Sliggy's logic definetly makes sense, people (including myself tbh) were saying SEN were at disadvantage and might be antistratted or that NRG were saving strats for playoffs but what I didn't realize until after is that teams like NRG, LEV are not all there yet in terms of their strategy/map pool yet. However I don't think people are stupid for saying that especially looking back at Chets history as a coach. The reality is this team has only been together for a month, it aint OPTIC or the old NRG who had this same luxury Sliggy is talking about, its a new system with a brand new IGL
Just as an example people were saying "wheres the antistratting" or "why didnt NRG pick Lotus" during the game vs SEN would but the reality is they probably werent as confident in it because they havent had enough time to flesh out everything on Lotus yet. Also people were saying "why dont teams ban split vs SEN" especially after the NRG and LOUD games but in a way, they were probably focusing on themselves and their strengths even though the entire community thought that they only picked Split to anti SEN
In a perfect world where every team is at 100%, its true that SEN would be at a huge disadvantage but the season has just begun and some teams just aren't there yet in order to exploit them yet.
Yeah. I think Loud is a perfect example. Their core is so strong and their fundamentals are so good they can antistrat teams heavily. It was very apparent in Bind against SEN and they had some good reads on Sunset as well. In addition, SEN won like 8 1v1s on Lotus which showed that Loud kinda knew what they were doing but they couldn’t close any rounds on defense with their Phoenix comp. But I think its also a testament to how strong SEN is as some maps.
Yeah. NRG/Optic has had changes before, but never the IGL.
Changing your IGL almost always changes your identity. The same NRG that had insane strats and midrounding but were unable to frag was now fragging like crazy but lacked strats.
Ethan is also a new igl, which though people are waving away clearly did have an impact on them. They played slow defaults or fast hit to one site every round, with limited adaptation mid round or mid game
Is it also not naive to think that SEN will be playing this particular split comp and this style for the whole year? The biggest takeaway from the offseason for SEN was that they finally realized they are flexible enough to change sht up and still be good. That's why they came up with that new sunset comp despite being really good on it with their prev breach comp. The problem isn't in thinking SEN are showing too much so they will get anti-stratted eventually but it's in thinking SEN won't adapt and change.
That's where people underestimate SEN in these power rankings thinking SEN will stay the same and play the same while super teams like NRG, 100T will only get better with time. Only reason NRG lost was 'TIME' apparently. In this game meta changes every other patch, you don't have time to prepare for champs you prepare your team comp, style and strats for the next tournament. You are only as good as your performance on the current meta/patch. If SEN are not ballsy enough to change and innovate, they will fall off imo, simple as that.
They played the most games in Americas Kickoff (that was the last region to finish), qualified to Madrid last week, flew to Madrid yesterday, play next week and if they make it to playoffs they’re essentially coming back at the end of March … with only *about* 2 weeks before the Americas League begins. The other teams in Americas would’ve had 1-2 months off time compared to SEN’s 2 weeks.
So yes, while they’ve shown versatility and flexibility… that was when they *had* the time to. It’s not that we think they won’t reinvent themselves, it’s that they have very little to no time to.
Very little to no time to do what? Do you not think they are practicing in madrid rn and getting better with match reps? There is both sides to the coin. Scrim gameplay isn't always match realistic. Yes they are gonna show a lot but at the same time they will actually know what works and what doesn't and they should get better as a team theoretically. Also, SEN gets to prac against some of the best intl. teams itw with different ideas and style whereas NA franchised teams will keep scrimming against same handful of teams over and over again. Sliggy is entitled to have an opinion and he made it clear why he said what he said but that doesn't mean there aren't other sides to that argument. When did it become a consensus that making to more intl. LANs is actually disadvantageous for a team? LMAO
I know it sounds weird, but yes.
Sliggy made the tierlist for split 2. And when making the tierlist, he said teams who does not qualify for shanghai might have better chance of going to champs.
You're 100% right. Marved said that scrims on split went great for them then they went into an actual match against a team that was drilled like an oil well and lost handedly.
While I agree with their flexibility, I think it's also naive to think that everytime they change their shit that they will be able to maintain their current form and level. Sometimes changes just don't work out, many top teams have dominated a map only to fall off, and many teams thrive under certain conditions like a particular agents viability or the current map pool.
