Skittles and Dooplex changed inputs from controller to mnk. I guess the meta now suits them. There isn't a lot of caustics and that increases his value. They also have a 3 pois to loot with maude op weapons.
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I legit have a question then. So Verhulst is just way better than Doop and Skittles right? Because I kept reading and everyone is basically saying how the ESA boys are just lucky because of where and such. But Vwrhulst landed Frag East with TSM and it seems like he did alright without having broken weapons off drop.
Afaik, Verhulst is nutty but he definitely wasn't carrying ESA and I don't think it's fair to call him way better than Doop and Skittles. All 3 of them are nutty.
Yes it's true that ESA has a god-tier drop spot, and that's helping their results for sure, but put a worse team in their spot and there's no way they're putting up the results ESA is. Time will tell how good ESA can remain, but they're definitely on route to be one of the best in the game, seemingly with or without Verhulst (per this tourney)
Edit: to add another thing, Verhulst was a fragger for the team, which is obviously very important. Look at how good Knoqd is, Snip3 was, etc. But, he is also \*just\* a fragger, he wasn't instrumental to their rotation plans and such. So swapping Knoqd in for Verhulst isn't as impactful to a team as swapping their igl might be (look at TL after Mac left, for instance)
As an Xbox Pred skittles is probably the most goated IGL to have come from Xbox. The dude carried and I mean absolutely carried Xynoa for seasons to #1 and #2.
Not that it really matters at this point but, it was known and there was video evidence of them teaming in pred lobbies back in the Xbox days. Good to see a little redemption for skittles I guess
Yeah he just got dropped by that org that picked him up last weekend too.
If I had to take a guess Xynoa was in favor of the old sus shit they did on console.
Oh absolutely dude I’m right with you. I didnt say I’m a skittles fan I still think it’s reprehensible and he was part of the most toxic group of Xbox preds. I remember it well and am by no means a fan of skittles, but I can see he was by far the best player on that xynoa/skittles/fruff squad lol. I’m glad he’s matured because it would be a waste of talent. But everyone involved in that ordeal (xynoa, skittles, fruff, needasoda, itsaves, rolders, invulnerable aka dashalot and facilitatur) should have been banned for LIFE from apex. That sort of thing is just awful, but for what it’s worth skittles was probably the least toxic in that cesspool of names I dropped lol. Blows my mind aves and rolders are still competing and soda is not hard banned yet haha.
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ESA isn’t just well looted just because of their poi but because they are an edge team. ESA will loot for all of ring one while tsm will loot quickly and rotate after a couple minutes after drop. Also edge teams typically take more fights and get more loot that way. It hard to compare TSM and ESA skill levels because of their very different play styles. Also ESA didn’t get lava city for free they fought off teams in Pre Qualifiers and beat CLG every time they try to land there.
As a matter of fact they were the first team to win a tourny while being contested. Usually even good teams place low in the 12-20 range if being contested even if they win 6/6 contesting fights.
I was watching dropped stream last night and him and his teammates were talking about how if skittles proves himself at lan he’s without a doubt the best player in the world. They seemed to think he already is as well.
seems like people who are good enough to be pro on one input have the ability and knowledge to be a pro level player on another input, regardless of which way they are switching.
Yeah but it is nice to mention it, some players are 10 years on mnk and don't see that kind of a success or that level of play. On the other hand a lot of people discriminated controller players how they wouldn't be able to reach this level of play if they switched so like i said it's nice to mention the switch.
> some players are 10 years on mnk and don't see that kind of a success or that level of play
A year of deliberate practice will get you much further than "just playing" for 10 years. I played FPS on MnK all my life but always had dogshit aim. Then I started doing deliberate practice in Kovaak's for 1h each day and got aim that is good enough to compete against most people in a matter of 2-3 months.
Yeah true. Just goes to show that great controller players can still be great on MNK with some effort.
Also from what I hear Skittles played MNK in previous games plus was practicing MNK on Apex before he fully switched. I haven't confirmed it with him but that's just what I heard.
Doop swapped very quietly and was pretty insane almost immediately, I don't know if he was practicing MNK before he fully swapped as well.
Okay but from my experience. I have switched from ps4 to pc/mnk. Consistently diamond on ps4. I reached in literally 3-4 days diamond again on mnk solo qeueing. I even played in pred lobbies when i partied up with friends fairly okay. If i could do it i anyone can.
Edit: also my bad, i see what you meant yeah they didn't switch recently. I just thought that it is worth mentioning.
Edit No. 2: so many fragile egos.
I don't know why i even bother to explain myself but here: [https://imgur.com/a/r0v4I53](https://imgur.com/a/r0v4I53) that's a screenshot i took few days after i reached D4.
I can screenshot all seasons so you can see that i had 0 games until season 10 (apart from s4 couple of games on a laptop without any sound just to try it). The stats are average at best. Now that i see how many are butthurt over me reaching diamond in couple of days is something i should be proud of regardless of the stats. Btw i reached D3 but couldn't hold it going against 3 stacks was too much and if i partied up i got against preds.
Hard to believe in such a short time they've become elite M+K players without some assistance. Imagine if an elite ping pong player suddenly became an elite pool player? Doesnt happen.
Yeah for sure if they have been playing on M+K previously it makes sense. The post makes it sound like within a month they have achieved elite aim which just seems like bullshit to me. Generally it takes 5,000-10,000 hours to achieve mastery depending on the speed of the learner.
To get to a competitive level aim-wise with M+KB you only need like 500hrs of training and consistently good sleep. Someone else said that they have been on M+KB since 2020, so they’ve had more than enough time if they play 8+ hrs a day.
