One can wish, aye

And they might actually put Nerve on KJ. Just noticed he was maining Killjoy on this tournie prior to joining DSG

Also, they're playing Haven first, so Yay jett loading [got the maps right at least :')]

First map: DSG pick Pearl, OXG defend first. Yay plays KJ, doesn't frag out a lot but has a lot of impact kills. Map goes down to the wire, dunno who wins

Second map: OXG pick haven, DSG attack first. Yay farms on duelist

Third map: idk

made you look though Aware

I think it makes sense for SEN to make big changes now, even if it feels premature and counterintuitive, because next week is a double gameweek for them. They play Loud and MIBR on, I believe, 21st and 23rd.

It would be fair to say that, as things stand, SEN are in real danger of ending up at the bottom of the leaderboard, going 1-4, by the end of next week. So, waiting and making a change after the 23rd would be like calling a tactical timeout when the team is down 0-12. (I recognize that there was this possibility of Sykko and company channeling their fury and frustration into their game and absolutely thrashing Loud and MIBR but management clearly figured that it was too faint a chance.)

plus, there could be a financial aspect to this as well. Employing 2 head coaches in this esports climate doesn't make a lot of sense.

(Kaplan was technically their "strategic coach" but he has experience being the head coach for Ghost Gaming. He did some of his best work at Ghost, that as the head coach as well + as far as I remember, Kaplan is the guy that ShahZam originally wanted before they eventually picked Rawkus. Point is that Kaplan should be more than capable to coaching and managing SEN.)

As for the comps, yes, sacy and pancada returning to their strongest roles would indeed be a W change.

Will had a better Raze than Cryo too as far as I remember. But Cryo ops better than both of them. (Chamber capability is irrelevant nowadays but just for the record Cryo ez clears both Asuna and Will there. Still irrelevant tho.) I'm not saying the opping ability is enough by itself to put Cryocells above Will or anyone but it's definitely a factor to consider if we want to understand 100t's plans.

Looking back at posts like this makes me so happy :'3

true, it aint the same without sean "sean gares" gares Sadge

no way we're already dropping people. it's just the first game of the regulation season. brother, let them cook

@kskm The context you provided was that of last year ("tenz underperformed last year with similar setup as OXY"). Thus, iamfromthefuture clearly meant that "TenZ didn't play t2 team last year," which is true. TenZ played with the same setup as OXY last year and he did underperform, albeit against tier 1 teams. But you misconstrued that. Your rebutted iamthefuture by bringing up Sentinel's 2023 (as opposed to 2022) OFF-SEASON games against tier 2 teams. I sense bad faith, sir.

Even in the Tarik-Lugwig invitational, which btw WAS an off-season show-tournament, not comparable to a serious, adversarial tier 1 or even tier 2 tournament, if there is any doubt about that for whatever reason, Sentinels 2-0'ed TSM in their first match-up. That's with less than 2 weeks of practice and a double-duelist double-initiator run-it-down comp on the second map pearl. Granted, SEN lost the second bo3 match-up agaisnt them; TSM practically destroyed SEN there, lots of mistakes from the latter team, clear signs that they have a lot of work to do beyond those two weeks, both synergy-wise and tactical-familiarity-wise.

SEN in the invitational also lost to the Guard (a team that G2 were yet to play in 2023 at the time of your reply; that just changed about 30 minutes ago) in the Lugwig-Tarik invitational but its important to note that it was a best of one + match ended 14-16 OT + Guard are arguably one of the only two teams (the other being M80) out of tier 2 NA that are clearly good enough to play in tier 1; OXY/G2 had faced off neither of those two teams before. The teams OXY has shat on are Moist Moguls, Oxygen, Turtle Troops (actually, lost to them 0-2, had 5 kills in the first map but to his credit turned up good in the second map), Shopify etc. On that note, OXY dropped 40 (two maps combined) against Shopify this season. TenZ did the same (two maps combined) last season in, arguably, a more high-stakes setting, LCQ elimination match-up, against a Shopify Rebellion that still had TiGG who was without a doubt one of their best players; TiGG IGL-s TTroops now and that 2-0 against G2 proves more than enough. So if you are trying to say that OXY has made more of the Shahz-Dapr setup, same one that TenZ had, you have not done enough to establish your point. If you HAVE done enough, I suppose I have missed that point by no one else's fault but mine.

Anyway, I actually like both G2 and OXY, still rooting for ShahZam and Dapr to win it all, all over again, and I'm starting to think that essaying out in VLR wasn't worth missing the first half of the lower brac final. So, I'll go watch that. Peace :D

Your theory definitely has merit. Even after nerf, C9 were a bit naive, pretending Chamber was still playable, and it actually worked out a couple times, like in Lotus. But on any other map, they had to move Yay to Sage and Killjoy and we saw how that worked out.

Zekken is one of the most flexible players, his Sova specially hits different, but he is also a top level duelist and SEN now have two of them. TenZ has done well to adjust to Kays. Still feels like a bit of a waste but idk, we havent seen enough of them yet to make that judgement

But you're right. Teams definitely signed a dedicated Chamber player or at least someone who is comfortable on Chamber. Everyone knew that a nerf was on the way but no one knew how bad it would be, so it was a tough situation for the orgs. Lets sign a duelist player PLUS Sayf or Yay. What if they nerf chamber tho? Aight, lets just only one dedicated duelist. What if the nerf isnt that bad? Lose-lose.

Post-deletion (lets be honest, calling it a nerf is being generous), if u look at the teams that did well in LockIn for example, they all either maintained the same squad as last year (didnt bring in a dedicated chamber guy) or they brought in one or two flex players instead (e.g Fnatic with Leo and Chronicle).

The other teams (who planned for Chamber) tho are going through some sort of an adjustment period and I dont know if its fair to say they are fucked. I dont think all of them will come through stronger but the season has merely started and some of them definitely will.

edit: either way, the nerf was good for the game itself. the teams that are struggling, its sad for them now but any team worth their salt will be able to live with it

There's no way DSG have to play M80 again ;-;

damn bro you were spitting fr

LEV vs ZETA is gonna go down to the wire for sure. All omega bracket matchups are fire tbh

edit: nvm who let me cook

i mean teams switch igls all the time, dont they? look at drx for example. stax is the igl again now but they switched it around

plus its the off season, c9 want to experiment with yay and zellsis, if it doesnt work out im sure vanity will be back on the captain role. c9 prolly know what they're doing