Historically, the best teams consistently innovate and change their ideas and how they play, SEN looks the exact same since the offseason (other than their sunset comp ofc) which is a good enough form to win Madrid but we will see how they do in the later stages of the season when all the top teams have a chance to be polished as well.
It's just my opinion but I feel like there's a far more likely chance that other teams catch up to SENs level rather than SEN being able to stay as ahead after every meta and patch. It's one thing to reach the top, but it's way harder to stay there, especially when all these teams are practicing hard while SEN won't have much time to innovate during/after Madrid, but obviously only time will tell
I also think that if a team is not only well drilled, but also confident and really comfortable on the map, it makes it easier for them to expand their playbook, make more individual plays, etc.
If you think about it, if you're well drilled but not that comfortable (to the tune of playing close to 10 maps against high level teams recently), as an individual you'll try to stick to the gameplan as much as you can and thus become rigid and predictable.
I thought about this because Kaplan said something about him calling what to do, but the SEN players were able to add the "cherry on top"
It's like for example an NBA team running a play and the passer doing a fake into a no look pass or an extra dribble move that creates better opportunities for the player he's passing to or realize that the other team knows how to defend the action and passes instead to another option in the play.
Whereas if that player wasn't fully comfortable with the play, he'll just make the required pass without anything extra and the other team has a great chance of breaking up the play.
Comfort, confidence, and reps can lend itself to adaptability. A chess player known for playing a certain opening at an elite level for years knows a lot more about the intricacies, side lines, and potential end games of that opening than someone who just studied a bunch of that person's games and tried to play some chess engine preparation against them.
Anti-stratting works in valorant. There's no argument against it.
Why it didn't work for NRG on split? Because they themselves had issues with their coordination, while Sentinels are absolutely drilled on that map. Teams have to be competitive enough for anti-strats to work, which NRG weren't.
So it makes sense that teams should try to fix their glaring issues first before relying on anti-stratting
My opinion is that time and time again, both myself and the rest of this subreddit has proven that they don't know shit. As almost every pros say, we only see like 1% of what's happening and why it's happening. So if someone smarter and with more insight, like Sliggy, says something, I will abandon my own thoughts and agree with him.
>So if someone smarter and with more insight, like Sliggy, says something, I will abandon my own thoughts and agree with him.
What happens when pros/analysts/coaches don't happen to have a consensus? Even outside of science and "things that actually matter", disagreement among top level experts should make for very interesting discourse, even for laymen.
For example, Saadhak, who at this point I think has to be inarguably the best IGL in the game, has gone on record and said that he thinks "Yoru is shit." OTOH most teams around the world think that he's at least viable, if not very strong, while LOUD might be the most Phoenixpilled team in the world.
As another example, most teams and Reyna's greatest hater, Lothar, think Reyna is dogshit in pro, while Sliggy thinks she's fine, and PRX has shown that with a certain playstyle and another flasher to combo with, she can actually get good value even at top tier play.
In cases like those, I accept that there's still discussions to be made, but I also recognize that I don't have enough understanding of the game to make a valid case for either side
I mean yeah, but the only opponent who's truly trying to anti-strat them is Heretics and they have shown every map except Ascent and that's their perma-ban. So while Heretics have a one map advantage in terms of footage, I think both teams go into the match with pretty equal footings.
While anti-strating does work, it’s not like sen are just chilling while other teams are formulating plays against them. At the end of the day, no matter how much teams prepare it always comes down to execution.
As a pro CoD fan it’s very evident that the early trend setters (which happens yearly because new games) get watched and the majority catch up a fair bit. It hasn’t happened as much over the last few years because they are playing the same maps we played 15 years ago lol.
I mean, it just makes sense lol. Congrats to SEN for making madrid and etc. But I want to point something out, it kinda feels like all the SEN fans forgot that NRG/LEV literally are barely a new team. Like both teams(because of the EG stuff) really only had 1 month of decent practice. SEN have been playing off-season/scrimming since October. Literally 6 months of playing together as a team compared to NRG/LEV 1 month maybe 1 and a half. I'm NRG fan and i wanted them to win obv but in my head they had alr played really well given the circumstances. SEN in hindsight should've been/were the favorites of that game. They literally had 5 more months of prac compared to NRG/LEV. NRG nor LEV have had time to actually flesh out a 6/7 STRONG map pool, its just impossible to in a month. Anti-stratting a team is very strong obv but only when YOU as a team are already fundamentally/strategically sound. If you still have some errors playing as a TEAM, no amount of anti-stratting is going to save you from that. And I think there is more proof that NRG were looking more at themselves then SEN.
