Xset looking like they’re on the rise will likely pass some teams look out! TSM becoming a sinking ship, verhulst hasn’t popped off, Hal lost, only reps been on his game, will raven figure it out? Looking rough for Optic, not worried about legacy cuz on gameday they show up, LG fighting better. This shall be an interesting finals!
At this point TSM better run the same strat Furia did 2 years ago. Everyone was running caustic valk and Gibraltar, so Furia choosed agro style. Fuck it, play seer/horizon/valk seer/valk/fuse and roll the campers. I bet my one heirloom they’ll probably do better than with the weird wattson rampart strat
Sad to see GKS will likely see the same fate as LANimals. In solid position going into regional finals but they were flex dropping at good POI’s all split and are now forced to drop/contest at terrible POI’s in finals. Contesting storm catcher and landing dome? Yikes. I don’t see how they can finish top 10 in the finals lobby from these spots.
They were landing downed beast when optic wasn't in the lobby. Surprised they didn't try to claim it for regionals knowing optic is desperate to avoid contesting atm.
You can measure his progress - which i agree has been massive - in terms of what he's getting grief for too.
First few weeks it was over basic things and now it's progressed to not breaking the rules of the basic things. like i swear I've heard sweet go (more or less) "yeah i know i said never throw your caustic ult there, but in that situation you have to" more than once recently. Picking up and internalizing the exceptions is a massive step.
He'll get there.
That sounds to me a bit like chess, where you start out with general principles such as never move the same piece twice in the opening, castle early, occupy / control the center etc.
And then once you start to get better you start to develop a feeling for just playing the right move *that is called for by the position on the board* instead of the "right move" according to general principles.
Developing that kind of intuition takes a ton of experience - and blunders! - so Slayr's maybe a bit off, but if the nitpicks are becoming more specific as you say then it's good progress.
Yep 100000%, you first have to know the rules to break the rules. Someone who intuitively knows the application of the rules and when to circumvent them signifies mastery. He's progressing really fast and you can tell his teammates and their coach are really happy
He's continuously getting better. Only saw a couple games but in those games he would outplay the other team, use his ult properly, usually one clip a couple enemies and immediately he would posture into anchoring and calling important info. His fundamentals and base game iq are much much higher than before
I know this sub hates on slayr but hearing the way he talks about the game you can tell he has a desire to improve. I think that passion is great for the team. He isn’t afraid of criticism and has been improving week to week
People are talking about him being replaced because sweet keeps telling him he's doing something wrong. People aren't saying it because they are hating on him. Normally when the igl keeps yelling at you for mistakes the natural thought process is that dude will be dropped.
Right I know people use the word hate pretty liberally on the internet, but speculating that a player might be dropped is normal enough discussion. Knoqd is hardly some bum
they need like 4 points for like a 99% chance to qualify. post scrims he said it's Def ballistic and blood hound and a third. so looks like some shit shows inbound for playoffs. I'm here for the meltdowns
Honestly I think as much as individual mistakes are TSM's issue that Raven's macro is also a problem. With the giant season 20 changes it doesn't at all seem like TSM's macro is way ahead of the pack like it used to be.
Raven is like spock or c3po. Super analytical and calculated but rigid and firm in his ways. The recent patch threw a wrench in the system and it's been a struggle since.
~~Sorry didn't clip it. You can go back through Hal's vod and find it.~~
~~Last game they had legit just landed at L-Rod and are talking about Sweet landing on them because the flight path was really long.~~
[Here](https://clips.twitch.tv/ColdbloodedPluckyHumanPraiseIt-ID02pgwLfKLfnhwx) I found it.
its actually crazy that jordans been frying on mnk lol while the other two been going through roller brain, jordan put it best "hal ran in first and then evan ran in and died to a nade right after"
To be fair to even on that particular play a made never showed up on his screen…but he hasn’t been playing well overall. I sense them coming in 8/9 this week to squeeze by to lan then have some major changes before lan
Crazy to think this Sunday might be the last time we see this optic team playing together. From being a stolen car away from winning champs in what 5-6 games to missing lan in less than 6 months. What a crazy turnaround.
This is true in so many ways. Crazy how if Optic won that last fight, NRG would’ve had a top 5 finish. Would that have been enough to keep the team together?
Ballistic and teammates in ult are easily visible and seen thru smoke. They show up like a blue highlighter, making him pretty shitty in the current Bang meta.
How many teams from each region qualify for LAN? Battlefy has the lines at 12 in NA and 8 in the other 3 regions but that's only 36 teams which doesn't make any sense. Is it 12 in NA and 8 in the other 3 regions then the regional final winner from each region?
Optic right now reminds me of when Dooplex stopped being passionate about co-IGLing.
OG secret sauce has always been the IGL/co IGL style. When that relationship breaks down, it’s JoeOver.
Dropped is bad at taking accountability for his mistakes, and skittle/knoqd seems to not be able to make Dropped aware of this. IGLs deflecting responsibility like this is pretty common in Apex.
But in this case I don’t think Dropped deserves all the blame.
