Death grip

Just looked it up and I had no idea, crazy. My queen.

bro there is no way she is 30 and this good, show me the reciepts? Yeah, I heard that in 2022 gozen only played male teams for prac to maintain the skillgap in GC, but we never really saw them in the t2 circuit. Have Juliano and Zazz played any CS events since they switched back?

I think glance is a bit older at 26? Gozen are mostly CS veterans though, much of the rest of the field are young zoomers born and bread in the riot games ecosystem.

Petra picking her teeth live on pre match cam, that's my 13-0 queen

True. Commiserations on the queens, it's gutting to see them out this early.

The trans/ NB hate is so funny bc EG literally has 3/5 players that fit that and crashed out last place.

please clarify

Juicy fruits of tracks tbh. It's great for like 30 seconds then they ruin it. I wish there was a remix where they play it out with all of the hype of the intro

Kino that he called out gambling though, very based of him

I know him from back in the HS days. About a year and a half ago I started watching his stream in the mornings, since I was a NEET and needed some comfy background noise. The man is the most childish, deeply nasty tilter in the way he treats other people online. It's embarrassing how a family man of that age behaves toward people. I don't think someone with that level of emotional maturity should work riot events at all, even though his enthusiasm for the game can be very compelling to listen to when he breaks down a round. Notably he often has very different ideas to other mainstream valorant thinkers like sliggy, but a pluralism of ideas is interesting. Still, the attitude is so fucking uncomfy man.

thoughts?

I was very surprised that mistic + enzo weren't a package deal, given that most igls in EMEA play smokes, and mistic is probably the best free agent smoker (aside from maybe l1nk). I really hope he doesn't go back to flex.

Tell me a bit about what is going on in the CN league? What are the storylines?

could be pretty sick with the new two way loan rules. Sen salary but still the chance to play tier 2 all year (and maybe tier 1 if we get our regularly scheduled rob more roster change moment).

Astarion>>>>> (but blud is just guessing with every choice, professional silly billy. George guesses of bg but skinny and hot).
Personality wise, I ended up liking Lae'zel and minthara more than shadowheart. It's like in Divinity OS 2 where I started out liking the mage girl but ended up with Sebille. Will is pretty well acted, if straight forward. A lot of gravitas and weight to his voice. Would absolutely run him and karlarch in a subsequent good playthrough. Mage boy is cringe, I have never talked to him.

Idk. we can assume that the people that rise to the top of esports are above average IQ, more often than not. Esports careers are often short, and you can very easily go from t1 play to t3 in a year or two, unable to make a reasonable income. Just compare rhyme in EU, who was at the peak of his career and building upon and IGL role as a decent fragger that could have had many years more competing. He chose the safer path of a presumably steady programming career after education for whatever benefits playing would have yielded. Often a real job is less stress, fewer hours and offers more in the way of building toward long term financial compensation.

Obviousy it's it's never going to be easy IGLing in a second language, but the guy is more eloquent than half of the guys I went to school with imo. You can see him here next to sheydos about 3 months ago (who was always the one with the worst english of that old gambit core).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBC-F0zhHFk

Yeah, given the calibre of the roster, head coach should definitely be an option for the chopping block. Sliggy has a lot of good things to say about bacon being a robot no lifer, but maybe the loss of qpert was big for them?

Last year reports did say that scream chose to leave rather than being kicked, so maybe eMIL would be willing to work with him again? It's a big cope but I believe!

Yeah I could totally see that from sayf's perspective. After a year of trying in a pretty dysfunctional system it must be a hard ask to sign up for another year. Was it until 2026 that they signed jamppi for? At the least he's a hyperflex and good personality, which probably helps a bit when you're re-building the roster year after year.

Given the problems that liquid had this season, it baffles me that they ended up choosing redgar over sayf. Like all of the other gambit lads, redgar is such a lovely guy, but we didn't see an igl/firepower performance this year that I think merits him over some of the better tier 2 igls. Liquid probably also have more money to spend than the broke streamer-owned orgs too in terms of getting the better igl prospects. I'd be really surprised if sayf actually wanted to leave the nats/jamppi core.

