first, I mentioned nitro because statistically he could hang at international level. He was the second best player on 100t at the time with asuna being at his fragging peak. Him staying on val is something he said he liked because CS requires a lot of travel. He also said he wanted to travel less because he just had a child a few months before he left. This is why people were surprised he swapped from val to CS, especially go to a t1 team at the time, and travel. This is why I believe he went more for passion, than because he couldn't "hang" in val.

do you mean autimatic or gobb? Gobb was statistically a decent player on valorant. Not the best, but by far not the worst.
He also went back to CS because he preferred the game. He said so on stream, plenty of times.

Autimatic, I dont think anyone expected anything from him. Guy was in a huge slump on cs and never recovered his peak from 2018.
He looked decent on val, but nothing special. I agree with you here that he just didn't adapt to the game better than others.

Also acknowleding that being good at cs doesn't mean shit, is honestly a retarded take. Being good at CS helps you adapt to a game that is literally using the same base formula for the game. The same with overwatch, and fortnite pros. They adapt easier to games because they have the mechanical skill to be above the majority of people. CS pros just have an advantage over them because valorant follows the same mechanical formula as CS. Does this mean CS players will be the best at valorant, no. Does this mean they have a slight advantage, yes. Will it mean a CS pro is better than an overwatch pro at valorant, no. Not at this stage of the game.

Also if being good at cs doesn't mean shit, why're majority of the top mechanical players in val, all cs players? there are a few outliers, cNed Mwzera, etc. However the common theme amoungst the T1 scene, is ex cs players. I'm not even a CS player and I can see how CS pros have adapted and ran the game since switching. Will it stay like this? No. Overwatch and fortnite players will take this game over in the future. I'm placing my bets on the current 10-13yr olds who are grinding ranked away everyday. This game will be exactly what CSGO was like with 1.6. first few years 1.6 pros ran the game, and then people who were too young to play 1.6 a lot, turn up and start cementing themselves in the pro scene. That's what will happen. you'll get people who have been spamming ranked the past few years, hit 16 and go join teams and grow as a player. That's what this scene will become. Vets will fade out, and new talent will come in. Be it from overwatch, from cs, or from fortnite. New talent will always overtake the veteran.

I was hoping he'd swap to val so much. It would be great watching someone who was actually relevant and at the top of the world for awhile. Plus just his gameplay was insane when he streamed. Albeit ranked, but his mechanics and op skill looked insane.

Also kinda glad he didn't sellout and go val, and went with his passion. Fair play to the dude for wanting to grind CS out again.

Val is by far not a shit game. It's highly likely that riot will make it the biggest fps esport in the world. Valve has proved time after time that their primary focus is Dota.

Both games are their own thing. Val is Val, cs is cs. Both games are great, and good esports. People just need to look at things objectively instead of defensively.

People seem to forget that most t1 cs players would adapt to val in a few months and start to outclass a lot of players.
Hell, KennyS looked like a demon after a couple months of playing, and was rumoured to joining OG for awhile. The guy with the op looked so fucking crisp and clean with it. we could only imagine what he'd achieve if he didn't go to falcons.

Wait until he learns that nitr0 was one of the better players in val when he left for a game he prefers playing. ALso wait until he learns that nitr0 was the igl and duellist for 100t most successful run at an event.

I think the main thing people forget, is quite a lot ex-CS pro would swap back to CS if they had a good opportunity. Mainly as that's the game they prefer, but went for a better option to make a living.
It's the same shit about working a good paying job you hate, instead of a lower paying job you love.

tbh there are better riflers than him but his main thing that seperates him from others is his consistancy. Guy is a top tier rifler and awper. Most players tend to do one or the other.
Niko - rifle
monesy - awp
yekindar - rifler ,etc.

I think it's why there's been big contention between zywoo and s1mple, because they're both great with both weapons, but both lean more towards awp than rifle.

His point was his mental was fucked from doubting the other guy. It's just people took a 40second clip out of a 40min documentary reaction.
Just what always happens when clips are taken out of context to farm impressions online. Hell, I dont even like ardis as his personality just seems insufferable from the G2 days. Just this shit was blown was out of proportion.

dont tell him about Astralis and Danish crowds.

DRX are pressure agents. As soon as the pressure is there, they panic and whiff. It's been that way since VS days, and it'll continue.