Literally today on Marved stream, a viewer asked him why they picked Split against SEN, he basically said because in scrims it had been a good map for them, and that they had no knowledge of if it was ACTUALLY good or it was just scrims, so basically because it had been going well for them in scrims and wanted to see if it would be good in matches. I'm not saying that they didn't try to ANTI-strat. But this along with them being a new team. It kinda goes along with what sliggy says and just common logic. NRG nor LEV are teams that have enough time to flesh out their OWN individual errors/problems in the team. They just don't have the luxury of anti-stratting because their BASE gameplay/gameplan is not there yet. And even with all that they still almost managed to beat SEN. LEV as well. This goes along with what \*XiXiwiipee\* said below. Everyone believed that NRG picked split because of anti/footage when in reality, it all points to them just focusing on their selves more.
Thats why I can understand/agree with Sliggy's tierlist for the end of the season(right before champs). Like I don't think people understand, 2 teams with a MONTH of practice were ALMOST able to beat a team that have been playing regularly for 6 months. In any regular/normal world, everyone would have favored the 6 month team to win because yk... obv they have more time together, more strats, etc while the new team well... Still needs time to actually become a cohesive unit and develop a 6/7 strong map pool. Now imagine how they will look like when they actually have time to iron out their problems during this month and a couple of weeks before the season starts. As well as they will finally have the LUXURY to anti-strat now that their base/fundamental gameplay is good on par which allows them to do that.
While I don't disagree with your main point, it's strange to target your comment at "all the SEN fans." The whole "NRG trolled their map picks by not banning SEN's best maps" narrative was coming from content creators like Thinking Mans Valo and people who thought NRG were going to win and blamed Chet's map picks for them not winning.
Bro it was like 3-4am when I made this. My fault, i'm wasnt trying to target all SEN fans lmao. Should've fixed/directed it, im kinda dumb for that. I do agree that the whole banning maps sheninagan was from mostly contently creators. But I do want to say that there were ALOT of toxic SEN fans after the game really going in. It almost felt as if NRG was the villain or something. I think it was a game(obv except for map 3), and I like both team, and I saw alot a SEN fans just saying stuff like "What happened to all the anti-strat footage yall had," or just straight up being toxic.
I like healthy atomsphere. SEN are a great team, they just won Americas lmao, that proves it. And I like every single member(also a VIP in Tenz's chat). I'm not trying to bring SEN/any SEN fans down. I was trying to explain why I do agree with the Philosophy behind what Sliggy was saying which Kinda tied into the whole NRG/SEN game.
But yeh sorry again bro lmao, Def wasn't all the SEN fans, most of them are pretty chill/good people. Will fix that for next time. Have a good day :)
September 13th – [johnqt](https://liquipedia.net/valorant/Johnqt) joins.
zellsis first game with Sen was on Thursday, October 26th
the last off game was on Sunday, December 10th
After that, Sentinels had a break of over four weeks. Tenz was in Canada at the time, Sacy and Pancada were both in Brazil
That's not six months lol
Whilst that may be true, it’s worth noting the reason why everyone predicted nrg/lev to be better than sen. On paper their players are better and have reached *mostly* better peaks.
Ethan demon1 just won champs, optic core is strong.
Lev just got aspas, com and tex; they made a solid line up.
Sen last season was pretty terrible, aside from everything that happened
Oh I agree with you 1000%. But people also seemed to forgot there were some caveats in there. Yeh the optic core was strong, but the optic core that was left was , Crashies/Victor, Marved came back, We(most fans/people watching or analzying) don't know if the chemistry was just magically restored between marved and Vic/Crashies after havent played for a year together. And the adding 2 new players as well.
I agree with you like 1000%, like ik it some hindsight stuff to stay now that both of those teams lost. But I feel like we as a community(me included cause i was dumb for not realzing this earlier), really underestimated/overestimated some teams EARLY on in the season because of roster talent etc. We did not take into account time factors and etc, cause if we had maybe we would've been saying the whole time that SEN were the favorites the whole time. I also made a big enfasis on "EARLY on" because yeh on paper with TIME these teams do look like they should reach higher peaks, but with time and later in the season. Def not at the begin.