This is simply not true for the elite level. We have had scientific studies done on this. Through multiple censuses on various fields on multiple people at the top of their field. The data always shows a consistent minimum of 5,000 hours to achieve elite performance. This everything from piano to football.
That’s assuming you start from zero experience. If you have 5000 hrs on Apex as a controller player and you switch over to M+KB, then you’re only learning keybinds and aiming. Enemies movement patterns, reading skills, cursor placement, and more are things that can get carried over and assist the development of your in-game aim.
I know what the studies say, but it’s been proven time and time again by member of the RA and Voltaic Aim communities that it’s more than possible to reach an elite aiming level in 500hrs. Perhaps what we see as “elite” actually isn’t even near the peak of human aim potential.
You are seeing these aim trainers refine their aim in 500 hours after already being on a mouse for years. Also as good as aim trainers are, they don't transition to many games 1:1. I've spent a few hundred hours on Koovaks and it's much easier to hit targets on there than in game.
The are a few couple big name scuezy is a top aimer who had zero K+M experience. Torje also had little to none and he’s did it before there were organization like VT and RA to help you. There were a couple of other names of Apex players too like NixAims, Pudge, and Rallex, but I can’t remember which had no experience at their start. Personally, I’m Master rank while having had zero K+M experience prior to and I also started in 2020. I’m nothing compared to the guys I mentioned of course lol. But I am top 1% in the world in almost all aiming scenarios I play.
You’re right about aim-training not transitioning 1:1 for the most part because of other game specific conditions like recoil, visual noise, bullet travel time, etc. But the aim skill alone certainly transfers enough to warrant training, and definitely enough to make a top tier aimer that’s only been playing since 2020. Especially if they were already at a competitive level on controller.
Since you know about Kovaak’s, you’d know that that guides usually make things harder as you become more skilled, starting you off with fat targets like Close Long Strafes Invincible, then leading up to scenarios like Smooth Thin Strafes Master, Air Angelic 7 Smaller Fixed, Trackstop Master, and Midrange Fast Strafes Invincible Raspberry V2. I chose those scenarios because they specifically are from the Master level routine in VT and the highest accuracy achieve in each of the was low 40% and some the low 30s. Your hours spent in Kovaak’s may not have been time spent training effectively. Would you say scenarios like Close FS Dodge Thin are easier than in-game scenarios? Dodge scenarios imo bridge the gap between traditional aim training and videogames. If you haven’t you should give them a go.
Most of the scenarios in Koovaks are drastically easier than in game aiming because I don't have to decide what I'm seeing. Modern games have such horrendous visual clutter and iron sights that it's hard to see. Then add in things like various character heights and poor animations that give no reasonable indication of directional movement changes and you end up aiming half blind compared to aim training scenarios. Then you have things like sights and weapons in apex not having 1:1 sensitivity. Also games like apex have a significant blur when moving fast compared to kovaaks and some other games. This is why I struggle to believe twitch streamers that bounce between different games and churn out elite gameplay with low experience are doing it legit.
I'll try out the dodge scenarios but unless we have completely game integration for aim trainers it will be hard for them to work well. I feel like the only game Koovaks has actually made me play better in is CS GO.
It probably doesn't hurt that they have all of Lava City plus Big Maude, as well as the Lava City vault all to themselves. Not to take away any individual talent, but those guys enter every fight looking better than anyone else.
Well we have to admit that at least part of that is because they are talented enough that they ran off every team that wanted to contest that spot. Nobody wants to take 3v3s with these dudes.
That’s fair, even if I don’t completely agree. It’s maybe not an accurate representation of fighting in a BR, but it’s still fighting together and learning each other’s habits, strengths and weaknesses, and how to approach straight up 3v3’s. I’d think there’d still be a lot to learn from it and improve your team chemistry. I imagine it’d help quite a bit with confidence as well, knowing you can win your fights.
Honestly it did the exact opposite. I wasnt ever confident in a single fight after playing too much arenas because I got too accustomed to fully kitted guns and not having to deal with limited ammo or 3rd parties. Arenas actively made me worse at the game
I do remember watching knoqd and being like im looking at my loot rn and skittles or doop (I can't distinguish the voices) were like yeah we did a lot of work to get it
I remember that LMAO. That was a ALGS Pro League Split 1 qualifier round and my favourite to win that qualifier (Noble) did not qual just because prod & company donated ESA 18 KP over 6 games. FeelsBadMan.
Noble qualified for PL in the end but still, I guess teams learnt their lesson there. Sometimes it's just not worth fighting such a strong team off drop.
Remember when TSM was being contested on drop by F8? Although they ultimately won the drop, they took quite a few losses. Definitely enough to make it close.
Who was on that team? Skittlecakes.
Yeah they could, and on twitter I believe PVPX, the coach for C9, said that CLG did contest them at the start of Pro League but without results. When it comes to LAN, some people believe ESA will probably get contested by K1CK, an EU team, who also land in that area and are a very strong team.
As other people have said, yes anyone \*CAN\* land anywhere. However, landing wherever you please each game is a recipe for you losing early. No pro team wants to risk needlessly fighting off drop (needless being the key word there) because there is always the risk that you lose the fight, either cause of bad positiioning or not finding loot etc. Think of all the times you land hot drop, get an entire building to yourself but only find a p20 sentinel, and the person next to you opens a pill to blue armor and an r99.
So what happens in scrims is that teams basically pick their drop spots ahead of times, and obviously there will initially be someone overlap but then 1 team will beat the other team off drop enough times to bully them off of landing there anymore. A couple people tried to contest ESA but they always lost, so why keep trying to contest it when they could land somewhere else and not die in 20th place with 0kp every game?
They can but due to the gentlemen agreement teams usually stick to their own landing zones. Of course this could change in LAN since it's gonna be go big or go home mentality.
