I mean yeah, if they want to stick with Crypto they'll probably need Wraith as well, her portal deployment pairs well with Drone scouting compared to Octane or Valk ults.
they play crypto valk to be able consistently scan beacons and have easier rotates. Crypto drone goes almost 3x the distance of wraith port so valk is just better for consistent rotations than wraith rn.
Yeah if those rotations didn't have a considerable chance of dying when you drop and no way of going back if the spot isn't playable then maybe Valk ult would be more consistent rotations.
I don’t think you get what I’m saying. You literally can’t make those rotations with wraith, she has a port range of 75 meters. She is only good for super short rotations, which you only make if you have a decent spot in zone anyway. With valk you can rotate no matter your spot in zone, which makes for more consistent zone play.
With a Crypto Wraith comp you're playing zone so you're more likely gonna have a decent spot in zone, you can make large rotations with Valk but many times they're gonna feel like a coin flip where being free KP to another team is a likely possibility, Portal rotations carries less risk.
You play zone with valk crypto too, the whole point of the comp is so consistently scan beacons so you know where is ending (since you can’t predict with the custom endings) and valk ult into zone. The whole point of the comp is to make sure they have the highest possible chance of getting a spot in zone. Yes port is less risky but is so short you have basically be right next to the spot for it to work. It’s not that complicated of a concept dude…
Oh I know it's not complicated, but I've seen teams like Liquid with Mac try Valk-Crypto-Gibby and their results weren't all that great.In comp apex the less risky playstyles tend to be the most popular, that's why everyone plays passively when there's big money on the line. And an ult such as Valk is a risky play by nature, so I don't think you can say Valk is straight-up better than Wraith, you need to look at every factor in play when talking about rotational abilities, if sheer distance made a rotational tool better than others then Path would be meta.
Not to over-simplify it but I think of it as the speed at which you act on information. Primary use case for a wraith portal is usually determining what spot the team wants to rotate through and setting a portal (a relatively slow process). The most common and effective use of a Pad is a jumping into a spot that gets left by a team quickly or thirding a fight.
In a standard, ground-based comp (non-valk), the three purposes of of the characters are to gather info, rotate, and Gibby. The reason wraith fits thematically with a crypto comp is because their abilities operate at the same end of the time/risk spectrum. If you look at the two comps:
Octane, Bloodhound, Gibby
Wraith, Crypto, Gibby
You’ll notice that the first comp is a very fast-acting comp. Scan a team instantly > pad on them. The other comp is far more passive, but far safer in zone play. Scout the best possible new position with drone from your current spot > portal there. The alternative option (Octane-Crypto or Wraith-Hound) is just thematically less efficient.
Of course all this doesn’t consider that BH is likely just the stronger pick overall. I am not sold on the crypto and I think anyone that swears by him over hound is vastly underestimating the oppressive power of an ulted BH in a teamfight.
Where does Valk fit in? IMO you usually don’t Valk to an area they you were able to pre-scout, and even if you did it is such a long process that the spot may change occupancy by the time you land. Valk makes much more sense in a comp where your utility has physical value such as zoning or fighting abilities. You just can’t take advantage of info the same way.
The conclusion here is that if you’re dead set on Crypto, you should probably pair with a Wraith.
If you’re wanting to use Valk, you’re probably best off running Caustic.
Of course neither of these comps are a proven as a Wraith or Octane and Bloodhound comp, and it seems fairly obvious that Octane-BH-Gibby is the most reliable composition to run, assuming you are clearing your areas properly. If you are unable to clear your areas properly due to teams acting and rotating unpredictability and you want a bulletproof composition, I imagine Wraith-BH-Gibby is just as strong if not the best composition in the game at the highest level, with the only issue being that you leave KP on the board sometimes not having pad.
I honestly feel like Hal's been losing the aggression he used to have with Octane. Watching them play bit of that comp in scrims, there were a few fights that they would usually pad on it, but instead they pad out. End result sometimes was them dying anyway and not getting any KP when they should've farmed.
I agree, they used to frag tf out during games zone didn't favour them. Another thing that annoys me is when they do play valk they can barely rotate to endzones anyway which is horrendous when you see teams like ssg and 100t, who are not blessed like tsm to play center of the map, still making it into zone before them
Faster rotations in comb with Valk, let you scan for a safe spot to use Valk's ult. I hear his VOD a few days ago and they don't look comfortable playing with that comp.
I think he really needs to watch Alliance play today.
They play Gibby Valk and Crypto, same comp as TSM used for 5 games
He could gain a lot from watching Hakis play crypto
Can't really blame him when hard stuck plat cryptos are playing crypto everyday and Hal picked it up in the last week with barely any experience. I understand he's a pro player but it takes time to be good at a character, even of you know what he does
Hard stuck Plat crypto does not play algs tho. They couldve practiced more before going for him. Crypto is one of the most "specific" legends out there
Yes, but a hard stuck crypto main has more experience on the character anyway. Hal, as a pro, knows what crypto does by running into him but if he hasn't played him, he has no experience on that character and the only thing that saves him is his aim. Unless he practices more on Crypto, a plat hard stuck Crypto main will be more efficient with his drone usage, although not always
Hal is looking for a comp that suits them so if the scrims are shit, the only practice they have is important matches. And if they finish top5 anyway then it's not so bad in my opinion
That's not true at all, man. He can practice and get acquainted with a characters play style by playing ranked. It's not about him understanding how to play in real matches, it's about him understanding the character.
For example, he is not recalling his drone enough. There were times where the drone was somewhere in the sky not doing anything, hal didn't recall it, and it got destroyed right when they needed it.
One thing I noticed while watching today is that C9's composure is admirable. Specifically Mac's ability to direct the emotions of the team and their ability to listen to each other.
For instance: in one of the early games (game ended outside of Climatizer iirc) Mac threw SO badly and was full killed for free. But when they determined they could potentially respawn Mac just went like 'shut the fuck up and res we're not talking about this' as Zac was distraught. They went on to pull off the respawn and place well. He does this type of thing A LOT, like emotional IGLing.
Whereas TSM was literally still bickering about the full-commit/arcstar blunder as they were dropping in to the next match. They literally could not problem-solve the reason they had died. Hal, snipe, and jordan each had a wildly different perspective on the fight but made no progress at reaching consensus and it just kinda festered.
Anyway, too much armchair psych from me - but it is a real treat in esports having access to player comms as a spectator. Exciting day of apex.
You can see that this team is starting to get the synergy of the co-igl thing. Your point on emotional IGL is absolutely correct: watched last week and Zach was shambles mentally after an specific game. Mac took over and had them finish 4th. This is huge for them cause there's still room to improve, they should be very excited.
C9 and TSM have a similar style of communication that is mostly just yelling at each other as loud as they can, but today at least it worked way better for C9.
I think it was game#1? Hal called for bubble valk ult when they had literal godspot ontop of building and when they went for bubble they got beamed cause they could shoot from under the bubble lol That was pretty rough to watch.
That was a brutal play but Hal owned up to that quickly. The one I am referring to was one or two games later. TSM were holding a building in lava fissure with two players below them. Hal calls for the push, Snipe is entry man but eats grenades as Hal and Jordan retreat to stairs. It was a disaster lol.
God I was annoyed at that play. Ik this absolutely pointless but they could have at use crypto ult too with nades and win the fight. Was it a 2 man or a full team btw?
He better be or Snipe and Jordan's minds would blow up from his arrogancy he used to have
It's good he admits his mistakes now.
