Loud did wipe the floor with NRG tho. NRG played near perfect valorant and there were so many rounds where NRG looked like Iceland Optic and i was amazed by their insane teamwork and indiv performance.
Loud werent pulling out anything crazy, they played as they always do, good coordination and insane solo plays and somehow even tho NRGs rounds were near perfect Loud never went down into any crazy round deficits and somehow they won 3-0.
It isnt a coincidence that NRG werent able to win a single map. Im not saying NRG are bad its quite the contrary actually, i just think that Loud are THAT MUCH BETTER. Theyre in a league of their own alongside FNC.

the thing is they really didnt try in EMEA and it was because they didnt need to. Literally the entire league was getting 1v5ed by each player on NAVi and so they won each game 2-0.

Theyve been doing that for 5 months so ofc now they had to face one of the best teams in the world without enough practice playing as a team again that they got owned by NRG

Their reads were good and getting better as we went on in the match but their team work and coordination was still heavily lacking. There was a clear difference in the way they played in the beginning of lotus and mid way into their comeback.
The beginning of lotus was filled with solo peeks and throws
Mid way into the comeback they played together with well timed util and good execs

Ofc they werent gonna win tho cause they started off rlly slow against a fired up NRG

Idk the context of that statement but Navi against NRG was a great game and honestly Navi most likely wouldve won if they werent throwing for an entire 5 months in EMEA.
They clearly had ideas, they had good reads, but individually they started off really slow and messy, they kept solo peeking when it was unnecessary (because of the easy matchups they had in EMEA where each player could easily 1v5 any team). NRG unlike their other tourneys started off really drilled this tourney and they were completely ready to face a Navi at 100% which probably wouldve resulted in a GF level match in the Group Stage but NRG dismantled them.
Navi wouldve been slightly better if they played the way they did in Lock/in i'd say but that doesnt mean NRG wouldnt have been able to beat them either way

worst pred of all time

summarize it, i aint reading all that on VLR

they pulled out NO LINEUPS, NO EXECS, PLAYED WITH FOXY9 before going into the lower bracket against FUT and somehow you dont see how they were saving strats?

DRX are way too low, theyve been saving strats. They played completely different after they got serious against FUT after losing map 1

1. FNC
2. Loud
3. DRX
4. NRG (around here is where the margins are tiny
5. PRX (w/ Smth) or EG if PRX dont have smth
6. Liquid
7. EDG (I could see them going toe to toe with NRG)
8. PRX (w/ out Smth)

it was never a honeymoon phase to begin with, FNC just didnt go full force against them in the finals.
TL are good and thats why i love seeing them in a matchup against the Dark Horse of the tourney EDG

M80 are good but i dont think theyre up there with the best just yet. Theyre still rlly inconsistent. At their peaks tho i do see them being able to win BO3s against top teams

yep another slow map

Throwing for so long they started off so slow in their first challenging match

Navi arent gonna win the comeback playing like this. Theyre all solo peeking and losing each fight one by one with no trades.

if were going off of EMEA games then we cant say anything about Navi, they were trolling the whole season so it isnt exactly an accurate source

yea i just realized theyve been playing lotus a lot recently in the matches that i havent been watching. Looking at some clips nrg look p good on it

i honestly have no idea why NRG picked Lotus, they could be saving strats but i personally think their lotus is p weak and Navi havent shown anything yet on lotus so this might go to a third

.

oh yea copenhagen, didnt remember at all because of how bad optic were in that tourney

its almost like loud v optic, the counter after counter and because these 2 dont exactly know how each other play the counters are so devastating on the other side each time

I dont exactly remember if it ever has but goddamn is FNS v Angel crazy to watch

Smth v Embassy x_x

again it isnt an exciting nor an engaging storyline. Theres nothing unpredictable happening, theres no one doing him wrong or anything like that yk?

doesnt matter, what im saying is theyre back to playing like they did in lockin which is a show on how they throw regionals EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Oh they won a gun round...

The best storyline wouldve been a Zeta comeback on their own stage but the skill level is too great for them to make tokyo

thats not a cinderella story and its also not an exciting storyline. He was very clearly a decently close to world class player from when he started playing in japan and owning them

against who? himself? Tokyo? Embassy?

every round is close though and Navi are getting crazy first picks, its just a shame that NRG/Optic Core have some of the best stats when it comes to 4v5 and 3v5 winrates

at the end of the day theres nothing "worthwhile" if masters isnt. Champions 2022 is just gonna be irrelevant in 2 years time. The teams attending champions are the same as masters there are just more of them, the skill level doesnt go up per team so its stupid to say that masters is worth any less than champions

what?
NRG are insane and Navi are keeping up wyoa

Sad that there are no real storylines in Tokyo or any exciting ones at least but goddamn if these are the quality of matches were getting this early into the group stage then this is gonna be a disgusting tournament with probably the best champs yet ltr on in the year

because they actually have to try now, they arent trying to qualify amongst the BOTMEA teams

never even said anything about winning the game or even the map but ok

this is literally the most stacked tourney in valorant history.
PRX
TL
FNC
LOUD
NRG
DRX
EG
NAVI

if its not impressive to be top 5 maybe even top 4 among those guys then there will never be anything that impresses you in this game

Navi top 5 in tokyo no questions about it.
From these 3 rounds we can already see that Navi are playing completely differently to regionals. They dont need to try regionals and still they only lost twice.

dude the team throws regionals all the time, literally watch the past 2 rounds you can see that theyre playing completely differently. These gyus fs are top 5 in the world no question about it

is that it?

anti stratting is a bitch man imma just say. Another thing imma just say is SEN did it first, and the best and ppl still got the balls to say they had no strats.
Potter goated on that anti

the joke has been made a million times before you, wtf chemical reaction in your brain happened that you thought it was a funny joke?

i genuinely dont think loud will even try against EG cause it would be stupid to throw your strats at them like that. Better to get to the GF thru lowers and let EG win GF

why cant he just apply for his own visa and once hes there just play. We can have the org take 100% of the earnings and move it over to salary instead so he doesnt need a work visa. Like is this not a genuine possibility or what?

what is bro cookin?

Other than Rb
W list

just cause you werent here when he was the best doesnt mean he didnt have the greatest impact in a valorant tournament till this day

but a lot would

he was bar none above the rest even back when nats was going crazy. nats went down in impact quite quickly meanwhile chronicle was flexing to everything and still putting up miracle numbers

relevant sure but definitely not viewed as a top player or igl

Mako def over Rb. Mako has been the best controller for 2+ years now

great aim, bad igling

TS literally suck tho, they won when DRX were trying out some troll comps and players, and they beat PRX during PRXs pre something troll games. This game against DRX they got ROLLED when DRX actually tried. TS really aint that good, they arent the worst in pacific but goddamn are they hella overrated

bro is on some unbelievably hard copium, thats the shit only us sen fans get our hands on and i should know

would be crazy but quite literally the largest impossibility of the century