Raw aim has to be Demon1
Arguments for Less, Primmie, Yay, and Alfajer miss the fact that they heavily rely on optimal positioning and movement tech. Look at Demon1’s stats for Champ 2023 — 40% HS across 459 rounds. He’s unmatched.
| Flag: | United States |
| Registered: | June 15, 2023 |
| Last post: | August 24, 2025 at 7:25 PM |
| Posts: | 949 |
Raw aim has to be Demon1
Arguments for Less, Primmie, Yay, and Alfajer miss the fact that they heavily rely on optimal positioning and movement tech. Look at Demon1’s stats for Champ 2023 — 40% HS across 459 rounds. He’s unmatched.
Honestly I’m okay with a duelist that crashes out on the rare occasion. Better than him becoming a stat padder when his team is getting diffed by baiting them and saving his useless op all the time.
SEN and G2 have an alarming number of D tier votes considering the other 80% of their votes are A and S tier. Some of these voters are just generational haters.
I doubted y’all because I thought FNS would result in a firepower deficit but Mada and Verno are the truth. They bring enough star fragging and mid rounding finesse that I was reminded of 2023 EG. You guys might deny Sentinels Bangkok.
NRG is definitely underrated if you think they’ll be middle of the pack.
It’s a couple things.
The average viewer puts these together and thinks that NRG just lost Demon1 and is building a budget roster with scraps from T2. What they don’t realize because they don’t watch our circuit, is that Mada and Verno were the best talents from T2 that were on teams that let them down — they undoubtably belong in franchising.
Here are their placements in their splits:
All the international scouts are aware of this and it’s why NRG has so much hype going into 2025. They retained their experienced players while solving their role issues; the talent they picked up are also projected to reach extreme highs. The question now is whether everything works out.
Amer - Jawgemo | Valyn | Boostio
Emea - Sayf | Ardiis | Nats
Apac - Benkai | Stax | T3xture
China - KK | Whzy | Chichoo
I doubt it. Koala is rather consistent — even more so when M80’s main rival was TGRD (current G2). He’s good.
No. He’s way too inconsistent. There’s still 4 other options in Corey, Zeldris, Okeanos and Icy.
I don’t think it’d matter which agent he plays. Zekken would crush all but a handful of players in an individual matchup.
Sym was inconsistent in T2. Corey, Zeldris, and Icy would all perform better than this.
Here are less notable songs from the same artists that I listed prior to get a feel for what I mean.
If you like Kendrick and Frank Ocean then Anderson Paak is a decent shout.
Edit: Specifically his Malibu Album since he features with a lot of other artists.
Not bad. Do you mind if I ask whether you just listen to the most popular songs on Spotify? My preferences from these artists are a good step away from their more pop-inspired pieces.
Couldn’t decide on one, so you get three.
Jon Bellion, Twenty One Pilots, Arctic Monkeys, Glass Animals, Allie X
Completely depends on your preferences. Some people like clean and minimal while others prefer flashy or clunky. I’ll list some good examples. I personally run the Champs 2024 Katana.
Clean
Balanced
Flashy
Practice good mechanics consistently until it becomes muscle memory — that way you can use your mental bandwidth to evaluate risk assessment. Being proactive is always important to maximize your impact and you need to be able to parse when it’s worth taking risks and when you should play it safe.
I’d put my money on you being too concerned about what your teammates or the enemy is doing rather than on yourself. Just play your own game and minimize your own mistakes.
Zekken probably has the most proven talent given his growth and continued dominance. Less is a great shout as well.
Trent is in a slump rn but he used to be the OG Verno with a projected peak of where Leo is.
At this point, I don’t really care who wins. Just praying that every player is in their top form next year so we get gigabangers throughout the regular season. I want every match to be full of OTs with some real heartbreak when world class teams don’t qualify because there’s no room for slip ups.
I know there’s consensus that G2 will be favorites in Americas but I hope the rest of you make us prove it.
Anything above a Habanero sacrifices flavor for heat for me. Even then I prefer stuff a bit milder — Birds Eye or Scotch Bonnet are perfect.
Some of my favorite dishes are Thai Papaya Salad, Jerk Chicken, and Bún Bò Huế. Sichuan Hotpot is also a good shoutout.
This is my list. It’s not about tenure but about who has shown the highest peak for the agent so far. I’ve placed asterisks by those who are debatable.