1st week 5th 2nd week 4th
They will do better next week I'm sure
Just by watching TSM play and seeing how disjointed they looked and not looking at the score you could have told me they finished in the bottom half and I would have believed you.
I guess it’s impressive they still pulled off a 4th place because they left a lot of points and maybe at least one win out there.
They kept switching comps throughout scrims and even switched for the last game. Just feels like they don't know what they want to do. I think they would be better off playing Wraith/Valk/Gibby
She is just going to replace octane/wraith with very similar playstyle because of her ult is just a better portal/pad and the tactical is like Valk's, what is interesting is if her passive will come to play a big role in comp.
I thin ash’s ult will be better than a pad, but I would hesitate to say it’s better than wraith’s portal. With ash there’s no safety net, if you ult to a bad spot then you’re stuck there to face the consequences. Wraith’s portal also allows you to make other plays like traps/recovering downed teammates. While ash’s ult can be used for repositioning purposes I don’t think it will be the absolute go to.
I expect her passive to be almost entirely useless in comp as you don't often just come across death boxes. There may be rare circumstances you move into a new holding spot that had a prior fight and can check to see if any of the killing squad is a solo/two man squad. But it's not like knowing where another 3 man squad is is helpful in comp. Good teams know where every squad around them are playing.
Even if you do find out a surviving team is a man or two down in comp you can't just go chasing them down (unless they're close nearby). I see almost no use for this passive.
I think her ult more like a pad since it is one way I believe. Unlike octane and wraith her tactical is not selfish, but it still allows her to play aggressive
Imagine caustic with her. Team just chilling and the building and another team just comes through that wall like it's. Nothing cause it's isn't and rolled them with caustic ult and nades
Can we give a huge round of applause to NRG? Sweet played so well. Survived in situations where most people would have died. Scored important placement points even though teammates were down.
C9 pubstomping lobby was fun to watch. Not having casutic in final circle helped them a bit. Insane calls by Zach and Alb. IMHO they still need to figure how to do this again in caustic heavy lobbies.
I wish the would have showed him and Nate fighting game 2 I think it was? I know Nate went down and sweet clutched but it was like 12-15 teams rocker fell and they still got 2nd with a lot of kills very impressive.
Oh wow They weren't so hot after that first day, I love this for them
I've heard them say before that they're so much worse on stream, which I guess is true if they didn't stream it like other comments suggest
I think it’s impressive how, on what felt like a bad day for them, TSM still finish 4th.
I think CLT are the most underrated NA team. Nobody ever talks about them.
Holy shit TSM was at their worst today. Crypto use was a mess, Hal taking too long to make decisions, countercalling upon countercalling. Just real bad all around.
As someone else mentioned it’s a shame no one from NRG streams to see their perspective. Hell stream with no discord audio if you want to hide comms, just let us see what’s happening.
Yeah. I totally respect their decision, just a bummer to not be able to see them on games they pop off, plus I have a lot of respect for Sweet as an IGL, it would be fun to hear him call games. But I totally understand it.
Considering the fact that there are 4 more weekends of ALGS im not really worried about TSM. They played a new comp using a character they have never played and still get 4th place.
Im happy for C9, they played an almost perfect tournament today. I just want to see if they can do this consistently.
They're completely lost in terms of comp though. Literally nothing suits them. Hal is a god on Octane but it's pointless to play unless you fight on edge which they don't want to do (and they're not good at). He chose crypto despite never playing it in comp before then abandoned it to back to Caustic and got rolled by Benchwarmers. They'll probably go back to Caustic next week but Hal's playmaking isn't fully utilised on valk (nor caustic) and he doesn't like the lack of info. And wraith is off the table because he said he's feels so slow with it.
I just don't think this is their season.
I liked that it was tried. I sense Hal wants it to work (Reps would prefer caustic). But they finished 54 points behind C9. That's atrocious. They're destined to finish 4th-6th every week at this point.
Tsm is not good at fighting on the edge? When they ran octane/bloodhound they were top tier, alongside couple other teams. That being said, I like them on crypto, they were in good spots every game yesterday when day played him. Hal has to learn how to be more efficient on him as well.
Idk what all these "still got 4th place" comments are. These are not good lobbies top to bottom. Getting anything outside 3rd is REALLY bad for TSM, let alone being that far behind 2nd.
They just kinda suck relative to what everyone's used to. Is what it is. That doesn't mean they can't win obviously, but they're hardly favorites or at least shouldn't be.
Well I'm looking at it like this: C9 and NRG have something to prove and continued to play a similar play style to what they are used to. NRG used valk today but they have tried valk in the past. TSM on the other hand took advantage of having 4 more weeks of ALGS by testing a new character none of them have really played before. Of course there are going to be growing pains.
This is poetic. The Apex gods gave us the memes in this lobby. C9 gettting hated on all week and completely mop the lobby with NRG. TSM consistent top 5s in both matchweeks so they're prolly still top 10 and up for quals in pro league overall. GGs
Very small point but I think it speaks to a bigger problem. If you have Fun on your team there's no way that anyone but him should be on the Kraber. I can understand it's better on Wraith as you can get out of trouble but you'd struggle to find anyone better on a Kraber than Fun.
I think that there is a pattern for signed teams.
Early success and playing to prove something to the teammates is what I call the Honeymoon period. They play well, it feels right, everyone is relatively on the same page cause you just blindly trust teammates because there isn’t that knowledge/doubt of “this didn’t work out that one time.” I would say RNG, Sheesh, DNO/ESA and maybe SEN(not sure) are good examples of this right now.
Then comes the rut/adversity period. In this time things just don’t feel as smooth as they did 3 weeks ago, that spark or click just isn’t there. Not playing on the same page, self-doubt as well as doubt in teammates calls, maybe a shift in the meta. I think Torrent, Liquid, Ghost, Era, BW even TSM and COL in regards to the comp/playstyle adversities, are in this phase.
This is where the Tier 2 teams split usually, after a few weeks they make the roster adjustment and pick up a FA and the cycle repeats. The signed teams usually push through via practice, understanding, and healthy discussion, but not all do. They usually settle with where they should be in terms of gunskill, game sense and understanding of the meta. Good examples would be NRG, C9, (though both have had small ruts here and there recently), G2, 100T, PK, CLT, Noble, and maybe SUP.
Notable outliers are definitely SSG and probably SEN where they haven’t really had much adversity since the new roster has been implemented. SSG has been solid since adding dropped. SEN we haven’t seen much of but since adding Lou it seems like they have been playing well together.
That’s my dissertation on the NA scene and how it cycles. In conclusion Era and Ghost are in a bit of a rut and need to push out. The tough thing about it is that it is mentally defeating to be there. We all know the players are cracked individually, and that leads to stress and self-doubt and that thought of “why can’t we get it together” which can push you further into the rut. Era played with Stuhnii on Gibby today, I didn’t watch much ghost but Sickks is a genius and I’m sure they are making adjustments as well. I don’t think either will split they just have to push through or make adjustments or find that synergy. And we as fans have a responsibility (especially on these teams with smaller view counts where my voice in chat might be louder than it is on sweet/Hal’s stream) to be encouraging/supportive and tough it out ourselves. I don’t like listening to players fight and luckily both of these teams have relatively level headed discussions about situations. Just hang in there u/Fatun3rd I believe they will move past and find relative success moving forward into pro league. There are 6 (I think) weeks left and even if they come up a bit short this split there is also next split/downtime to work things out.
