Ego & Sword9 will have them outshine the brightest star at Seoul

potter boutta pull some masterclass bullshit to win this

AG MENTIONED 🗣️🗣️🗣️

Yoru is #1 Brim is a decently close #2. "OPEN UP THE SKY" goes so unbelievably hard

bro put TH and didn't include Patitek as an honorable mention

i really like both these teams but CCG 2-1

It won't be easy, but AG can definitely 2-1. Ego has been doing fantastic prep work, and it seems like the team is finally gaining the confidence they need to do some serious damage. I would be very surprised if they didn't learn from their previous encounter, and do everything they possibly can in this timeframe to correct their past mistakes & bring it home to secure playoffs. There is no reason why they shouldn't be able to crack Trace's playbook open & secure at least one comfortable map.

ngl it might be because literally everyone on that roster have been in team environments that were overall quite mid. Maybe they're just not used to initially being such a good team, and the expectations from earlier in the year weighed them down. idfk i'm yapping excuses but their falloff from kickoff legit needs to be investigated

Wolves need to be fucking studied under a microscope. atp i do not know how they have so many good early round starts and halves, and then proceed to give it away every time

the only team I would say have gotten over it completely is FPX atm, which isn't really saying much considering literally all of them are fucking psychopaths with how they play.

EDG players look hella boomed
Trace always blow it at the important moments
All Gamers are serial map 1 and 2 chokers (hopefully they addressed that)
Wolves has an entire roster that shits the bed as soon as they get in comfortable positions

To DRG, Nova, and BLG's credit their problems in the past were purely gameplay or calling. When they fixed their problems they look hella promising. I could see any of these 3 teams leveling up like crazy next year as they practice more

unironically Wolves have such good talent & natural structure, but their mental is one of the worst to ever grace the international leagues (if not THE worst). even with language issues with their early season coach they still have really good moments sometimes

they will somehow manage to still be regular season warriors & choke every qualifier

it's been the worst region. they're learning fast tho

Kulin 2-0's if they don't choke their fights 🥲

unlucky they'll get em next time

thank fucking god

removing haodong instead of the most fraudulent coach in the entire game's history

and people say "fans shouldn't be coaches" when ppl like you pump out insightful bangers like this

they've been blaming him for forever. unless there's an announcement or confirmation from the rest of the team that he's out of the system he's still most likely influencing the team

prolly a personal thing if i had to guess. though I do wish management just went up and said "nah you're fucking gone" after the wolves game

he's what every Termi & Mini hater from last year imagined them to be

all this just for them to bottom out in champs due to After's incompetence (I will forever be a hater)

btw this is further confirmation that the team is going to sink even lower come to champs. The same exact problems will remain & more and more blame will be put on After. The excuse of "give them time to meld" will not apply here because they will look as shit as they did before. The management is literally going to exhaust all options until After can't deflect his issues anymore. Only then will this team even be close to replicating their old international performance

everyone on Sun Prisa
cxy0714 & click are some of the best aimers in CN rn
yoman's pretty goated
Kr1stal
Jinboong

YOU aura diffs

you'll see

CCG 2-0's

ZY 2-0's

Kulin 2-1's

he can't handle that rb got exposed by Tvirusluke two separate times this season

ag & nova farm rb and friends

We'll have to see more on how Jkuro does on sentinel before judging the role swaps, but Z1yan player-wise doesn't seem like a downgrade so far. Mart1n was pretty hit-or-miss last split

Wolves were the worst RESULTS WISE. Individually they're one of the better teams in terms of mechanics & sensible strats. If they didn't have as many coaching issues & the mentality didn't plunge off a cliff after week 1 they'd definitely be a lot higher in the standings. They did play a lot better than they normally do in the EDG game though, so maybe there's hope that they don't blow the roster up next year & try to play up to their potential

All Gamers mentioned RAHHHHHH

Abo on TEC

this game is going to be the foundation for the masterclass BLG is gonna pull to group NRG again

nah being real I think this is all on after. I'm 99% sure they're only putting trust in him because of his seniority, not entirely because they're overlooking & agree with him. it's more negligence than anything and honestly I wouldn't put it past them, since the team has done nothing BUT do well domestically and internationally the past 2 years straight

There are probably 3 outcomes that'll happen after Seoul:

1. EDG keep After and blow up the roster (unlikely)
2. A core is kept with minor changes (most likely option)
3. They run it back with a coaching change (will say it's more likely than #1)

Regardless this will only happen after they bomb out of champs

you'd think there would've been a full on internal investigation by now from EDG, but I'm assuming management is choosing to trust After's word for the moment and see how it goes, which sucks for the players but what can you do?

the sad part is that unless management steps in it'll probably keep going like this til the end of the season. I honestly do not see a world where EDG get their shit straight & do decently at champs

yeah i speculated the igl restriction a while ago because it was such a huge shift in their strategies. there is no possible way that Haodong--probably one of the best igls last year, mind you--is suddenly plunging in quality at the drop of a hat

he's incapable of seeing their gameplay from a 3rd person perspective. if every other team is rapidly improving and you're not with the most amount of international experience, what the actual fuck are you doing?

I can really only watch a few games a week with the free time I have, and i chose CN soooooo

1. NathanD: not a debate
2. Destroyer: at no point has Trace looked definitively bad. 90% of their problems were mental
3. Ego: he clearly knows what he's doing
4. Bail: as soon as they got a competent igl they looked 500x better & they were executing their ideas more cleanly
5. Anaks: JDG look a lot better under him atm
6. 24K: honestly he cooks some pretty cool shit
7. LT: not bad set plays but he needs some more experienced staff working with him
8. Naint: the language barrier with wolves gives him some slack. he was clearly a big help at the beginning
9. 3water: TEC not being at least middle of the pack with this roster is a crime
10. After: mega fraud
11. shuaishuai/sunshine: both were/are equally shit

I'm going to choose to blind myself with optimism and say that AG 1-2 with one loss being close. They've been on an upward trajectory that I don't think is going to stop anytime soon, and regardless of the outcome this series will prove to be a good test & reference point for further improvement.

i know the method what can i say

after EDG inevitably get 2-0'd they will be cemented as the worst team of today

the worst CN team in history vs. the worst CN team of today 🔥🔥🔥

i'd say it is. they were clearly shaken in the first map & first half of lotus, but after they won the bonus they were visibly different. was FPX playing 'great'? no not really, but Trace did a great job after the first lotus half & actually looked like the top 3 team people expected them to be

Trace started swinging in 2nd half, OT turned into a slugfest, and they rode the momentum to win sunset pretty convincingly