HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA IT'S ONLY UP FROM HERE. SURELY THINGS WON'T GET WORSE

Septem7 PLEASE don't fumble this PLEASEEEEEE

WE HAVE TZH. WE FINALLY HAVE A PLAYER WHO'S ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING HOLY SHIT

ez win for Flora

for China it's All Gamers and it's not even close atm

Honestly I don't really care if they release info as long as they actually utilize the best resources available. The fact they did open trials does give me hope that they're treating this stuff seriously though, and that they're not gonna throw it all away for absolutely zero reason.

Also I'd say the AG route is currently more questionable. At least the people DRG signed look like an upgrade.

problem is they literally haven't announced SHIT. for all we know their current offseason lineup is 100% subs outside of ninebody. the lack of information about hfmi, eren, and coldfish speaks to that

100% Tyloo's one of them

if AG show their best they can possibly go 1-2 instead of 0-2!

Edit: okay the lineup is Monk K1ra TZH Carl and DeLb. i'm actually okay with this holy shit. still not winning though

President declares martial law for absolutely zero reason and it gets lifted in a few hours LMFAOOO these twitter ppl aren't real

least based DRG fan 💯

0% Hard work
0% Experience
100% Talent

Eggster victims

easy win for the DLTT 3-0 record

1. EDG - No explanation needed
2. Trace - No explanation needed
3. BLG - I trust bail and Jexen to keep this team improving. The two new additions are also providing value constantly
4. WOL - Roster's stacked and Fayde's already put in a ton of work
5. FPX - Known quantity but how far they get entirely depends on how good NathanD's meta reads are. I don't have hope in their fundamentals improving a whole lot comparatively
6. XLG - Lots of potential to improve over the season
7. NOVA - Insanely high ceiling mechanics-wise & play their own game. Biggest cn sleeper pick imo
8. JDG - Still Stew and friends. Ego's capable of elevating them to qualify for internationals though given some time
9. DRG - Struggling to find the magic they had early last season, but Vookashu and Flex1n should elevate this team above the bottom-feeders
10. TEC - I think Haodong and After will bring much needed structure they lacked last season, but ngl i think the stars would need to align for them to do well
11. Tyloo - Don't even have a confirmed full roster yet
12. AG - Extremely questionable management & coaching decisions so far. I hope X3B and Septem prove me wrong though

(3-5 and 6-7 are interchangable)

Crapna

seems like they've put in a lot of work since Champs lol. they look amazing

EG only in C tier

Saw them in the advance stage, liked their logo, watched them and fell in love. they're a mid team but they're very raw, and i just have a soft spot for those kinds of teams

the only world where that doesn't happen is if they don't properly prep for kickoff and get caught off guard by some of the teams in the top-half. if fucking All Gamers are grinding their asses off and bootcamping imagine what the rest are doing in the meantime

every team at the beginning-to-mid of last season would've lost even harder tf are you smoking. it literally wasn't until split 2 where the teams outside of Trace FPX and EDG even looked like they knew what they were doing. the top-half of China is night and day rn compared to last year

sad times to be a Delight fan 😔

the critiques are valid but all of them have a good 2 months (+ the downtime between kickoff and split 1) to practice and prep. Destroyer made Trace's Bind good within a similar amount of time. I disagree with BLG and Trace's firepower being subpar. I'd argue Rushia is one of the better new raw mechanical talents recently. NOVA's problem is that they lack depth in almost every area, not form imo. SiuFatBB COULD be a problem but his calling is still decently sensible and i like to think that Wolves won't spiral this time.

I mean everyone was dropping the ball in that Lotus game. No duelist + Chamber with no one capitalizing on utility and dry fighting. It looks like an overcook at the worst moment possible, but imo the idea had legs if they just prepped it more

