NS have a perma ban of Pearl. Its too risky to play this in the grand finals. I know they can run Neon on it. But I still don't think they should play Pearl unless they get a ton of scrims on it in these 2 days.

Ideally NS ban Pearl and one of Corrode or Split. I reckon they ban Split because Corrode is a bit more neon friendly.

Why not BBL here? They genuinely look amazing.
Also, XLG is clearly one of the best CN teams. They should be the CN representatives along with AG at least.
Honestly, make M8 and VIT face off to see which team deserves to go to London. Leave TH out of this.
Lastly, where is RRQ?

It will be 4 after this event

NRG put up a great fight against PRX whereas PRX demolished G2.

A lot of teams at Santiago will be playing a hyperaggressive style like PRX. GM8, G2, PRX, NS and others.

The fact that they managed to beat GM8 means they can handle going up against a lot of these teams. They have potential to be serious threats.

The worst move of all time has to be EDG dropping S1mon. EDG were complete trash before getting him. They did not look threatening at all in internationals and FPX was looking like the new Chinese threat.

They get S1mon, win Champs and reach to top 3 in the very next international.

They kick S1mon for whatever reason. Instantly go back to being shit. Don't even qualify for the next international from the weakest region and go winless in the one after that.

They then make a post about wanting to continue playing as a team. But where was this comradery when S1mon was kicked?

Currently in the lower bracket in the weakest region with tournament life on the line in every game. They have no hope of ever winning any international again with the way things are looking so far.

Every team has played. You can judge how good each of them looked.

The ranking is based on this kickoff

Many teams are finding success with super aggressive playstyles which don't need an extremely high level of calling. As long as the mid round plays from the players are good, the rounds don't need to be overcomplicated. Both BBL and M8 reached upper finals in EMEA with this type of calling. VIT, who had a better calling structure, overall more experience and better players lost to BBL too.

PRX 2025 had the same year that SEN 2024 had. Missed out on 1 masters, won the other masters and placed 4th at champs. You cannot put PRX 2025 at the top without putting SEN 2024 there with them.

And I definitely put GENG 2024 slightly above SEN 2024. Made all 3 tournaments. Won 1 masters, placed 2nd at the other masters. Somewhat disappointing finish at champs, but their group had a TH roster looking for revenge and a SEN roster returning to form.

And they did it twice.

SEN beat GENG every time it mattered. GENG were very strong, but by no means were they on par with 2023 FNC. That team was unstoppable for 2 consecutive tournaments and still finished 4th at champs.

But EDG did start the next year strong with how they performed at Bangkok. Kicking S1MON was their end though. They are still regretting that move. Haven't looked even half as good since kicking him.

He is the highest rated player in the entire tournament. No other member of SEN even has a rating above 1.0. He is the only one trying to win on that team. He has the right to be pissed.

Go rewatch the SEN vs GENG grand finals map 5. Its what I do to feel like I have a good team

The expectations for this roster was to be contending for international spots. But instead they are contending for the worst team in the world spot.

This team is no better, Last year's team would not be this shit.

Honestly, I kinda agree. Seeing SEN play reminds me of the 2023 SEN team which was utterly clueless.

If 100T don't win this game, they need to rebrand to 50 pirates or something. They cannot be losing this game when they are looking insane and their opponents are looking weak just because of their history.

Santiago: PRX (Something MVP)
London: MIBR (Aspas MVP)
Champs: G2 (Leaf MVP)

Yay in his prime did not go negative in a single game the entire year. Demon1's prime is nothing in front of that.

NRG look very strong. PRX also struggled in their game against GE today. I would say NRG look stronger than PRX from just looking each of their first performances. Teams like VIT and G2 are probably at a similar level to PRX right now. So 4 S tier teams overall.

I watched them play 4 maps and I can guarantee that this won't happen with this roster. SEN have been hard coded in their ways for a few years now. You are right that they won't change up their roster like how the previous 3 champs winners did. They tend to rough it out with one roster even if there are seriously good replacements available.

The meta would need to change to a very basic and boring meta. SEN in the last 4 years have been horrible at adapting to the new metas. They struggled hard in the viper+harbor meta in 2023. They didn't adopt the neon meta fully at the end of 2024 like EDG or TH. They have been pretty bad at utilizing the Yoru + Waylay meta. The team play and combos which make this meta strong are completely lacking when watching their gameplay. They ended up beating EG because they hard skill diffed EG. Had EG played as well as FUR did in the previous game, they would have lost both maps.

The one meta where SEN dominated was the one where Jett and Raze were best duelists, all initiators were equally strong, Omen and Viper were sole picks for controllers and Cypher + KJ were also very meta. Unless we get some major changes to the meta making it simpler, it won't work out for SEN.

They are also skill diffed pretty hard by the other top teams. Teams like PRX, VIT, MIBR, NRG, G2 and LEV just have significantly better players than them. They duelist player (Narrate) is very inconsistent. JohnQT looks amazing right now, but he also looked amazing at kickoff last year and then fell off for the rest of the year. Same could easily happen this year. Cortezia has not reached the heights he found in the off-season and Kyu is just decent. Reduxx is a highlight, but he alone is far from enough. They need roster improvements if they want to make internationals alone. Winning champs is a dream too far for this roster.

