If Aspas comes in and Stew rots away on the bench, this game will lose one of the most talented players.
Actually insane how he made a name for himself on Rare Atom, and JDG didn't manage to get him any help in two years.
One of the best duelists in the world forced to play with "MRCANI" and "Kklin", bouncing out of playoffs in first round.
Someone please save my boy already
in the wake of t3xture departure rumors, GEN.G Stew would've been so cool to watch
actually true i forgot that he wasnt going to stay on gen.g which is braindead af ngl idk how you let t3xture go even if it wasnt his best season
t3xture contract ran out unfortunately, nothing GEN.G can do at this point
I think they're doing a hard reset of their valorant team
JDG demands a colossal buyout for him, they're not letting him walk for free
It's a greek level tragedy that he was one of last year's most notable LFT's but the raw size of his contract prevented anyone from taking him 😭
ppl hyping hyunmin don't know the real korean goat
doubt jd is building anything anyways, 2 years of mid decisions and letting yhchen on t1 is enough to know they aren't doing shit
I still remember how hype I was when JD got Stew
tragic turn of events
https://x.com/JDGaming/status/1747166798431261072
Why couldn't it have been yoman as well ( ; - ; ) screw registration rules ):
Without giving too much info, there were PLENTY of things the team tried to do to get Stew more help. I'll talk about this a bit since theres a lot of mis-inforrmation that gets leaked out or the typical "save stew" points i see. Just to defend some players and talent of that team.
I got out there after Wolves match in Stage 1 -> A lot of it was rebuilding Mental and Confidence given rapid team changes. Ego is a great head coach and had a great understanding of macro, i'd put him up there with the likes of popular international coaches people vouch for. It was just to help add some additional systems.
After Stage 1 -> we had a list of ~10 players, including the likes of Slowly, to try and bolster up the roster for Stage 2. Majority of those options fell flat and resulted in assessing Link and Kklin from the academy team to promote up. These academy players btw play in a league seperate from standard t2 in CN (sometimes can book scrims vs decent apac/cn opponents) and that league also forces them to have every map in rotation. These guys were playing breeze/fracture/split and other maps when being called up.
Link and KKlin (both 18) were absolutely DESTROYING in scrims. Link had a 1.4-1.5KD vs T1 teams in apac, and KKlin pushed around a 1.2-1.3. We ended up sticking with KKlin because in the short term he had more base experience at sentinel which is the gap we needed filled. It would have taken more time to get Link off the ground in that role then Kklin. Dont let the stats decieve you in officials on where that kids talent is.
Z1yan is the most slept on player in all of China. His stats plummeted because he was forced in a position to play super flex on the team. He had a 1.6KD on Chamber and like a +30FK/FD on sunset vs VERY POPULAR APAC teams. He is a shooter. Jkuro transitioned to IGL for the first time as well, and adapted quickly where i didnt have to hard script gameplans like we had to do in Stage 1. And a lot of people vouched visably about how much better the team looked between stages. We had the best Lotus in all of VCT in stage 2, and were competitively close with teams we had no reason to be close with who out-experienced this roster in terms of on-stage/LAN experience.
There were murmors of who/what they may sign this offseason, but i just wanna relay the team has done what they could to enable stew and make sure he was successful, and to not shame the players on that team who worked really hard as well to improve during a time with so many questions vs one of the toughest stage-2 groups in VCT
I know that Z1yan is great aimer, and I was really high on jkuro at the time he got picked up. I think transition to IGL really hindered the individual prowess jkuro has.
Kklin is obviously a talented rookie with great aim but I think him getting thrown into a losing team(no diss) didn't exactly help him to gain confidence on the big stage off the bat. It's completely normal.
I felt like this team needed more veteran presence, but as you said, acquiring good players from other franchise orgs is very hard(high buyouts etc)
While JDG did have a very good understanding of Lotus(7-0 winstreak?), as a casual viewer I think they generally had a lot of mistakes related to the lack of discipline or overheating - unnecessary peeks, thrown advantage situations, lost eco rounds etc
Stew is one of my favorite players, and it's just sad to see his career slow down and struggling to find success. Especially after him mentioning that he had been struggling with motivation issues and contemplated retirement.
I appreciate your comment and the insight into the team I support for so long. Thanks a lot!
Yeah he had a slow start, but ended up growing to be really strong and have high potential for the role.
RE: kklin -> i see your point, but theres actually two perspectives to this, the opposite being that he isnt on a team with high stakes/pressure it actually frees him to make more individual plays. which is something we pushed for him to try and do.
but yeah did try to add veteran presence, and honestly it wasnt even a money-based buyout thing, just teams simply would not move talent after offering them to be moved during stage 1. Either they pulled back their initial offerings or simply asked for too much interms of player for player transfer.
