18

Keyd Stars have not Improved

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#1
FerahgoTheGreat

TLDR: Keyd Stars are still good, but they have not fully unlocked the potential of this squad.

Here comes another casual analysis of the BR VCT teams. Here are the others that I have made so far.
Sharks not Cohesive
LOUD lack Nuance

Now that KS have played two series, it has become apparent that they have not significantly improved from Champions. I did not think that KS were the best BR team at the end of 2021, but I did think they had the highest potential. Now that other teams have been built to overcome that potential, KS needed to figure out how to get more out of this roster. They lost to a good but not yet great NIP squad that has started to gain steam to contend for the top of BR. They also had a close win over a Sharks team that has not been as cohesive as expected.. That win over Sharks will likely keep them in the playoffs, but their dreams of a first round bye are now possible but out of their control. The primary problems I see with this squad are role conflicts and an imbalanced roster.

Role Conflicts:
Their biggest problem when they brought in mwzera for Champions was roles. Heat is a great Jett, but he has never played anything else. (He did just play his first non-Jett game with Chamber on Bind). mwzera has nuts stats on duelists, but he downgrades from superstar to just a star when playing initiators. He has definitely improved on initiators which has helped KS from falling apart. murizzz is also a part of this problem, as most people remember him for his 2nd duelist pop off performance at Berlin. He is really effective in that role, but has struggled now that he is relegated to more supportive roles. He was mediocre at best on supportive agents against Sharks, and did better against NIP on duelists. Obviously this core of three players is extremely talented, but double duelist is only effective on a couple maps, and this team requires at least two aggressive agents for them to really shine. Heat looked good on Chamber, so I think they need to get him on that agent on more maps. JhoW playing hard support and v1xen playing exclusively smokes makes it difficult to build agent comps around that, so maybe JhoW could play the extra initiator.

Roster imbalance:
This team is still driven a bit too much by fragging. Their strategic game has never looked distinctive which is good because it doesn't stand out as terrible, but bad because I rarely see them doing super interesting things. They have done a better job than most at leveraging their high skill players. JhoW and v1xen (and murizzz if on supportive agents) are extremely good at playing their roles, but rarely take over a round. JhoW in particular is simply at a lower tier of individual skill. I think he brings a lot to the team besides mechanical skill, but if he isn't IGLing, it might be too much of a deficit to keep him on this roster if their goals are to dominate BR or challenge for international titles.

My player grades:
heat 8/10: His individual form has continued to be great, but he hasn't been able to carry like in previous tournaments.
mwzera 7/10: Some good stats, but his utility hasn't been amazing. He is still most effective when taking over rounds instead of methodically playing with his team.
v1xen 7/10: He has been quietly solid so far. His stats in the international tournaments were terrible, but he is still a solid role player.
murizzz 6/10: He has only done well when taking the higher priority fragging agents for himself. The two stars are so important, that figuring out how to make them work might have to come at the expense of his playstyle if they can't adapt.
Jhow 5/10: His stats are on par for his career which isn't great. From what people say, he brings a lot to his teams besides stats, but the stats are still important, and the eye test confirms that he rarely does anything outside his role.

KS should still compete for the top spot in Brazil, but they are no longer (if they ever were in the first place) running away from the pack.

#2
jblancard
-19
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tldr

#3
FerahgoTheGreat
18
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Right at the top with a bold TLDR lol.

#4
Bo0mShell
1
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Sorry didn't read this. Just woke up. But would say the same thing I did in the other one. Teams from Champions don't seem to be trying much. We can't say anything atleast till the playoffs start imo.

#7
FerahgoTheGreat
3
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Yeah, a lot of teams are having slow starts, but they are one fluke loss vs ING away from failing to make playoffs (potentially). This single round robin with teams playing only 4 matches over 5 weeks for some reason is really dangerous. Hopefully they have a fire lit under them now.

#5
S0v4k
4
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W analysis brother

#6
trembolonaRage
0
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i think its better to get ride of jhow right now thinking in the long run
it's gonna happen one day, so why not just do it now?