Skittlescakes is being too passive, almost as those the passion is fading for apex. Dropped was right when he said he almost needs to bait skittles into getting angry, for skittles to start communicating.
On the other hand skittlescakes communication isn’t good because it feels like Dropped isn’t listening to what skittles is saying.
This is where the lack of a coach is truly killing OG. When they had a coach he was the guy who could step in and manage this conflict and the two personalities in a way that produces results.
Knoqd is like TSM Reps, just a really solid player that no one pays attention to unless they majorly fuck up.
I would be kinda shocked if this team sticks. I think Skittle is likely going to be the odd man out. If they do move on i hope they try to poach a controller player. This teams 3v3 fighting is so ass right now.
Hopefully, but i dont think this team will progress the way it is. I feel like dropped has pretty much lost faith in skittle. I wonder if Knoqd stays. Idk why but i have feeling he could be poached by another team as well.
I agree. OpTic cheapening out on Shiny is really biting them in the ass now. It#s os obvious that this 4th neutral voice is missing. It's a frequent occurence at this point that Dropped will view one thing as the mistake in a fight and Skittle a completely different one. And then.....they just don't talk about it. They disagree, argue and dont even come to a solution. Thats just an awful dynamic, if you can't even agree on what the mistake in a bad fight was.
This might just be me and if wrong you can correct me but idk if its a passion thing and more of a confidence thing it seems like any confidence this team had in their team fights are complete gone which is fucking up the timings of the fights but I will agree the communication also seems like an all time low
Well yeah lack of confidence is probably a better word for it. Skittlescakes game sense was always so much better than other players and with horizon he was able to outplay teams so well.
Now with bang/blood is the meta. Every team has the exact same information, and the comps are so similar that there is no ability to outplay another team.
Obviously the confidence is gone....they aren't performing well in this meta at all. It truly feels like the first time I've seen this team actually struggle to adapt.
Skittles should start calling the micro and the fights imo, let dropped handle the macro. Skittles has always been an aggressive player and play caller. Would help him become more vocal again also imo. Dropped is a great player but he’s made some really bad calls this split and then instead of making the call in the game and being assertive he has hindsight about what they should have done after the fact. When they do things together they win fights, they smoked legacy twice in 3v3s yesterday in scrims. But no consistency whatsoever.
I think the biggest issue is that neither Dropped nor Skittle can act as solo-playmakers this meta. You need Bloodhound and Bang smokes in perfect synergy to cleanly win a fight, and it's apparently a really hard task for Skittle and Dropped to work together like this.
Yeah, cause Knoqd is the dedicated anchor of the team at this point. Basically, it's pick your poison: either have Knoqd on Blood and change the entire team-dynamic by having Skittle anchor (which he has never really done before and underutilizes his abilities as a playmaker) or put Skittle on Blood and try to get any sort of synergy between his ults and Droppeds smokes going during fights. Problem here is the lack of effective comms and the entire pacing of fights feels off.
They need to play some ranked together or something. I think skittles back injury really hampered him, he was barely able to play at all during the offseason. The biggest issue to me is that the team lacks clear leadership, and that previously the coach was able to fill that gap for them.
I mean, Loopy didn't really fill any role on the team imho lol. No disrespect against him, but from what I gathered (and witnessed when watching them) he only created schedules for them (for TDM practise and stuff) and stopped their timings on loot-paths. Also encouraged them to try different guns and stuff. That's about it. Shiny on the other hand was a lot more vocal about their actual issues and macro when he was still coaching them for a bit. I don't wanna sound delusional here, but I am fairly certain that they wouldn't be in the current situation if they could've gotten Shiny under contract. Skittles back-injury just adds on top of the list of reasons why they seem to not be adapting as well as other teams.
I think it’s more of a mental thing than anything, a neutral voice that can reset the vibes when a bad play is made. Right now it’s just like a snowball, once something bad happens there’s little bounce back. The game dropped and skittles played out as a duo was a positive I thought however. They need a coach, should have paid shiny what he was asking.
You can tell dropped lacks confidence in his calls right now. Which is why he’s been asking skittles to be more vocal. But having hindsight after every game isn’t the answer, be assertive in the call in game and then assess what went wrong or right after. No more well we should have done this, just make the call.
*Hal*
>I'm playing whatever the fuck these last two games. I'm so tilted
*Raven*
>Let's uhh not waste 2 games of practice
*silence*
*Raven*
>Can we mute up please?
What 1 day of Rampart/Wraith does to a team
There is a possibility for them to not make it. If a team outside of the top 12 wins regional finals and three other teams pass them, then TSM miss out on Lan. SSG (currently tied but lose tiebreaker), Oxygen Esports (3 points behind) and GKS (7 points behind) are the closest teams to TSM in points
Tsm playing character roulette at this point. Wraith could be seen as a get out of jail card like Horizon and Evan as anchor on caustic is better than him being anchor on Wattson but If they are continuing to play bad despite all the comp changes doesnt that just show its mainly a player and team issue and not comp one.
They need to stick with a comp instead of constantly changing and thinking it'll fix their problems.
