holy fuck the level of baits has fallen off a cliff

i didn't watch any of the ewc qualifiers so im just going off of prior performance. curious what other people have
https://www.vlr.gg/pickem/7992cbda

is it just the opening matches that are bo1 or all group stage matches bo1s?

which is kind of crazy, considering he was more of a veteran presence on the roster (compared to sylvan and izu). if he's frustrated that's usually not a good sign. you might not know but was this before bangkok or after?

m8 didn't play double duelist. they put comeback on chamber, which isn't even that egregious of a throw, because it worked with drx at champs

he was only a head coach on two of those rosters. not to say they weren't all shit, because for the most part they were, but on koi he was assistant coach and lev weren't bottom na with him, it's just that he couldn't take them to top 2 in the region and make them a international contender. m8 just haven't been good tho, and the coaching is potentially an issue

like people have said, guy just makes some really questionable decisions. this split for example he put meteor on tejo instead of his scan init/init player, which was a major pain for them especially during playoffs. also a while back someone on t1 (idk who, but it was on stream) straight up said that autumn doesn't actually give strats most of the time in timeouts, and just tells whoever is underperforming to play better. and of course, t1 at bangkok seemingly just peaked individually, and not because of autumn's coaching.

termi on the other hand cannot get a stable roster, and the one time he did they were chronic chokers. plus last year he did this dumb shit with 0 timeouts during entire series, and the justification was some bs about making stax a better igl. he's honestly better than autumn tho if we're being honest, because at least drx have sometimes looked like there's good coaching behind them

vyse chamber is good on like one map bro. i know goked isn't always cooking but im glad he's not running chamber/vyse on every map. m8 hasn't even played bind this year so who knows what that'll look like. just play double duelist or double smokes and be done with it

b elbow (if ur referring to the heaven route) is just ct im pretty sure. most times in my games that's what its been called. on a its elbow just like sunset. pretty sure the rest of the map is still kinda up in the air, but personally ive heard top mid for the window, cubby for the a entrance from mid, and danger for the left corner when you walk into b

even a blind squirrel can find a nut

they're just so good on those agents that i really don't think it matters tbh. its like qraxs but if he was good

he lost a singular one vs edg and that's it

someone made a video about i recall seeing, maybe platoon?

the issue patrick had was discipline/experience. im sure some time in t2 again will benefit him a lot, and he'll be able to get back to t1

more so a team diff. bbl look top 4 emea while fut are just ass this year

drg gets relegated but he has pretty much perfect job security. majority of cn + eu teams will be interested in him

while i agree woot can't really use utility, saying xeus is overrated is crazy. his mechanics are easily top 3 itw, and that alone brings massive value to any team. i think turkiye just has a really bad igl issue, the best turkish team in t1 has a non-turk as the igl

eu sonofcar

nova deadass must be paying this man the bag to glaze them this much. there's no other explanation

Almost like Viper's a good agent or something

m8 made two big roster changes, of course navi with a competent slot-in duelist would beat them rn. they literally just need to make playoffs to remain in t1

this wall is one that munchkin used a lot last year. i think that there's another wall they put if they want to fight up site, but he's done the passive one for back site

nice spray transfer but im pretty sure crowd gave him comms there

he prob hits that anyway im ngl

well drx and g2 have both won regional trophies. the curse probably doesn't apply to ewc

saying this after your flair literally embarrassed themselves and the entire region is crazy. and crashies having a higher rating than all of TH is diabolical

people like the color scheme. also pinoy fanbase is still large, and ts is their designated franchise rep

imo*

gen g threw leads, and i agree they looked tilted. but that was after losing key fights. sen would lose a round and their entire setups visibly fell apart. the biggest tell was when they would have 0 usual protocols while tilted, taking terrible swings without someone to trade, or trying to make unnecessary hero plays. i didnt factor in expectations because every team probably has the pressure to win, favorites or not. gen g just were losing fights and getting tilted, while sentinels stopped following basic macro. if u wanted an example the prx game is prob the best one