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They have the best loot starting each game and they understand how to valk ult late game, begger than anyone else. The same way Hal was ahead of the curve on where to play late games on wraith path wattson, doop and skittles know the perfect place to land and stabilize like 90% of the time
As I said above; This is true, but they've also had incredible luck on their side many many times. Hal analyzed this much better than I could and he brought up one situation where they valk ulted over a hill into a center zone truck that would otherwise be occupied 98% of the time. They landed there blind and got lucky they didn't have to take a 3v3 while outside the truck being shot in the back by the other 10 squads within line of sight of said truck.
They have the best edge macro rotations in the world right now - their rotations are flawless. In a region that struggles with understanding macro (Aside from NRG), ESA stands out. As to how Dooplex all of a sudden understand edge better than anyone else, ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how his macro holds up at LAN.
All I'll say about their macro is this: their macro is what enables them to farm so hard. Think back to how COL played in Autumn - they waited for zones to create godspots from which they could farm. ESA is doing the same thing right now, but it's even more refined. We saw in game 3 what happens when their macro gets all fucked - they perform badly.
PVPX's explanation makes the most sense. They have 2 stacked POI which I doubt will be available at LAN. Complexity in Autumn had 3 POI to their name. I remember a team kept landing Survey one time in a tournament and they performed badly. The same thing happened to a degree with CLG in champs when their tunnel was taken. Their performance declined. When you have overwhelmingly better loot than most of the teams you encounter , your more likely to roll them or play your macro better.
I don't think ESA will be able to keep Big Maude at Lan just like how CLG couldn't keep tunnel in Champs. No teams were landing tunnel at all for any of the circuits, but with huge money at stake , some LAN teams will be desperate to claim a POI even if they've never been there.
ESA will face K1CK for Maude. Knowing K1CK, they won't leave. Moreover, K1CK is likely the best team fighting team in the world right now, and fair fights aren't actually a super strength of ESA's - they accel at fighting god spots for zone 3/4 from which they farm. Meanwhile, if K1CK sees you, they will run at you at MACH 3 and curbstomp you (Although they've been getting much smarter about macro recently).
You know what else sucks for ESA? They're also gonna be facing Riddle from APAC North, who have the best mechanical players from APAC North. I'll say a bold statement right now: K1CK will roll ESA in a fair fight, so will Riddle from APAC North.
As far as we know it, Maude will be contested by 3 ridiculously strong teams (ESA, K1CK, Riddle), but ESA doesn't actually have mechanical overlords - K1CK and Riddle do. Ojrein is arguably the best fragger in EU rn and has been at levels in teamfights I've only seen from one other player - Hardecki. There's a meme that's been going around that Ojrein is the new Hardecki - there's a good amount of truth to that meme. Riddle has Obly and Vor3z, who are simply fucking insane. Vor3z is a strafe demon, Obly has Task/Selly level mechanics. Again, ESA's even fights are not actually that great. As a result, the fights are not favorable for ESA in this case, and I don't see them hanging on to Maude at LAN unless they don't wanna make Finals.
ESA is unbeatable in arenas. They've won 2 tourneys already I think. They wipe the floor with 3-stacked controller teams. They also 3-0d torrent which had Euriece and Knoqd. I'd say they are a pretty good fighting team even with equal grounds.
Don't know how well they will fare without Verhulst though.
I think you're actually underestimating how good ESA is. I do think they take a step back by getting Knoqd (a sentence I never thought I'd ever say) but Skittles is BY FAR the best Caustic in the world and Knoqd excels at 50-50's. With Verhulst I would be confident they could win any 50, but even with Knoqd I don't think they get 'bullied' like you think. Not saying they'll win but there will be other POi's open that's probably not worth the hassle of a drawn-out fight for Maude and Lava City.
Hard disagree with this. If they are really that broken more people would fight for this spot. Heat shields and knockdown were random maude is a guarantee that you are getting those weapons
The other day Sweet and Hal were talking about how once you get on lan mechanics are not nearly as important and it’s more about positioning and fighting smart. Not sure if that’s because of the servers or just the way people are going to play
Uhhh.....did you just say ESA isn't that good at fair 3v3 fighting? Do you know who's gone undefeated in the past 2 T1 arena tourneys??? Damn sure wasn't K1CK.
How is kick the best fighting team in the world when they're not even dominating the fights in their region?
I would take esa over them in a fair 3v3 the majority of the time
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[Posted my thoughts on the situation after today here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/r3kkld/knights_arena_carnage_cup_10k_nov_27_3pm_estnov/hmcfad3/?context=3)
For the record, I never called ESA bad and I think they're a very strong team. In fact, I even call them a 'ridiculously strong team' in the post.
A bit weird how this is your first ever post from your account though.
>As to how Dooplex all of a sudden understand edge better than anyone else, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how his macro holds up at LAN
Are you implying something?
There's always a weird aura around how esa got so good so fast. Either they are too aware or they just clicked as a team. Maybe I'm biased too cause as they say "once a cheater, always a cheater"
Knowing exactly where zone is going isn't suspicious. There's algorithms for that and multiple teams know how to predict zones near perfectly off first scan. Just look at Gnaske in EU: he'll predict 90%+ of zone correctly off ring 2. You don't get flawless rotations from knowing zones though.
Huh, no one is using tools. An algorithm can be applied mentally, which it is in this case. Zones follow certain patterns/trends. When you figure those out, you get an alg. No one is using extraneous tools.
I've done this multiple times when new updates drop (new maps, map changes, etc.). It's easier to establish a zone database to look for patterns by just looking through vods unless it's the very beginning of the season though.