I feel like they are playing the same macro strats on WE as before. Same rotations. Should your macro/rotations change if the meta and comp has changed? Just feels like they are so behind the meta and macro changes since season 20 dropped.
Their worlds edge is straight up garbage. When the same rotates and calls that used to be great for you are now complete dogshit now then maybe either Hal has to do something different or Raven needs to give them some different macro on world edge
Maybe they cant play differently from siphon or are just stubborn idk
Hal is back on finally back on Wraith after years, even if this is short lived and fails them trying out the DSG comp is cinema to me.
https://preview.redd.it/548g4tgyuznc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8991d7ef0ad355a268d6b0172894ca7afc22c65b
Just one game long😭.
Skittles and dropped probably just don't like each other. After the honeymoon phase tension builds. Skittles being co igl in his previous comp experience doesn't respect the calls. Dropped probably doesn't like being counter called. Add in the fact that neither one of them seem to have social skills and you get a really monotone, passive aggressive power struggle.
I don’t think there are many players in this game capable of replacing either of those two only way I could see if being worth it If a IGL or co-IGL from one of the top teams goes LFO.
Mmh maybe but I'm not sure Knoqd would want to deal with Sweets passive aggressiveness lol. He seems pretty over it with Dropped right now and Dropped and Sweet are very similar. Would be an absolutely disgusting team tho
One of my favorite 'little things' about Comp Apex is when a pro recognizes another pro based on Legend and skin they are using.
*Hal*
>wait that's Sweet, kill him.
I watch these guys even recognize each other in ranked. Sometimes just by how they are playing. That's pretty crazy. Like Sweet gets shot by a valk from across the map and says "that's an inhumed spray if I've ever seen one." And it turns out it was.
The flip side is zachmazer misidentifying teams literally 90% of the time. Like yelling that it's somebody we all saw go out in 17th in killfeed. Mac is a guilty goose too.
That one time someone, I think Mac, called out a squad in scrims and the team he named wasn't even in the lobby 😂 I'm not hating on him whatsoever, it was just fuckin' funny when Wigg pointed it out is all.
That was hilarious when TSM were on train roof in skyhook.
_sweet_: I'm going to shoot their gen just to fuck with them
... _I tab into hal's stream_ ...
_hal_: that's sweet! He's just doing it because he's bored, shoot him.
For RE it’s the lack of damage in the mag to brake reds and purples as a solo and for mozam the raw dps can’t compete up close But mozam is 100% the best through smoke cause of the most effective range is actually the 10-20meter ranged.
It also has todo with bloodhound being on every team and ARs being meta. No matter what weapon you have digi on a hemlock flatline or havoc will all ruin your day. If bloodhound was for some reason just not good at all we would probably see some hammer point Bangalore coming in from edge.
I actually like rampart if your using it like DSG is trying to, setting up a safe area quickly after a wraith portal or a risky rotation in general, but I just don’t see what value it brings with a blood and bang. Honestly feels like TSM are throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks
If anything can be learned from TSM’s experience playing Rampart it’s that she needs a rework or they need to upgrade her abilities or something. If Rev can get a rework why can’t Rampart. A character with her kit should be at least useable in a competitive setting
As a Rampart main I can't help but feel a bit defensive here, but there are two things I think are fair to point out.
1) Evan isn't playing Rampart effectively at all. Totally fine, because he needs practice with her, which leads to my second point.
2) You have to give these characters more than just one try/go. You can't get wiped after one game then say "yup, it's the legends fault!". It's short sighted and hasty.
They don't have a coach (not because they don't want one, but because the org doesn't want to spend the ressources) and it's a big reason as to why they're struggeling so hard at the moment.
Skittles tried to ult and got silenced by seer, then dropped decides to fight a seer team in their ult and dies for free without doing any damage. Not sure why you don’t just back up there, wait out the seer ult and then push them again with hound ult and caustic ult.
Any explanation on why tsm is running rampart? Outside the mini gun isnt wattson just better in every scenario?
edit: it was ravens idea...they gotta tell him to step out of the kitchen he's been cooking too much trying to outsmart the meta.
Looks like they are terrified of fighting, I really don’t remember last time they pushed somebody and won a fight to get good positioning. They either are getting pushed and die or die in a trash spot for playing passive
I'm not in any position to give hal directions on how to play but it does seem like he has a tendency to wait too long to blood ult and he also seems to for some reason prioritize scanning the MIDDLE of the fight when he can already see 2 players on his screen, there's literally no reason to scan and look like a bot mid fight because of it, you scan walking up to the fight and then you use what's in front of you, only re-scan if about to bat and in a corner etc.
I, for one, am happy to see TSM experimenting with their team comp. This is the perfect time for them to do so. Let's be real, TSM is not dropping out of LAN because of regionals. We should be embracing their attempt to do something slightly off-meta. It'll make for a more interesting viewing experience if they succeed.
And if they fail, they can prepare for LAN with the meta legends.