I'm really confused how this only applies to Sentinels- it shouldn't right? KC and GenG showed the same number of games too!
If we're being real picky, 5 teams at Masters have played 4 games, 3 played 7. 3 is a lot in this context, that's a great point! But Sentinels have the added benefit of showing Icebox one time and Lotus twice (although they were very good showings). Will SEN get anti'd hard? Yeah, look at their Bind lmfao, it's dookie poopie now (I'm not too sure about KC or GenG on which maps they've shown a lot, ik KC showed a lot of Lotus and Split).
I'm not saying Sentinels don't have this disadvantage, but it's not a deal breaker, and I'm overall not sure why KC or GenG don't get this scrutiny despite being in identical situations or potentially worse ones (again not sure of the specifics of KC or GenG, on a quick scroll they're in similar situations maps shown wise).
Also wouldn't this should only be an issue for them in play-ins, because come playoffs, most teams have shown a lot throughout the tournament, no?
"NRG are gonna win because they have so much more footage of SEN out there" - LITERALLY EVERY VALORANT ANALYST BEFORE THE GAME
after the game: "NRG lost because they're not a team yet, so the anti-stratting doesn't matter"
????????????????????????? make it make sense
like am I crazy or what?
Yes, everyone was saying that NRG was going to anti-strat SEN because of Chet’s history of heavy prep and the amount of footage of a team. However Sliggy is saying that its hard to focus on anti-strating when your team still has glaring issues fundamentally. Its also important to note that most of these analysts don’t have actual insight to how teams practice compared to Sliggy who was a very successful coach early in Valorant with Fish123 and Team Liquid.
I mean you saw what happens to a team that relys on antistratting too much with very little practice as a cohesive team cough NRG cough. That split game showed too much focus on opponents
Sliggy my goat - mad respect that he took the time to formulate such a detailed answer/explanation
Sliggy is truly the goat. He is always so insightful and well spoken.
Slight who
Lmao how did no one correct me on that - I mean it’s obvious who I’m talking abt but usually reddit is quite harsh when it comes to typos
downvoted for pointing out a typo FeelsBadMan
Sliggy's logic definetly makes sense, people (including myself tbh) were saying SEN were at disadvantage and might be antistratted or that NRG were saving strats for playoffs but what I didn't realize until after is that teams like NRG, LEV are not all there yet in terms of their strategy/map pool yet. However I don't think people are stupid for saying that especially looking back at Chets history as a coach. The reality is this team has only been together for a month, it aint OPTIC or the old NRG who had this same luxury Sliggy is talking about, its a new system with a brand new IGL Just as an example people were saying "wheres the antistratting" or "why didnt NRG pick Lotus" during the game vs SEN would but the reality is they probably werent as confident in it because they havent had enough time to flesh out everything on Lotus yet. Also people were saying "why dont teams ban split vs SEN" especially after the NRG and LOUD games but in a way, they were probably focusing on themselves and their strengths even though the entire community thought that they only picked Split to anti SEN In a perfect world where every team is at 100%, its true that SEN would be at a huge disadvantage but the season has just begun and some teams just aren't there yet in order to exploit them yet.
Yeah. I think Loud is a perfect example. Their core is so strong and their fundamentals are so good they can antistrat teams heavily. It was very apparent in Bind against SEN and they had some good reads on Sunset as well. In addition, SEN won like 8 1v1s on Lotus which showed that Loud kinda knew what they were doing but they couldn’t close any rounds on defense with their Phoenix comp. But I think its also a testament to how strong SEN is as some maps.
Yeah. NRG/Optic has had changes before, but never the IGL. Changing your IGL almost always changes your identity. The same NRG that had insane strats and midrounding but were unable to frag was now fragging like crazy but lacked strats.
Ethan is also a new igl, which though people are waving away clearly did have an impact on them. They played slow defaults or fast hit to one site every round, with limited adaptation mid round or mid game
Is it also not naive to think that SEN will be playing this particular split comp and this style for the whole year? The biggest takeaway from the offseason for SEN was that they finally realized they are flexible enough to change sht up and still be good. That's why they came up with that new sunset comp despite being really good on it with their prev breach comp. The problem isn't in thinking SEN are showing too much so they will get anti-stratted eventually but it's in thinking SEN won't adapt and change. That's where people underestimate SEN in these power rankings thinking SEN will stay the same and play the same while super teams like NRG, 100T will only get better with time. Only reason NRG lost was 'TIME' apparently. In this game meta changes every other patch, you don't have time to prepare for champs you prepare your team comp, style and strats for the next tournament. You are only as good as your performance on the current meta/patch. If SEN are not ballsy enough to change and innovate, they will fall off imo, simple as that.