Because the sad truth is people will only remember winners of events, not people who make playoffs and never succeed. Optic are by far the most accomplished NA team. However they've achieved the most but never won anything internationally. It's why in a few years people wont really remember the roster. They'll remember the teams who won events, Loud, fpx, Gambit, Acend, etc. It's been like that in previous games. People might remember them as great contenders for events, but that's gonna be about it.

tldr;
People remember teams who win, and teams who fall. Sen fall, Acend fall. Gambit fall/wins, loud wins, etc. Contenders tend to be forgotten after a couple years.

idm wall of texts. I tend to write a lot when talking on here aswell. Way more than needed most of the time.

I dont believe bang is the best in NA. I just stated why bang stood out compared to other smokers, who wernt exactly the best mechanical players. This is the same reason why people assumed Zander would get picked up by a franchised team. I do believe bang is up there as a mechanical controller. We're reaching the stage where just having good util isn't enough. Not always showing up on the scoreboard, is losing teams on matches. Even as IGL's. It's why fnatic have looked great the past couple games, as boaster has shown up when needed (other than furia haven). It's why Navi look insane, and why loud were always good.
Bang just has a few off games, but overall is generally a good mechanical controller. This is what led people to believe he's one of the best controllers in NA. That and marved was slowly leaning towards initiators towards the end of optic.

With disregard, do you mean disregard any comments comparing, or your comparison?

Marved not being picked up isn't surprising to me. As a player, he's by far the best controller player in NA. However him deciding not to go lft led orgs to find other options, and when he decided he wanted to play, it was too late. Even then, he will always have a sketchy past from CS, which people still bring up constantly.

Yay being benched and dropped was a mutual thing. No was c9 would dissolve a contract of yay, when they know how much money they could make out of him. I do agree that yay joining the team wasn't ideal, as it changed the whole dynamic that made c9 what it was. Ik you said rhetorical, but yay going there wasn't a great idea. They had a good dynamic of leaf duelist, xeppa init, vanity igl/smoke, and then zellsis as flex/2nd duelist. Yay going in make leaf go to sentinel, zellsis on 2nd duelist, xeppa stayed init, and vanity stayed.
Hopefully yay joins a team that knows how to work around him, without changing vital team roles.

PS. same with you. I dont type any of this out of anything vindictive, or mean. Just my general opinion on it. Also I do agree that NA treats players like shit in general, and more of merchandise than a team member (tenz c9, contract hell players get put in)

I think bang tends to standout more than other smokers, is his frag potential it has. Guy has a strong tendancy to drop great numbers. It's what set marved and pancada, aswell as zander aside compared to more generic smokers.

Probably Pancad, or Marved.

fnatic at champs. beat them first time they played against them, then lost to them in the rematch.
in lcq, they had probably the roughest ride of all the teams. had to fight Sen, C9, Faze, and then The Guard who were the favourites of LCQ.
Like, I dont see how they were seen as the favourites, but being seen as the best Na team behind NRG is what I saw more of. favourites of the event, whoever calls that is delusional. Navi, loud, and fnatic were the favourites of the event, by far.

Shin is playing well right now though.
Scream on KAYO seems more troll than anything. Get a dedicated IGL, and let scream go ham on duellist like he always did. Him on Kayo is just wasting his potential.

Is his igling more important than his fragging when he was a duellist though?

I'd rather they picked up an actual dedicated igl, let scream pew pew. Seeing as that's what he was always best at.

nats

One thing I did notice when I'd go on his stream, is he also focused a lot on playing sage, and rifling. Which he did the one thing other Jett one tricks were forced to do. Learn other agents .
Like, his rifling isn't as bad as it used to be when he was a one trick. He got a lot better with it than the TSM days, where he's probably be better with a marshal than vandal.

True. The scene is far more competitive now, which is fantastic.

It just looked like in that match, and the past few where he's played Jett, that his op is far more inconsistent than it ever was. The guy was a demon on the op even when TSM was ass and barely qualling for anything. Just a shame how far it's declined in only 10months.

It's weird. Wardell used to diff other Jett players when he was even on the declining TSM. Seems the time he spent only playing ranked after leaving TSM, made him decline this much.
Wasn't even his Jett. Just his oping looked bland compared to how he used to be.

I agree people only genuinely hate shahz. The others do get some hate quite often when they play. When optic(nor nrg) play, fns gets hate. Steel isn't relevant enough anymore to get hate consistantly, but on 100t he did.
Shahzam is probably the only player to get hate when he isn't playing.

You also just said why people hate on the players aswell. I'm not saying people genuinly hate the other players, just reasons I've seen people hate on them in the past.