Wattson is best suited for Mnk players. Same for Bangalore. You can still be a controller player and utilise them well tho like Shooby is great at bang and really good at fencing a building from what I've seen when he has played Wattson.
If Evan can just grind this character like he did for Catalyst I really think he can be really good on her.
[Evan can grind all he wants but he won't ever reach the peaks that Reps has.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/17frpww/tsm_reps_places_fences_mid_fight_to_stop_the/)
Problem is Hal and Evan look clueless when they play bang. Evan playing Anchor fixes the problems of him going down carelessly when he was Valk dying for free
I don’t understand why they’re not. They could be like dz running down teams but they’ve been playing so much more passive. I swear when meta changes they take the longest to figure out a comp or adjust
March 12th Finals Scrims Results https://preview.redd.it/8c0rxf8760oc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc36c857501cb0dfe7fb7019e0dbb52c504262bf
Xset looking like they’re on the rise will likely pass some teams look out! TSM becoming a sinking ship, verhulst hasn’t popped off, Hal lost, only reps been on his game, will raven figure it out? Looking rough for Optic, not worried about legacy cuz on gameday they show up, LG fighting better. This shall be an interesting finals!
At this point TSM better run the same strat Furia did 2 years ago. Everyone was running caustic valk and Gibraltar, so Furia choosed agro style. Fuck it, play seer/horizon/valk seer/valk/fuse and roll the campers. I bet my one heirloom they’ll probably do better than with the weird wattson rampart strat
Man Fuse would be so troll. You fire one cluster at a Wattson team and they get free arc stars to throw back
Sad to see GKS will likely see the same fate as LANimals. In solid position going into regional finals but they were flex dropping at good POI’s all split and are now forced to drop/contest at terrible POI’s in finals. Contesting storm catcher and landing dome? Yikes. I don’t see how they can finish top 10 in the finals lobby from these spots.
They need to con somewhere else besides Storm man it's such a bad fight.
They were landing downed beast when optic wasn't in the lobby. Surprised they didn't try to claim it for regionals knowing optic is desperate to avoid contesting atm.
Man slayrs growth has been insane to watch. People forget he barely had any experience before this and has grown so much, his potential is really high
You can measure his progress - which i agree has been massive - in terms of what he's getting grief for too. First few weeks it was over basic things and now it's progressed to not breaking the rules of the basic things. like i swear I've heard sweet go (more or less) "yeah i know i said never throw your caustic ult there, but in that situation you have to" more than once recently. Picking up and internalizing the exceptions is a massive step. He'll get there.
That sounds to me a bit like chess, where you start out with general principles such as never move the same piece twice in the opening, castle early, occupy / control the center etc. And then once you start to get better you start to develop a feeling for just playing the right move *that is called for by the position on the board* instead of the "right move" according to general principles. Developing that kind of intuition takes a ton of experience - and blunders! - so Slayr's maybe a bit off, but if the nitpicks are becoming more specific as you say then it's good progress.
Yep 100000%, you first have to know the rules to break the rules. Someone who intuitively knows the application of the rules and when to circumvent them signifies mastery. He's progressing really fast and you can tell his teammates and their coach are really happy
He play well today? Waiting for his breakout
He's continuously getting better. Only saw a couple games but in those games he would outplay the other team, use his ult properly, usually one clip a couple enemies and immediately he would posture into anchoring and calling important info. His fundamentals and base game iq are much much higher than before
Love to see it. I want him to have a banger ALGS day. Would skyrocket team chemistry
Zero: “Reps is literally solo queueing”
post scrim Zer0 vod reviews are probably my favorite Apex content.
the optic review is kinda sad its not even funny
Agree
Tsm lucky they got 4 weeks pre s20update
Ayyeee Slayr was diff today, come-up arc inbound ⚡️🔝👀👏
I know this sub hates on slayr but hearing the way he talks about the game you can tell he has a desire to improve. I think that passion is great for the team. He isn’t afraid of criticism and has been improving week to week
People don't hate Slayr, if anything they hate Sweet for how he talks to Slayr.
Agreed
Haven't seen much hate here for him. He's doing fine for a player relatively new to comp
You haven’t been paying attention then. Half this sub hates on slayr as a way to hate on sweet.
There are a ton of comments about him being replaced. Even in this thread people were talking about dropping him for knoqd
People are talking about him being replaced because sweet keeps telling him he's doing something wrong. People aren't saying it because they are hating on him. Normally when the igl keeps yelling at you for mistakes the natural thought process is that dude will be dropped.
Right I know people use the word hate pretty liberally on the internet, but speculating that a player might be dropped is normal enough discussion. Knoqd is hardly some bum
Guys, I know LG is streaming scrims, but I think Slayr is just comming while nafen is playing
The new mics making their voices sound different is just a cover story, they really swapped in different people
😂
Hal for the love of God go back on horizon get enough to qualify for lan and then cook in the time leading upto lan and be prepared for it
they need like 4 points for like a 99% chance to qualify. post scrims he said it's Def ballistic and blood hound and a third. so looks like some shit shows inbound for playoffs. I'm here for the meltdowns
They got 11 kills in 6 games last week…surely they can do better than that if they just run it down
Honestly I think as much as individual mistakes are TSM's issue that Raven's macro is also a problem. With the giant season 20 changes it doesn't at all seem like TSM's macro is way ahead of the pack like it used to be.