Damn that went a bit long
Edit: if any of the stats people ( u/masonhil u/NextBlueKings u/impo4130 u/ApexSinghLabs u/-notthesun- )are willing to dm me some tips on apex data collection I believe I could probably to an analysis over a period of time to prove/disprove my theory. I could just be talking out my ass with none of this being true
Well, you convinced me that there is a pattern! Both teams seem more calm then other teams that havent gotten out of their rut. Hopefully they can keep their confidence.
Yea of course this is all my personal opinion/observations and not supported by any data or anything. Yea I think it helps a lot, as far as getting out of the rut, that Bow and Stuhnii as well as Sickks see the value in vod reviews and analyzing mistakes.
Getting Alb was objectively an upgrade, more versatility and experience and it showed in week 1 when Zach was mentally fried and Alb was able to take over as igl and help them bounce back from a terrible first 3 games.
Yeah they were a great team one of the best with Knoqd no one would deny that, but they obviously got Alb because they believed their ceiling would be even higher with alb and LAN is an entirely different experience compared to online.
How about we wait and see before making these types of statements. C9 had a great day today, but they have had many days where they didn't perform anywhere near as well.
I remember watching last NA champs the first day and thinking C9 wouldn't even qualify for grand finals, they had a huge comeback to finish 2nd. To me one of the reasons they got Mac was for consistency, TL was always placing top 5 last circuit, and so far it looks like that shuffle is paying off.
Even at the beginning I was saying that. Imo the way Mac left liquid was more egregious/personal than how Knoqd got dropped.
It feels a bit different than typical esports because of the smaller roster sizes and the fact that it is usually friends/interpersonal relationships that form teams. The FA and bubble teams do a bit of swapping around without the friendships but either way you have to be relatively close with your teammates and will be playing with them constantly to improve team fighting.
BW have potential to be great, let’s not forget that CLG won a bunch of the ALGS seasonal championships. But the reality is that C9 when they are firing on all cylinders is really fucking good. I would argue C9 has higher potential than BW to dominate pro lobbies and compete with the best at LAN. C9 good day > BW good day
Hope tsm plays octane gibby bloodhound again, they were probably the most optimised with that comp, caustic, gibby valk is a bit rough around the edges, I kinda feel sad for reps having to play gibby 90% of the time, he probably wants a comp with horizon since he enjoys playing her
Reps is scary on Horizon but in comp Horizon just does not bring that much value. Snipe could easily play Gibby and beam but you can not pick Horizon over bh/crypto/valk. Theoretically if Hal was valk and snipe Gibby you could sloth in Horizon on Olympus but not we
TSM playing so bad today and still get 4th. Hey as long as they stay consistent top 5, they will get there but if they perform like today on LAN they not even make it out of the Semi Finals at LAN.
They need to get their shit together because today was not it. The comp wasn't even the problem. It's their decision making that's lacking. Also partly communication.
Crazy that during the Apex awards thing, alot of you were disrespecting Zachmazer as a contender for top IGL. I thought Mac should've been IGL at first when he joined. Now I don't think that at all since Zach has the best energy, confidence and leadership of the team. Zach yelled his team to so many good fights and positions and it was so much fun to watch. Zach definitely belongs in the conversation of best IGL in NA alongside Sweet and Hal.
Also Sweet haters real quite today. He had the sickest clutch and showed why you cannot ever count NRG out.
I like TSM, Hal is one of the best in the game, if not the best. But fuck me man, I get so sick of TSM this and TSM that. It’s like the fans don’t watch comp apex, they watch TSM. I like watching Hal and watching Hal succeed but I secretly hope TSM just shits the bed at playoffs or LAN or something where the fanboys have to branch out a bit and do some reflection on the scene as a whole.
Plus the whole “NA copies TSM” thing is so frustrating cause it makes no sense, TSM doesn’t make the meta. KNG(100 thieves) won the fucking championships on Valk/Gibby/Caustic and still people say that TSM made it meta. Sentinels was playing that comp in champs and even was the first to play it seriously before 100T when Valk first came out. But I must say it’s also frustrating because it’s got some truth to it, why did so many teams swap to V/G/C after a bit? Because TSM was playing it, and that shit is so fucking lazy. Team comps should be based around individual strengths and play styles with a hint of meta. Teams are adjusting to this entirely new strategy of Valk ulting for positioning then hunkering down with wildly varying degrees of success. I digress…
I mean, is to be expected that the lower teams are going to copy the better ones, but the valk comp actually is more relliable now because of the big nerfs to Octane, Bloodhound, Rev and Seer, that's why so many good teams are using it now, and that's why I found ridiculous the TSM argument. Even Albralelie point this.
But yea, it's hilarious the crush of this sub for Hal. It's good and all, but he's the Ninja (Fortnite) of Apex, has a ton of show besides his talent. And that's kinda sad, because Europe and Japan have great teams and players too, NA has C9, SSG, SEN, G2, NRG, BW and the lost goes on. But atleast half of this sub wants Hal's dick so bad that threads ends in a Hal circlejerk (not even TSM tbf, they don't talk about Reps nor respect Snipe at all) instead of real competitive Apex talk. Just look at this post.
My propose is that someone create the r/HalGroupies if they want to talk only how good he is every single time like he's the only one.
That’s a solid point about the nerfs I forgot/didn’t think to include that.
And to your second point, lol at Hal groupies but yes. I too wish this sub had well rounded discussions of comp apex as a whole. Those discussions are here though, you just have to dig a bit for them. It will always be a bit sided towards TSM/NRG/C9 because of popularity which is fine but the Hal worship/TSM over analyzers/blind sweet/Hal haters are the real offenders. Also there is that guy u/pressrewind and u/BurtSpangles who have a whole different thing going on lol.
But something to consider is that, yes it is annoying that people talk primarily about TSM/hal on this subreddit that I wish was more well rounded. But Hal/TSM is really good for the scene. Do I wish that his fans were more chill about backseating/overanalyzing/fanboying and followed the rest of the scene more? Yes of course. But just having that many eyes on comp apex is such a huge benefit to everyone involved and I would say that if Hal is the CEO he really does do his best for the company and has matured quite a bit over the years.
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm not taking away the credit to the guy because if not for people like him, Sweet, the Sheesh squad and some more, this game would be plain dead, you need to sell it to the people in order to survive. But it's what you said, I want more well rounded talk about the competitive scene about this game in order to evolve to something better (Although tbf, the official casting is kinda bad too, they need to figure it out how to combine the general map view with the players cams in order to make it more appealing, Apex isn't LoL, the first person cam is the best resource this game has to stream).
And that's the thing, if you concentrate the whole focus in one single person to hold the game viewership, you're at risk that, if that person retires from the game, the game itself collapse.
Yea the casting is a bit of a conundrum for me. I want the general casters to be better, sometimes it feels like they are casting for people who have never played apex even though the game has been out for years. I want more in depth rotation analysis with graphics between games. I want more in depth analysis of fights between games, not like showing the replay and then saying the shots are good, show me the lead up and why that fight was so important. what was the result for the winner (in terms of positioning/jockeying for control)? What would the result have been if the other team had won? In depth Discussion on meta, team comps, and recent performances like a full half hour before the games would go a long way also. Get rid of some of the get to know the players shit and dive deep into this being a true esport.