I agree with Mel and suygetsu. Mel had a hate threads for a day or two, but generally is banter on twitter.

true. Haven't seen too much about klaus and benkai when it comes to hate threads. Seen it far too many times for ange1 and fns/boaster though.

which ones are wrong.

Boaster was people saying he wasn't good mechanically, chocked on lans in playoffs, and he was cringe for his personality.
fns got heat every time optic lost, but praised when they won.
shahz is pretty self explanatory. There's 10,000 reasons people have come up to hate him. the main ones I've seen are his excuses
steel, I haven't seen a lot of hate on him since the split "sewers" shit when it wasn't even his fault.
stax and benkai, they shouldn't really be on here. I've seen more hate on starxo than either of them.
suygetsu is the killjoy situation 100%
Mel, the only comments I've seen have been about her being hyped af, having an ego in NA, and being humbled at GC. Other than that, I' haven't seen too much with her.

that's just what I've seen over a few months. IT's not 100%, but the most consistent I've personally seen, are these.

People only really hate on him when Optic lost a match. when they won, they'd praise him for how good of an igl he is :/

Reasons I've noticed people talk shit over the months/years.

FNS - smart but mechanics of a 30yr old. carried by yey (I dont believe it, but this is what I've read far too many times in the past. Mostly when Optic lost a match and fns was bottom of the sb)

Boaster - cringe always chocked in playoffs with fnatic

Shahz - ratzham, never takes accountability, grassed on friends when he was younger.

Stax - who tf hates stax. Guy is one of the most loved asian players, tf

steel? - people hate on steel because he has a troll personality and no results to back it up other than the 2nd lan ever.

Suygetsu? - killjoy situation. Came off as a whiney child more than anything. Steel and ANGE1 troll on twitter. Suygetsu just came off as a dick more than anything.
Benkai? - same as stax. who tf hates on Benkai

and now meL - I've only ever see comments about her chocking on Lan after all the hype surrounding C9W.

I'm more surprised you didn't include ANGE1, considering the huge hate boner VLR has for him when fpx were playing any event.

Best bet for him joining sen;
Tenz - duelist
yay - chamber
Dapr - initiator
Zellsis 2nd duelist/flex
Zander - controller igl.
Sick - 6th man

the roster can be competitive, just needs quite a bit overhaul.

Look at how Optic, Fnatic, FPX struggle when they're in a 4v5 most rounds. having a solid igl over player worked, but it's slowly going more towards mechanical players. Saadhak the igl for loud, is a demon. guy performs well, and igls well. Stax on drx, performs well, and igls well.
They're the future of what igls standards for mechanical play would be.
Zander performs well, and can igl. It's more down to if a team sees a player being 50/50 with igl/performing, or 70/30, etc.

This is all my personal opinion aswell. Just I can see the fading out of pure igls, and more of a focus on a hybrid igl/mechanical player.

People rate an igl who is mechanically good, so high.
People shit on igl's who are a better igl than player, i.e. FNS, Boaster, etc. Then praise the igls who can frag, Zander for example.

They've been a stable org for two decades. One of the longest standing orgs.
Reliability in funds is one of the most important aspects. It's why Acend wont get in. Money tied with crypto, so unreliable.

Unlucky for DWG. Lost their spot to two teams who couldn't hang in NA. Unlucko. Hope their roster is picked up by Gen.G at least.

It's good that loud win. They've looked incredible this whole event. All 5 players in form. Just great valorant to watch.

Just glad they beat their curse. Took optic to the end, after being 2-0 down. Next event they got this!! DRX by far putting up the best matches to watch. the fpx match, then this. Both insane matches to watch.

It fell off in other regions because valve dont host events outside of EU. what investor wasnts to pay for a team, just to send them to EU. it sucks because Asia have/had some nice players that could shine if valve put any effort into other regions.

It's this reason I can see valorant passing CS esports. Riot are investing in every region right now, and they've had a great history with developing scenes in APAC, NA, and EU. It's why I'm more invested in val than CS aswell. CS I enjoy the esprots side, but it is bland when you watch the same teams face off at every event.

You're the one making up a narritive bro lol

The guy went top4 at an international lan, losing to optic. They then replaced their igl, and then their coach. All at the time he took up igling and was their main entry. the guy was by far not mid at the time he left val. Saying he wasn't is just a lie and cope tbh.