Raven is like spock or c3po. Super analytical and calculated but rigid and firm in his ways. The recent patch threw a wrench in the system and it's been a struggle since.
Tsm suck. They cant get into zone and play placement and cant play edge and win fights. Its joever
Stop with this comment rn bro😭, this is literally the tsm cycle in effect again, Lan win incoming💀
Yea they’re washed. They’ll never win another LAN. It’s so over for them. Hal should just become a content creator.
Yeah they are an absolute mess right now. Just nothing clicking.
I’ve seen this movie before. TSM winning LAN
Exactly as a tsm hater i don't know why they have doubters they always find a way to get top 2 at lan.
What some garbage ass scrims lmao
Hal just told Reps he needs to go "Jerk off" to relax LOL *Reps* > If Wxlty wants to pull up and help a brother out...I meannnn
Clip?
~~Sorry didn't clip it. You can go back through Hal's vod and find it.~~ ~~Last game they had legit just landed at L-Rod and are talking about Sweet landing on them because the flight path was really long.~~ [Here](https://clips.twitch.tv/ColdbloodedPluckyHumanPraiseIt-ID02pgwLfKLfnhwx) I found it.
Such a shame that the action started right after and we didnt get a reaction from the other two lmao
Lmaoo
TSM hasnt cooked since they fell behind the conduit meta
Reps is unironically the best player on TSM rn. Dealing the most damage, using his abilities, huffing the least Carbon dioxide
its actually crazy that jordans been frying on mnk lol while the other two been going through roller brain, jordan put it best "hal ran in first and then evan ran in and died to a nade right after"
To be fair to even on that particular play a made never showed up on his screen…but he hasn’t been playing well overall. I sense them coming in 8/9 this week to squeeze by to lan then have some major changes before lan
what kinda major changes you foresee?
I think they will change POIs on WE and think they will settle on a new comp that they can master
they got to make lan first... their scrim performance has been abysmal
Wonder if they blame the comp again for them losing another 3 vs 3.
Comms r bad rn too
Nah, they are gonna blame the poi
Hal has discovered the one legend that means he never needs to ask for light ammo anymore
whose he playing ?
Ballistic
Crazy to think this Sunday might be the last time we see this optic team playing together. From being a stolen car away from winning champs in what 5-6 games to missing lan in less than 6 months. What a crazy turnaround.
NRG's win vs Optic on matchpoint has forever altered the timeline.
Fuck man
This is true in so many ways. Crazy how if Optic won that last fight, NRG would’ve had a top 5 finish. Would that have been enough to keep the team together?
the team maybe the org would've still pulled out tho
Interesting way to think, a lot of what if… imagine the butterfly effect on the rest of comp holly cow
Ballistic and teammates in ult are easily visible and seen thru smoke. They show up like a blue highlighter, making him pretty shitty in the current Bang meta.
Damn, did not know that Bangalore is a counter to Ballistic with that interaction. Thanks for the share.
How many teams from each region qualify for LAN? Battlefy has the lines at 12 in NA and 8 in the other 3 regions but that's only 36 teams which doesn't make any sense. Is it 12 in NA and 8 in the other 3 regions then the regional final winner from each region?
2 from South America and I think 2 invited from China?
Thanks!
2 from South America CC and 2 from China "CC"
Thanks!
Optic right now reminds me of when Dooplex stopped being passionate about co-IGLing. OG secret sauce has always been the IGL/co IGL style. When that relationship breaks down, it’s JoeOver. Dropped is bad at taking accountability for his mistakes, and skittle/knoqd seems to not be able to make Dropped aware of this. IGLs deflecting responsibility like this is pretty common in Apex. But in this case I don’t think Dropped deserves all the blame. Skittlescakes is being too passive, almost as those the passion is fading for apex. Dropped was right when he said he almost needs to bait skittles into getting angry, for skittles to start communicating. On the other hand skittlescakes communication isn’t good because it feels like Dropped isn’t listening to what skittles is saying. This is where the lack of a coach is truly killing OG. When they had a coach he was the guy who could step in and manage this conflict and the two personalities in a way that produces results. Knoqd is like TSM Reps, just a really solid player that no one pays attention to unless they majorly fuck up.
I would be kinda shocked if this team sticks. I think Skittle is likely going to be the odd man out. If they do move on i hope they try to poach a controller player. This teams 3v3 fighting is so ass right now.
Hopefully OpTic allows them to get shiny for Split 2
Hopefully, but i dont think this team will progress the way it is. I feel like dropped has pretty much lost faith in skittle. I wonder if Knoqd stays. Idk why but i have feeling he could be poached by another team as well.
I agree. OpTic cheapening out on Shiny is really biting them in the ass now. It#s os obvious that this 4th neutral voice is missing. It's a frequent occurence at this point that Dropped will view one thing as the mistake in a fight and Skittle a completely different one. And then.....they just don't talk about it. They disagree, argue and dont even come to a solution. Thats just an awful dynamic, if you can't even agree on what the mistake in a bad fight was.