Jett: Aspas
Raze: Jawgemo*
Neon: KangKang
Yoru: Derke
Phoenix: Jingg
Reyna: Something
Iso: Alfajer
Sova: c0m*
Fade: Leo
Kayo: Ethan
Breach: Cauanzin
Skye: Ethan
Gekko: Sacy
Omen: Tenz
Astra: Karon
Brimstone: Demon1
Harbor: s0m
Viper: Less
Clove: Smoggy
KJ: Meteor
Cypher: Benjyfishy
Chamber: Yay
Sage: D4v4i
Deadlock: Mazino
Vyse: ?
I’m well aware how to play Astra. It’s still not as consistent as Brimstone in terms of self sufficient impact. You need people to play off your util as Astra or it’s just minor delay — at the same time positioning is less intuitive for lurks and timings.
The context is ranked dude. Some agents just outperform the “better” ones because the environment isn’t catered toward coordination.
Yeah but we’re talking ranked. Omen is clearly superior to Clove but she has a higher win rate in ranked. It’s not about peak potential but easy, high impact utility.
There’s a reason why most coaches don’t recommend players learn Astra until Immortal. Ranked isn’t a coordinated environment and extracting consistent value from her kit is hard without one.
Astra should be lower and Brim should be higher. Postplant utility is a lot easier to cash in on than coordinating Stuns/Sucks.
The community is hostile to everyone yes — but to varying degrees and expression. I might receive shit for a whiff but I won’t have teammates throw games for simply talking in voice chat nor will I receive insults about my likely future performance because of my sex. It’s also less likely that teams will accuse me of cheating or avoid me in their roster builds because I won’t be an “unknown” variable to the otherwise “all-male” dynamic.
Women are often heckled or badgered over nothing and the occasional asshole just thinks being sexist is funny. I’ve also heard first hand accounts of friends receiving threats of rape and stalking from tilted players. Even then, Valorant has the largest Female : Male player distribution in the genre, at nearly 3-4x that of CS. A lot of them are new and it takes time to build a talent pool while a lot of male players have prior experience in FPS titles — this is a uniquely environmental problem.
My point isn’t that toxicity makes women worse players than men. It’s that it wholly turns away many casual female players from investing in the time and effort to improve and compete, resulting in a stunted talent pool. As a result, the pool of talent for men is so much larger even if the fraction of eligible talent is the same.
Simply observing that the level of play in GC is lower doesn’t actually help you in drawing any conclusions. It’s merely an observation.
I’ll welcome you with open arms brother.
You’re on the wrong platform for a debate.
Users here much prefer to use impressions to justify their beliefs and will stubbornly resort to belittling or dismissing you before admitting nuance. I sympathize with your frustration but you expect too much from clowns.
Hot take but maps with more agent viability makes for more interesting gameplay and entertainment. Regions get to differentiate and define their own styles and players can constantly innovate with new compositions.
Even during the Chamber era, Jett was the best agent on Ascent because the map was solved. Less stale maps please.
I’ve watched enough of Vania to know any “Biological” difference argument is horse shit.
The most impactful reason as to why we don’t have examples of T1 women yet is simply because the genre isn’t catered to girls and the competitive community is hostile; a smaller talent pool and less opportunities. How a player like Pancc nearly ascended speaks to this.
At the same time, why would you risk a secure spot on a GC roster when T2 is so unstable — even if you were undoubtably good enough for it? It’ll be another two years before we see the first woman in T1 and probably four years until we see a proper Co-ed roster with trophy aspirations.
I hope the spotlight off-season tournament becomes a staple considering how “normal” we consider all male teams in a medium totally unrestricted by categories of weight class and biological sex. I look forward to Valorant’s first Geguri.
That’s kinda standard for Flex players. The fifth slot is usually a flash initiator, secondary smokes, or a niche pick. While you’ll see the occasional Flash/Sentinel or Duelist/Flash flex, the Flash/Viper is probably the most popular.
I just need G2 to win 1 trophy, even if it’s Mickey Mouse. They played like TGRD today — Trent and friends. And while it’s good to see Trent in form, this series was rough. RBHG is coming soon and I need hopium.
I think both of them actually have higher mechanical ceilings but are held back by IGL’ing. You could either get extremely strong secondary calling or the non-IGL would become a fragging monster.