My recommendation for SEN is to start preparing for 2027. They have some key players in their roster. They must keep Reduxx and john. They need to upgrade their duelist role. Maybe Zekken comes back if Aspas retires after winning champs or something. Try to poach Verno at any cost. That kid is the future, Round out the team with some insane T2 talent. Maybe put Narrate back on the initiator role if they cannot get Verno. A roster like this on a favorable meta has a chance at winning champs. Not the current SEN roster. They should closely keep an eye out for standouts in T2.

We have yet to see something play this season. He could take that top spot.

PRX have not played a game so far. Lets see where he lands at the end of kickoff. He has great potential though.

FNC actually had a good half to begin the series. SEN had nothing that entire game.

That match ain't coming.

So?

The last time SEN played split, they lost 13-2 to PRX because they had very little info utility and only Skye to give info. But they did not even use the Skye flashes for info even though they had 3 other flashing agents in that game and could have spent these flashes for crucial info. Their 5 head plan to rectify this was to run no info agents besides Tejo who has even less info util than Skye.

They could have easily run a Sova or Fade for more info or some senti like Cipher or Chamber to hold space and give them info when space is lost. But no.

When a team refuses to learn from their failures, they deserve only failures.

They don't have their IGL.

If G2 go to EMEA, they will have to rebuild since they can only have 1 overseas player. They essentially lose their entire roster.

How can you say Americas looks ass? Its easily the most competitive region.

G2 look outrageously strong. Losing JonahP has lowered their floor, but also raised their ceiling since BabyBay is fragging better than what Jonah did all of last year.

Same situation for NRG. Losing S0M is a hit since he was an amazing mid rounder and bought the mental up, but Keiko is a better fragger. The extra firepower might be enough to make NRG win another trophy.

MIBR has insane talent right now. Aspas and Zekken will fry most teams alone. If Verno can get a bit more comfortable while calling, he could start performing like he was before he started IGLing. Those 3 can carry MIBR to top 3 finishes in internationals.

SEN this year have a lower ceiling, but a way higher floor. Last year, SEN was hyper reliant on Zekken and everyone else on the team was very inconsistent. This year, they have Reduxx and Cortezia to shoot consistently. John also looks better now that he is not the IGL and Kyu is putting up better numbers than Zellsis was. This team would have not lost to teams like XLG and GX from last year.

LEV looks like they are a firepower juggernaut. Sato, Neon, Spikezin and Kingg look on point.

100T will also be dangerous. Timotino and Cryo are absurdly talented and if Asuna and Bang can regain their form, then this team is a problem.

FUR and KRU are also looking better and more competitive this year. C9 is now not just Oxy and Friends. They are Oxy and Penny and friends. Envy can also be a dark horse. LOUD have potential too. EG is going to be shit though.

Its recency bias. People have seen a good performance from SEN in the SEN city classic. People have not seen T1 in a while. Last time they saw T1, they were grouped at champs.

They are on different roles. Zekken played entry duelist while Reduxx is playing secondary duelist/chamber/secondary controller. Can't compare these 2. Both are really good.

I agree. I just saw someone say ENVY is worse then Global and Furia. This format is just really bad.

There were rumors that Texture is leaving GENG.

JohnQT

John plays Senti + Viper which is already mostly covered in FNC by Alfa + Boaster. They should get a cracked initiator+controller flex player if they are losing Chron.

Is Boo staying? I thought they would also let go of Boo since they are brothers. Boo's shooting skills were terrible this year. He was a typical non fragging IGL.

The problem is that there is too much talent in APAC T1 and T2 for him to get an opportunity in tier 1. If he was in NA or EMEA T2, he had a good chance of getting picked up. EMEA needs more talent in T2.

After NRG winning champs with 3 rookies, G2 being really strong with a mostly ascension roster, Verno being a great IGL pickup for MIBR and JohnQT winning a masters in his T1 debut, a lot of T2 players will get opportunities in T1 in AMER.

But its harder for APAC. You literally need to ascend to get a shot at T1. VLT had the potential, but did not play to that potential most of the time except for that 1 game against NAOS.

What is the news around TH? I haven't kept up with the roster moves so far. Just heard that they might be letting go of Miniboo.

It was an excellent year for PRX. Only 3 teams get to win internationals in a full year. PRX was one of them. It was their best year by far.

Reduxx already does not make much sense. He plays mostly duelist. SEN will have a hard time fitting both him and Zekken.

But Asuna? He also plays a lot of duelist and his performance has been quite underwhelming.

Its because of SEN farming CN teams before.

What do you mean crazy downfall? SEN have looked this bad in every international this year. This was the expected level of performance for them.

G2 have not qualified yet. T1 could maybe pull off an upset.

NRG had a very strong off season. Saying they were the best Americas team at the beginning of the year would not have been a hot take at all.

I don't think that was a hot take. They had played no games during the off-season and were untested. A lot of the hype around them being a super team felt similar to the hype that NRG had in 2024.

What do you mean finally?

Heretics won EWC.

The players on MIBR are good enough to win this. But FNC players have shown a higher level of consistency throughout this year. Alfa, Kaajak, Chronicle have looked amazing. For MIBR to win, Aspas, Verno and Cortezia would need to perform at their absolute best. Even then, Booster and Crashies have shown that they can frag at times. This game is heavily in the favor of FNC. I would say it is 80-20 for FNC.

Cubert academy was never meant to gatekeep players. It was meant to support the T2 scene and give their sub Redux a place to get real experience.