No he doesn't, Crashies was the best NRG player player in Lock/IN and was the best initiator in the world last year.
I doubt anyone can replace Crashies, especially from NA.

I don't know if you're doubting that he's good or if it's a genuine question.
In case it's a genuine question, a lot of teams that got into franchising kept their previous roster or most of it since releasing them and signing a full new team will be hard on every level, so most of the other talents who weren't on franchised teams sadly didn't get to join even if they were sometimes better.
Some examples are EG, 100T and C9, they could have upgraded most of their original rosters but they only made few changes.

He's been so consistent for so long, he was probably one of the best initiator in NA alongside xeta, trent and crashies of course.
Sad to see that only 2 of them got a spot in franchised when the others are better than most of the initiators in franchised league.
Rooting for him and Trent to get a spot in T1 next year one way or the other, or even this year if possible.

Why do people think Vanity can play any other role other than smoker? I've never even seen vanity on a KJ or cypher, not even on sage

What Hiko said about swapping Cryo for Yay would be interesting.
Bring back the raze/neon Asuna, he looked so good on those and make Yay a full time jett/chamber.
But i don't know if Mikes is willing to play double duelist on some maps or play jett at all, so it's probably not gonna happen, but I really think it's a good idea.

No he didn't, he was negative in 3 of them, and that's not even my point, I said facing elimination and he went negative/ bottom on all of them

Maps when Fnatic facing elimination:
Fracture vs DRX: 13/15 bottom of both teams
Fracture vs FPX: 13/16
Bind vs PRX: 16/20 2nd to last
Split vs KRU: 13/19 bottom of the team
Vs Sen in 2021 he was bottom on all maps
You see the similarities?

Liquid are pretty bad right now, how is that related to derke being a choker?

Are you seriously comparing any util to DRX, just watch any game of DRX and you'll see Stax do things Leo wouldn't even imagine

Good group stage games, 166 ACS vs PRX, 155 ACS against FPX in the playoffs to go home, meanwhile optic goes to top 3 afterwards.

Who snuck saadhak in?
Aspas and Less are the best players in Loud.
Kingg is better than Saadhak as far as fragging IGLs go.
The rest is pretty reasonable.

Yes he is

I litteraly said facing elimination, is he facing elimination across all maps?
I already said he's usually insane, I know exactly how good he can be, but I remember him choking on the big moments so I pointed it out, no cherry picking in there.

You could say he has the potential, but disrespecting Crashies who achieved so much is not really the way to go

Let's talk about this when Leo has qualified for more than a single event, for now there isn't really a discussion.

Then you're not talking about initiator bro, top 3 initiators include Stax and not Leo.

Are you talking about top 3 initiator or top 3 Fraggers ?
Stax util is absolutely insane, his KAST and APR are not even close to Leo, yes ofc Leo is a better fragger but so are most of the initiators in the world because stax is igling, but are they better initiators than stax? Hell no, and Leo isn't either.

Yeah, people forgot about stax because Leo has good stats in EMEA qualifiers, while he has only qualified to one international event in his career and didn't even perform that good in it.

I've been following Guild and EMEA qualifiers since 2021, but no, a player who has only been to one international even where he didn't even get a good placement, wasn't even the best player on Guild is not a top 5 players in the world, nor a top 3 initiator.

Check the decider map on every one of the games i mentioned:
ALL NEGATIVE, most of them bottom of the table

We can't put a player in top 5 because he played 3 good games against 100T, Furia and Sentinels.
Especially when this guy wasn't even in the discussion before, if he destroys NAVI and plays good in the grand finals he surely will be, but for now 3 games are not nearly enough.

NRG looks like the only good team in NA tbh, with Loud and Leviatan this might be the 3 teams to go to Masters Tokyo.

Bro snuck in Leo, this guy hasn't won a masters, has been to only one masters which he didn't even get to top 4 and is being compared to Crashies.
The disrespect is astounding.

No idea about 5, but Shao and Mako are the best I've seen so far.
Aspas is insane, but Less have been way better this tourney so far, so if someone is putting him they should out Less ahead of him at least.

Ardiis is becoming my favorite streamer by far, the time of the streams is pretty bad for me but i watch the full vod every day.
I love that guy

This is wrong on so many levels, Leo is good but not even close to Shao on any aspect of the game.
The only who can be in a debate against shao is Austin "Crashies" Roberts.

Why do people rate derke so highly tho?
He's usually insane, but I'm pretty sure he goes double negative everytime they face elimination against a big team, it happened against SEN, Kru, PRX, FPX, DRX...
The opposite could be said for cNed, when acend were good, he would step up everytime they're in danger and pull out massive performances against the biggest teams in the world.
For this game I'd say cNed >>> Derke
For a regular season Derke would destroy the other teams.