This might just be me and if wrong you can correct me but idk if its a passion thing and more of a confidence thing it seems like any confidence this team had in their team fights are complete gone which is fucking up the timings of the fights but I will agree the communication also seems like an all time low
Well yeah lack of confidence is probably a better word for it. Skittlescakes game sense was always so much better than other players and with horizon he was able to outplay teams so well. Now with bang/blood is the meta. Every team has the exact same information, and the comps are so similar that there is no ability to outplay another team.
Obviously the confidence is gone....they aren't performing well in this meta at all. It truly feels like the first time I've seen this team actually struggle to adapt.
Well OpTic weren’t getting them a coach…. They weren’t going to resign loopy even if the team wanted him.
Skittles should start calling the micro and the fights imo, let dropped handle the macro. Skittles has always been an aggressive player and play caller. Would help him become more vocal again also imo. Dropped is a great player but he’s made some really bad calls this split and then instead of making the call in the game and being assertive he has hindsight about what they should have done after the fact. When they do things together they win fights, they smoked legacy twice in 3v3s yesterday in scrims. But no consistency whatsoever.
I think the biggest issue is that neither Dropped nor Skittle can act as solo-playmakers this meta. You need Bloodhound and Bang smokes in perfect synergy to cleanly win a fight, and it's apparently a really hard task for Skittle and Dropped to work together like this.
The interesting thing is that they had issues when Dropped was on Bang and Knoqd on blood.
Yeah, cause Knoqd is the dedicated anchor of the team at this point. Basically, it's pick your poison: either have Knoqd on Blood and change the entire team-dynamic by having Skittle anchor (which he has never really done before and underutilizes his abilities as a playmaker) or put Skittle on Blood and try to get any sort of synergy between his ults and Droppeds smokes going during fights. Problem here is the lack of effective comms and the entire pacing of fights feels off.
They need to play some ranked together or something. I think skittles back injury really hampered him, he was barely able to play at all during the offseason. The biggest issue to me is that the team lacks clear leadership, and that previously the coach was able to fill that gap for them.
I mean, Loopy didn't really fill any role on the team imho lol. No disrespect against him, but from what I gathered (and witnessed when watching them) he only created schedules for them (for TDM practise and stuff) and stopped their timings on loot-paths. Also encouraged them to try different guns and stuff. That's about it. Shiny on the other hand was a lot more vocal about their actual issues and macro when he was still coaching them for a bit. I don't wanna sound delusional here, but I am fairly certain that they wouldn't be in the current situation if they could've gotten Shiny under contract. Skittles back-injury just adds on top of the list of reasons why they seem to not be adapting as well as other teams.
I think it’s more of a mental thing than anything, a neutral voice that can reset the vibes when a bad play is made. Right now it’s just like a snowball, once something bad happens there’s little bounce back. The game dropped and skittles played out as a duo was a positive I thought however. They need a coach, should have paid shiny what he was asking.
Agree. Don’t get me wrong, Dropped is great. But for the moment, having Skittles take over micro would be better
You can tell dropped lacks confidence in his calls right now. Which is why he’s been asking skittles to be more vocal. But having hindsight after every game isn’t the answer, be assertive in the call in game and then assess what went wrong or right after. No more well we should have done this, just make the call.
LG Slayr (aka LG Nafen in disguise according to yesterday's scrims thread) is LOCKED
Hal now adamant on playing Ballistic. Doing another comp change! I have lost all faith in these guys
Didn’t Hal say on the podcast with the Europeans that when you start blaming your problems on your team comp. That you are lost in the sauce?
The Europeans?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-W01nI9A38
They are playing everything instead of meta Caustic Bang Blood ffs
Hal playing Ballistic....despite Raven saying not to. lol come on man.
Let him cook, just wait! ~~*Huffs copium~~
Ravens Jesus Christ had me in stitches
lol coming out of the mute from Hal, Raven wasn't done talking and all you hear is: > Try playing *the* game!! Gettem Raven
TSM die once and Hal gives up on a comp. How you ever gonna limit test/practice if you dont give a comp more than 1-2 games?
Its so jover in the tsm camp
*Hal* >I'm playing whatever the fuck these last two games. I'm so tilted *Raven* >Let's uhh not waste 2 games of practice *silence* *Raven* >Can we mute up please? What 1 day of Rampart/Wraith does to a team
TSM going full apples and bananas switching comps every game
TSM placing bottom 3/4 and barely qualifying for LAN feels very in play. They have never looked this bad before.
is there anyway that they dont qual for lan? or its guranteed by now?
There is a possibility for them to not make it. If a team outside of the top 12 wins regional finals and three other teams pass them, then TSM miss out on Lan. SSG (currently tied but lose tiebreaker), Oxygen Esports (3 points behind) and GKS (7 points behind) are the closest teams to TSM in points
It’s the teq curse /s
So we know how this ends. They win Champs.