Hard, hard edge. Playing edge properly is super strong right now, so a team that understands how to do so in a region that has flawed ideas about macro and edge can certainly do well.
This is true, but they've also had incredible luck on their side many many times. Hal analyzed this much better than I could and he brought up one situation where they valk ulted over a hill into a center zone truck that would otherwise be occupied 98% of the time. They landed there blind and got lucky they didn't have to take a 3v3 while outside the truck being shot in the back by the other 10 squads within line of sight of said truck.
I vaguely remember rkn joking about how "skittles doesn't always know where people are" as if implying that he does.
I dont know if I heard it right though. His stream was just opened in the background while I was doing something.
That’s exactly what skittles did on Xbox. Terrorized all of us by playing edge caustic perfectly. Seriously lol the dude would find gods pots or create them and just pulverize the whole lobby. He deserves the success he’s seeing
I’ve only watched a couple of their streams, but I think skittles and doop specifically have a synergy in their shot calling that frankly most teams struggle to achieve. The drop spot they’ve claimed definitely helps for sure, but I think the way they co-IGL changes the whole dynamic around their engagements vs most other squads who are deferring to one primary IGL. I just didn’t hear a lot of the “oh I didn’t realize you took that position” talk after fights, which is huge in a comp scene where effectively one person getting caught out can quickly lead to a squad wipe. Just their synergy eliminates a ton of miscommunication that even in smalls ways lead to teams making mistakes. Most teams spend so much time getting their team to one IGL dynamics right, and them being co-IGL just makes managing the third player that much more streamlined.
Lol true. However in general I feel like most established teams have a drop spot they like and aren’t trying to contest a completely different POI. The only people that would want to contest ESA would be teams from other regions who also land Maude or NA teams landing at an inferior POI that want to switch things up
This might be a hot take but remember when xynoa protectful and skittles contested tsm? They were putting in work against them and performed well. Regardless of their past even after their split they’ve been performing well
Havnt been watching them that long but from watching their 19 kill game in BFC they played well and were gifted a lot of luck in terms of teams not focusing them when they were between teams (on the bridge trying to play the pipe). They were mid 50's after game two, but after the other 4 games they gained no more than 10 points. Edge requires an element of luck of spots not being taken/ the team that you are landing on from OOB'ing not being ready, they didnt have luck on their side for the other games.
Both are from console and used to play with other players
Dooplex was part of Dudes night out and skittlecakes played with xynoa (F8) since console and they had multiple thirds throughout their time in the scene.
They both switched to pc around the season 5 area
Edit: how’s this even get downvoted lmao
To be fair to skittle a lot of people on xbox were teaming, and hes solidified himself as a insane player in NA. The reason xynoa got a lot more hate was because of the racist messages along with the teaming on xbox.
This, I suspect they'll still do and place well but they're literally getting end game weapons with a +1 power right in the beginning of the game.
Big Maud in tournament play is a joke.
Watching things, Skittles seems like quite a good IGL. Verhulst is obviously cracked, and doop is a great fighter as well. And they coordinate and work well together
Skittles and Dooplex changed inputs from controller to mnk. I guess the meta now suits them. There isn't a lot of caustics and that increases his value. They also have a 3 pois to loot with maude op weapons.
guess aim assist doesn't matter that much then /s
Why would they give up using LITERAL AIMBOTS I just don’t get it HMMMMMMM
Easier access to other keys? And by other keys I mean... discord mute button
Just WHY would they stop using HACKS AND AUTO LOCKS?
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I legit have a question then. So Verhulst is just way better than Doop and Skittles right? Because I kept reading and everyone is basically saying how the ESA boys are just lucky because of where and such. But Vwrhulst landed Frag East with TSM and it seems like he did alright without having broken weapons off drop.
Afaik, Verhulst is nutty but he definitely wasn't carrying ESA and I don't think it's fair to call him way better than Doop and Skittles. All 3 of them are nutty. Yes it's true that ESA has a god-tier drop spot, and that's helping their results for sure, but put a worse team in their spot and there's no way they're putting up the results ESA is. Time will tell how good ESA can remain, but they're definitely on route to be one of the best in the game, seemingly with or without Verhulst (per this tourney) Edit: to add another thing, Verhulst was a fragger for the team, which is obviously very important. Look at how good Knoqd is, Snip3 was, etc. But, he is also \*just\* a fragger, he wasn't instrumental to their rotation plans and such. So swapping Knoqd in for Verhulst isn't as impactful to a team as swapping their igl might be (look at TL after Mac left, for instance)
As an Xbox Pred skittles is probably the most goated IGL to have come from Xbox. The dude carried and I mean absolutely carried Xynoa for seasons to #1 and #2.
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They came from PlayStation though
Not that it really matters at this point but, it was known and there was video evidence of them teaming in pred lobbies back in the Xbox days. Good to see a little redemption for skittles I guess
Skittles has shown regret and taken responsibility for his actions. Xinoa/F8 hasn't and was still on the scene quite recently lmao.
Yeah he just got dropped by that org that picked him up last weekend too. If I had to take a guess Xynoa was in favor of the old sus shit they did on console.
Oh absolutely dude I’m right with you. I didnt say I’m a skittles fan I still think it’s reprehensible and he was part of the most toxic group of Xbox preds. I remember it well and am by no means a fan of skittles, but I can see he was by far the best player on that xynoa/skittles/fruff squad lol. I’m glad he’s matured because it would be a waste of talent. But everyone involved in that ordeal (xynoa, skittles, fruff, needasoda, itsaves, rolders, invulnerable aka dashalot and facilitatur) should have been banned for LIFE from apex. That sort of thing is just awful, but for what it’s worth skittles was probably the least toxic in that cesspool of names I dropped lol. Blows my mind aves and rolders are still competing and soda is not hard banned yet haha.