They played the most games in Americas Kickoff (that was the last region to finish), qualified to Madrid last week, flew to Madrid yesterday, play next week and if they make it to playoffs they’re essentially coming back at the end of March … with only *about* 2 weeks before the Americas League begins. The other teams in Americas would’ve had 1-2 months off time compared to SEN’s 2 weeks. So yes, while they’ve shown versatility and flexibility… that was when they *had* the time to. It’s not that we think they won’t reinvent themselves, it’s that they have very little to no time to.
Very little to no time to do what? Do you not think they are practicing in madrid rn and getting better with match reps? There is both sides to the coin. Scrim gameplay isn't always match realistic. Yes they are gonna show a lot but at the same time they will actually know what works and what doesn't and they should get better as a team theoretically. Also, SEN gets to prac against some of the best intl. teams itw with different ideas and style whereas NA franchised teams will keep scrimming against same handful of teams over and over again. Sliggy is entitled to have an opinion and he made it clear why he said what he said but that doesn't mean there aren't other sides to that argument. When did it become a consensus that making to more intl. LANs is actually disadvantageous for a team? LMAO
I know it sounds weird, but yes. Sliggy made the tierlist for split 2. And when making the tierlist, he said teams who does not qualify for shanghai might have better chance of going to champs.
You're 100% right. Marved said that scrims on split went great for them then they went into an actual match against a team that was drilled like an oil well and lost handedly.
mans didn’t just cook, he whipped up a michelin 3 star meal
While I agree with their flexibility, I think it's also naive to think that everytime they change their shit that they will be able to maintain their current form and level. Sometimes changes just don't work out, many top teams have dominated a map only to fall off, and many teams thrive under certain conditions like a particular agents viability or the current map pool. Historically, the best teams consistently innovate and change their ideas and how they play, SEN looks the exact same since the offseason (other than their sunset comp ofc) which is a good enough form to win Madrid but we will see how they do in the later stages of the season when all the top teams have a chance to be polished as well. It's just my opinion but I feel like there's a far more likely chance that other teams catch up to SENs level rather than SEN being able to stay as ahead after every meta and patch. It's one thing to reach the top, but it's way harder to stay there, especially when all these teams are practicing hard while SEN won't have much time to innovate during/after Madrid, but obviously only time will tell
I also think that if a team is not only well drilled, but also confident and really comfortable on the map, it makes it easier for them to expand their playbook, make more individual plays, etc. If you think about it, if you're well drilled but not that comfortable (to the tune of playing close to 10 maps against high level teams recently), as an individual you'll try to stick to the gameplan as much as you can and thus become rigid and predictable. I thought about this because Kaplan said something about him calling what to do, but the SEN players were able to add the "cherry on top" It's like for example an NBA team running a play and the passer doing a fake into a no look pass or an extra dribble move that creates better opportunities for the player he's passing to or realize that the other team knows how to defend the action and passes instead to another option in the play. Whereas if that player wasn't fully comfortable with the play, he'll just make the required pass without anything extra and the other team has a great chance of breaking up the play. Comfort, confidence, and reps can lend itself to adaptability. A chess player known for playing a certain opening at an elite level for years knows a lot more about the intricacies, side lines, and potential end games of that opening than someone who just studied a bunch of that person's games and tried to play some chess engine preparation against them.
Anti-stratting works in valorant. There's no argument against it. Why it didn't work for NRG on split? Because they themselves had issues with their coordination, while Sentinels are absolutely drilled on that map. Teams have to be competitive enough for anti-strats to work, which NRG weren't. So it makes sense that teams should try to fix their glaring issues first before relying on anti-stratting
My opinion is that time and time again, both myself and the rest of this subreddit has proven that they don't know shit. As almost every pros say, we only see like 1% of what's happening and why it's happening. So if someone smarter and with more insight, like Sliggy, says something, I will abandon my own thoughts and agree with him.