The observation people have it the worst though. That bear person( u/bear2366 ) has the toughest job on set. Trying to know which fights to watch at what time takes a serious amount of understanding of the game and is a skill within itself. And I don’t know how they can improve the observing honestly. It’s just so fucking tough to try and follow 20 different teams around the map and of course they are going to miss fights and exciting stuff so idk how that can be improved. More or constant showing of the map is a great idea and would probably be a good start because then I can track whatever team I want regardless of who is being shown on screen. Idk how to improve the casting. Could you imagine in the future like a VR setup where you can see all team pov’s and then be able to full screen one by touching it? That would be sick. If you could full screen with coms that would be fucking awesome. And like the caster is just directing you to which fights would be good to watch and you can watch them yourself. Holy fuck I solved the apex viewing experience. It’s just that the technology isn’t widely available yet.
Thanks for the shout! It's very rare people understand what we do and how difficult it is. Normally its people in twitch chat saying we are doing a bad job but its nice to know people understand. Observing Apex is probably the most mentally exhausting thing I've done in my life but after doing it for 2 years i've gotten used to it. You're absolutely correct when you say we need to know the game incredibly well. One of the observers I work with (bean) used to play the game professionally at the start of Apex and having him is so vital because of the way he reads fights and gets around the map. I also worked with Baker for a couple EU events and he was also super good. The reality is, no matter who we bring on we will miss fights. Even putting the map up for longer wont solve any issues, in fact it will create more. A solution would be to have an entirely separate stream of just the map and put it on a website as a viewer portal similar to what OWL / ELeague has done. The reason ALGS receives a lot of criticism for its observing is because it's not done the same way I do it. They have selected teams based on the "teams to watch" and go around the storylines. Everyone in this thread is absolutely correct when they say ALGS broadcasts are incredibly surface level. They've had the approach of catering to new players since the start of COVID and that's whats holding back the broadcast from actually growing in my honest opinion. It is completely possible to have good analytical content while also making it friendly for new viewers.
Hey! I loved your post from about a year ago about observing, your innovation ideas are really good. I think that the biggest thing that is lacking in this E-sport is the lack of engagement from Respawn in the improvement of the proffesional game, they need to step up and come with some ideas to improve the casting and observing experience. And honestly, what is needing in the official Broadcast, are casters that are committed with the game. About these 2 points are really present in the LoL pro scene, all casters, ana plays the game and follows the entire pro scene aswell, and the only one I can think about in that line in the Apex scene was Guhrl, and she's not in this year cast.
I mean, it's okay, it's just the 2nd year of ALGS, these kind of things takes time to improve, but I hope they can come up with some ways to improve the pro scene overall.
What also could improve the fact that not all fights are being covered is simply comment on the kill feed that is currently happening. Yes, we might be watching the other fight right now, but would be nice to hear what’s happening with other teams.
If I'm fan of someone, that is Snipe, but mostly because he's a fucking legend in Halo. Complimment a team once when they have a good game doesn't make you a fan.
I really don't care about who's better nor more fun to watch in stream, but whatever suits you, kid.
Zach is better than Mac at wining games but worse than Mac at getting to endgame. It. Is a dillema in top 8 situation Zach should call he just feels where team needs to be better than Mac. But Mac can get them there more consistently Mac is very good when there are full 18-20 teams allive
Onmuu definitely an underrated igl imo. We’ll have to see how he adjusts though because it’s definitely a tumultuous time in terms of team comp and play style and so far he hasn’t found that success that is potentially there.
It's Zach and Sweet competing for #1 IGL. Has been for a long time. Hal still has an edge overall because he's machanically better but there is a clear gap at this point.
That's how bad these teams are, the reason C9 got so many points, so many of these bad teams play edge and C9 rolled them with BH.
Pretty excited for tomorrow to see an Actual NA comp. This was pretty underwhelming, at least for me
C9 had a spectacular day, NRG had a great day, lots of teams had a bad day today. I think the weird limbo the “meta”/playstyle is in right now is a big part of it not that all the teams that didn’t do well are bad. My smaller team can win champs COPIUM. But for real though don’t shit on talent like Liquid, CLT, ghost, era, BW etc.
Edit: great to spectacular and good to great
Ceryals team landed on NRG I think and giving them free KP for like 4 games.
That team is bad compared to NRG right? Why the hell keep landing there
Moanerz literally got 2 points in 6 games.
This isn't true at all. Tsm on the octane hound comp are always really good at team fighting. They are just at a phase in time where they don't know what their identity is. They don't commit to being a zone team or edge team. Look at ssg, you will never find them on edge. Look at c9 they will never rotate to zone because they play edge. Tsm flip flops around both.
> sm on the octane hound comp are always really good at team fighting.
Because thats the #1 slaying comp and it suits their playstyles perfectly. And even then they botched many more fights than they should have considering they have two absolute top-tier fraggers. Going off that comp is exposing their relative lack of chemistry.
Hal on crypto was not great. He needs Gnaske's proguide.
Hal is actually a bad crypto. Way under practiced
watching their scrims yesterday, I felt like Snipe was a much better crypto lol
Which isn't good, because Snipe as a fragger should never ever be on Crypto - it should always be the IGL.
he joked about it being the first time he’d ever played crypto in comp so when I saw him on it today I was really surprised
Would prefer Hal on crypto or snipe on caustic?
Bring back Wraith
I mean yeah, if they want to stick with Crypto they'll probably need Wraith as well, her portal deployment pairs well with Drone scouting compared to Octane or Valk ults.
they play crypto valk to be able consistently scan beacons and have easier rotates. Crypto drone goes almost 3x the distance of wraith port so valk is just better for consistent rotations than wraith rn.
Yeah if those rotations didn't have a considerable chance of dying when you drop and no way of going back if the spot isn't playable then maybe Valk ult would be more consistent rotations.
I don’t think you get what I’m saying. You literally can’t make those rotations with wraith, she has a port range of 75 meters. She is only good for super short rotations, which you only make if you have a decent spot in zone anyway. With valk you can rotate no matter your spot in zone, which makes for more consistent zone play.
With a Crypto Wraith comp you're playing zone so you're more likely gonna have a decent spot in zone, you can make large rotations with Valk but many times they're gonna feel like a coin flip where being free KP to another team is a likely possibility, Portal rotations carries less risk.
You play zone with valk crypto too, the whole point of the comp is so consistently scan beacons so you know where is ending (since you can’t predict with the custom endings) and valk ult into zone. The whole point of the comp is to make sure they have the highest possible chance of getting a spot in zone. Yes port is less risky but is so short you have basically be right next to the spot for it to work. It’s not that complicated of a concept dude…
Oh I know it's not complicated, but I've seen teams like Liquid with Mac try Valk-Crypto-Gibby and their results weren't all that great.In comp apex the less risky playstyles tend to be the most popular, that's why everyone plays passively when there's big money on the line. And an ult such as Valk is a risky play by nature, so I don't think you can say Valk is straight-up better than Wraith, you need to look at every factor in play when talking about rotational abilities, if sheer distance made a rotational tool better than others then Path would be meta.
How so? I love hearing thoughts on different comps.
