NRG probably, Loud no way

It definitely feels like some kind of org policy that the players and coach were told to follow.

Optic had plenty of games last year where yay was the primary fragger on Chamber with Victor setting him up on Raze/Neon without necessarily getting the most kills.

It depends on the team and the meta I guess. Chamber meta was mostly about setting Chamber up for kills, now it's more about setting up the Jett for kills. You can get value on duelists without top fragging, but usually the team is more successful if their duelist can consistently get kills.

Agreed with the first two, FNC should be higher

Point is they're not consistent

Optic famously never lost any group stage games

EDG < TL
TL < Navi
Navi < NRG
NRG < BLG
BLG < EDG

EDG <<<< EDG

I enjoy the NA vs EU shit talk, but this Demon1 stuff or the Boostio interviews about Chinese Valorant are just cringe.

It's like when you and your friend call each other idiots as friendly banter and then some random kid comes along and tries to join and calls you dumb. It's not hurtful or anything, just embarrassing.

Yeah, Potter and Boostio trash talking also seems a bit forced. Idk the shit they talk about EU is fine imo, but this weird obsession with calling China shit is just cringe.

If he refuses to move, it might get difficult for him. But there certainly are some orgs in EMEA that I could see trying to sign him (Vitality or Heretics for example)

Try to just track the straight 1v1 fights in your dms. Don't try to win. After every death, if you were double peeked or shot in the back, just try to ignore it (can be hard, I know); and if you lost a straight duel, ask yourself why (was it movement, was it aim, angle disadvantage, peeker's advantage? Something else?) and keep track of your mistakes. If you make certain mistakes more often than others, try to run a DM while only focusing on that stuff.

If you hyperfocus on small errors and trying to get better at very specific things, you'll often notice visible progress, even if you continuously get shat on. For example, my problem was that I often pressed W while peeking, so I double bound knife equip to the W key and focused on swinging with A and D only and strafing during fights. I didn't do well in the DMs kill-wise, but after a couple of them I noticed I was getting a lot better at horizontal movement, so it still felt like a success and I didn't really tilt much.

It's also not just the "hardness" of the work that matters but also the quality of the type of work, and a lot of external and internal factors. I think FNC is one of the best orgs when it comes to providing players with everything they need, including diet, performance coaches, and so much more. There's a lot of factors at play behind the scenes that we can't really see.

It's definitely not just "they work harder".

Bro also had Zeta above FNC, Loud above DRX, T1 above FUT and TL above Navi.

You literally got everything wrong except this one 💀

He played a lot of KJ on surreal

Sorry bud but Holland is actually the greatest city in the world

Sure, someone with the same IGL skills and better firepower would be better, but it's a team game, and what matters is how the team performs. If the positive effect of their IGLing outweighs the negative effect of their lack of firepower, they make their team better, and that's what matters.

FNC without Boaster and NRG without Fenis would be much worse teams.

A healthy amount of energy drinks is zero.

But riot isn't promoting snus, it was just one guy doing it. Meanwhile they are actually actively promoting redbull, which is also a terrible thing to promote to children.

It's less the fact that nicotine in isolation is comparable to caffeine in isolation, and more the fact that the negative health effects of snus and the negative health effects of redbull (both in regular quantities) are comparable in severity.

Yeah I guess it's mostly about public perception. Redbull is fucking awful as well but they promote it anyway. I didn't realise snus was this frowned upon I guess.

Smoked tobacco a handful of times while drunk, never liked it while sober, never even tried other forms of nicotine.

I don't think caffeine is as severe as nicotine, of course not. I just don't see the justification for banning one while actively promoting the other.

In terms of performance enhancing effects for esports, they're comparable, or are they not?

And in terms of health, clearly nicotine in isolation is much worse than caffeine in isolation. But we're not talking about coffee here, we're talking about energy drinks, which have a variety of negative health impacts that differ from the effects of nicotine, but I would argue are comparable in severity.