#11
FerahgoTheGreat
1
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There are a lot of options for support/sentinel/flex players that didn't make the group stage. If Sharks prematurely implode their roster before stage 2, frz might be the best aimer available. Maybe someone like fznnn who played with mwzera on Gamelanders.

#12
andreziN
0
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murizz is insane sentinel, if they drop jhow they can put murizz on his place and hire someone (shion/myssen) to play flashes

#16
FerahgoTheGreat
1
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I do think murizzz can become good at the sentinel role, but his impact has dropped significantly when he has played sentinel so far. Getting one of Liberty's players is very unlikely unless the roster starts doing much worse. Getting a second initiator/flex would be nice.

#8
fxllpe
2
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W post

#9
thiagomds
2
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excellent comment, I think the same. jhow died from behind and not even clear the angles , picked a lot before his viper wall be fully activate, and the aim is not the best too.

#10
Rabbiit
2
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W

I agree with everything you said, specifically with Jhow, he doesn't fit so well in VK.

About Heat, he was sick recently and he's still recovering, like, he didn't impact the expected with Jett in this last game, unlike the game against sharks in which in the 3 maps he was destroying ( Not much in fracture, it was a test map according to what players said), so i stil think that Heat can carry like before.

About the team itself, in my opinion there is no way to correctly say the level of a team based on 2 matches, we will have to wait until the end of the group stage and the beginning of the playoffs to see the performance as a whole

#13
YvngKurry
3
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Good read man! Really enjoy reading ur posts to learn more abt teams outside of Na. Thx man

#14
tetris69
0
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statwise everyone is fine except jhow
mwzera does seem lackluster compared to his past form, still a great player

#15
lorenzopajaroFC
3
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100%
I’d say the main concern is the roles, murizzz is the igl and I just hate his comps choices. Tbh the heat-chamber mw-raze looked awesome to me, plus murizz looked good on Skye, it fits his style a lot.
So I’d say their best bet is to run it like this on bind, fracture, and split, and just let heat solo duelist on other maps.
On the other hand jhow has a lot of cohesion with the team and is a good team player, but his mechanics just remain subpar, but it’d be a bad choice to think about dropping him before this masters end
V1xen seems to have improved a lot tho, which is a good surprise, he obviously won’t be the player to take the round onto his own hands, but he can carry himself pretty well now which is all an Astra main needs to do

#17
FerahgoTheGreat
2
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I agree with the heat chamber. Their bind comp looks good and should probably be extended to other maps. Their split comp needs work though. I typically don't like Jett+Chamber comps because they have very little versatile utility, and are both best on the awp which can be a bit constricting. When you add a second duelist like raze, the team has such little utility. On split, KS had no flashes, no information agents, no healing, and a lot of overlap. I would like to see their bind comp be copied to split.

#18
Noyn
1
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Perfect analysis, I agree with practically everything you pointed out in this text.

W

#19
ZoldyK
0
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https://imgur.com/a/6p45nP1

#20
ciro
-4
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still in shambles after that cam exploit, they need to move on from it

#21
kristof
-5
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with cam they are the best team in the world

#22
number1_MIBR_hater
0
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LOUD is the best team we have now, everyone is the best on BR on what they do, outside aspas who still have a long path to become better than Heat.

#23
zhardy
0
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I don't know, that series against liberty was very tight, many individual mistakes by both teams

I feel like I need a rematch

or even loud needs to play more with tier 1 teams like vk or nip to have an idea of ​​what she's capable of, because her real challenge was against liberty and it wasn't a blunt game of them

#27
makewar
2
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don't you think Liberty is tier one?

I mean, they sure ain't the best individually, but, IMO, they are the most disciplined, they have a incredible team play and they are great strategically. I think they are a strong team and that they are strong contender to get a spot for masters

#29
FerahgoTheGreat
2
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I am still not sure what to think of Liberty. They have looked really good so far. If they clean up business against the lower tier teams in group A they will probably make tier 1 in my eyes.