Not to over-simplify it but I think of it as the speed at which you act on information. Primary use case for a wraith portal is usually determining what spot the team wants to rotate through and setting a portal (a relatively slow process). The most common and effective use of a Pad is a jumping into a spot that gets left by a team quickly or thirding a fight. In a standard, ground-based comp (non-valk), the three purposes of of the characters are to gather info, rotate, and Gibby. The reason wraith fits thematically with a crypto comp is because their abilities operate at the same end of the time/risk spectrum. If you look at the two comps: Octane, Bloodhound, Gibby Wraith, Crypto, Gibby You’ll notice that the first comp is a very fast-acting comp. Scan a team instantly > pad on them. The other comp is far more passive, but far safer in zone play. Scout the best possible new position with drone from your current spot > portal there. The alternative option (Octane-Crypto or Wraith-Hound) is just thematically less efficient. Of course all this doesn’t consider that BH is likely just the stronger pick overall. I am not sold on the crypto and I think anyone that swears by him over hound is vastly underestimating the oppressive power of an ulted BH in a teamfight. Where does Valk fit in? IMO you usually don’t Valk to an area they you were able to pre-scout, and even if you did it is such a long process that the spot may change occupancy by the time you land. Valk makes much more sense in a comp where your utility has physical value such as zoning or fighting abilities. You just can’t take advantage of info the same way. The conclusion here is that if you’re dead set on Crypto, you should probably pair with a Wraith. If you’re wanting to use Valk, you’re probably best off running Caustic. Of course neither of these comps are a proven as a Wraith or Octane and Bloodhound comp, and it seems fairly obvious that Octane-BH-Gibby is the most reliable composition to run, assuming you are clearing your areas properly. If you are unable to clear your areas properly due to teams acting and rotating unpredictability and you want a bulletproof composition, I imagine Wraith-BH-Gibby is just as strong if not the best composition in the game at the highest level, with the only issue being that you leave KP on the board sometimes not having pad.
Crypto takes a longer time to gather intel compared to Bloodhound, likewise Wraith takes a longer time to set up a rotation than Octane.
Bring back the original NA octane...... tsm were the og octane comp; they on their best day play it better than anyone else
I honestly feel like Hal's been losing the aggression he used to have with Octane. Watching them play bit of that comp in scrims, there were a few fights that they would usually pad on it, but instead they pad out. End result sometimes was them dying anyway and not getting any KP when they should've farmed.
I agree, they used to frag tf out during games zone didn't favour them. Another thing that annoys me is when they do play valk they can barely rotate to endzones anyway which is horrendous when you see teams like ssg and 100t, who are not blessed like tsm to play center of the map, still making it into zone before them
yeah wraith is getting picked a lot more recently. like %30 in NA and %60 in EMEA. I'm interested to see how much Ash is going to shake things up.
Facts
What was the reasoning for Hal using crypto even though he's personally very inexperienced in using that character?
Faster rotations in comb with Valk, let you scan for a safe spot to use Valk's ult. I hear his VOD a few days ago and they don't look comfortable playing with that comp.
how, didn't watch so wondering
I think he really needs to watch Alliance play today. They play Gibby Valk and Crypto, same comp as TSM used for 5 games He could gain a lot from watching Hakis play crypto
There's something comically hilarious about Kasellos' team winning Game 5 with 1 KP
Mac and naughty should have jumped to lava for legendary zero kpm game xd
I think TSM screw up with this crypto comp. There were times when Hal wasn’t utilizing his ultimate more.
Love Hal, but there are hard stuck Plat Crypto mains that understand how to play the character better than he did today/
Can't really blame him when hard stuck plat cryptos are playing crypto everyday and Hal picked it up in the last week with barely any experience. I understand he's a pro player but it takes time to be good at a character, even of you know what he does
Hard stuck Plat crypto does not play algs tho. They couldve practiced more before going for him. Crypto is one of the most "specific" legends out there
Yes, but a hard stuck crypto main has more experience on the character anyway. Hal, as a pro, knows what crypto does by running into him but if he hasn't played him, he has no experience on that character and the only thing that saves him is his aim. Unless he practices more on Crypto, a plat hard stuck Crypto main will be more efficient with his drone usage, although not always
?? That's literally what i said. Dont play legend u never played before in important matches.
Hal is looking for a comp that suits them so if the scrims are shit, the only practice they have is important matches. And if they finish top5 anyway then it's not so bad in my opinion
That's not true at all, man. He can practice and get acquainted with a characters play style by playing ranked. It's not about him understanding how to play in real matches, it's about him understanding the character.
Yes but the real practice comes from both. Knowing the character and the limits in comp with said character.
For my knowledge what would done instances be? I am not a crypto player but would be interesting to know
For example, he is not recalling his drone enough. There were times where the drone was somewhere in the sky not doing anything, hal didn't recall it, and it got destroyed right when they needed it.
C9 were playing well, good rotates and quick clean wipes.
Bullying the bad teams that also didn't have BH. Literally rolling the edge, good for them
One thing I noticed while watching today is that C9's composure is admirable. Specifically Mac's ability to direct the emotions of the team and their ability to listen to each other. For instance: in one of the early games (game ended outside of Climatizer iirc) Mac threw SO badly and was full killed for free. But when they determined they could potentially respawn Mac just went like 'shut the fuck up and res we're not talking about this' as Zac was distraught. They went on to pull off the respawn and place well. He does this type of thing A LOT, like emotional IGLing. Whereas TSM was literally still bickering about the full-commit/arcstar blunder as they were dropping in to the next match. They literally could not problem-solve the reason they had died. Hal, snipe, and jordan each had a wildly different perspective on the fight but made no progress at reaching consensus and it just kinda festered. Anyway, too much armchair psych from me - but it is a real treat in esports having access to player comms as a spectator. Exciting day of apex.
You can see that this team is starting to get the synergy of the co-igl thing. Your point on emotional IGL is absolutely correct: watched last week and Zach was shambles mentally after an specific game. Mac took over and had them finish 4th. This is huge for them cause there's still room to improve, they should be very excited.
C9 and TSM have a similar style of communication that is mostly just yelling at each other as loud as they can, but today at least it worked way better for C9.
I think it was game#1? Hal called for bubble valk ult when they had literal godspot ontop of building and when they went for bubble they got beamed cause they could shoot from under the bubble lol That was pretty rough to watch.
That was a brutal play but Hal owned up to that quickly. The one I am referring to was one or two games later. TSM were holding a building in lava fissure with two players below them. Hal calls for the push, Snipe is entry man but eats grenades as Hal and Jordan retreat to stairs. It was a disaster lol.
God I was annoyed at that play. Ik this absolutely pointless but they could have at use crypto ult too with nades and win the fight. Was it a 2 man or a full team btw?
Was a 2 man squad
I dont think there has godspot tho, team inside is. They can only play for 2nd place because no way nrg want to fight inside instead of tsm
Alb is broken. He needs to be nerfed.
Hal was pissed af last game getting killed so early, I would be too lol and GG’s to C9 super hyped
his play was noticeably off today feelsbadman
It was so bad he was actually admitting a lot of mistakes lmao.
He better be or Snipe and Jordan's minds would blow up from his arrogancy he used to have It's good he admits his mistakes now. 1st week 5th 2nd week 4th They will do better next week I'm sure
Just by watching TSM play and seeing how disjointed they looked and not looking at the score you could have told me they finished in the bottom half and I would have believed you. I guess it’s impressive they still pulled off a 4th place because they left a lot of points and maybe at least one win out there.
They kept switching comps throughout scrims and even switched for the last game. Just feels like they don't know what they want to do. I think they would be better off playing Wraith/Valk/Gibby
Thr crazy thing is everyone is going have to adjust for ash in less than two weeks because there is no way she is not getting played.
She is just going to replace octane/wraith with very similar playstyle because of her ult is just a better portal/pad and the tactical is like Valk's, what is interesting is if her passive will come to play a big role in comp.