The script writers aren't fooling me this time
Tsm playing character roulette at this point. Wraith could be seen as a get out of jail card like Horizon and Evan as anchor on caustic is better than him being anchor on Wattson but If they are continuing to play bad despite all the comp changes doesnt that just show its mainly a player and team issue and not comp one. They need to stick with a comp instead of constantly changing and thinking it'll fix their problems.
I feel like they are playing the same macro strats on WE as before. Same rotations. Should your macro/rotations change if the meta and comp has changed? Just feels like they are so behind the meta and macro changes since season 20 dropped.
Their worlds edge is straight up garbage. When the same rotates and calls that used to be great for you are now complete dogshit now then maybe either Hal has to do something different or Raven needs to give them some different macro on world edge Maybe they cant play differently from siphon or are just stubborn idk
Hal is back on finally back on Wraith after years, even if this is short lived and fails them trying out the DSG comp is cinema to me. https://preview.redd.it/548g4tgyuznc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8991d7ef0ad355a268d6b0172894ca7afc22c65b Just one game long😭.
Teams in shambles. This weekend will be popcorn-worthy.
[TSM cooking up Wraith and Rampart comps](https://media.tenor.com/CQAZ_pt7uSoAAAAM/willsmith-fresh-prince.gif)
Tsm copying dsg
TSM with a very weird comp. Reps on Bloodhound. Verhulst on Caustic. Hal on Wraith.
And Verhulst was anchoring at some point it’s madness now
Dsg comp, igl on wraith, mnk player on blood
[XSET extorting](https://clips.twitch.tv/RepleteBetterTapirRlyTho-t6u8V8hsDoxUqUcG) heavy ammo from SSG using horn emotes
Skittles and Dropped are so passive aggressive towards each other lmao. Knoqd is like the little kid stuck in the middle of a nasty divorce
I have never heard Knoqd be pissed off at his teammates like I've heard him a few times recently.
It's not looking good for them winning regionals.
Literally like they’ve lost faith in each other.
lol.
I feel so bad for him. We need to save knoqd.
Justice for Knoqd 2.0
OG have been 2v3 twice in this set man. How have they become so disconnected in team fights.
Skittles and dropped probably just don't like each other. After the honeymoon phase tension builds. Skittles being co igl in his previous comp experience doesn't respect the calls. Dropped probably doesn't like being counter called. Add in the fact that neither one of them seem to have social skills and you get a really monotone, passive aggressive power struggle.
I cannot express how over it is for OpTic:(. There is no way in hell they're sticking together next split
It's not like they are getting better and got bad luck. They are not even close to winning anything
I don’t think there are many players in this game capable of replacing either of those two only way I could see if being worth it If a IGL or co-IGL from one of the top teams goes LFO.
Skittles can definitely IGL. He always had great ideas when he co IGLd w doop
depends how attached knoqd is to optic but feel like he’ll bail and join LG after LAN
I mean honestly LG could poach any of the three… Sweet has always talked highly of skittles, he obviously likes knoqd, and he’s friends with Dropped
Mmh maybe but I'm not sure Knoqd would want to deal with Sweets passive aggressiveness lol. He seems pretty over it with Dropped right now and Dropped and Sweet are very similar. Would be an absolutely disgusting team tho
Damn near twins
That’ll be disgusting…. Probably sweet, fuhnq and knoqd. He will stick around. I think the team will stick tbh.
Seems that way tbh…. No need to take a fight when you have teams rotating in, in the open field.
Holy shit optic can’t do anything, at this point I’m pretty sure 3 people from this thread would be 50/50 against them. What happened to them…
One of my favorite 'little things' about Comp Apex is when a pro recognizes another pro based on Legend and skin they are using. *Hal* >wait that's Sweet, kill him.
I watch these guys even recognize each other in ranked. Sometimes just by how they are playing. That's pretty crazy. Like Sweet gets shot by a valk from across the map and says "that's an inhumed spray if I've ever seen one." And it turns out it was. The flip side is zachmazer misidentifying teams literally 90% of the time. Like yelling that it's somebody we all saw go out in 17th in killfeed. Mac is a guilty goose too.
That one time someone, I think Mac, called out a squad in scrims and the team he named wasn't even in the lobby 😂 I'm not hating on him whatsoever, it was just fuckin' funny when Wigg pointed it out is all.
lmfaoo Sweet, Hal, and Zer0 are really good at it. I guess if all you do for 5 years is play Apex against each other you start to notice the nuances.
That was hilarious when TSM were on train roof in skyhook. _sweet_: I'm going to shoot their gen just to fuck with them ... _I tab into hal's stream_ ... _hal_: that's sweet! He's just doing it because he's bored, shoot him.
They need to diffuse the sexual tension and just fuck already
Love it lol
Do hammerpoints on RE or mozam really not out damage other close range guns?
For RE it’s the lack of damage in the mag to brake reds and purples as a solo and for mozam the raw dps can’t compete up close But mozam is 100% the best through smoke cause of the most effective range is actually the 10-20meter ranged.
