unfortunate visa issues

same

Oh yeah 7ssk7 is good shout. He looked impressive during Stage 2 and LCQ especially. Don't know what happened to him though because he was only rumored on Istanbul Wildcats and that was kind of it.

oops

That is true, but there's too many question marks compared to Fnatic, NaVi and Liquid. Koldamenta, Sheydos and Trexx are all really good, but I'm not 100% sold on starxo yet even though I think he is overall good player. And Wolfen is still unproven and pretty unpolished player. In my honest opinion I think people are even overrating him a bit heading into next year, but at least Koldamenta has good history with polishing young talent (cNed, Keloqz, trexx). Also I'm not too sure about the roles yet either. If Chamber doesn't stay in meta then is Wolfen going to move to sentinel role or duelist? What starxo's role is going to be? Just hard to predict them higher, but their potential is high and they have some good pieces on paper.

Team Liquid - 2 stand-ins, playing weird comps that likely are more improvised for this event (based on nAts comments on stream and interview).
Vitality - did well and showed potential. But again they are young team and 100T winning every pistol today didn't help much.
Heretics - also still young, but also individually wise keloqz had pretty weak showing with Mixwell. Just inconsistent like expected.
FUT - they are just bad and I hope they make changes.
Fokus - well I don't think anyone expected much but did better than expected with a stand-in.

but if I would have to rate top 4 right now:
FPX - gets boost from Chamber nerf, also still anti-strat gods and have shown the capabilities of playing different styles
Fnatic - most stacked roster, but they always seem to choke.
Liquid - really good roster, but could be bit inconsistent. At least more than Fnatic or FPX.
Giants - their roster is really good and their Haven already looked really good and if they can make their other maps as detailed as well they will do well. Also nukkye still needs to become more comfortable on his role and same with hoody.

but as I said top 3 can be any order and Vitality or KOI might overtake Giants.

Easiest and likely most realistic EMEA ranking:

#1-3: Fnatic, NaVi, Liquid (not in order)
#4-6: Giants, KOI, Vitality (not in order)
#7: Heretics
#8-10: KCorp, BBL, FUT (not in order)

Heretics is hard to put into same group with any team because I think they look worse than 4-6 but better than 8-10. Also KCorp could rise to same group with Heretics because they still have Scream, Nivera can be good, XMS looked pretty good in VRLs and they also get boost because they can communicate in French. I think that within the groups its impossible to rate the teams at this point.

FaZe likely. I just don't know how good Dicey is outside of Chamber. Ghost looked good during Stage 2 NA(?) but then looked like ass in playoffs. That's why I'm not too high on M80. Also Zander looked good with V1 but then something happened and they disapeared. Also hard to tell how much of impact Zander had. Guard looks pretty good but feels like they are missing something. Valyn and Trent are good but rest are bit hard to say especially for next year feel bit inconsistent. G2 has Whippie for next year's Chamber nerfs so that's good but they seem bit washed otherwise. Shopify looks decent but again I think it would be better if guys like mada and bdog were on other teams with different supports players.

but who am I to say anything. But overall I think Faze has highest chance on paper.

Good take. I also see a lot of similarities. In my opinion both teams seem to be more focused on teamplay and chemistry instead of just individuals. While obviously having clutch factor in any member because again they don't just rely on single individual doing crazy amounts (esp before Cryo addition).

EMEA talent has always been spread so wide that you can't create many rosters with amazing players in every role. Leo on Fnatic, Shao on FPX, Sheydos on KOI, Cloud on Giants, even Soulcas on Liquid. There isn't many initiators to pick up from and according to some people Destrian is vocal player so he adds to calling and likely partly a reason why Salah decided to stick with him. They could have taken their chance with some VRL player, but again there is a reason why they kept him.

And as I've said before I think this team will benefit a lot from staying longer together. I think its way too early to blame any individual when we haven't seen what this team is capable off in couple of months. OGLU(Molsi, Destrian, later Salah, Strong) managed to do decent in EMEA with low individual talent due to their chemistry and unique strats etc. This Vitality roster has even more firepower so they have a lot of potential in my opinion

No. With time Vitality has potential to be really good. And then you have Giants with good roster and KOI who have really good core. I think all of these 6 can do great things. Not sure about the teams under them though. Heretics can be good but super inconsistent and keloqz has been bit worrying. I don't expect much from KCorp, FUT and BBL though I think they will be pretty bad.

True about CS, but you can't say anything about Valorant yet. Its too early.

Giants > KCorp and its not even close. Team with nukkye, Cloud, hoody, rhyme and Fit1nho is not worse than Scream, Nivera, xms, Shin and Newzera. If Giants has time to perfect their other maps they can be good af. Their Haven already looked really good and rhyme and Fit1nho showed great performances. Their firepower alone is really high.

Young team with players coming from teams where they either had to be the playmakers like Twisten or from tier 2 where they wont get punished as hard like ceNder. With time they will more well rounded and more discpline. This wasn't the only game where someone would push deep CT while having site control and losing man advantage. And well losing all pistols kinda suck but 100T had good record so good for them.