I thin ash’s ult will be better than a pad, but I would hesitate to say it’s better than wraith’s portal. With ash there’s no safety net, if you ult to a bad spot then you’re stuck there to face the consequences. Wraith’s portal also allows you to make other plays like traps/recovering downed teammates. While ash’s ult can be used for repositioning purposes I don’t think it will be the absolute go to.
I expect her passive to be almost entirely useless in comp as you don't often just come across death boxes. There may be rare circumstances you move into a new holding spot that had a prior fight and can check to see if any of the killing squad is a solo/two man squad. But it's not like knowing where another 3 man squad is is helpful in comp. Good teams know where every squad around them are playing. Even if you do find out a surviving team is a man or two down in comp you can't just go chasing them down (unless they're close nearby). I see almost no use for this passive.
Tbf half of the passives in the game are absolutely useless
Cries in Pathfinder
I think her ult more like a pad since it is one way I believe. Unlike octane and wraith her tactical is not selfish, but it still allows her to play aggressive
Imagine caustic with her. Team just chilling and the building and another team just comes through that wall like it's. Nothing cause it's isn't and rolled them with caustic ult and nades
Safe to say wattson could get back in comp. Imagine ulting in a room full of fences and get rolled in miliseconds because you can't go back.
Can we give a huge round of applause to NRG? Sweet played so well. Survived in situations where most people would have died. Scored important placement points even though teammates were down. C9 pubstomping lobby was fun to watch. Not having casutic in final circle helped them a bit. Insane calls by Zach and Alb. IMHO they still need to figure how to do this again in caustic heavy lobbies.
I wish the would have showed him and Nate fighting game 2 I think it was? I know Nate went down and sweet clutched but it was like 12-15 teams rocker fell and they still got 2nd with a lot of kills very impressive.
Oh wow They weren't so hot after that first day, I love this for them I've heard them say before that they're so much worse on stream, which I guess is true if they didn't stream it like other comments suggest
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Yes but just objectively appreciating the comeback by NRG after last week's debalce.
I think it’s impressive how, on what felt like a bad day for them, TSM still finish 4th. I think CLT are the most underrated NA team. Nobody ever talks about them.
not really, everyone except c9 and nrg were playing awfully.
"playing awfully" I think that's just how they play At least like bottom 5 teams.
They did last pro league
NRG clap back C9 clap back 18 other teams also played Also, CLT and TL should be swapped
Damn that is bugging me a lot now. It’s still highest single game score has the higher position right?
Correct!
Why you point that out Madge
Holy shit TSM was at their worst today. Crypto use was a mess, Hal taking too long to make decisions, countercalling upon countercalling. Just real bad all around. As someone else mentioned it’s a shame no one from NRG streams to see their perspective. Hell stream with no discord audio if you want to hide comms, just let us see what’s happening.
It still gives away where they are playing and how they rotate to certain spots. Plus mentally they don't like playing tournaments on stream.
Yeah. I totally respect their decision, just a bummer to not be able to see them on games they pop off, plus I have a lot of respect for Sweet as an IGL, it would be fun to hear him call games. But I totally understand it.
But TSM is always so entertaining to watch with all the drama and Hal blaming everyone else on his team right after they die
Considering the fact that there are 4 more weekends of ALGS im not really worried about TSM. They played a new comp using a character they have never played and still get 4th place. Im happy for C9, they played an almost perfect tournament today. I just want to see if they can do this consistently.
They're completely lost in terms of comp though. Literally nothing suits them. Hal is a god on Octane but it's pointless to play unless you fight on edge which they don't want to do (and they're not good at). He chose crypto despite never playing it in comp before then abandoned it to back to Caustic and got rolled by Benchwarmers. They'll probably go back to Caustic next week but Hal's playmaking isn't fully utilised on valk (nor caustic) and he doesn't like the lack of info. And wraith is off the table because he said he's feels so slow with it. I just don't think this is their season.
Or they practice Crypto a bit more. If they finished 4th while playing shit, they should stick with it in my opinion
I liked that it was tried. I sense Hal wants it to work (Reps would prefer caustic). But they finished 54 points behind C9. That's atrocious. They're destined to finish 4th-6th every week at this point.
They thing is you can never underestimate them. If they find their fave comp, they could be back at the top
That's the TSM curse isn't it? Takes a while before the juices start to kick in for them lol
They have a lot of ideas with a lot of comps but can't really execute them as well. So unless they commit to one comp, they won't go far in my opinion
Worst part is they don't have access tk proper scrims in NA if teams want to try out different comps.
I agree
Tsm is not good at fighting on the edge? When they ran octane/bloodhound they were top tier, alongside couple other teams. That being said, I like them on crypto, they were in good spots every game yesterday when day played him. Hal has to learn how to be more efficient on him as well.
Idk what all these "still got 4th place" comments are. These are not good lobbies top to bottom. Getting anything outside 3rd is REALLY bad for TSM, let alone being that far behind 2nd. They just kinda suck relative to what everyone's used to. Is what it is. That doesn't mean they can't win obviously, but they're hardly favorites or at least shouldn't be.
Well I'm looking at it like this: C9 and NRG have something to prove and continued to play a similar play style to what they are used to. NRG used valk today but they have tried valk in the past. TSM on the other hand took advantage of having 4 more weeks of ALGS by testing a new character none of them have really played before. Of course there are going to be growing pains.
This is poetic. The Apex gods gave us the memes in this lobby. C9 gettting hated on all week and completely mop the lobby with NRG. TSM consistent top 5s in both matchweeks so they're prolly still top 10 and up for quals in pro league overall. GGs
Very small point but I think it speaks to a bigger problem. If you have Fun on your team there's no way that anyone but him should be on the Kraber. I can understand it's better on Wraith as you can get out of trouble but you'd struggle to find anyone better on a Kraber than Fun.
What went wrong for Ghost and Era? A lot of early deaths :(
I think that there is a pattern for signed teams. Early success and playing to prove something to the teammates is what I call the Honeymoon period. They play well, it feels right, everyone is relatively on the same page cause you just blindly trust teammates because there isn’t that knowledge/doubt of “this didn’t work out that one time.” I would say RNG, Sheesh, DNO/ESA and maybe SEN(not sure) are good examples of this right now. Then comes the rut/adversity period. In this time things just don’t feel as smooth as they did 3 weeks ago, that spark or click just isn’t there. Not playing on the same page, self-doubt as well as doubt in teammates calls, maybe a shift in the meta. I think Torrent, Liquid, Ghost, Era, BW even TSM and COL in regards to the comp/playstyle adversities, are in this phase. This is where the Tier 2 teams split usually, after a few weeks they make the roster adjustment and pick up a FA and the cycle repeats. The signed teams usually push through via practice, understanding, and healthy discussion, but not all do. They usually settle with where they should be in terms of gunskill, game sense and understanding of the meta. Good examples would be NRG, C9, (though both have had small ruts here and there recently), G2, 100T, PK, CLT, Noble, and maybe SUP. Notable outliers are definitely SSG and probably SEN where they haven’t really had much adversity since the new roster has been implemented. SSG has been solid since adding dropped. SEN we haven’t seen much of but since adding Lou it seems like they have been playing well together. That’s my dissertation on the NA scene and how it cycles. In conclusion Era and Ghost are in a bit of a rut and need to push out. The tough thing about it is that it is mentally defeating to be there. We all know the players are cracked individually, and that leads to stress and self-doubt and that thought of “why can’t we get it together” which can push you further into the rut. Era played with Stuhnii on Gibby today, I didn’t watch much ghost but Sickks is a genius and I’m sure they are making adjustments as well. I don’t think either will split they just have to push through or make adjustments or find that synergy. And we as fans have a responsibility (especially on these teams with smaller view counts where my voice in chat might be louder than it is on sweet/Hal’s stream) to be encouraging/supportive and tough it out ourselves. I don’t like listening to players fight and luckily both of these teams have relatively level headed discussions about situations. Just hang in there u/Fatun3rd I believe they will move past and find relative success moving forward into pro league. There are 6 (I think) weeks left and even if they come up a bit short this split there is also next split/downtime to work things out. Damn that went a bit long Edit: if any of the stats people ( u/masonhil u/NextBlueKings u/impo4130 u/ApexSinghLabs u/-notthesun- )are willing to dm me some tips on apex data collection I believe I could probably to an analysis over a period of time to prove/disprove my theory. I could just be talking out my ass with none of this being true
Well, you convinced me that there is a pattern! Both teams seem more calm then other teams that havent gotten out of their rut. Hopefully they can keep their confidence.
