It can't be this hard for you to think a little. XLG lost YOU like 2 weeks before Toronto, they needed to find an emergency replacement within just a few days considering visas. While most other players were in contracts already - Midi was just released from Trace, he can play everything YOU did and fits the role so they don't have to make major comp changes especially as the team is very strat heavy
A spade is a spade. A team that loses one player and implodes, isn't a good team. It sucks majorly for them and I'd love to see them at full strength, but it's quite obvious the gap in talent between the top Chinese players and the rest of the players in the region is massive.
The (incredibly kind and caring) folks that are saying "Yeah, but the player can't communicate with them" disregard the fact that XLG picked their sub. If the sub can't communicate with the team, then the person in charge of selecting their sixth man should be fired and blacklisted from ever touching a roster again. You're telling me that they could have picked ANYONE in the world that speaks English and they selected someone that DOESN'T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE THEY COMMUNICATE IN. It's complete mismanagement at every single level.
Have you considered that sometimes people are placed in situations such that they are almost out of options? You have no idea what you are talking about, the reason they picked Midi is exactly because they couldn't find someone better. They lost YOU due to unexpected circumstances so close to Toronto that they either had to sign someone already with a Canadian VISA, or find a F/A within a few days. For that reason they picked up Midi who was just released from Trace, they also don't have the money like EDG does to make huge buyouts. Like how are you so confident despite not even knowing the details. And you realise who specifically they lose is quite important right? YOU was like a second caller and responsible for setting Rarga up, Midi played everything YOU did and fit into the role where others did not. Sure losing a sentinel, duelist, or recon init won't implode the team but your flash ini and their chemistry with the duelist is not easily replacable with such limited time.
OK fine so they weren't mismanaged, just in a shit spot. Understood. How does that change the fact that the team just sucks? Like would they be better with YOU? No doubt, duh, of course. But they don't have one player and the team implodes? That was the main point of my post and you slipped right by it without even addressing the fact that, regardless of what challenges they're facing, they still fucking suck right now. Maybe that's understandable, but the point of my post was "Without YOU, they suck".
How does that change the fact that the team just sucks ... they don't have one player and the team implodes? That was the main point of my post
Now you're just trying to save face. Are you sure you're not trying to change your main point now? You seem to have forgotten that the post is literally titled "XLG is shit regardless of YOU being there or not" and you did not show any disagreement to that. Instead, you say:
A spade is a spade. A team that loses one player and implodes, isn't a good team
Clearly you're aligning with the OP, and I think for anyone reading your comment (even in isolation) they'd interpret it that way - that the team isn't good in general BECAUSE it only took losing one player to implode. Especially because of the way you phrase it, and when the rest - more than half of your original comment - is a counterargument to the people who are at XLG's defence, such that XLG is still to blame and the fact they picked the sub disregards any other idea that they weren't at fault.
Also your original analogy doesn't even work - your statement after "A spade is a spade" is supposed to be far less ambiguous and isn't even a valid comparison to the obvious, as we've distinguished that there are many circumstances where it may not be true - such as this one for XLG, the language barrier being the biggest issue, but also for any team it highly depends on who you lose and when exactly, etc.
And here's your supposed main point now
Without YOU, they suck
Clearly it's changed. This point is such an obvious that has so little substance to it that there's no point in saying it.
and you slipped right by it (the main point) without even adressing ... they still fucking suck right now
Well if it's that they suck right now then why do I even have to address that? Clearly XLG sucked, I watched them too, and I think anyone can tell even just from the scoreline and stats. The emphasis isn't here, it's elsewhere.
Also I just noticed you said
but it's quite obvious the gap in talent between the top Chinese players and the rest of the players in the region is massive.
You are basing this off of what? How does this have any correlation to what you were saying just before this, and who do you even consider as the top chinese players and who is "the rest"? CN is a region with tons of out-of-nowhere, up-and-coming rookies, who many times over just the course of a few months have got to the "top". Trust me CN is not lacking talent for sure, I highly doubt you watch CN enough to say this, can you tell me who are the up-and-coming rookies rn in the region?
Bare in mind that YOU was the one to majorly set up his team so of course when you remove such an impactful player, your team is gonna take more reckless, uncalculated fights. On top of that, XLG basically set themselves up for failure in the name of entertainment by picking Sentinels who were looking like the 2nd best team out of the playoffs and continue to ramp up with depth in the tournament. XLG basically fought 2 of the best teams back to back as opposed to taking the easy route of facing Wolves who they have a good historical matchup again.
XLG is definitely bad, but you can likewise make this point with how EDG capitulated without S1mon in Stage 1. Is EDG therefore bad? You can argue so, but you jump straight to a conclusion before you consider how valuable a lot of these support roles are. T1 using Carpe instead of Sylvan looked diabolical at Bangkok. As soon as you have Sylvan, you have someone who can use smoke util effectively and position himself to support his team well. Likewise XLG's YOU was always providing supporting impact to make Rarga look like a demon taking 3ks like it was nothing.
The TL comparison is a bit half-baked since their IGL literally rejoined the team after 1 game. It's not like they played their elimination match without Nats. The PRX comparison is a bit more warranted, but PRX in 2023 were insanely strong compared to the world. Their style of Valorant was still difficult for a lot of teams to adapt to.
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