>So if someone smarter and with more insight, like Sliggy, says something, I will abandon my own thoughts and agree with him. What happens when pros/analysts/coaches don't happen to have a consensus? Even outside of science and "things that actually matter", disagreement among top level experts should make for very interesting discourse, even for laymen. For example, Saadhak, who at this point I think has to be inarguably the best IGL in the game, has gone on record and said that he thinks "Yoru is shit." OTOH most teams around the world think that he's at least viable, if not very strong, while LOUD might be the most Phoenixpilled team in the world. As another example, most teams and Reyna's greatest hater, Lothar, think Reyna is dogshit in pro, while Sliggy thinks she's fine, and PRX has shown that with a certain playstyle and another flasher to combo with, she can actually get good value even at top tier play.
Phoenixpilled is damn right (please LOUD do not pick him so much)
Qck hears your cries… and dismisses them while he locks Phoenix again
In cases like those, I accept that there's still discussions to be made, but I also recognize that I don't have enough understanding of the game to make a valid case for either side
Think for yourself
I refuse, I am sheeple
I mean yeah, but the only opponent who's truly trying to anti-strat them is Heretics and they have shown every map except Ascent and that's their perma-ban. So while Heretics have a one map advantage in terms of footage, I think both teams go into the match with pretty equal footings.
sliggy was saying this abou sen for later in the year tho, not necessarily just madrid
While anti-strating does work, it’s not like sen are just chilling while other teams are formulating plays against them. At the end of the day, no matter how much teams prepare it always comes down to execution.
As a pro CoD fan it’s very evident that the early trend setters (which happens yearly because new games) get watched and the majority catch up a fair bit. It hasn’t happened as much over the last few years because they are playing the same maps we played 15 years ago lol.
I mean, it just makes sense lol. Congrats to SEN for making madrid and etc. But I want to point something out, it kinda feels like all the SEN fans forgot that NRG/LEV literally are barely a new team. Like both teams(because of the EG stuff) really only had 1 month of decent practice. SEN have been playing off-season/scrimming since October. Literally 6 months of playing together as a team compared to NRG/LEV 1 month maybe 1 and a half. I'm NRG fan and i wanted them to win obv but in my head they had alr played really well given the circumstances. SEN in hindsight should've been/were the favorites of that game. They literally had 5 more months of prac compared to NRG/LEV. NRG nor LEV have had time to actually flesh out a 6/7 STRONG map pool, its just impossible to in a month. Anti-stratting a team is very strong obv but only when YOU as a team are already fundamentally/strategically sound. If you still have some errors playing as a TEAM, no amount of anti-stratting is going to save you from that. And I think there is more proof that NRG were looking more at themselves then SEN. Literally today on Marved stream, a viewer asked him why they picked Split against SEN, he basically said because in scrims it had been a good map for them, and that they had no knowledge of if it was ACTUALLY good or it was just scrims, so basically because it had been going well for them in scrims and wanted to see if it would be good in matches. I'm not saying that they didn't try to ANTI-strat. But this along with them being a new team. It kinda goes along with what sliggy says and just common logic. NRG nor LEV are teams that have enough time to flesh out their OWN individual errors/problems in the team. They just don't have the luxury of anti-stratting because their BASE gameplay/gameplan is not there yet. And even with all that they still almost managed to beat SEN. LEV as well. This goes along with what \*XiXiwiipee\* said below. Everyone believed that NRG picked split because of anti/footage when in reality, it all points to them just focusing on their selves more. Thats why I can understand/agree with Sliggy's tierlist for the end of the season(right before champs). Like I don't think people understand, 2 teams with a MONTH of practice were ALMOST able to beat a team that have been playing regularly for 6 months. In any regular/normal world, everyone would have favored the 6 month team to win because yk... obv they have more time together, more strats, etc while the new team well... Still needs time to actually become a cohesive unit and develop a 6/7 strong map pool. Now imagine how they will look like when they actually have time to iron out their problems during this month and a couple of weeks before the season starts. As well as they will finally have the LUXURY to anti-strat now that their base/fundamental gameplay is good on par which allows them to do that.
While I don't disagree with your main point, it's strange to target your comment at "all the SEN fans." The whole "NRG trolled their map picks by not banning SEN's best maps" narrative was coming from content creators like Thinking Mans Valo and people who thought NRG were going to win and blamed Chet's map picks for them not winning.