carpe is so good that he was able to compete in vct and owl at the same time. truly a historic player

i disagree, but i can understand why you would say that. blg lock in during champs time and edg are a champs winning core. however other than those teams wolves has legit zero competition. xlg look rough, every other team in china looks bad except for maybe fpx or trace. half of the league is still bottom feeder teams, although i hope wolves now also having a great int performance sparks growth for the region

that's why i put the note of them having time to rest

i know im super late but i thought id give some thoughts on the playoff toronto teams going into ewc and the rest of the year. obviously not gonna include grouped teams because it wasn't as recent
---------------------------
xlg: lowkey unsurprising result, even without knowing they picked up an initiator who can't comm in the same language (why???). probably will have similar results at ewc, but i hope they rebound to make champs

rrq: honestly not even that bad. they lost to #2 and #3 placing teams, and gave fnatic their worst loss out of any of the maps they played. perhaps with enough time they can look really good, but id argue they have a chance to get to paris and aren't straight tejo merchants. please put jemkin on yoru though for the love of god

gen.g: could've won the tournament like shanghai but they choked so badly. it was the g2 game that really showed how losing more experienced players like meteor and lakia really hurt the mental game for gen g. im confident they'll be back for champs, maybe even with a chance to win

sen: ive seen people citing gen g as the team with the worst mental at toronto but imo sentinels were way worse. straight up collapsed after losing big rounds and sometimes never recovered in the map. they'll be fine for the rest of the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if toronto ends up being their peak this year

g2: all i could see from g2's gameplay is that it wasn't trent who was the tejo merchants, it was g2. maybe it was due to the bye (i still think that's cope) but they looked way more shaky without the ability to play stall post-plants. granted they are a top team but that's no different from last year. i have serious doubts they have the potential to win champs

wolves: their run definitely gives off zeta reykjavik vibes, but i think with the state of CN as a region currently they are the #1 team and should be favored to win stage 2 and make champs. their only competition is edg atm and they have time to rest and prep during ewc

fnatic: this team is still in trophy contention status, and their run was truly great, but i do think the finals performance showed some of the bigger flaws this team has with performance issues. not just boaster but kaajak needing more time to adjust to high pressure scenarios, and crashies playing a lot worse than he did in emea. but, they should win stage 2 comfortably, and im sure they'll do well at champs

prx: they won, so im not gonna say much except that they will have more pressure on them regionally and at champs (they basically already made it off of points).

fair enough

not by a lot, maybe like 1 or two places higher. he won titles at a time when the game was more developed. i think if tenz had kept playing this year he would be higher

riot's main audience is asia, due to the existing infrastructure of league. they will never have the foothold valve has in the west with cs, except maybe in na because the scene is dead

nrg abuser in top 10 is crazy work icl

that was a thing? i thought shanghai had an mvp

i mean yeah but they don't even have the easiest group. idk how people don't look at group c and not think that's the weakest group. sentinels at least have to play drx (and maybe bbl if they aren't trolling), c has two teams that went 0-2 at toronto and two teams that haven't even made an event this year

double controller been meta for two years man

also below mako, who idk how tf is in the top 10, never won a trophy

meteor is higher than tenz

where is moatz 😔

literally anything is better than that shithole

fnatic is like the second best team itw right now. this group shouldn't bother them anyway, they can beat edg and 100t. if they don't make it out of this group you can just chalk it up to lack of time to prepare/burnout from toronto. no need to plan a strategy for coping

it was t3xture no?

he got something but i dont recall what if it was a bracelet or not

why tf is rrq at 9 and ns at 6th

i left a 10% chance for a reason

well i guess when nrg does well verno doesn't so there's that

pretty sure they decided on him by trials. hvoya lurks on vlr so he would prob be able to answer that

i feel like a lot of players could play that supportive role though

and yes, the aim part as you mentioned

i swear people be saying this like the person who was replaced wasn't deadass their worst player

0/8 bait m8 try again next time