He has had some bad games and usually doesn't frag much but he also had decent games and his utility is good. I don't think it was lack of firepower that lost them. I'm telling you give this team more time when they can build structure and they will be really good.

They are not bad just couple of bad decisions that ended up costing them rounds that were really winnable and had some that almost ended up costing bad. And they lost all pistols if I'm not wrong so that isn't good and they need to work on that. But outside of that good from them.

they dont look anything alike

this is why Derke >

"they kept basically everyone" just casually replaced 2 of their worst players with worldstar caliber players. And even though they haven't won yet they have still placed like top 5 every tournament just like Champions.

Respect for them for even making 3rd party events.

Replace 100T with Fnatic they will at least make top 5 even if they don't win.

I feel like some of these players have the need to make plays even when they are really risky and those ended up costing rounds. Tunnel visiong too much maybe. But overall great from Vitality and even Heretics have showed potential against my expectations.

unfortunately losing both pistols and doing couple bad individual plays cost Vitality that map like ceNder just pushing CT and dying and leaving Molsi to bad position and just standing there while they are getting wallbanged and not even faking defuse

so badly played by vitality ffs "oh he is wallbanging lets just roleplay train"

He is and is really underrated. He did so well in VRL but no one talked about him. Guys like Wolfen got all the attention while Cender was better

Molsi is really good

Molsi had off-day yesterday. He really rarely puts up such bad performances as he did yesterday, maybe the worst I've seen from him. He even played like shit vs Fokus.

Melser isn't the IGL or nAts. Also they were the favorites, with full roster. And Heretics is inconsistent team so their loss wasn't surprising.

No one is underrating LATAM outside of Leviatan maybe. KRU has performed around level of expectations. They beat Fokus and Liquid with 2 subs (close game with 3-0 and 4-0 Ascent attack starts). Nothing crazy.

Liquid are throwing so hard with troll comps but it was expected with subs.

I guess mixture of all.

But, when I was watching nAts' co-stream he asked Redgar that why are Liquid playing Breach (on Bind) and Redgar just said something like "because they are playing double duelist maybe" so seems like their Bind comp isn't set and Liquid is just playing some random comps in RedBull.

They are weak. What? How can you call Meddo and Enzo as sub duo strong? Enzo was putting up worse individual performances than Boaster and Meddo was arguably the weakest on G2 with players like Mixwell and Avova (outside of playoffs where he always activated). Theres a reason neither of these are in franchising. Enzo maybe deserves his shot in KCorp but that isn't because of his invididual skill. nAts alone would put up better performances than these 2.

Then you dont have good eyes. Also how is my take biased? I said 100T are slightly favored like they are. Saying that 100T are much better isn't good take either.

huge and nice to see

I have no idea, but that is interesting if true. I wasn't super high on him after their VCT run, but he really impressed me during Red Bull. He was able to put up great Chamber and Jett performances against some really good players.

I've been saying this since forever. People are just sleeping on them because their players aren't popular. They have a lot of potential and I fully believe this roster will have high ceiling as they build structure with time. OGLU relied a lot on that and they still did decent even with relatively weak roster on paper.

2-1 for Vitality, but it could be 2-1 for 100T as well. I think Vitality looks better and better each game and especially Bonecold has been on fire. Finally seeing good performances from ceNder as well. And then you just need Molsi and Twisten to have good games and not like yesterday. Vitality didn't have much time to prep so that gives them disadvantage. 100T are good, but I don't think they have been super impressive like some people say. 100T are slightly favored but not by much in my books.

I don't know what this is about, but don't do anything stupid dude or something you can't reverse. Its not worth it

Way too inconsistent unfortunately. Too many inconsistent players on this team. I wish Heretics had given player like JUGi a shot instead. He had really great tournament overall and put up some good showings outside of KRU game.

True but it depends on team and players and I think 3rd BO3 in day isn't the best game to show your true potential. Vitality has bunch of relatively low experience players as well.

Molsi off-day and 3rd BO3 in a row

Liquid is missing their IGL and top 1/2 sentinel player in the world. If this game was this close while Liquid plays with 2 individually relatively weak subs with week of prep they would have likely dominated the game with full roster.

If they had full roster they would have been rolling this tournament

holy shit

He is better than all of those 3. Aspas is close but Derke better than him.

this tournament has been fucking crazy

LEC owns LCS

He has the chances of being the best duelist player. He was top 5 if not top 3 Chamber player(his Chamber gets rated low while his stats show otherwise, only behind Yay and Ardiis) he was and likely still is top 3 Jett player and on top of that his Raze is really good. He can play all 3 and be insane with all of them. No other player can put up such good performances with all the 3 agents.

No they haven't? Even their latest roster had Enzo and Mistic in it. Enzo came from tier 2 and wasn't anything crazy as individual and Mistic has always been decent but nothing crazy. Leo and Chronicle are massive upgrades on paper. Arguably best or at least 2nd EMEA initiator and Chronicle who was considered as one of the best in the world if not the best last year and even earlier this year. Add Derke who is top 3 duelist and then Alfajer who has shown really high peak and you have superteam.