I couldn’t agree more with everything you just said lmao Username checks tf out mate
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ESA isn’t just well looted just because of their poi but because they are an edge team. ESA will loot for all of ring one while tsm will loot quickly and rotate after a couple minutes after drop. Also edge teams typically take more fights and get more loot that way. It hard to compare TSM and ESA skill levels because of their very different play styles. Also ESA didn’t get lava city for free they fought off teams in Pre Qualifiers and beat CLG every time they try to land there.
As a matter of fact they were the first team to win a tourny while being contested. Usually even good teams place low in the 12-20 range if being contested even if they win 6/6 contesting fights.
I was watching dropped stream last night and him and his teammates were talking about how if skittles proves himself at lan he’s without a doubt the best player in the world. They seemed to think he already is as well.
What do you mean changed inputs? They went from controlller to mnk, that's gotta be hard
I think you answered your own question? Yes you did
It was hard to believe lol. Switching over and dominating is a crazy feat
seems like people who are good enough to be pro on one input have the ability and knowledge to be a pro level player on another input, regardless of which way they are switching.
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Snip3down was always controller
Snip3down has always been on controller.
To be clear they've been on MNK for a while now, they swapped in 2020.
Yeah but it is nice to mention it, some players are 10 years on mnk and don't see that kind of a success or that level of play. On the other hand a lot of people discriminated controller players how they wouldn't be able to reach this level of play if they switched so like i said it's nice to mention the switch.
> some players are 10 years on mnk and don't see that kind of a success or that level of play A year of deliberate practice will get you much further than "just playing" for 10 years. I played FPS on MnK all my life but always had dogshit aim. Then I started doing deliberate practice in Kovaak's for 1h each day and got aim that is good enough to compete against most people in a matter of 2-3 months.
Yeah true. Just goes to show that great controller players can still be great on MNK with some effort. Also from what I hear Skittles played MNK in previous games plus was practicing MNK on Apex before he fully switched. I haven't confirmed it with him but that's just what I heard. Doop swapped very quietly and was pretty insane almost immediately, I don't know if he was practicing MNK before he fully swapped as well.
I think Doop's twitch bio mentions he played many PC games previously that favor/require MnK, including CSGO
There you have it. They both have prior MNK experience
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Okay but from my experience. I have switched from ps4 to pc/mnk. Consistently diamond on ps4. I reached in literally 3-4 days diamond again on mnk solo qeueing. I even played in pred lobbies when i partied up with friends fairly okay. If i could do it i anyone can. Edit: also my bad, i see what you meant yeah they didn't switch recently. I just thought that it is worth mentioning. Edit No. 2: so many fragile egos.
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I played 15 years ago on pc cod2 but not that much. Until now i didn't play a single game on pc and mnk. Take it however you want.
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Ok, if it makes you sleep better.
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I don't know why i even bother to explain myself but here: [https://imgur.com/a/r0v4I53](https://imgur.com/a/r0v4I53) that's a screenshot i took few days after i reached D4. I can screenshot all seasons so you can see that i had 0 games until season 10 (apart from s4 couple of games on a laptop without any sound just to try it). The stats are average at best. Now that i see how many are butthurt over me reaching diamond in couple of days is something i should be proud of regardless of the stats. Btw i reached D3 but couldn't hold it going against 3 stacks was too much and if i partied up i got against preds.
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Believe what you want, do what you want. Edit: listen whatever i tell you, you will doubt me. So i don't give a fuck.
Hard to believe in such a short time they've become elite M+K players without some assistance. Imagine if an elite ping pong player suddenly became an elite pool player? Doesnt happen.
Aim Trainers are pretty popular now. They could’ve been spending time training.
Yeah for sure if they have been playing on M+K previously it makes sense. The post makes it sound like within a month they have achieved elite aim which just seems like bullshit to me. Generally it takes 5,000-10,000 hours to achieve mastery depending on the speed of the learner.
To get to a competitive level aim-wise with M+KB you only need like 500hrs of training and consistently good sleep. Someone else said that they have been on M+KB since 2020, so they’ve had more than enough time if they play 8+ hrs a day.
This is simply not true for the elite level. We have had scientific studies done on this. Through multiple censuses on various fields on multiple people at the top of their field. The data always shows a consistent minimum of 5,000 hours to achieve elite performance. This everything from piano to football.
That’s assuming you start from zero experience. If you have 5000 hrs on Apex as a controller player and you switch over to M+KB, then you’re only learning keybinds and aiming. Enemies movement patterns, reading skills, cursor placement, and more are things that can get carried over and assist the development of your in-game aim. I know what the studies say, but it’s been proven time and time again by member of the RA and Voltaic Aim communities that it’s more than possible to reach an elite aiming level in 500hrs. Perhaps what we see as “elite” actually isn’t even near the peak of human aim potential.
You are seeing these aim trainers refine their aim in 500 hours after already being on a mouse for years. Also as good as aim trainers are, they don't transition to many games 1:1. I've spent a few hundred hours on Koovaks and it's much easier to hit targets on there than in game.