I think Trace will benefit off of the update map pool, and it would be pretty in character for Destroyer to focus on revamping their Abyss and Pearl (i don't know how they'd handle fracture though). FPX are weird because this exact same situation happened after Shanghai and they locked in near the end anyways, and especially because it's the offseason I wouldn't take their underwhelming performance too seriously

overall things are looking pretty good so far no?
BLG look way more structured
TE are figuring stuff out but they don't look any worse than how they did at champs
EDG are EDG
NOVA could easily level up if some things go smoothly over the next month
Wolves could look even better than they already did with Juicy coming in for Viva
The only team in the upper half i'd say is a clear potential downgrade is FPX but for all we know at any second the ultimate meta read can appear to NathanD like how the burning bush appeared to Moses

all i can think of is that either the main roster didn't wanna play or it conflicted with practice schedules. could be both but i'm not sure

it's not even gun skill by itself. they also know how to properly play clutch situations & decently understand how to play ecos. they're a walking caveman test to see how good these teams are fundamentally lol

i don't think they're gonna get kicked or benched. I'm pretty sure Septem and/or X3B are just limit testing in the offseason to see how their previous core fares but i still don't like it. they're bootcamping though so only time will tell what they'll do

it's an incentive for the orgs but the players (poppin and eggster) might be turned off cuz they can't just stream 24/7 and farm ranked clips to get that youtube rent money. also let's not pretend like most org 'content' pieces aren't terrible or cringe af

it's not a matter of if they do well. it's a matter of seeing them compete in general. also i don't really think tier 2 teams are that streamlined outside of the obvious top (m80 last season) to where they could punish them consistently. though actually trying to discuss this is pointless considering eggster and poppin are never gonna unironically compete anyways lol

this shit is raw talent. i'm feining for them to compete next season cuz wtf am i witnessing

ik they're down bad for money n i was mostly joking

but fr these players gotta get dropped a bag. 5-stack of mechanically hot grinders. you don't get an opportunity like this ever. ik eggster and poppin are content machines but it feels criminal to not see them compete in tier 2

m80's gotta pick up rankers IMMEDIATELY

whether they were or not doesn't matter cuz it wasn't their full roster. i don't really care if they play or do well but I just wanna know what they're up to with the 7 man roster ffs

it was their scrim accounts i'm pretty sure, but i have no idea who actually played outside of bunt and player. from what i've seen from that one vlr staff it's their academy

I know you guys are bootcamping in Chendu and probably don't gaf abt offseason matches at this point, BUT PLEAAAAAASE GIVE ME ANYTHING PLEASE. WHAT THE FUCK DID I WITNESS WITH THAT SHOWMATCH

the more notorious names between 2021 & 2022

i'd say after this season the previous generation will be more or less gone in tier 1 universally (excluding China)

also the fact that RIOT is full sending their support in propping up the tier 1 scene is definitely a good sign on the esports side of things. people like to shit on them for how they handle tier 2 and the scheduling (for good reason) but the amount of effort they've put into making tier 1 enjoyable since the inception of the esport can't be ignored. it's only been 4 years since it started, so Val's still crawling. we can't predict how the casual and competitive playerbase will turn out beyond a few years time, but anyone who says it's going to diminish to the point of being unsalvageable are being silly

ik it seems mega fucking cope to say they "aren't trying" rn but they've said themselves that they wanted a break and weren't going to practice all that much for these tournaments. their champs run wasn't a 'flash of the pan' life performance. they changed very little structurally and simply went back to what always worked for them. S1mon was as much of a contributor as the coaching staff were in that it helped make EDG a well oiled machine. nothing more nothing less

ion entirely know considering i'm going off their fucking weibo social posts, but X3B and player are nowhere to be seen in their Chendu update posts like at all. and they're probably also bootcamping while the Radiant Asia Invitational's happening so it'd be weird for them to not include them if they were playing

they put Bunt on flash initiator and subbed him out in favor of the new igl. confusing role choices overall

if Monk plays i'll be happy. idfk what role he'd be on but my god i hope he's playing

nah they signed one before sword9 left. Septem7 was Q9's head coach during ascension

HOLY SHIT AG IS SO BACK LFGGGGGGG
both Monk and Bunt hopefully playing if the social posts mean anything 🙏🙏🙏

GE 2-0
i just hope AG don't look completely abysmal...
pls X3B give me any signs of life WAIT X3B'S NOT IN CHENDU THERE'S HOPE!!!!

I don't blame him lol. If Destroyer's entire motif is drilling people with good basics and sensible gameplans then it's no wonder that a lack of urgency to be drilled would piss him off. Biank's the GOAT but Trace is only as good as they are because of Destroyer's system

and as always destroyer is right 🥱. their losses in champs were also to a lack of re-clearing and key aggression, so i can't imagine what he felt like after losing to DRX with the same shenanigans happening over and over

I agree. Rushia can also come in white hot so BLG have a lot of firepower atm

he takes one glance at a headline and runs with it for clickbait. gotta respect the hustle