s0m was better than bang and valyn both internationally and regionally when he played, literally 0 reason to have them above him aside from bias. and z0nder just came up from tier 2 where his stats weren't even that amazing
verno has played more sova than all his other agents combined (and a bit of fade), whereas ethan only plays flash initiators and can flex to duelist/smokes. who is more suited to being called an initiator player, a person who plays recon and flash initiators or a person who only plays flash? you're right in that they have a lot of overlap but generally speaking, people who only play flash initiators then flex to other roles were called flex players while people who played recon initiators (and flash) were called initiator players (because during chamber meta a lot of comps were double initiator so one player was always on initiator while the other occasionally played it)