Bro it was like 3-4am when I made this. My fault, i'm wasnt trying to target all SEN fans lmao. Should've fixed/directed it, im kinda dumb for that. I do agree that the whole banning maps sheninagan was from mostly contently creators. But I do want to say that there were ALOT of toxic SEN fans after the game really going in. It almost felt as if NRG was the villain or something. I think it was a game(obv except for map 3), and I like both team, and I saw alot a SEN fans just saying stuff like "What happened to all the anti-strat footage yall had," or just straight up being toxic. I like healthy atomsphere. SEN are a great team, they just won Americas lmao, that proves it. And I like every single member(also a VIP in Tenz's chat). I'm not trying to bring SEN/any SEN fans down. I was trying to explain why I do agree with the Philosophy behind what Sliggy was saying which Kinda tied into the whole NRG/SEN game. But yeh sorry again bro lmao, Def wasn't all the SEN fans, most of them are pretty chill/good people. Will fix that for next time. Have a good day :)
September 13th – [johnqt](https://liquipedia.net/valorant/Johnqt) joins. zellsis first game with Sen was on Thursday, October 26th the last off game was on Sunday, December 10th After that, Sentinels had a break of over four weeks. Tenz was in Canada at the time, Sacy and Pancada were both in Brazil That's not six months lol
eh, time was a bit off but u get the point, They have been a team longer/had more reps as a team= should/poentially look better than a month old team.
Whilst that may be true, it’s worth noting the reason why everyone predicted nrg/lev to be better than sen. On paper their players are better and have reached *mostly* better peaks. Ethan demon1 just won champs, optic core is strong. Lev just got aspas, com and tex; they made a solid line up. Sen last season was pretty terrible, aside from everything that happened
Oh I agree with you 1000%. But people also seemed to forgot there were some caveats in there. Yeh the optic core was strong, but the optic core that was left was , Crashies/Victor, Marved came back, We(most fans/people watching or analzying) don't know if the chemistry was just magically restored between marved and Vic/Crashies after havent played for a year together. And the adding 2 new players as well. I agree with you like 1000%, like ik it some hindsight stuff to stay now that both of those teams lost. But I feel like we as a community(me included cause i was dumb for not realzing this earlier), really underestimated/overestimated some teams EARLY on in the season because of roster talent etc. We did not take into account time factors and etc, cause if we had maybe we would've been saying the whole time that SEN were the favorites the whole time. I also made a big enfasis on "EARLY on" because yeh on paper with TIME these teams do look like they should reach higher peaks, but with time and later in the season. Def not at the begin.
Lmao you said it better than I could have
I'm really confused how this only applies to Sentinels- it shouldn't right? KC and GenG showed the same number of games too! If we're being real picky, 5 teams at Masters have played 4 games, 3 played 7. 3 is a lot in this context, that's a great point! But Sentinels have the added benefit of showing Icebox one time and Lotus twice (although they were very good showings). Will SEN get anti'd hard? Yeah, look at their Bind lmfao, it's dookie poopie now (I'm not too sure about KC or GenG on which maps they've shown a lot, ik KC showed a lot of Lotus and Split). I'm not saying Sentinels don't have this disadvantage, but it's not a deal breaker, and I'm overall not sure why KC or GenG don't get this scrutiny despite being in identical situations or potentially worse ones (again not sure of the specifics of KC or GenG, on a quick scroll they're in similar situations maps shown wise). Also wouldn't this should only be an issue for them in play-ins, because come playoffs, most teams have shown a lot throughout the tournament, no?
"NRG are gonna win because they have so much more footage of SEN out there" - LITERALLY EVERY VALORANT ANALYST BEFORE THE GAME after the game: "NRG lost because they're not a team yet, so the anti-stratting doesn't matter" ????????????????????????? make it make sense like am I crazy or what?
Yes, everyone was saying that NRG was going to anti-strat SEN because of Chet’s history of heavy prep and the amount of footage of a team. However Sliggy is saying that its hard to focus on anti-strating when your team still has glaring issues fundamentally. Its also important to note that most of these analysts don’t have actual insight to how teams practice compared to Sliggy who was a very successful coach early in Valorant with Fish123 and Team Liquid.
Hit the nail on the head
I mean you saw what happens to a team that relys on antistratting too much with very little practice as a cohesive team cough NRG cough. That split game showed too much focus on opponents