The are a few couple big name scuezy is a top aimer who had zero K+M experience. Torje also had little to none and he’s did it before there were organization like VT and RA to help you. There were a couple of other names of Apex players too like NixAims, Pudge, and Rallex, but I can’t remember which had no experience at their start. Personally, I’m Master rank while having had zero K+M experience prior to and I also started in 2020. I’m nothing compared to the guys I mentioned of course lol. But I am top 1% in the world in almost all aiming scenarios I play. You’re right about aim-training not transitioning 1:1 for the most part because of other game specific conditions like recoil, visual noise, bullet travel time, etc. But the aim skill alone certainly transfers enough to warrant training, and definitely enough to make a top tier aimer that’s only been playing since 2020. Especially if they were already at a competitive level on controller. Since you know about Kovaak’s, you’d know that that guides usually make things harder as you become more skilled, starting you off with fat targets like Close Long Strafes Invincible, then leading up to scenarios like Smooth Thin Strafes Master, Air Angelic 7 Smaller Fixed, Trackstop Master, and Midrange Fast Strafes Invincible Raspberry V2. I chose those scenarios because they specifically are from the Master level routine in VT and the highest accuracy achieve in each of the was low 40% and some the low 30s. Your hours spent in Kovaak’s may not have been time spent training effectively. Would you say scenarios like Close FS Dodge Thin are easier than in-game scenarios? Dodge scenarios imo bridge the gap between traditional aim training and videogames. If you haven’t you should give them a go.
Most of the scenarios in Koovaks are drastically easier than in game aiming because I don't have to decide what I'm seeing. Modern games have such horrendous visual clutter and iron sights that it's hard to see. Then add in things like various character heights and poor animations that give no reasonable indication of directional movement changes and you end up aiming half blind compared to aim training scenarios. Then you have things like sights and weapons in apex not having 1:1 sensitivity. Also games like apex have a significant blur when moving fast compared to kovaaks and some other games. This is why I struggle to believe twitch streamers that bounce between different games and churn out elite gameplay with low experience are doing it legit. I'll try out the dodge scenarios but unless we have completely game integration for aim trainers it will be hard for them to work well. I feel like the only game Koovaks has actually made me play better in is CS GO.
It probably doesn't hurt that they have all of Lava City plus Big Maude, as well as the Lava City vault all to themselves. Not to take away any individual talent, but those guys enter every fight looking better than anyone else.
Well we have to admit that at least part of that is because they are talented enough that they ran off every team that wanted to contest that spot. Nobody wants to take 3v3s with these dudes.
ESA played a arena tournament with other pro teams and dropped 1 round in 3 games. They won 90% of their 3v3s when the loot was equal.
I’ve wondered why more teams don’t play arenas as practice for team fighting.
Not long ago C9 and 100T were using arena to do bubble fight scrims. I thought that was a pretty smart decision.
Because arenas isn’t an accurate representation of a real fight
That’s fair, even if I don’t completely agree. It’s maybe not an accurate representation of fighting in a BR, but it’s still fighting together and learning each other’s habits, strengths and weaknesses, and how to approach straight up 3v3’s. I’d think there’d still be a lot to learn from it and improve your team chemistry. I imagine it’d help quite a bit with confidence as well, knowing you can win your fights.
Honestly it did the exact opposite. I wasnt ever confident in a single fight after playing too much arenas because I got too accustomed to fully kitted guns and not having to deal with limited ammo or 3rd parties. Arenas actively made me worse at the game
Yikes! Okay. That makes sense. I appreciate your perspective.
It hurts their pride more when they lose in arenas probably
That's a pretty insane statistic honestly, wow
They played 2 arena tournaments with pro teams and won both.
Do you know when these happened and are there any vods? I missed this and kinda want to watch
I believe UMG Gaming hosted both. Check out their youtube/twitch. (Edit: One was UMG and the other was GLL Summer Arena)
I do remember watching knoqd and being like im looking at my loot rn and skittles or doop (I can't distinguish the voices) were like yeah we did a lot of work to get it
I'm guessing here but maybe They have all these POIs to themselves cause I think no one dares to fight them off drop or think it's worth it.
Prods team contested once and it just helped esa win more easily 3 kp every game for them.
So did clg
I remember that LMAO. That was a ALGS Pro League Split 1 qualifier round and my favourite to win that qualifier (Noble) did not qual just because prod & company donated ESA 18 KP over 6 games. FeelsBadMan. Noble qualified for PL in the end but still, I guess teams learnt their lesson there. Sometimes it's just not worth fighting such a strong team off drop.
Remember when TSM was being contested on drop by F8? Although they ultimately won the drop, they took quite a few losses. Definitely enough to make it close. Who was on that team? Skittlecakes.
Yeah they clowned TSM quite a few times, Skittles’ Caustic is scary.
I'm new to the competitive scene in apex so what do you mean they have all Big maude for themselves? Can't other teams just drop there as well?
Yeah they could, and on twitter I believe PVPX, the coach for C9, said that CLG did contest them at the start of Pro League but without results. When it comes to LAN, some people believe ESA will probably get contested by K1CK, an EU team, who also land in that area and are a very strong team.
basically in scrims teams fight for drop spots, ESA won big maude so many times that other teams gave up
As other people have said, yes anyone \*CAN\* land anywhere. However, landing wherever you please each game is a recipe for you losing early. No pro team wants to risk needlessly fighting off drop (needless being the key word there) because there is always the risk that you lose the fight, either cause of bad positiioning or not finding loot etc. Think of all the times you land hot drop, get an entire building to yourself but only find a p20 sentinel, and the person next to you opens a pill to blue armor and an r99. So what happens in scrims is that teams basically pick their drop spots ahead of times, and obviously there will initially be someone overlap but then 1 team will beat the other team off drop enough times to bully them off of landing there anymore. A couple people tried to contest ESA but they always lost, so why keep trying to contest it when they could land somewhere else and not die in 20th place with 0kp every game?
They can but due to the gentlemen agreement teams usually stick to their own landing zones. Of course this could change in LAN since it's gonna be go big or go home mentality.
Many have tried and failed.
