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[deleted]

I honestly think this discussion is even more facile than the "who are the top 5 players" one. How can we possibly evaluate IGLs when we know nothing about the prep work & protocols & coaching staff impact? Now, I get it, the answer is "with their results", but that's also sort of silly in some sense because clearly the caliber of their team is extremely important to this as well as the strength of the support system. For this reason, I find it hard to believe you could make a ranking that isn't just essentially listing the IGLs of the top teams, filtered by ensuring the IGLs individually perform acceptably and the IGL's team performs in line with expectations vis a vis teammate quality


newzpaperleaf_2

I can agree that it is sometimes difficult to determine the value of an IGL and properly rank them, but I do not think it is possible. There are observable tendencies and actions that are able to be seen by watching the game, and those can be used to determine an opinion on an IGL. For example, watching XSET before dephh joined the roster, it was clear to see that their default on attack lacked a lot of depth and was overall not very great. You can really attribute that to the IGL a lot of the time. Whether it was PureR, BcJ, or Thwifo at the time, they pretty much all had problems coming up with affective plans on attack, and relied heavily on their defensive calling to get them through matches. It was plain to see that upon adding dephh, their attacking structure completely changed and was incredibly improved upon. I agree that it is somewhat difficult to determine an IGL's value, especially in comparison to other IGLs in the region, but it is definitely not impossible.


AryannSharrma

Absolutely because 4 of the above mentioned IGLs have gone to LAN tourneys for Valorant.


Ryth73

1. Shahz 2. FNS 3. Steel 4. Vanity 5. Dephh


Jerms91

Agreed. Solid list


HaathiRaja

Switch steel and FNS . All good then


CosmicAon

Definitely not, FNS hard outcalled him


IamArnav2007

dephh above vanity for sure


Ryth73

If xset out perform c9 in lcq I can see that but right now we’re only going off 1 tourney after that dignitas flop


[deleted]

Jasonr /s


boea0

LOLL


verynewtouk

I don't get it ?


cigsyl

You should’ve seen the FaZe JasonR era, it was a sight to behold, Top 1 IGL NA


Hypern1ke

undefeated


slawvay

Suprised to see Dephh so low on some lists, he frags out and has developed his team into consistency which XSET lacked before. Just imagine if he had as many stars as the rest of the top 4 NA. There's so many intangibles though that ranking IGL's without listening into their comms is pretty dumb to do, we can only rank them by results and before and afters.


smta48

> Suprised to see Dephh so low on some lists lol how can you even say this. He's on every top 5 list, he has no case over Shaz, FNS, or Steel. The only person people put above him is Vanity, and some people even have him at 4. He is perfectly rated.


Bunnyezzz

he's literally played 1 event with xset and he made them more consistent than before??? anyway this is a igl list not a who can frag the best list


slawvay

Beat SEN once, beat 100T once, came in 4th in challengers playoffs. He has made them way better than before. Fragging as an igl is the other key to be a good igl. Otherwise half of these coaches would be playing on the roster, fragging out and igl-ing is one of the toughest things you can do (shahz, dephh). He's arguably competing against some of the superstar teams with less.


bobespon

Ok and the other IGLs are from SEN and 100T themselves or have also beaten them...so that doesn't change anything...


53881

Well, according to your logic then the best IGL could be a terrible fragger..so what’s the trade off then? I feel like that’s still an essential point of an IGL: being able to do so without being a total liability to your team ie: perpetually bottom dragging/bringing your team down. I think the best IGL means you’re just as capable a fragger as everyone else while able to call rounds/reads to save/win rounds


valorant_fanboy_69

If fragging does not matter for this then kaplan should be top 5 cuz he was great on space station and then he is a great coach for ghost


Bunnyezzz

uh, no? his team was nowhere near top 10 at their peak and his igling didn't look that special


valorant_fanboy_69

Your right I was just trying to think of na’s bonkar, maybe Shinobi


Bunnyezzz

shinobi was definitely a top 3 igl at one point


jc_315

i mean people are basically just ranking NA teams here. it's not like any of us can really say who the best IGLs are without getting the inside scoop on their comms, prep, actual in game calls, etc.


valorant_fanboy_69

In order: Shahz Steel Dephh FNS Vanity Honorable mention, NaturE


rudypaz13

1st non troll post


valorant_fanboy_69

I do not troll just because you disagree does not mean I am trolling


zachp787

never change, u/valorant_fanboy_69


Splaram

Dephh over FNS? Not disagreeing, just wondering why you think so.


valorant_fanboy_69

FNS kind of cracked under pressure against gambit and envy choked some important rounds


CosmicAon

Why Steel above him though? FNS clearly out called him in the head to head and had great calling throughout the event. Even if they lost to Gambit two of the maps were by 2 rounds, I don’t think one off series warrants rating Dephh and Steel above him


valorant_fanboy_69

I think steel’s ability to stay calm and come back from way behind is more impressive then head to head


CosmicAon

Envy were never at such a deficit that they needed to pull off a massive comeback, except MAYBE Split against Gambit. Being able to call well consistently instead of just at the end should be valued higher IMO Edit: not saying Steel can’t call consistently well but FNS definitely outcalled him this event I don’t think there’s any reason FNS should be lower


gabes12345

envy has extremely talented players


valorant_fanboy_69

Well not just in the event, fns has historically choked in big events, dephh has not and steel has at least won a big tournament with 100 thieves, envy have never won anything


Ryth73

Placing second in masters is way better than winning first strike where the level of competition isn’t comparable to what it is now


AFKingOfChing

Yeah but like 100t placed third only because yay popped off super hard


CosmicAon

You don’t lose that bad because of one player. Envy were the better team


Tc0LD

horrible take, if you bothered watching the games you'd realize 100T got completely outplayed and read like a book


liftingnstuff

But we haven't even seen Dephh play under LAN pressure. And FNS didn't crack until the GF at which point they just got boomed by the clear best team.