Ah, good point; I hadn't thought about these kinds of logistics. I do hope GE find some kind of route for tallent to progress into tier 1.

Was L1nk IGLing for the clowns all season? He's a really funny guy, love the interviews he used to give when he was on lulquid and ascend.

Honestly, the new affiliate program could be a good way of developing Indian tallent. If GE partner with a good organization full of young players that have a good (hopefully international) coaching staff built around them, and the focus of this org is to make money heretics style by upselling developing tallent, I could see good indian players making it back into GE in a year or two. What is clear right now is that established Indian players would be a detriment to GE's roster. The better Indian challengers teams playing against an international GE roster is the future for growing the region vs tokenism, and will surely see the emergence of tier 1 tallent, even if it takes some time.

Being german is cool. Love yourself!

I am secretly from Mars. Secret agent Anya Taylor-Joy has been profiling you pathetic earthlings for several decades, and we know all of your weaknesses. Soon, we send 5 of our most esteemed warriors to face earthling team 'Lowball Ee-Spots' to decide the fate of the solar system. Be ready, eathscum.

Internet historians will debate this post for centuries trying to decipher what the fuck he meant by this.

I mean in the sense of being able to lift his team up on lan, controling their emotions and firing them up in tough situations. Sliggy often doesn't have the best to say about him, but has praised him repeatedly for this in the past.

Two big problems:

1. Poor agent pool, even before the raze meta, is the biggest problem for him. His Kay/o and sage are fine, but I doubt most teams would want to bend their strategy and comps around him like something to play reyna/ nerfed jett.
2. Attitude. You'd hope that the kcorp and supposed lack of trialing opportunities finally level him out, but who knows.
   Great mechanics and emotional leading skills, though.

If the C9 core of xeppaa/ leaf/ zellsis leave because c9 is only paying min salary, that could be pretty good. Aspas too, assuming he leaves. Not sure how picky he is with this ideal roster he wants to build, though.

he seems to make comments out of spontaneous spite

specifically what statements? I don't follow everything super closely tbh. The whole guest slots situation was honesly just semantics and seems way overblown in retrospect. Maybe there is a better argument with the recent br interview he gave about tier 2 support, but again I think this is rito trying to be overt in their signals that they should not directly financially prop up the tier 2 (which I think they are worried about, given that they do this for tier 1). But they have definitely gone too far the other way with this, given how far this whole latest drama has probably dried out an already arid investment interest in ascension.

I doubt Leo is unilaterally making the big decisions (he is mostly just a figurehead punching bag). After all, who the fuck would make a choice like riot did knowing that they will recieve likely thousands of negative comments online. He surely had the prescience to see that there would have been this kind of backlash. There was also mre nuance to the guard situation in that 1. at least a minimum of 3 or 4 of the individuals would have signed to partnership teams anway and 2. there are very real possibilities of underhanded slot sales and riot can do little to anticipate and stop them. Maybe the optimal solution was to just let this happen (with plausible deniablity as TMV, sideshow etc have argued) and much of the backlash could have been anticipated with a longer statement that explicitly mentioned these concerns, rather than the vague bullshit that we did get. Maybe the whole situation was some kind of ploy for riot to get some kind of community goodwill and emanate feelings that the people are listened to, but I can't help but feel the distrust they have sewn in tier 2 vastly outweighs that. Silly billy moments happen I guess.

Pansy muting her mic to choke back the giggles ahaha

The fall of the barbar x koldamenta system was baffling to watch, particularly as everyone seemed to say that they were good in scrims and failed to materialize on the stage. They really should have been up there as a contender with liquid and giants. With his angent pool (breach/ kj/ sage/ viper) being so odd, I wonder if he will try the duelist again, as he was on gambit befor deffo came along.

This is a good point, honestly. KOI and vitality both have a Jett duelist sized hole in them ATM, but, given they both have decent raze players, I wonder if they instead select for a utility player.