Aspas isn’t even in the top 5 best duelists itw rn.
I picked up dual daggers last night and god they’re fun. Bloodhound’s Step/Quickstep and the parrying dagger make critical strikes consistent and you can absolutely shred if you have bleed.
I’ve been looking for builds to move away from the spell crutch and getting in faces is a lot more satisfying — though you die more often. It’s a bit frustrating against large enemies (dragons) but I’ll whip out the Reduvia after a couple tries lmao.
Began as a Samurai and then started picking up sorcery until I got Moonveil. That carried me through Rennala but I grew bored of it rather quickly.
I figured the Incantations looked cool so I respec’d for arcane/faith because I wanted to try out the dragon spells. Went double Uchi’s until I picked up a Nagakiba and I’ve been running that with Dragon Communion Seal since. I’m at the Haligtree rn but I haven’t set the Erdtree alight yet since I don’t wanna lose quests I’m in the middle of.
Edit: I’ll also run Star Fists when I need strike or just wanna get messy.
Don’t think it’ll matter given G2 is going to qualify. Should be a pretty one-sided until we face Heretics.
Let’s just agree to disagree. Have a good one man.
Not sure why you’re catching downvotes for speaking the truth. It’s not really a slight against NRG or LOUD — it just speaks to how good Potter is.
He doesn’t take enough risks. That’s all it comes down too.
He’s so “smart” about his fights that he won’t take bad ones when his team needs him to. I’m not criticizing whether he prefers to play fast rotate on defense or how much utility he needs before taking a fight. It’s just undeniable that he won’t take bad odds even when it’s sometimes what’s necessary.
I don’t get that reasoning. If Aspas is so favored in duels, why wouldn’t you want him to consistently take initial contact given the odds conversion of a 5v4 in pro play? Your duelist has the least amount of utility throughout the course of a round and it’s why they’re often the first to die while controllers and initiators with rechargeable utility tend to be closer/clutchers.
Aspas isn’t special. Yet he plays like he doesn’t trust his teammates to properly set him up or trade him. Those “Statspas” allegations seriously have weight too when you watch him in clutch scenarios where he will never half a defuse and always prioritizes his life. He’s individually consistent sure, but he’s no team player.
Omg I had a stroke and forgot that XLG won Ascension and not Rare Atom. Just thought China has a pretty good chance for their Ascension teams to qualify for internationals since the tier gap isn’t so defined.
It’s hard being so unbiased but when the odds are stacked so heavily in favor of G2 — you just gotta pick the obvious choice. Jawgemo will be the best duelist of 2025 and G2 should win at least 2 trophies. I just wish it wasn’t so man.
5 Jawgemos running it down on you.
He’s got the Shmoovement, the Aim, the Flexibility, the Good Vibes, Great Comms, the Mustache, and Dat DAWG in Him.
Bangkok
SEN | G2 | TH | KC | T1 | GENG | EDG | TE
Toronto
G2 | 100T | NRG | TH | VIT | KC | GENG | T1 | PRX | EDG | FPX | TE
Paris
G2 | SEN | LEV | NRG | VIT | TH | NAVI | FNC
T1 | GENG | RRQ | SPG | EDG | FPX | RA | DRG
People fall off and everyone else continues to improve. Yay did it — Aspas wouldn’t be the first, and he definitely won’t be the last. I could name at least 7 other world class players that entry better for their teams than he does.
KK | T3xture | Buzz | Derke | Miniboo | Zekken | Jawgemo
He wasn’t even the third most impactful player on his team for that run and Saadhak shouldered a ton of the first engagements alongside another player depending on the map. Here’s the spread for 2022:
Let’s contrast that to other duelist first engagements for their respective teams in 2024. These stats are pull from champs except for T3xture’s because GenG bombed out.
Aspas was closer to Icy than any of his other contemporaries this year and his peak in 2022 still had less hard entries than is required to be successful in this meta.
Edit: I forgot to mention this but Tex literally took more first engagements than Aspas did at Champs with him straight up on hard entry a number of attack rounds.
The meta has changed since the days of slow defaults with concrete information; teams are opting for more bursty, fast-paced play that benefits hard entry duelists.
Aspas isn’t suited to the current meta compared to players like Zekken, T3xture, KangKang, and Jawgemo. Do you think Aspas is the type of player to just send it for his teammates like icy would? Nah.
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