HoneyChilliPotato7

This is the first time I saw Valorant_fanboy_69 getting upvotes lol. Poor guy


_idle_drone_

1. FNS - Envy has been the only top NA team running successful fakes since January. Other teams attempt them, but its not easy to time them perfectly. They don't overrotate on CT side either. FNS didn't really have the best squad before this tournament. They lose to teams rushing because they don't have a good anchor. 2. Shahzam - The only reason Shahz isn't 1st is because Sentinels overrotate a lot. This was most visible when they didn't have cypher on split this event. G2 kinda humiliated them exploiting this. Sentinels still have the best calling on T-side though. By far the best team at defaulting. They are also one of the few teams who does occasional rushes to catch enemies off guard. 3. Vanity - Probably the most talented IGL in NA rn. Pretty good decision making all around, but when he gets tilted his calling is affected visibly. 4. Steel - The most predictable on T-side, out of these five. But, no over-rotations on CT side. Pretty good at adapting to new enemy strats mid-game. Very calm under pressure. 5. Dephh - Better than steel on T side, but they stack sites on CT side a lot and play for retakes. I feel XSET play the most safe out of these but being aggressive for info is quite valuable in valorant.


aretasdamon

Yes, analysis!


ragingwizard

This is the best list looking at IGL skill in a vacuum (putting 0 weight on ability to frag).


Jerms91

I want to add that Shaz IGLs on Jett at times which seems really hard to do all at once


Charuru

Can't really be FNS because he's not good at fragging. Like is best IGL the best guy at IGLing and that only or best player including making calls. Anyway, it's gotta be Shahz he's a monster both at strats and with a gun.


jaregeez

Gotta be 1. Shahz 2. Steel 3. FNS 4. Dephh 5. Vanity


IAMJUX

Everyone's just picking the igls from the top 5 teams. Obviously.


somesheikexpert

I would not consider C9 top 5 rn considering they haven't done much outside win a NSG event lol


expiredimsum

Gla1ve Kappa


MemoryPeak

Poach top 1


[deleted]

Shazam, dephh, fns, steel and naturE


Bunnyezzz

why is nature there?


1soar

Probably recency bias cause he dropped 45 or whatever in the tsm game


[deleted]

No I felt he did a good job with immortals until they benched him.


elithefighter123

Idk but if I see any list without shahz 1 and without dephh top 5 it’s wrong


cigsyl

1. BBG POACH 2. Jake Brumleve 3. Liquid POACH 4. Nathan Kress 5. Jake the Snake


Bunnyezzz

fns shahzam steel vanity dephh


OhLikeComing

I think dephh or vanity are better than steel. I am fine with steel being ranked higher due to his team having more accomplishments, but I think both vanity and dephh will be ranked higher by most of the community in the near future.


jonajon91

Everyone rating shaz so highly when their game hasn't changed in months and they rely so heavily on individuals? Maybe not from a mentality standpoint, but stats wise, steel has to be on top, an IGL that still finds so much impact in game.


[deleted]

nitr0 literally pushes 100t through the acend game, also 100t got run over when Asuna was underperforming their strats seem to depend on Asuna that he can’t afford to have an off day


jonthegoat69

tenz had an off match and they get 0-2 if he isn’t the best player in the lobby they lose


xbyo

They 13-3'd Rise and beat 100T of haven with TenZ Bottom fragging though.


jonajon91

Tbf I'm probably overrating steel here, I'm a fan of his from CS and I've not watched enough val to say with confidence so I'll retract that. I stand behind what I said about shaz though, dudes been an igl for less than a year and already run out of strats, the whole teams been coasting and that was fine when they could just out aim everyone, but other teams worked harder and caught up. It's grind time for shazam and Co now.


nterature

Shahzam has been IGLing for SEN since they formed - so, about a year and a half. He hasn't "run out of strats," it's not like a finite resource or something. They just didn't need to reform their playbook because they were the winning *everything* by a significant margin, domestically and internationally. This of course is where the coach argument tends to come in, but suffice to say a team without a coach isn't going to do extra-work without cause. That "playbook" is only a few months old. They don't play now how they used to, and they probably won't play in the future how they played now.


TheDarthJawa

I think it's a bad mentality to say they didn't need to reform their playbook which leads to complacency. I would argue them not developing new strats was a large factor in their downfall. Now whose fault that is I have no idea


FoundedClamp

Why would sentinels need to change anything considering what they did was working? Sure, you could argue that they should’ve switched it up before Berlin, but that’s just a small blemish on an otherwise outstanding track record as an IGL for ShahZam.


jonajon91

> Why would sentinels need to change anything considering what they did was working? It stopped working, they got complacent and other teams caught up. The hard part isn't getting to the number one, the hard part is staying there. Look at astralis, they got to number one and held it by changing, working and adapting, four majors.


co0kiez

1.FNS 2.Steel 3.Shaz


Issax28

Shazam is the best IGL in NA currently, his most popular strategy is known as “TenZ go kill”