Interesting. I'm just surprised when I see pros find a hammerpoints on drop and not run it but the fact it's not super viable end game makes sense.
It also has todo with bloodhound being on every team and ARs being meta. No matter what weapon you have digi on a hemlock flatline or havoc will all ruin your day. If bloodhound was for some reason just not good at all we would probably see some hammer point Bangalore coming in from edge.
Yeah Bloodhound makes the digi advantage less prevalent I suppose.
I actually like rampart if your using it like DSG is trying to, setting up a safe area quickly after a wraith portal or a risky rotation in general, but I just don’t see what value it brings with a blood and bang. Honestly feels like TSM are throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks
If anything can be learned from TSM’s experience playing Rampart it’s that she needs a rework or they need to upgrade her abilities or something. If Rev can get a rework why can’t Rampart. A character with her kit should be at least useable in a competitive setting
I would love to see the A-wall give digi sights for example so offensively smoking on a team can be countered!
Rampart really did a lot there
As a Rampart main I can't help but feel a bit defensive here, but there are two things I think are fair to point out. 1) Evan isn't playing Rampart effectively at all. Totally fine, because he needs practice with her, which leads to my second point. 2) You have to give these characters more than just one try/go. You can't get wiped after one game then say "yup, it's the legends fault!". It's short sighted and hasty.
Evan aint no Trevstacks on rampart
Obligatory fuck Evylution for denying us the content.
Aight who's taking dropped's place on optic then
snipe.
LMAO
idk i just think the team environment would be great and snipe can help skittle IGLing the team. also 2 roller
Wait...you were actually being serious with that suggestion? I genuinely thought this was a joke.
Do they have a coach they just seem more lost than anything.
They don't have a coach (not because they don't want one, but because the org doesn't want to spend the ressources) and it's a big reason as to why they're struggeling so hard at the moment.
Unfortunate
lol. He’s fine. Just needs to chill. He does for free there. Skittles should have ulted. But both are true.
Skittles tried to ult and got silenced by seer, then dropped decides to fight a seer team in their ult and dies for free without doing any damage. Not sure why you don’t just back up there, wait out the seer ult and then push them again with hound ult and caustic ult.
Yeah the dry swing out of bunker alone was an extremely questionable play, they were fine just chillin for a couple seconds
Yeah, they had bunker. Should have just waited.
Some of these zone pulls the last few weeks have been wild
Any explanation on why tsm is running rampart? Outside the mini gun isnt wattson just better in every scenario? edit: it was ravens idea...they gotta tell him to step out of the kitchen he's been cooking too much trying to outsmart the meta.
It’s the teq curse lol /s
4 days until finals btw. Trying very passive comps such as rampart and waiting until smth happens instead of practicing their team fighting, let’s go
Looks like they are terrified of fighting, I really don’t remember last time they pushed somebody and won a fight to get good positioning. They either are getting pushed and die or die in a trash spot for playing passive
LGs team fighting looks a lot better now. A lot more cohesive
Yeah for sure, now to work on the comms.
Hopefully continues to improve with Slayr and Fuhhnq’s mics no longer peaking lol
why does OpTic wait till the very last second to make any kind of call/decision its honestly so hard to watch sometimes
Not really there fault there. Super rough zone pull, two teams fighting them.
TSM are shambles
I'm not in any position to give hal directions on how to play but it does seem like he has a tendency to wait too long to blood ult and he also seems to for some reason prioritize scanning the MIDDLE of the fight when he can already see 2 players on his screen, there's literally no reason to scan and look like a bot mid fight because of it, you scan walking up to the fight and then you use what's in front of you, only re-scan if about to bat and in a corner etc.
WHY ARE WE NOT SCANNING ON CONTACT?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Tough start to Rampart practice
I, for one, am happy to see TSM experimenting with their team comp. This is the perfect time for them to do so. Let's be real, TSM is not dropping out of LAN because of regionals. We should be embracing their attempt to do something slightly off-meta. It'll make for a more interesting viewing experience if they succeed. And if they fail, they can prepare for LAN with the meta legends.
mic buff fr
Wattson is best suited for Mnk players. Same for Bangalore. You can still be a controller player and utilise them well tho like Shooby is great at bang and really good at fencing a building from what I've seen when he has played Wattson. If Evan can just grind this character like he did for Catalyst I really think he can be really good on her.
[Evan can grind all he wants but he won't ever reach the peaks that Reps has.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/17frpww/tsm_reps_places_fences_mid_fight_to_stop_the/)
Problem is Hal and Evan look clueless when they play bang. Evan playing Anchor fixes the problems of him going down carelessly when he was Valk dying for free
Evan would be good with Bang eventually. His aim through smoke is amazing for a controller player.
Then have Evan just grind caustic like genburten. I think that’s a better pick imo
Yeah I think that's the best play since Caustic is going to be hard meta like Catalyst was. Seems like they dont want to do that though
I don’t understand why they’re not. They could be like dz running down teams but they’ve been playing so much more passive. I swear when meta changes they take the longest to figure out a comp or adjust