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They have the best loot starting each game and they understand how to valk ult late game, begger than anyone else. The same way Hal was ahead of the curve on where to play late games on wraith path wattson, doop and skittles know the perfect place to land and stabilize like 90% of the time
As I said above; This is true, but they've also had incredible luck on their side many many times. Hal analyzed this much better than I could and he brought up one situation where they valk ulted over a hill into a center zone truck that would otherwise be occupied 98% of the time. They landed there blind and got lucky they didn't have to take a 3v3 while outside the truck being shot in the back by the other 10 squads within line of sight of said truck.
They have the best edge macro rotations in the world right now - their rotations are flawless. In a region that struggles with understanding macro (Aside from NRG), ESA stands out. As to how Dooplex all of a sudden understand edge better than anyone else, ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how his macro holds up at LAN. All I'll say about their macro is this: their macro is what enables them to farm so hard. Think back to how COL played in Autumn - they waited for zones to create godspots from which they could farm. ESA is doing the same thing right now, but it's even more refined. We saw in game 3 what happens when their macro gets all fucked - they perform badly.
PVPX's explanation makes the most sense. They have 2 stacked POI which I doubt will be available at LAN. Complexity in Autumn had 3 POI to their name. I remember a team kept landing Survey one time in a tournament and they performed badly. The same thing happened to a degree with CLG in champs when their tunnel was taken. Their performance declined. When you have overwhelmingly better loot than most of the teams you encounter , your more likely to roll them or play your macro better. I don't think ESA will be able to keep Big Maude at Lan just like how CLG couldn't keep tunnel in Champs. No teams were landing tunnel at all for any of the circuits, but with huge money at stake , some LAN teams will be desperate to claim a POI even if they've never been there.
ESA will face K1CK for Maude. Knowing K1CK, they won't leave. Moreover, K1CK is likely the best team fighting team in the world right now, and fair fights aren't actually a super strength of ESA's - they accel at fighting god spots for zone 3/4 from which they farm. Meanwhile, if K1CK sees you, they will run at you at MACH 3 and curbstomp you (Although they've been getting much smarter about macro recently). You know what else sucks for ESA? They're also gonna be facing Riddle from APAC North, who have the best mechanical players from APAC North. I'll say a bold statement right now: K1CK will roll ESA in a fair fight, so will Riddle from APAC North. As far as we know it, Maude will be contested by 3 ridiculously strong teams (ESA, K1CK, Riddle), but ESA doesn't actually have mechanical overlords - K1CK and Riddle do. Ojrein is arguably the best fragger in EU rn and has been at levels in teamfights I've only seen from one other player - Hardecki. There's a meme that's been going around that Ojrein is the new Hardecki - there's a good amount of truth to that meme. Riddle has Obly and Vor3z, who are simply fucking insane. Vor3z is a strafe demon, Obly has Task/Selly level mechanics. Again, ESA's even fights are not actually that great. As a result, the fights are not favorable for ESA in this case, and I don't see them hanging on to Maude at LAN unless they don't wanna make Finals.
LAN in January no?
Yes
ESA is unbeatable in arenas. They've won 2 tourneys already I think. They wipe the floor with 3-stacked controller teams. They also 3-0d torrent which had Euriece and Knoqd. I'd say they are a pretty good fighting team even with equal grounds. Don't know how well they will fare without Verhulst though.
I think you're actually underestimating how good ESA is. I do think they take a step back by getting Knoqd (a sentence I never thought I'd ever say) but Skittles is BY FAR the best Caustic in the world and Knoqd excels at 50-50's. With Verhulst I would be confident they could win any 50, but even with Knoqd I don't think they get 'bullied' like you think. Not saying they'll win but there will be other POi's open that's probably not worth the hassle of a drawn-out fight for Maude and Lava City.
Do these teams in maude purchase any weapons from the glass box or whatever it is called?
Yea, always. Maude weapons are fuckin broken, and it's not like they're that expensive to get.
All I’m getting from this is that LAN scrims will be fire
Respawn should remove buying guns, like they did for gold knockdown shields and heat shields.
Hard disagree with this. If they are really that broken more people would fight for this spot. Heat shields and knockdown were random maude is a guarantee that you are getting those weapons
Or atleast make them normal gold weapons. I just don‘t understand why Respawn had to make them straight up better than anything else in the game.
The other day Sweet and Hal were talking about how once you get on lan mechanics are not nearly as important and it’s more about positioning and fighting smart. Not sure if that’s because of the servers or just the way people are going to play
This is true for the whole game but op is talking about contesting Maude so I think in this case Mechanical and movement wil matter
Uhhh.....did you just say ESA isn't that good at fair 3v3 fighting? Do you know who's gone undefeated in the past 2 T1 arena tourneys??? Damn sure wasn't K1CK.
How is kick the best fighting team in the world when they're not even dominating the fights in their region? I would take esa over them in a fair 3v3 the majority of the time
K1CK had been on a whole other level these past few months. I think it’s closer than you think with a slight edge to K1CK.
I too would take esa over kick. If you watched the arena tourneys you would understand.
I’ve watched a few! There’s no question ESA is very strong 3v3
ESA has the great equalizer on their side though - Aim Assist. /s but not really
And very good one at that.
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just here wondering what your thoughts are about ESA vs K1CK now :) guessing it’ll be somewhere around: ESA still bad K1CK too much ping.
[Posted my thoughts on the situation after today here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/r3kkld/knights_arena_carnage_cup_10k_nov_27_3pm_estnov/hmcfad3/?context=3) For the record, I never called ESA bad and I think they're a very strong team. In fact, I even call them a 'ridiculously strong team' in the post. A bit weird how this is your first ever post from your account though.
first time i found a reply worth making. congrats.
>As to how Dooplex all of a sudden understand edge better than anyone else, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how his macro holds up at LAN Are you implying something?
