally is the embodiment of extrovertedness he can perform in any given situation

vanity, leaf and xeppa has been to many lans in cs and zellsis and yay has been to lans in valorant

? boaster is literally known for his bad mid rounding, he can only call set plays and everyone knows if boaster fails with this new roster in lockin and fails to make waves at tokyo masters then boaster is 100% getting booted from the team

best answer so far, most important aspect of an IGL isnt fragging its actually mid rounding and fns is the best at it like by a pretty large margin

even when his a fake to c doesnt work he figures out that it didnt work and fights for b like idt theres any IGL who even comes close to fns interms of pure calling

C9 didnt out prx prx, prx look super unstructured and look like a super new roster (even tho they arent) and C9 plays morelike LOUD as in they are more loose and dont have a set gameplan so DRX dont hard counter them but still DRX could win purely based off of their experience and the fact that they are just an incredibly solid team

fns, its fns watch the haven map from nrg vs giants and rounds giants were supposed to win were taken away from them by fns making basically perfect calls, the call to hide on ct corner saved them a 3v5 round (fns got 3 there but even if he didnt crashies couldve won that round for them)

yeah its like the old prx is nowhere to be seen

I just watched the entire C9 vs PRX VOD for the second time and holy fuck prx played every round so fucking badly especially in pearl, just dry swinging when u have man advantage like that xeppa 1v2/3 wouldve never happened if forsaken decided to be smart but no they just HAD to fight over and over again. PRX were known for their controlled and coordinated aggressive plays but wtf was this today man, its disappointing and honestly if this is how they played against other teams then even talon could pretty EASILY beat them (without pati) coz like any other franchised team was more cohesive plus there were literally no team plays by prx like actually 0 team plays other than 1 or 2 in lotus which also failed miserably

haven map, bbl started to string together some rounds, drx usually would not make as many mistakes as they did today but even then drx are favored over c9

yeah they made mistakes that better teams would've capitalized on but thats prolly coz its their first matchup so not much to worry about

if drx are on form, c9 stand barely any chance but if drx look shaky like they did against bbl then c9 have a slight chance but tbh if xeppa and leaf keep up the same performance aand yay and zellsis step it up a bit then they could win

the problem with their playstyle is that it requires forsaken and jingg to always be popping off which makes it hard for them to be consistent as a team, one day they could look like the best team in the world, when jingg and forsaken pop off but then when they arent, they look like how they played against c9

prx played bad like really bad (forsaken in pearl was a jett in an immortal lobby just no comm running it down) but c9 also had some really good ideas and rounds also people are failing to notice how impactful vanity's calling was during this game, hes mostly the reason they won but also xeppa and leaf just werent missing shots so thats kinda unlucky for prx but players like mindfreak, forsaken and jingg were overheating WAY too much I get that its their whole aggressive style but theres literally no reason to fight when ur up a player but they still do and mindfreak... idek bro, he was getting caught out with his knife WAY too often and jinggg was overall like the only person who could string prx some rounds but he made a lot of mistakes on pearl too, overall prx felt like they were a new roster somehow while c9 seemed cohesive and structured to a certain extent

nvm, kc is actually better than i thought they would be, they dont look good but they dont look bad either but fpx are just man they are LOST like it seems as if they have no IGL and also there isnt this insanely mechanical player in that team either so yeah but KC im pretty sure get demolished by either LOUD or GEN G(prolly LOUD)