In CS, he's not at t1 player. the guy is in the pocket of elige, naf, and yekindar. All of which have been performing well in T1 in CS for years. they're the only NA players who can still compete at a good level. I'm more surprised that oSee is doing well. Nitro, is by far one of the weakest players in t1 atm.
ALso people still shit on him for being bad mechanically. Nobody has defended him mechanics. the guy is worse than what steel is in valorant mechanically. Guy is rocking a .87 in the last 3 months.

considering it's the biggest FPS esport in history, and been going on for the psat 20 years, I'd say it's pretty popular around the world.
You have teams coming out of china, Singapore, japan, KR, etc. The game isn't non existent, just valve crippled the Asian scene by charging per pc, per month. that just caused internet cafes to not house valve games, as it wasn't worth it for them.

The fact the use terrorist and counter terrorist isn't the reason it's not popular. Hell, some of the biggest and most successful games in history have terrorists being apart of it. It's not that big of an issue as they tend to censor specific versions of the games for specific countries.

Reason CS didn't get big in asia is because Valve tried overcharging the game at internet cafes. They killed their own scene in those countries.
Crossfire was just a more accessible game for people there.

Nitro was not mid in Valorant dude. Dont forget he also went from CS where he had a huge slump for nearly a year, came to val and in less than a year was 4th at an international event. The guy also played all roles, at a high level. Like, cs is an EU show compared to Na, but dont discredit that nitro was a good player at val

yay is something else. guy is by far the most dominant fragger the game has seen. Guy is by far the most consistent performing player to date. guy has been consistent since he was on andbox, and his run with envy/optic has been superb.

Buzz did play better that map. doesn't take away from the fact that cNed was the scariest Jett player int he world pre nerf. He was one of the few who consistently played her aggressive, and performed well.
He wasn't the best oper as a Jett player. That I'd give to yay, or even wardell. Just yay and wardell are more passive players than aggressive. It's why chamber suits yay perfectly.

Yay is probably the most dominant player to touch Valorant. guy is an absolute demon at the game. He just wasn't as good as cNed at playing Jett. He was top3, but he wasn't the best. He is however the best chamber in the world, by far.

So many people forget what cNed did on Jett before her nerf. Guy was by far the best Jett this game saw, outside of TenZ Iceland run.

ngl their weird sense of humor is actually entertaining at times. Like a breath of fresh air after EU toxicity.

Flukes aren't bad at all. idk why people have this negative feeling regarding a fluke. I guess it's because they cant hold that form, so people have a negative view on it. It doesn't mean the team didn't deserve to win, it's just the chance we'll see them perform that well again is ulikely.
Acend run at champs was a fluke because it wasn't ordinary for them to perform that well. They 100% deserved the win, as they all played insane.

Leicester had a fluke run at the premier league, and won. doesn't mean they didn't deserve it, just means that the expectations of that happening were really low.

They deserved the win 100%. they played out their mind the whole event. All 5 players turned up.

What causes a fluke tends to be consistancy. Optic can't be considered a fluke team, as they're consistently performing well.
Pre champs, Acend weren't a consistent team. Only 1 player on the roster was consistent, and that was cNed.

Gambits run wasn't considered a fluke, as they were considered one of the best teams in eu, being eliminated by fnatic before masters 2 2021, whom which went to the finals. After that event Gambit just stayed at the top of eu for the rest of the year.

Acend just had worldstar talent with cNed, but the others having their inconsistency issues, leading to an inconsistent team.

It was even before.

Before champions, only cNed was consistent on the team.
After, every single player who was on the winning roster, was statistically worse than during champions.

Also I think people call them a fluke run, as they were never considered to be a contender to win the vent. Their Berlin run was iffy. They didn't beat a single team they didn't play before, which is why Champs was a surprise. They looked like a completely different team in champs, with every player going insane.

Acend was more of a fluke because all 5 players of the team turned up at that event. Before champions, nearly every player except cNed, had consistency issues.

Also after that event every player on the Acend roster plays significantly worse than they did at that event. Not a single player, including cNed has had a peak like their performance at Champions 2021.

Cryo Zekken

Facts tbh.

wdym, you have to play atleast 10 different agents to be considered the best /s

The thing with titles as best player, people look at scoreboard. It's why it's rare for a versatile player to get the title of the best. It tends to lead towards the most mechanically gifted player, who gets the most impact on the role. That is yay at the moment.

Also need to look at consistency. So far I dont think there's another player as consistent as yay with performing well.

tbh the people who hate on yay confuse me.
Dude is the most consistent fragger in the game, and has 0 conflicts with anyone. there's 0 reason to dislike the guy, be it his playstyle, or as an online personality.

also people who say he crutches on op body shot, dont remember him back when he rifled as Jett when he first joined Envy. The guy has proven he'd top tier with both rifle and op.