Even if they win LOCK/IN which is not garanteed, but are you forgetting that there was no FPX in 2021 masters or champs, and optic are the only team to go to every event except the first one, coming 2nd in Berlin 2021 and top 3 in every event in 2022.
Are we gonna forget all that because the FPX/NAVI won Copenhagen, came 4th in champs and now could win a single elim ambiguous tournament?
I'm all for EU and NA hater, but they haven't achieved nearly half as much as the optic roster.

Except they've made changes, and are playing a single elim tournament which is not even a masters against teams who were formed 2 months ago going into a new meta with 2 new maps.
Optic is, at least until the end of the 2023 season the best roster to ever play valorant.

Not really, he had some problems and decided it's best to leave.
After that he took a long break and didn't get to compete, until his recent LFT a few days ago.

Loud and NRG are insanely close, but since Loud won the recent match up I'd put them ahead.
Leviathan are clear of 100T and Furia who're close too and I can't decide who is better.
The rest 5 didn't play that much so I can't judge.

Bro has been the best and most consistent player for 2 years and now he's getting this kind of comments because he lost a single elim 1-2 where he was team MVP against DRX who're probably the favorites to win it all

Nah bro, they dropped him there's no troll.
The only blur is why, maybe he didn't like it or things didn't go well with his teammates, because it certainly wasn't due to his performance.

I'm sure he has his reasons to be upset with whatever riot and sentinels did, and I understand that, but the way he's going about it is definitely not the way.
For dephh's wife, she's overreacting and being mean for something that is none of her business, but she's not contracted to anyone so she's free to say whatever her opinion is.
Wether you agree with whatever sick is saying or not, he still seems the one in the wrong with the way he's acting.

Yeah ofc, he hits the hardest shots and frag out of his mind, his mechanics are second to none and even Cryo couldn't match yesterday.
But can he maybe, just maybe stop overheating and settle for a few seconds instead of getting bored and running into stacks and losing rounds and games?

TenZ was a lot smarter than this even when he overheats, this guy either straight up doesn't care or he seriously thinks he can win every gunfight even against 3 tier 1 pro players.

Everytime I watch him it feels like I'm watching the best player in the world... Well at least until he overheats and just runs into a stack and dies with no trade.
He could easily one of, if not the best player in the world if he can learn some discipline.
There was a round where he had an op and good angle, but because he got 2 kills he overheated popped knives and just dashed into 3 stack and died and they lost the round, not just that but the next round instead of playing with knives the whole team had to save because he can't buy.
This happened so many times and it makes it so heartbreaking watching him play
Thankfully he's only 18 and still can fix this and maybe reach heights no one ever reached before.

He has always been insane and one of the best players in the world, sadly c9 were out of form in 2022 and he didn't have that chance.
My worry was that he's moving away drom duelists, but it seems that this man can play anything and destroy even a team like DRX.
1leaf is a GOD

Leaf has always been one of the best players in the world, people just forgot that since c9 weren't that good in the past year, and Xeppaa's comfort agent is skye, so I wasn't surprised.
They're all very very good individuals, I'm talking more about some unnecessary agression and decisions by the whole team.

They didn't look shaky, 2 very convincing perfectly played maps.
On Ascent I'd give all the credits to BBL for their CT side, they barely let them have a clean exec and used their util really well with some interesting ideas and great individual performances.

Totally agree on everything you said, C9 looking like the way better team there.
I just noticed some bad decisions on many rounds on their part, and I'm worried that if they do that against a team like DRX they wouldn't get away with it.

Nah it's fine on a press conference of an esports game, I mean if you ranked the worst things ever said on esports press conference alone without other sports this wouldn't be in the top 100.

You seem to be the one crying rn, I love the PRX guys but what mCe said seems totally fine.
I would remember that sh1t too and talk sh1t back when I win.

Yay didn't even have a good day by his standards, he played really good by normal standards tho.
So i don't think he was PRX's biggest problem.

Yes they had some good ideas, but some decisions they made didn't make sense to me.
Like they pushed CT too many times in equal numbers or even having a number advantage and against ecos, unless they were thinking "fight fire with fire" and we'll see another face of them against DRX.

I've just finished watching the vods and one thing I noticed is that C9 played fine, nothing out of the ordinary or special.
I wouldn't count Lotus as it's a new map and it was just deathmatch most of the time, but on Pearl they were overly agressive and almost threw some rounds with some bad decisions, except that PRX were way worse.
Maybe they just played risky and agressive because they're against PRX, if that's the case it slightly makes sense. But if not they should work on a couple of things, because DRX will definitely not troll or throw 99.9% of the rounds.

They don't have an official league this year tho, and can you link where bodork said this?

Yes, masters will include top 3 teams in each region + additional spot for whoever wins LOCK/IN= 10 teams in Masters.

How will masters work if FPX or EDG wins LOCK/IN? (Unlikely but still a possibility)
Will we see the team who wins on Masters? Or will they earn China a spot in Masters?
And what if they don't? Will this be the last time we see them at VCT this year?
For next year we might get a whole league for China or see them integrated in Asia, but for this one it seems really unclear for Chinese teams.

He's really good tho, I don't see a problem in him playing duelist since no one is better