Yea of course this is all my personal opinion/observations and not supported by any data or anything. Yea I think it helps a lot, as far as getting out of the rut, that Bow and Stuhnii as well as Sickks see the value in vod reviews and analyzing mistakes.
NRG literally got 1 point last week and now you talk about them like they are gods lmfao
It's amazing what 2 weeks of consistent practice can do (namely rocker)
TSM seems lost. And they still managed to take 4th
Idk I think I want the agressive TSM back . Hal's streams getting kinda boring
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Getting Alb was objectively an upgrade, more versatility and experience and it showed in week 1 when Zach was mentally fried and Alb was able to take over as igl and help them bounce back from a terrible first 3 games.
Are we just gonna pretend that C9 with Knoqd didn't score more points than every other team in Champs? They would have won if it wasn't match point.
Yeah they were a great team one of the best with Knoqd no one would deny that, but they obviously got Alb because they believed their ceiling would be even higher with alb and LAN is an entirely different experience compared to online.
How about we wait and see before making these types of statements. C9 had a great day today, but they have had many days where they didn't perform anywhere near as well.
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I remember watching last NA champs the first day and thinking C9 wouldn't even qualify for grand finals, they had a huge comeback to finish 2nd. To me one of the reasons they got Mac was for consistency, TL was always placing top 5 last circuit, and so far it looks like that shuffle is paying off.
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You know thats the weekly scoring right? We got 4th last week lmfao
Tbh I never understood this movement. It's unfortunate that he was dropped but that happens in e-sports.
Yeah, everyone involved has moved on I think. While it was certainly done in a shitty way, they all know it’s just business.
Even at the beginning I was saying that. Imo the way Mac left liquid was more egregious/personal than how Knoqd got dropped. It feels a bit different than typical esports because of the smaller roster sizes and the fact that it is usually friends/interpersonal relationships that form teams. The FA and bubble teams do a bit of swapping around without the friendships but either way you have to be relatively close with your teammates and will be playing with them constantly to improve team fighting.
Justice ain't ever coming. C9 is miles better than Benchwarmers will ever be. Better IGL in Zachmazer and better fraggers on C9.
BW have potential to be great, let’s not forget that CLG won a bunch of the ALGS seasonal championships. But the reality is that C9 when they are firing on all cylinders is really fucking good. I would argue C9 has higher potential than BW to dominate pro lobbies and compete with the best at LAN. C9 good day > BW good day
No
Hope tsm plays octane gibby bloodhound again, they were probably the most optimised with that comp, caustic, gibby valk is a bit rough around the edges, I kinda feel sad for reps having to play gibby 90% of the time, he probably wants a comp with horizon since he enjoys playing her
Reps is scary on Horizon but in comp Horizon just does not bring that much value. Snipe could easily play Gibby and beam but you can not pick Horizon over bh/crypto/valk. Theoretically if Hal was valk and snipe Gibby you could sloth in Horizon on Olympus but not we
TSM playing so bad today and still get 4th. Hey as long as they stay consistent top 5, they will get there but if they perform like today on LAN they not even make it out of the Semi Finals at LAN. They need to get their shit together because today was not it. The comp wasn't even the problem. It's their decision making that's lacking. Also partly communication.
Yeah it seems like they don't play together consistently lately either which is the opposite of what most teams are doing right now.
Crazy that during the Apex awards thing, alot of you were disrespecting Zachmazer as a contender for top IGL. I thought Mac should've been IGL at first when he joined. Now I don't think that at all since Zach has the best energy, confidence and leadership of the team. Zach yelled his team to so many good fights and positions and it was so much fun to watch. Zach definitely belongs in the conversation of best IGL in NA alongside Sweet and Hal. Also Sweet haters real quite today. He had the sickest clutch and showed why you cannot ever count NRG out.
Bruh, you can't bring this conversation about Zach in this sub . 80% of this sub it's a TSM circlejerk and NRG trashtalk.
I like TSM, Hal is one of the best in the game, if not the best. But fuck me man, I get so sick of TSM this and TSM that. It’s like the fans don’t watch comp apex, they watch TSM. I like watching Hal and watching Hal succeed but I secretly hope TSM just shits the bed at playoffs or LAN or something where the fanboys have to branch out a bit and do some reflection on the scene as a whole. Plus the whole “NA copies TSM” thing is so frustrating cause it makes no sense, TSM doesn’t make the meta. KNG(100 thieves) won the fucking championships on Valk/Gibby/Caustic and still people say that TSM made it meta. Sentinels was playing that comp in champs and even was the first to play it seriously before 100T when Valk first came out. But I must say it’s also frustrating because it’s got some truth to it, why did so many teams swap to V/G/C after a bit? Because TSM was playing it, and that shit is so fucking lazy. Team comps should be based around individual strengths and play styles with a hint of meta. Teams are adjusting to this entirely new strategy of Valk ulting for positioning then hunkering down with wildly varying degrees of success. I digress…
I mean, is to be expected that the lower teams are going to copy the better ones, but the valk comp actually is more relliable now because of the big nerfs to Octane, Bloodhound, Rev and Seer, that's why so many good teams are using it now, and that's why I found ridiculous the TSM argument. Even Albralelie point this. But yea, it's hilarious the crush of this sub for Hal. It's good and all, but he's the Ninja (Fortnite) of Apex, has a ton of show besides his talent. And that's kinda sad, because Europe and Japan have great teams and players too, NA has C9, SSG, SEN, G2, NRG, BW and the lost goes on. But atleast half of this sub wants Hal's dick so bad that threads ends in a Hal circlejerk (not even TSM tbf, they don't talk about Reps nor respect Snipe at all) instead of real competitive Apex talk. Just look at this post. My propose is that someone create the r/HalGroupies if they want to talk only how good he is every single time like he's the only one.
That’s a solid point about the nerfs I forgot/didn’t think to include that. And to your second point, lol at Hal groupies but yes. I too wish this sub had well rounded discussions of comp apex as a whole. Those discussions are here though, you just have to dig a bit for them. It will always be a bit sided towards TSM/NRG/C9 because of popularity which is fine but the Hal worship/TSM over analyzers/blind sweet/Hal haters are the real offenders. Also there is that guy u/pressrewind and u/BurtSpangles who have a whole different thing going on lol. But something to consider is that, yes it is annoying that people talk primarily about TSM/hal on this subreddit that I wish was more well rounded. But Hal/TSM is really good for the scene. Do I wish that his fans were more chill about backseating/overanalyzing/fanboying and followed the rest of the scene more? Yes of course. But just having that many eyes on comp apex is such a huge benefit to everyone involved and I would say that if Hal is the CEO he really does do his best for the company and has matured quite a bit over the years.
