Trent’s stage 1 performance was actually better than Alfa statistically. But yeah I think being around more players who’ve been on lan before will help a lot.

NOOOOOOOOO

Nice! Hope they make it :)

You missed the numbers but nice try :)

How tf did you miss the point of the post:
"I would like to say that my purpose of this post was to hopefully stop this criticism of players streaming during their free time. And at the end of the day team success comes down to everyone not just an individual."

There is no correlation with individuals streaming more, only with the team in general.

You do realize C9, TGRD, and 100T will be there, and they'll be fucking prepped

Three things caused that:

1. Meta shift - they swapped roles and it frankly didn't work. JonahP couldn't do what Sayaplayer could on entry, Trent and Valyn weren't as comfortable on new roles, and the whole team cohesiveness was off.
2. Trent. His performance and clutchness just fell of a cliff after iceland and only start approching what it was in stage 1 at the end of the group stage (when it was sadly too late). My best guess is that he got a mental block from always using music to focus, and when that was taken away, he played a lot worse. Now he's practicing without music in general, so it won't be an issue in the future, and I'm sure his performance will start to approach what it used to be (he already had some insane clutches against XSET and NRG).
3. They were never really dominated for a long period of time. They lost a super close game to Optic (the winners of Masters lemme remind you), then got destroyed by Paper Rex. That was all we saw of them at Iceland. Sure it was dissapointing, but they really only lost one match badly. When they came back for stage two, they instantly faced an on fire 100T while having their new roles, and that obviously didn't work out. Then they played Ghost who were on a heater in the groups (while still having the bad new roles), and they still took a map off of them. Those three games were really the only ones they lost badly. Then they had two extremely close games against XSET and NRG, and after they lost, they were out of stage 2 qualification.

Overall: the Guard should've been able to do better in challengers 2, but they're still a very good team, and with time to prepare for LCQ, I expect them to do pretty well and maybe even make it. If they get directly seeded to Istanbul (possible as well), I don't think they'll be an embarrassment to NA at all.

If drx get past 4th place I'll pay attention, till then they'll just be the best looking team that never makes it :(

Ok

Agreed! I want to see good teams play well against each other :)

Nah I'm not gonna bother arguing with this. EMEA teams are not substantially better than Optic, Loud, and PRX and I'm not gonna pretend like they are.

Each map was incredible I just think full 3-2 bo5s take so long people lose interest. I don't think I've watched the whole thing through afterwards since.

The 6 person roster doesn't work too well because it doesn't allow everyone to build synergy as well as if it was just 5 people working with each other all the time in scrims and such.

Yeah exactly lmao. They do rely on winning duels but so does every other good team in a tac FPS. Optic is generally very good about making sure they take duels in their favor tho.

Shownu how on earth are you falling for imperfecto baits you literally spend 22/7 here

Who tf's downvoting my main man OkOkay??

Your team lmfao

M3C vs Fnatic (challengers 1 quals) or Ascend vs Gambit (2021 champs final)

This is so cap they do a lot more than just "win aim duels". Look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENQRxQdKalk

Shanks are encouraged

what the fuck is this thread

Whoops I forgot to add latam, thanks for the reminder

bro needed to say it twice ig

Also the M3C players under whatever org they can get

Guard

In reality there's only three solidly one team regions: Brazil, Korea, and Latam. Loud, DRX, and Kru utterly destroy their regions while in NA, EU, and APAC teams like Optic, Fnatic, and PRX still lose maps to regional competitiors and have closer games.

Zeta have been winning but other teams look much better than in previous years.

If they get Bdog/Ban/Tenz/S1mple/Wardell/Drone/Alexey Yakimenko, it'll all work out!

He literally said he would

Do you think PRX or DRX will beat Optic?

Nah -Will + S1mple. Source: trust me bro

You don’t see any world in which fnatic beats optic??? They’re looking really strong rn, I think it would be an even match.

I don’t think they lose to current M3C or guild. Fnatic, definitely maybe.

Babysauske moment

No lmao even on awful teams like andbox he was shitting on everyone. He’s had one middling series his entire time on optic.

I’d say their fracture isn’t weak at all but I totally agree in general. Teams like Fnatic and Loud are definite competitors and ofc optic could go out by playing two different teams.

Oh man I just realized this is the ultimate jinx.

Yeah nah

After looking closer at them, they seem unbeatable right now. They play every single map at an absurdly high level, and they learn extremely fast so they’re almost guaranteed to win any rematch. They have yay and Marved (the best chamber in the world rn and one of the best smokes players and lurkers), Victor, who’s more inconsistent but when he’s popping on neon and other entry agents elevates their performance incredibly. They have crashies who’s insane in the clutch, and FNS, probably the best caller in the world right now. Someone take me down a notch cause I don’t see them losing to ANY team worldwide in a Bo5.

I’m honestly not as convinced by will. And derrek hasn’t been as good recently.

No ofc there's chances for them to go on runs just like any other team, but there's no way you can say with confidence: they'll be top 8/4/2 or whatever. I feel pretty confident in saying Fnatic and Optic will be in the top 4 (obviously anything can happen but just statistically speaking, I think it's likely). I do not feel confident saying XSET/Faze/NRG could even make it out of groups.

Assuming they don't get seeded in the top 8 then instantly play two top 4 teams, yeah.

X factor is right. Sure Cryo and Zekken are really good, I don't deny that, but I can't see them beating top teams (or even upper mid tier international teams like DRX and Guild)

No I agree with you completely Felt like last year we had Sentinels, Envy, and C9 as world class competitors, but now it's really only Optic. I don't believe in XSET much, Faze is lacking strategic depth, and I also just don't trust NRG to hold their own against a Loud or FPX.

On the other hand, Optic is really fucking good and they have a map pool of literally 7 maps, so it's really hard for them to lose bo5s. I wouldn't count out a repeat win as a possibility.

TGRD literally played Optic and PRX, both top 4 teams. I'm sure they would've done better if they got the chance to go through groups.

XSET is boring but yeah it'll probably be them. Optic is a given, their map pool is all of them.

This is hard cap I doubt they'd beat Xerxia or Zeta much less Loud or Fnatic

THIS SHIT IS SO CLOSE I'M GOING INSANE

Yeah honestly I could see just about every main duelist in the top 10 teams in NA working out better than Will. Yay? Definitely could entry with the best. Tenz? He'd work. Bdog/Ban/Saya/Penny/Leaf.... At the same time, he's doing what they need rn so I'm not opposed to him staying and them working on it.

mwzera and forsaken are my FAVORITE NA PLAYERS