Year of Pacific huh! Whzy for sure deserves his flowers though considering he’s historically lived in KK’s shadow.

So you have an EDG flair but want to see them lose?

That would be the slowest match in VCT history ngl.

I’m a fan of good Valorant before I’m a fan of any specific team. It’d be pretty disappointing if Champ’s Paris GF looked anything like Master’s Tokyo’s — even if G2 won.

In my defense, I want TH to have a chance too

Why a Toronto rematch? Like it’s cool how their play styles are pretty much opposites but isn’t it time for new players to win a trophy?

Winner gets a trophy, loser goes to Ascension goddamn

Yep! Hoping TH’s curse will start giving them flashbacks to Champions Seoul so that they choke harder than us lmao

What matchup do you wanna see in the GF? Personally I want G2 vs. TH!

This but for instalock Reynas in my low immo lobbies

They managed that with Icy already though

They’re not really comparable. Nats provides value as a fragging IGL more akin to Valyn while Meteor is a star fragger like Alfajer. The way their teams play around them is quite different.

Trent would play Viper on their double smokes comps and recon on their double duelist comps when Zekken is on Yoru and N4rrate is on primary entry. He has serviceable flash initiators but Yoru is just better right now.

Edit: I also think N4rrate would do pretty well with Gekko/Kayo as second entry if the Meta required it.

You’ve got a higher chance of winning the lottery than Sen beating G2 twice in a row.

Turret range from boiler drops when you get to B site.

Babybay

If they don’t win Champs, will Jawg be the next on their conveyor belt of duelists they’ve cycled through? First Sayaplayer, then Tex, then Leaf, then icy, and now him. Who comes next?

Which player would finally drag them over that final hurdle? At what point do they consider breaking up the core? Is this potentially Meiy’s lucky break?

I need this PRX/Talon match to start soon.

Trent can literally make the claim for best Tejo and Sova of the year though to a much smaller margin on the latter. His Fade is nothing special relative to competition though.

I’d pick N4rrate for Fade with Trexx right behind him. Riens is the best Gekko no doubt.

It’s IGL of the year for THIS year. Valyn has more achievements so far with the same peak placement at an international while placing top 4 in the other. He also has both regional trophies while Boaster only has one.

For now it’s Valyn. We’ll see after Champs if it changes

Honestly not sure why he’s rage baiting. Patmen is straight up the reason why G2 lost Split and likely lost their otherwise easy path to the GF. PRX and FNC were absolutely better teams on those respective days but G2 definitely could have made B2B GF if not for Patmen.

You sure got me!

Supported G2 since TGRD days but now they’re just habitual chokers. It’s nice cuz it’s basically guaranteed that they’ll get to internationals but they feel like underdogs in high pressure matches.

Trent’s Sova has the same stats across a larger sample size. The only thing that’s suffered is his clutch rate.

I don’t think even Leo had a higher peak than Trent on Tejo. Convenient to exclude that part of his career.

N4rrate looks really good this split but I need to see how he performs under pressure against better teams. Will he still tilt like he used to?

They didn’t win even with missiles so not much has changed lmao

Trent has been better this year.

You might go cross eyed but keep an eye on the minimap if you wanna enjoy the macro. Sliggy co-streams are great for it too!

Phoenix is only strong when ult orbs are easy to collect on attack and defenders don’t have a ton of cover to hide behind on site. Otherwise you’re better off running a Yoru or even an Iso as a secondary duelist.

He’s going to replace Leo as the gold standard by next year.

G2 3-2 TL

Damn that last take is kinda spicy. Oxy has a lot of potential but he tends to disappear for the big qualifying games while Jawg shows up then even if he’s inconsistent otherwise.

Except that Trent is just more flexible than Sacy. He has reps on all of the initiators, Viper, and Raze.

Three of them are in the top 5 in stats after this week while playing with a sub jfc. It’s hard to argue that they’re not all at the top of their respective roles — who would you even rank above them at least in Americas?

It makes me wonder how different 2023 would have looked if they weren’t stuck in T2, whether as TGRD or as free agents joining different teams.

G2 need to embrace the double duelist and flood heavy meta. They’ve been way too reliant on their retakes because it worked for them during the Tejo meta but it’s made them readable.

They’re a solid 3rd itw right now but until that adaptation you can’t really say they’d be the best. Their playstyle sets an insanely high floor but they have a lower ceiling than more explosive teams because of it.

Just G2 man. 100T looks promising but SEN is inconsistent as always. Nobody else looks good.

Apparently G2 picked Babybay over Demon1 as well because he fried in the tryouts and had good intangibles. I’m sure some teams that fail to make Champs will try picking him up for next year.

His interview with Ravishing is going on rn and apparently they only had 2 days of prac with him.

Corrode goes to OT and Sen doesn’t get more than 6 rounds on both Ascent and Lotus.

That looked like a clutch to me pffft

TGRD Ascension Split comp.

They play slower than G2. They just have a ton of fans because of they carry all of EMEA on their backs and get away with a disgusting amount of clutches.

Yeah but they’ve gotta survive Icebox to get to those others.

This was a comment but I realized it probably needs to be a separate discussion.

Americas has a stylistic issue coming from Tejo Meta to a double duelist/smokes Meta. They’ve historically favored retakes and utility flushing over the suffocating aggro we see in teams like PRX and TH or the stable defaults seen from GENG and FNC.

G2 finds themselves in the middle though with their stinger set plays and their slow attack defaults. Their main issue, is that they get hard punished against mechanically oppressive teams that can secure first bloods consistently. Every single loss they’ve had from EDG and T1 at Bangkok to their matches against PRX and FNC at Toronto proves this in their FB/FD stats. They often go negative on the attack half and make up for it on defense.

So how do they fix it? Just play some of their rounds the way they do their stinger thrifties with more risks and they’ll either guarantee first bloods or even trades with more map control. They have some of the best spacing for trades and they need to abuse that in a post-Tejo Meta.

Edit: typo (problem to probably)

No, Americas has a stylistic issue coming from Tejo Meta to a double duelist/smokes Meta. They favor retakes and utility dumps over the suffocating aggro of PRX or the stable defaults seen from GENG and FNC.

G2 finds themselves in the middle with their stinger set plays and their slow attack defaults but get hard punished against mechanically oppressive teams that can secure first bloods consistently. Every single loss they’ve had from EDG and T1 at Bangkok to their matches against PRX and FNC at Toronto proves this in their FB/FD stats. They often go negative on the attack half and make up for it on defense.

Their defaults against a team with incredibly strong fraggers meant they kept giving first blood, sometimes without a trade. They went 7 - 16 on Lotus and then 6 - 17 on Split. No matter how good you are, playing 4v5 that many rounds will lose you the match.

Their best rounds were fast paced death balls and retakes where they could dump util and use their incredible spacing for trades. This issue doesn’t come up frequently, but today just proved that they can run into a wall when their opponent is in great form.

Americas was definitely hit hardest by the Tejo nerfs given their top teams relied so heavily on it (RRQ and XLG are the same). It’s definitely just them struggling to adapt.

I need to see him back on Raze/Neon.

G2 need to work on their site anchoring because they crutch too heavy on their retakes. Without the utility surplus of Tejo, they’re gonna struggle. I really want to see them move Jawgemo back onto the Raze for the zoning utility or have Trent pick it up if they keep running the Yoru.