Lotus - yeah team deff still had some issues, but it was more the grand scheme of how the map was played. Things we did that i provided to other t1 teams or t2 competitive teams after our time was done (micro mistakes aside). Cant fix everything haha.
But yeah, its hard sometimes forsure and sometimes players can feel "locked down" by things out of their control. One of the biggest things i had discussions with him on was to help the mental/confidence side of things and just help him get that edge back. Because when hes on everyone as a whole improves with him. And i know he really appreciated that feedback in that regard and hope he does well into next year
Not to discredit the players and your credentials but do good scrim performances actually mean all that much? Don't most teams just play for improvement and try new stuff? Not tryna be rude just curious.
Two part thing -
1) A LOT of focus for most teams in CN/APAC is the issue of "winning" scrims, so teams actually do sweat more often then not as there isnt really the same base structure that exists either with international coaches or Emea/NA staff. This is where the ironic issue people talked about where Teams get baited into thinking their comp is better then what it is, lot of it stems from that. My job was to kinda pull back that curtain and add some structure
2) The point i was making was more that in this enviornment these guys were performing and if there was a world i could show that (kklin/link mainly) i would and just defend them as talented players. I dont usually go out of my way to speak strongly about something unless i really feel thats the case, and i think its easy to read player talent/commitment in that regard. I think its easier sometimes to look at KDA or stage and miss the widspread system aspect on things
IE: it was these core 5 that convinced APAC that Yoru/Waylay was good and what led to popular apac teams to start to implement that comp on other maps when most were on Yoru/Neon. We were one of 2 teams that started in the region on it, the 2nd team moved away from it, and we were FARMING. DFM took our pistol 1:1 along with the comp in their first corrode official vs Talon.
but yeah, Link/KKlin would be in the prac room 1 hour early, as an 18 year old, and would be almost the last ones out. No complaints if provided alternate ideas, would test and give 110% effort in. I mean Z1yan aside would be a player i would import to any region with ease if i had the slot available. Most APAC staffers would vouch for how good he is, and his personality is the protoype leader/player you would look for. The guys had talent, just not the veteran depth they needed to keep everything together compared to teams like EDG/TEC/BLG/TE
I really thought that Babyblue could be the veteran needed for the team, because he was decently experienced and looked like the glue guy on this team. Rarely made wrong decisions and usually stepped up when it needed.
Also, what can you say(if it's possible) about your experience working with coach Ego?
yeah i think everyone just kinda hit the same lul point. BB prob played the hardest job next to z1yan, just being the support recon dirty job no one wants. He stepped up a lot in hidden ways, just game is hard haha.
Ego was great, in terms of comparison sake id put him in the same realm as Mini, JoshRT, etc in terms of high level understanding of the game. Think just given roster moves before i got there he had to put on a lot of diff hats as a solo coach and try to make adjustments where he could. He alluded to needing to take a mental break, which is why rumors floating of Muggle talking to the team sorta popped up, hes been on the non stop grind since valorant started picking up in CN.
he should find another coaching position when he wants to come back with no issues.
his work on both AG in 2024 and JDG in 2025 went over a lot of people's heads. back in 2024 he had some of the most sophisticated map gameplans out of everyone else. he's a legit wizard and he NEEDS to get back into it as soon as he feels good enough to. not enough people have seen just how fucking good he is bro. i want to tell him that ANYONE who watches his teams can see how good the coaching side is.
yeah, we cooked a LOT of shit this past year, and some things we couldnt show fully due to roster changes forcing us to swap ideas we did have out.
he knows the game, he knows high level strategy. Id back him up any day of the week with the best of the best internationally
he's bound for major success if he keeps going at it. he just needs to have one good year
I hope you can get a major position next season. your work is admirable and you're clearly a major asset throughout your tenures on various teams from 2024 to now.
yeah, im fully confident he'll bounce back.
and thank you, your words are too kind. Its much appreciated
What happened to riya? Obviously he is a duelist main so it would conflict with Stew's role but was he still in the academy team when you departured?
Also after your time with JDG, will you ever take another coaching job from a team in VCTCN?
Sorta mixed things -> some teams had interest in potentially picking up stews contract between stages, so we were trialing other import options. (cant name the other players, but its same pool as the ~10 players i listed above). Some of those players we lost out on that were higher priority on our list, and after Evolution/Trial period with riya, we felt it didnt fit and that Kklin/Link with stew put us in a better position to win in stage 2.
VCTCN -> I'd consider it if offered, there was a world i was supposed to help EDG at champs paris and the timing on things just didnt work out. Its seems most teams are prioritizing CN staff first before looking at international help, assuming it would start to ramp up since ascension is now done. I enjoyed my time out there and had no complaints for shanghai. The arena is prob the biggest thing ill miss from my time there.
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