I haven't read the literature on this in a few years so I might be wrong, but I also think my point just came across wrong.

Of course nicotine is overall a bit more dangerous than caffeine, but they're both legal, so why does Rito draw a line between them, when their performance enhancing effects are very comparable?

Also it's not like I'm saying coffee is as detrimental to health than snus, but redbull definitely is, there are plenty of negative effects on health that come with regular energy drink consumption, yet Riot actively promotes them while Banning snus, which feels a bit weird.

What would you say is the big difference? Because all I can find are similarities. They are both CNS stimulants that work in similar ways and have similar effects on the body and brain.

They're both CNS stimulants, they both increase heart rate, they are both addictive. Sure, nicotine might be a bit more addictive, but at the end of the day they're quite similar. What would you say is the decisive difference that makes a comparison unreasonable?

he doesn't like NA teams at all

his favourite teams are NRG and The Guard

what does this have to do with anything

What

smokers

Try to read the sources you cite

Junkie org

No way you actually cry about him being "bullied" while calling other people softies lmao.

Consider touching some grass or playing garden scapes

Sob story? What? It's just an underdeveloped region at the moment. Talking trash about significantly weaker opponents is just lame is all.

it's still innovative

💀

Calling it light work when you're playing against a team from a new region where the game has been released for like three days. It's like beating a two year old at chess and then calling him a stupid idiot.

I just think it's kind of low to pick on China. The NA-EMEA banter is fine, go call EMEA trash and all, no problem.

This whole calling China trash thing is just super weird. Kinda like how it's fine for students to make fun of teachers, but if the teachers start insulting kids it's more of a problem.

People acting like nicotine is some performance enhancing drug but caffeine is just a funny little juice that you drink for fun.

Is caffeine banned? Because caffeine has a stronger effect on concentration than nicotine.

I think cheating is clearly unfair tbh

I think there's a good chance they'll make it close, but they just always win those games anyway. I'm not worried at all.

You realise that now?

So is caffeine, yet Red Bull literally sponsors the event

just like me fr fr

SkRossi

I think if you watch a lot of TL games and observe Soulcas, it's pretty clear that his raw aim is one of the best in the world, but it drops significantly whenever there's any kind of pressure. He often hits insane shots in low-pressure rounds (like ecos, or anti-ecos, look at that Bulldog 3k vs Navi in the 2nd defense round for example).

That being said, he has had these issues for a long time, and he hasn't managed to solve them (and I'm pretty sure TL is one of the better equipped orgs in terms of support). At the end of the day, esports is a rough business and I think dropping him could be a good decision. It's a shame because as I said I do think mechanically he absolutely has the potential to be one of the best in the world. He just can't access it.

The playoffs draw is random, with the only restriction being that teams from the same group are placed on opposite sides of the bracket. The position of the group doesn't matter at all.

EDG is a decent team but one decent (not even top 4) run doesn't make them S tier.

I would have said Melser but his new hairstyle ain't it

Watch any NA pro stream and they comm like once every 5 rounds.

Americas > EMEA but EMEA > NA. NA only have 5 teams in franchising compared to EMEA's 10, so of course their average is gonna be better. If you consider the top 10 NA teams, you'd have to include Guard and M80 (both definitely on par with EMEA Tier 1), Moist Moguls (could take a win here or there), and then what? You can tell me FaZe or G2 would beat BBL or TH. Plus EMEA also has some solid Tier 2 teams like Apeks or Acend who would be on roughly the same level as those NA Tier 2 teams. If you consider the whole scene EMEA has a bit more depth.

"A different political view" here being "I think certain people don't deserve human rights". THAT is called intolerance.

It's like going to a public execution and telling the person about to be hanged that their desire to live is really intolerant towards the people who think they should be hanged.

Bless you

A (sort of) esports news source publishing opinions of their editors/writers ahead of a major tournament? How dare they!