Yeah, I'd be surprised if FUT made a change given their season (despite the wings of chance giving them a good run at things, since NAVI didn't take the placement games seriously enough and FUT getting an easy group at champs). Turkish teams often just take Jett mains and convert them onto other roles to prioritize firepower, which tends to shine on them along with team play. qw1's agent pool does look a bit shaky, so we will see whether they just kick him or go for some kind of role shift.

Pasta from other post, but I think ardiis coming back would be bad for them:

I think Ardiis offers a lot as a strong personality on the team to keep Ange1's silliness going overboard in terms of the comps and midround, but he's an even less flexible player than cNed coming into the post Jett era. It's hard to say who a good replacement would be. But you imagine cNed might like to go back to a turkish org like BBL (plus he's dating a turkish gc pro).

I think Ardiis offers a lot as a strong personality on the team to keep Ange1's silliness going overboard in terms of the comps and midround, but he's an even less flexible player than cNed coming into the post Jett era. It's hard to say who a good replacement would be. But you imagine cNed might like to go back to a turkish org like BBL (plus he's dating a turkish gc pro).

The homework for most jett mains in the 2022 offseason was to learn raze. Derke did it well (though he had a head start, given the departure of big daddy doma) and sayf also successfully made the transition. cNed never looked very comfortable on it. I'm not really sure who fits the slot for them in terms of free agents, though. As you say, he was decent on neon and yoru for playing into NAVI's wacky comp choices. Not sure who they think will fill the gap, though. Alive and Keiko are very jett heavy, though tomaszy can flex.

The fnatic coaching staff situation is a bit unusual compared to other rosters, having no analyst for example (though I suspect this comes from Boaster being the main strats innovator on the team, with coach Mini being the one to fill the gaps, as coaches often do). They do have a mental coach, which is probably a good thing given the struggles boaster has had in the past and Mini being a somewhat introverted character.

Interviews that they have had recently have pointed toward snowballing being a weakness of the team. In general, their pistol strats were not so successful, and teams now are very cognisant of stacking early ult orbs on the high impact ults of individuals that have done well in early rounds, that can lead to big advantages being created against them early (despite often good macro ideas in rifle rounds and strong individuals).

I know esports budgets are being cut, but given they have expressed recently that they feel pinched for time, surely an analyst or two would help them have better prep and develop a full map pool. Obviously they have Anderzz, but he seems to be on a contractual basis (he had frequent conflicts with Boaster during one of their champions vlogs, but I can't help but feel he would be very useful full time).

Clearly poor PS work, but I wonder whether advertizers run his ad today? Isn't he part of some aimlabs promotion between the maps?

I think this is perhaps a symptom of the departue of a voice like Ardiis in the midrounding to balance and check Ange1. Since d00mbros can only check in twice a map, there have to be outspoken and confident voices in the server alongside the main IGL. But who can really say what his thoughts were in the moment, and he is obviously the second best IGL in EMEA.

Salah is a smart dude, but benching your igl is almost always an omen of bad things ahead, especially since there is such a drought of them in EMEA. I hope they have a good plan.

Venture capital has the idea that in x amount of years, the game and scene will be far larger than currently. If you can pick the org that is the most promising and is good at establishing a marketable brand, you can potentially make money in the long run.

So gutted for them tbh. Bonecold and twisten seem like lovely lads, and Salah is very funny. I guess I need this masochism in my life now fnatic win everything.

Mini seems to have the thinking that smokes is the best role for the IGL, as per boaster and mistic swapping roles pre champions 2022. Sentinals are not with the team often enough to have good first hand info, flash and info initiators can be too concerned with the micro of setting up duelist to have time to watch the minimap, and duelists need to focus on their crosshair. Smokes tend to have the most simple E utility, though obviously there is still lots of learning to do with one ways and lineups. But less in the way of taking up brain power in the moment.

The changes with boaster's role were made with the idea of what valorant will look like in 5 years time, according to mini.

Petra IGL? (was in the centre of the thumbnail lineup)