Nah, that's Boaster's - you can see the red highlight when Ange1 walks into it.

FNATIC made playoffs thanks to KOI's win over Vitality - despite losing 1-2 to NAVI in spectacular fashion. Their Ascent defence and Bind attack ended 9-3 to NAVI and can be boiled down to three reasons:

#1. Poor micro coordination (trading):
Low willingness to trade teammates and take space was evident early. On round 5 of Ascent FNATIC are ready for a 5v5 retake of the B site and Boaster teleports onto switch, but it takes another 6 seconds for any teammate to come through the CT or market chokes. It then takes an additional 15 SECONDS for Alfajer to take contact - he scales into the site (eventually Boaster follows him) and hits some crisp shots for a 3k, before realising he has to stick the spike with just enough time to defuse. He knows Cypher should be lurking and calls Omen backsite - Boaster holds the backsite swing before deciding he doesn't want to win the round... He runs away and leaves Alfajer to die holding the defuse. If you watch Chronicle and Leo on this retake, you'll see that they barely made it onto the site: why would you bother, right?

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxk-hFK4mqcoAkwKyFBXDtJK_82uhueZJp?si=ZY4TdLU-eIBIpyta

Bind is even more embarrassing. In this clip, Derke sleep-walks forward to take a fight showers while Alfajer is passive behind the Viper wall:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxwJr2Tgkzs7J0zIPeWI9s_6ZP_JMZfulv?si=JUnS96YVnWuuYNEN

Here's Chronicle using Skye dog so Derke can swing Cypher while the trip is down:

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx03py2anr9CBIaVEVbBgq-nk2jiFrQY_e?si=1XLFMohzMC4JnUlu

Finally, FNATIC go for a B hit. Derke destroys the Cypher trip with his nade and satchels into hookah - only to be double faced from top tube. Where were the long players, you ask? Boaster smoked them off... yep, take a look:

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx-t-HfrD7s4473u2WhFU4RUB6lih8pkUl?si=ZZalJCSnCyMosbce

It's pretty obvious that the synergy between players isn't there - the players are scared of trading and taking fights together, not to mention getting through choke points. We're all getting sick of watching bad VALORANT from teams that should be great.

#2. Confusing macro on Bind
The macro calling from Boaster and his mid-rounders was decent (but not amazing) on Ascent. Bind started well too before quickly and violently devolved into NRG-esque gameplay. It was clear from the pistol that Boaster wanted to have Chronicle use Skye utility to throw late double fakes. The pistol round involved showing light hookah presence with Gekko utility before taking A short, backing up and showing Chronicle's presence B long with 25 seconds left before re-hitting A when the site players leave. From NAVI's perspective, they see the early hookah presence as a weak fake attempt, and immediately think FNATIC are going to end A (confirmed by the short presence and KAY/O scan). Hearing the Skye B long they realise they've been fooled and rush to get to B for the post plant. Boaster takes this timing to end A - beautiful.

That was about it for good calling though, a slew of awkward 2-1-1-1 defaults eventually ended with NRG-esque "walk around in one area then site hit with 20s left" viewing. The worst of which were: round 5 (which they almost won thanks to Aflajer), round 7 (first piece of utility was thrown 35s in), round 8 (boaster smokes CT instead of triple), round 9 ("let's contact up A short and when Aflajer dies we will say a prayer"; Leo taps bomb instead of getting wingman to plant), round 10, round 11 (no initiator utility used for 45 seconds) and round 12 (clip above). It was clear that they wanted to run defaults with Chronicle as the weak side player, but why? Half of the time he wasn't using any utility and he NEVER took showers control. Why isn't Alfajer sitting there holding his gun out - occasionally walking up and making pressure? No words.

#3. Leo's Gekko
Leo's Gekko is atrocious, there's no other way to put it. He doesn't like to throw dizzy or use wingman to plant, instead preferring to walking around aimlessly and wait for something to happen. In round 11, he waits until 0:50 to throw utility before deciding that wasn't long enough, and throwing his first dizzy (an ability you get for free and can use every 10 seconds) at 0:47.

Nobody is wholly responsible and everyone is to blame.

• hbake

The NRG VALORANT team was assembled to win. Victor, Crashies, and Marved have won a Masters trophy as members of the 2022 OPTIC squad, while Ethan and Demon1 were arguably the two most important players in EG’s Champions triumph last year. When asked post-announcement if they might be the strongest roster, Finesse replied:

“Yes, they are the strongest roster – there is no ‘might be’”.

Expectations were clearly high, but a 3-2 record in the first 5 matches of split 1 does not do justice to the incompetence on display. A brutal combination of atrocious macro, questionable mid-rounding, poor trading, and a lack of adaptation has led to some frankly embarrassing moments for the team and their fans. NRG’s first two matches were relatively easy wins against a sleep deprived LOUD and a confidence deprived FURIA (who have only won a single map so far this split). Every game since then (aside from MIBR) has been a disasterclass.

Losses against Leviatán and EG have exposed NRG’s complete lack of understanding of many aspects of competitive VALORANT. The most obvious of which is the poor attack side macro calling. Take round 3 map 1 in their game against LEV: NRG start out in a 1-1-3 default towards A, Crashies and Ethan use a Gekko flash and KAY/O knife – but don’t take space. Demon1 is running against the start barrier but then immediately turns and runs away as it drops, Ethan walks by himself to take a solo fight in A main while Crashies is retrieving his flash: THEY’RE ON DIFFERENT PAGES IN THE FIRST 5 SECONDS OF THE ROUND. This says that the pre-round call from Ethan (if there even is one) is overcomplicated or his delivery is extremely poor.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxcPMGw21UUzrMvZYqNMoyyXlJyLzYFxAT?si=mkhwrDqB6LdVq9eJ

Even more basic is trading your teammates. KC provided a spectacle of excellent trading and non-ability micro play at Kick-Off – seemingly always coordinating a double-face or high-low when taking gunfights. NRG on the other hand seem to be sending in their entry (both Demon1 and Victor) alone and THEN deciding if they want to follow through onto the site. Look no further than round 3 of Ascent vs EG:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxTBrX2SE1cMyZLfIElu7-ObtypHdFMn7z?si=OdwqQS2m8fXbR9jP

Demon1 dashes in with a recon for stairs/site and a flash that blinds the lane player: he dashes in at 1:25, dies at 1:23 and nobody else ran out of the smoke. If you’re reading this and thinking “of course they didn’t come out of the smoke, there’s a Killjoy molly at the choke!” - the ONLY player that the molly actually stopped was Victor (Ethan isn’t ready to flood out until 1:17, 6 seconds after Demon1 dies).

I can’t even begin to explain the mid-round calls and the shocking fake attempts we witnessed on Lotus and Sunset against EG. It's embarrassing for tier 1 VALORANT if NRG continue to play at this level.

• hbake

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