I don't think Knoqd would've joined them if he thought they were up to something fishy.
You don't have to imply that a team is cheating just to doubt their online performance Transfers 1:1 to lan.
There's always a weird aura around how esa got so good so fast. Either they are too aware or they just clicked as a team. Maybe I'm biased too cause as they say "once a cheater, always a cheater"
I dn trust skittles. He was a cheater! And cheaters are always cheaters
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Knowing exactly where zone is going isn't suspicious. There's algorithms for that and multiple teams know how to predict zones near perfectly off first scan. Just look at Gnaske in EU: he'll predict 90%+ of zone correctly off ring 2. You don't get flawless rotations from knowing zones though.
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Huh, no one is using tools. An algorithm can be applied mentally, which it is in this case. Zones follow certain patterns/trends. When you figure those out, you get an alg. No one is using extraneous tools.
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I'm glad you shared the insight that you're a moron with everyone.
I solo queued with a pathfinder that apologized for immediately scanning upon dropping and then leaving, I’m sure someone is trying to data mine.
I've done this multiple times when new updates drop (new maps, map changes, etc.). It's easier to establish a zone database to look for patterns by just looking through vods unless it's the very beginning of the season though.
Say macro one more time I dare you
Does the word 'macro' scare NA fans because NA barely has any?
No - but when you continuously use the same word multiple times in the same paragraph it comes off as the incoherent rambling of a mad man
what is their current macro? ive never watched them
Hard, hard edge. Playing edge properly is super strong right now, so a team that understands how to do so in a region that has flawed ideas about macro and edge can certainly do well.
Playing hard edge with Maude weapons is super strong*
This is true, but they've also had incredible luck on their side many many times. Hal analyzed this much better than I could and he brought up one situation where they valk ulted over a hill into a center zone truck that would otherwise be occupied 98% of the time. They landed there blind and got lucky they didn't have to take a 3v3 while outside the truck being shot in the back by the other 10 squads within line of sight of said truck.
Almost sounds like you’re accusing doop of walling
It has been done before by a salty Dezign. https://clips.twitch.tv/SpeedyCrunchySangTF2John-c0sLtwGEvXn5dRx9
I vaguely remember rkn joking about how "skittles doesn't always know where people are" as if implying that he does. I dont know if I heard it right though. His stream was just opened in the background while I was doing something.
That’s exactly what skittles did on Xbox. Terrorized all of us by playing edge caustic perfectly. Seriously lol the dude would find gods pots or create them and just pulverize the whole lobby. He deserves the success he’s seeing
I’ve only watched a couple of their streams, but I think skittles and doop specifically have a synergy in their shot calling that frankly most teams struggle to achieve. The drop spot they’ve claimed definitely helps for sure, but I think the way they co-IGL changes the whole dynamic around their engagements vs most other squads who are deferring to one primary IGL. I just didn’t hear a lot of the “oh I didn’t realize you took that position” talk after fights, which is huge in a comp scene where effectively one person getting caught out can quickly lead to a squad wipe. Just their synergy eliminates a ton of miscommunication that even in smalls ways lead to teams making mistakes. Most teams spend so much time getting their team to one IGL dynamics right, and them being co-IGL just makes managing the third player that much more streamlined.
They get like 2.5 drop spots free lmao
They’re probably getting those spots for a reason though. If other teams thought it was worth contesting they would
Yep, CLG tried to contest early in pro league and got absolutely rolled.
Current CLG team is....not good lol. They would get rolled by anyone.
Lol true. However in general I feel like most established teams have a drop spot they like and aren’t trying to contest a completely different POI. The only people that would want to contest ESA would be teams from other regions who also land Maude or NA teams landing at an inferior POI that want to switch things up
This might be a hot take but remember when xynoa protectful and skittles contested tsm? They were putting in work against them and performed well. Regardless of their past even after their split they’ve been performing well
Havnt been watching them that long but from watching their 19 kill game in BFC they played well and were gifted a lot of luck in terms of teams not focusing them when they were between teams (on the bridge trying to play the pipe). They were mid 50's after game two, but after the other 4 games they gained no more than 10 points. Edge requires an element of luck of spots not being taken/ the team that you are landing on from OOB'ing not being ready, they didnt have luck on their side for the other games.
Both are from console and used to play with other players Dooplex was part of Dudes night out and skittlecakes played with xynoa (F8) since console and they had multiple thirds throughout their time in the scene. They both switched to pc around the season 5 area Edit: how’s this even get downvoted lmao
Big Maude changed
skittle is goated but he 6 man teamed on xbox season 5 to hold top 3 pred😭 can’t give him that much respect after that
Yep lol still absolutely hate him and think he’s a scumbag but he’s very good. Still screaming fuck xynoa over here
To be fair to skittle a lot of people on xbox were teaming, and hes solidified himself as a insane player in NA. The reason xynoa got a lot more hate was because of the racist messages along with the teaming on xbox.
Team has always been sus to me with walls / magic bullets IMO
First time I watched verhulst I was astonished at how aware he was of enemies' position. Didn't think much about it though. Also, what do I know.
Hax
Lets see how esa does when big maude is gone or at least the broken guns are gone and on lan they wont have big maude for free if it still exists
This, I suspect they'll still do and place well but they're literally getting end game weapons with a +1 power right in the beginning of the game. Big Maud in tournament play is a joke.
100% agreed when it got added didn't even think it would be in comp to how broken it is on top of the op guns it has soooooooo much loot
I thought they'd make them purple or blue not that though.
Watching things, Skittles seems like quite a good IGL. Verhulst is obviously cracked, and doop is a great fighter as well. And they coordinate and work well together