#24
thiagomds
0
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loud commited a lot of mistakes, loud now is not better than vks of champions, they need to improve

#28
makewar
2
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I think yes, they had a lot of mistakes and there's a lot of ground for improvement, but loud is way more disciplined and tactical than KS

saadhak is a smart igl and is having even more impact on the game as flex. pancada is a monster, he win duels, he is great with his utility, he awes me. less is a rat, he is disgusting playing (this is a compliment), sacy is sacy, i don't have to say anything. aspas is mechanically amazing. he lacked disciplined, but he is learning fast. sometimes he does position himself badly and throws the round, tho. I see margin for even more improvement, but being led by sacy and saadhak, he'll be the best aspas he can be.

they all are great individually, but they don't have a guy with hero complex that feels like he have to out aim enemy teams, like mw usually does. loud is strategically and individually better rn imo.

although compared to heat, aspas does need to improve, as a team, loud is simply better.

#30
number1_MIBR_hater
0
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Great take

#25
makewar
4
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I agree with your analysis. I thought v1xen and jhow have improved individually, but jhow isn't super clutch and doesn't bring rounds (like bezn1 did for NIP yesterday, for example). it lacks. I think they respect him since he was the one that assembled the line, but it's time to go if they want to grow.

mw needs to stop trying to resolve everything with his aim and start to think like a sova. yesterday I had a deja vu when he lost a clutch where he had his recon dart and simply didn't use it. you are not a duelist anymore, mw. use your utility pls

I like murizz and I do think he is good at supportive roles, but man, split's comp was troll. they had no flashes, they had a really hard time entering spike sites and gathering info. that round were jonn killed three with a judge wouldn't have happened if they had a skye using trailblaze or her flashes on mail/mid.

I'm very sad that they lost, I don't like NIP and it's a shame to see supposedly one of the best two brazilian teams losing to them.

KS need discipline asap, they were over peaking and
losing rounds were they had an advantage, there were moments were it seemed they were flat out throwing

#33
thiagomds
0
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your point about mw is not completely right. Every time he played raze last year he used every utility of raze really well and in a lot of circumstances.It's not because you are playing duelist that you don't need to use your abilities on clutches, he is not a sova main yet, that's it.

#34
number1_MIBR_hater
0
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Every Sova on BR stays on sacy's shadow

#35
makewar
1
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yes, you are correct. he needs to start thinking like a sova. he can think like a raze. it's totally about being main

#26
Xaves
0
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W

#31
volezeeee
0
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W

#32
uentzoul
1
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I really agree with almost everything you said.
Previously at Gamelanders, mwzera's Raze was the most hyped thing in our scenario, that's why all that hype about him in champions, but I think he's still adapting to the initiators and it can be a very big problem, mainly because we lost a spot and we will have more teams still fighting for the second with LATAM, discarding the other BR tops, which are already a problem.
In this game against NiP it was clear to see that mw was not playing exactly the way it used to be, with Raze being completely aggressive. In this Bind and Split, 60% of the time he died before the bomb execution, even though he killed 2 people, he didn't reach the main objective, which is afterplant and clutch, which is one of his best things, when he's inspired he doesn't have whoever stopped, you could see in that last round of the Split, almost took everyone in sequence.
I think Chamber from Heat is good, with this tp that replaces jett's dash it really makes his game easier, and even more with the awp ult, which he plays very well.
About murizz, I believe he has real potential without being the duelist, with the sentinel. His match against Acend with Killjoy in the icebox was amazing, he clearly knew what he was doing, they can enjoy it more.
V1xen in my opinion does his goal very well and even appears very well for his role, in these two matches that was at least, in this last series he made some good clutches and kill sequences.
Jhow I don't really know what to say, sometimes he plays really fucking well, he makes a lot of clutches, but other times he plays really bad, he makes really ugly plays that don't hit shots, he seems kind of inconsistent in certain things, but it looks like he has one great influence on motivation in the team, so I'm very divided about it...
On the one hand, it's good to see teams beating VK, because it shows that our region is getting more disputed, which is good for better evolution... But to some extent I don't know if it was just a massive study against VK after champions and after almost beating Apend...

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