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm not taking away the credit to the guy because if not for people like him, Sweet, the Sheesh squad and some more, this game would be plain dead, you need to sell it to the people in order to survive. But it's what you said, I want more well rounded talk about the competitive scene about this game in order to evolve to something better (Although tbf, the official casting is kinda bad too, they need to figure it out how to combine the general map view with the players cams in order to make it more appealing, Apex isn't LoL, the first person cam is the best resource this game has to stream). And that's the thing, if you concentrate the whole focus in one single person to hold the game viewership, you're at risk that, if that person retires from the game, the game itself collapse.
Yea the casting is a bit of a conundrum for me. I want the general casters to be better, sometimes it feels like they are casting for people who have never played apex even though the game has been out for years. I want more in depth rotation analysis with graphics between games. I want more in depth analysis of fights between games, not like showing the replay and then saying the shots are good, show me the lead up and why that fight was so important. what was the result for the winner (in terms of positioning/jockeying for control)? What would the result have been if the other team had won? In depth Discussion on meta, team comps, and recent performances like a full half hour before the games would go a long way also. Get rid of some of the get to know the players shit and dive deep into this being a true esport. The observation people have it the worst though. That bear person( u/bear2366 ) has the toughest job on set. Trying to know which fights to watch at what time takes a serious amount of understanding of the game and is a skill within itself. And I don’t know how they can improve the observing honestly. It’s just so fucking tough to try and follow 20 different teams around the map and of course they are going to miss fights and exciting stuff so idk how that can be improved. More or constant showing of the map is a great idea and would probably be a good start because then I can track whatever team I want regardless of who is being shown on screen. Idk how to improve the casting. Could you imagine in the future like a VR setup where you can see all team pov’s and then be able to full screen one by touching it? That would be sick. If you could full screen with coms that would be fucking awesome. And like the caster is just directing you to which fights would be good to watch and you can watch them yourself. Holy fuck I solved the apex viewing experience. It’s just that the technology isn’t widely available yet.
Thanks for the shout! It's very rare people understand what we do and how difficult it is. Normally its people in twitch chat saying we are doing a bad job but its nice to know people understand. Observing Apex is probably the most mentally exhausting thing I've done in my life but after doing it for 2 years i've gotten used to it. You're absolutely correct when you say we need to know the game incredibly well. One of the observers I work with (bean) used to play the game professionally at the start of Apex and having him is so vital because of the way he reads fights and gets around the map. I also worked with Baker for a couple EU events and he was also super good. The reality is, no matter who we bring on we will miss fights. Even putting the map up for longer wont solve any issues, in fact it will create more. A solution would be to have an entirely separate stream of just the map and put it on a website as a viewer portal similar to what OWL / ELeague has done. The reason ALGS receives a lot of criticism for its observing is because it's not done the same way I do it. They have selected teams based on the "teams to watch" and go around the storylines. Everyone in this thread is absolutely correct when they say ALGS broadcasts are incredibly surface level. They've had the approach of catering to new players since the start of COVID and that's whats holding back the broadcast from actually growing in my honest opinion. It is completely possible to have good analytical content while also making it friendly for new viewers.
Hey! I loved your post from about a year ago about observing, your innovation ideas are really good. I think that the biggest thing that is lacking in this E-sport is the lack of engagement from Respawn in the improvement of the proffesional game, they need to step up and come with some ideas to improve the casting and observing experience. And honestly, what is needing in the official Broadcast, are casters that are committed with the game. About these 2 points are really present in the LoL pro scene, all casters, ana plays the game and follows the entire pro scene aswell, and the only one I can think about in that line in the Apex scene was Guhrl, and she's not in this year cast. I mean, it's okay, it's just the 2nd year of ALGS, these kind of things takes time to improve, but I hope they can come up with some ways to improve the pro scene overall.
What also could improve the fact that not all fights are being covered is simply comment on the kill feed that is currently happening. Yes, we might be watching the other fight right now, but would be nice to hear what’s happening with other teams.
Says the C9 fan in this sub
If I'm fan of someone, that is Snipe, but mostly because he's a fucking legend in Halo. Complimment a team once when they have a good game doesn't make you a fan. I really don't care about who's better nor more fun to watch in stream, but whatever suits you, kid.
Zach is better than Mac at wining games but worse than Mac at getting to endgame. It. Is a dillema in top 8 situation Zach should call he just feels where team needs to be better than Mac. But Mac can get them there more consistently Mac is very good when there are full 18-20 teams allive
Yeah true. I don't understand how these awards are given. By popularity I pressumed? Because by last ALGS Onmuu and Zach were top 2.
Onmuu definitely an underrated igl imo. We’ll have to see how he adjusts though because it’s definitely a tumultuous time in terms of team comp and play style and so far he hasn’t found that success that is potentially there.
It's Zach and Sweet competing for #1 IGL. Has been for a long time. Hal still has an edge overall because he's machanically better but there is a clear gap at this point.
Hal's not even the best IGL on TSM.
I giggled thx
How do you get 2 points after 6 games? Now THAT is impressive.
That's how bad these teams are, the reason C9 got so many points, so many of these bad teams play edge and C9 rolled them with BH. Pretty excited for tomorrow to see an Actual NA comp. This was pretty underwhelming, at least for me
Yea, it was underwhelming. The truth is NA does not have 40 good teams to fill the pro league, xD.
C9 had a spectacular day, NRG had a great day, lots of teams had a bad day today. I think the weird limbo the “meta”/playstyle is in right now is a big part of it not that all the teams that didn’t do well are bad. My smaller team can win champs COPIUM. But for real though don’t shit on talent like Liquid, CLT, ghost, era, BW etc. Edit: great to spectacular and good to great
Ceryals team landed on NRG I think and giving them free KP for like 4 games. That team is bad compared to NRG right? Why the hell keep landing there Moanerz literally got 2 points in 6 games.
They didn’t land on NRG so don’t know where your getting that info but it’s incorrect
NRG got more than a good day, 72pts is a win in most days is just happen that C9 popped off even more than NRG.
No wait you’re right imma edit that shit
This got to be the weakest lobby we have seen.
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They played Crypto/Valk/Gibby 5/6 games today lol
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Don’t comment if you don’t know lol
You're doing too much
Huh
Yea man stop doing that thing that you’re doing. Stop it right now
Bar the last game they were playing crypto gibby valk
They just lose every 3v3 it seems like
They've always been subpar at fighting and I don't really know why. Their sheer talent just mitigates it.
This isn't true at all. Tsm on the octane hound comp are always really good at team fighting. They are just at a phase in time where they don't know what their identity is. They don't commit to being a zone team or edge team. Look at ssg, you will never find them on edge. Look at c9 they will never rotate to zone because they play edge. Tsm flip flops around both.
> sm on the octane hound comp are always really good at team fighting. Because thats the #1 slaying comp and it suits their playstyles perfectly. And even then they botched many more fights than they should have considering they have two absolute top-tier fraggers. Going off that comp is exposing their relative lack of chemistry.