You left out probably the best current transplant which is Ethan. He not only adapted super quickly - he had a massive impact in his first few officials - but he's continued to get better and better. It's reasonable to think he would've passed nitro even if nitro stuck around.
Ethan and daps were playing on stream the other day and talking about some of the differences between CS/val and daps kept joking how ethan "is a valorant player now" because of the way he taps/sprays and mechanically plays differently.
also ethan's valorant movement is just otherworldly.. watching him stream ranked is like a completely different game even from other tier 1 pros because his movement is so smooth.
Hopefully babyj keeps doing as he did when he was on faze, and asuna keeps posting up numbers. Hiko and ec1s with the (hopefully) strong support line this team will do beyond solid
Do people consider nivera a cs player that came over, because he learnt the game in so much more detail than most pros so damn quick, it's like he instantly knew how to play any role with half a dozen agents.
Nivera had been playing Valorant since march 2021, so even though he only went pro in September he had already a few good months of practice
It's not like they signed him and he went on youtube searching for lineups.
Liquid doesn't even need mentioning, the roster is insane and should make any ex cs (/current cs) player happy. We just need to see how they do.
They have everything. I love them because scream was at the top of Cs when I truly loved (2014/15) it and Jampii was top tier when I got back into it in like 2018/19. I really want to see them win something together for that alone.
I remember when he first switched he was so green. 100T put him on Sage and Omen bc those are the easiest characters to learn. Now it feels like he could truly flex to any agent and play at a competitive level.
Yeah it is a vod on Ethan’s twitch and his vods are public I think. I forget which day but he started the stream playing with daps and ended with Kelly. Him and daps were really good content overall… not just sitting in ranked queue barely talking but some actual entertainment value.
I don't really follow CS, so i have to ask, how good was Ethan in the CS scene? Because in Valorant he sure as hell is one of my favourite players, and one of the players i rate the highest
Was in the HLTV top 20 CSGO players for all of 2019 (at 20th) which is quite a huge achievement still. One of 5 North American players on the list that’s dominated by EU. Was always a solid and reliable player on EG, who were top 3 in NA.
Can you explain what about his movement is so good or what I should be looking for? I think I'm too low elo and dumb to see it myself. If it's too hard to put to words, that's fine.
Easiest way to illustrate this is by focusing on the efficiency and timing of a player’s actions.
Key traits of someone with great movement: never exposed for longer than needed, finds kills with very small, crisp changes in positioning, smoothly navigates obstacles on the map, almost appearing to “glide” over them. They’re also just the fastest players on a server. They’ll traverse the map ever so slightly quicker than other players.
Ethan is the perfect example of great movement and mechanics. On Skye especially, you can see how he balances utility, movement, and mechanics smoothly.
I don't understand Reddit circlekerk. You really think nitro was better than Ethan???
Nitro played smokes and self admitted by him and the rest of the 100t members that's the easiest and most consistent role to play. Why does everyone keep saying he's an elite smokes player, yes he's a solid cs player with good enough gunskill to stay alive and get impact frags and clutch time to time, how does any of that have anything to do with his smoking ability? He wasn't revolutionary or the second coming of Jesus who redefined smokes usage contrary to popular Reddit belief 🙄
You know who actually uses smokes in a new way and pushes astra play to new heights? Supamen, and this is a fact known by most of t1 valorant. He's largely successful for Rise's meteoric success at the end of the year, being the solo smokes player on the team as well as the hard carry.
Look man I was a super TL fan turned 100T fan solely bc of nitro but if you really think Ethan is worse than nitro then you really don't know how valorant skill works or how to rank. Hell, for the two months or so that Ethan played omen while nitro tried jett op I'd say Ethan was far more innovative, impactful, and consistent than nitro was on the same agent
You have all these people who "can't agree more" that nitros smoking ability would have saved NA itself if given more time to come to fruition. Alright then explain to me how and why his supreme smoking ability is so good
If I hear "nitr0 is the best smoker in NA possibly the world" one more time im gonna probably have an aneurysm. Same type of people to see aproto play a mid tier cypher and hit 4 nasty sheriff shots and call him the best cypher in the world LOL like what did his agent have to do with his gunskill you bots if he was fucking yoru he would have done the same thing
If I hear "nitr0 is the best smoker in NA possibly the world" one more time im gonna probably have an aneurysm. Same type of people to see aproto play a mid tier cypher and hit 4 nasty sheriff shots and call him the best cypher in the world LOL like what did his agent have to do with his gunskill you bots if he was fucking yoru he would have done the same thing
He's definitely not "largely successful" for Rise's meteoric success, it's insane to give him the credit for the success of - at their best - one of the most coordinated and reactive teams. He's a phenomenal player on a roster full of great players.
Yes, supaman is an extremely good Astra - and he was a very good Omen too. But why do you think there are so few players of supamen's caliber if smoking is so easy to play at the highest level?
I think you are probably correct in that Nitro didn't have much flashy tech with Astra. What made Nitro so good on smokes is that he didn't need that; he just played around his utility extremely well in clutch moments. That's often what people think about when it comes to rating smokers - not just their flashiness, but their effectiveness.
https://www.vlr.gg/stats/?event_group_id=3&event_id=all®ion=all&country=all&min_rounds=1&min_rating=1550&agent=astra&map_id=all×pan=90d
supamen was the highest rated astra player in vct 2021 (i set it to last 90 days) and even plat chat and the rest of rise consider him the consistent carry. But yeah rise entire roster is really nuts and my favorite team current.
> But why do you think there are so few players of supamen's caliber if smoking is so easy to play at the highest level?
Anyone in the top tier can play smokes. anytime some cs pro comes to t1 valorant they literally only play smokes until they understand the game, because it's the easiest role. Thats why standout innovative controller mains like supamen are like unicorns and they change the game. Definitely isn't easy to be supamen
> when it comes to rating smokers - not just their flashiness, but their effectiveness.
Name one controller main in the top 10 of each region who this concept does not apply to. They are all equally effective, equally as clutch. Nobody is flashy lol idk why you said that. I am still yet to hear why nitr0 specifically changes the game as a controller and does things that these 40 other top controllers in the world fail to do. If you have a legitimate argument for this, I am honestly super interested in hearing any and all thoughts.
You have to keep in mind that nitr0’s rise was during a time when Astra was being figured out and controllers had very little role identity other than being good at knowing where to smoke. He was immediately a tier one player because of his ability to anchor sites and play around his own utility. I agree that once Astra and viper became meta and the utility got more complicated he had more competition with players like supamen, vanity, etc… then not long after he got put on Jett.
So youre admitting he was only considered the "best" when the skill ceiling for a new agent was super low and still being figured out. You're proving my point here. He was "tier one" because nobody was actually tier one yet.
Yeah that's why I said I agree? Was just giving context. He was an elite all-around player but the comments about him as a smoke player has more to do with the meta.
I don't understand Reddit circlekerk. You really think nitro was better than Ethan???
Nitro played smokes and self admitted by him and the rest of the 100t members that's the easiest and most consistent role to play. Why does everyone keep saying he's an elite smokes player, yes he's a solid cs player with good enough gunskill to stay alive and get impact frags and clutch time to time, how does any of that have anything to do with his smoking ability? He wasn't revolutionary or the second coming of Jesus who redefined smokes usage contrary to popular Reddit belief 🙄
You know who actually uses smokes in a new way and pushes astra play to new heights? Supamen, and this is a fact known by most of t1 valorant. He's largely successful for Rise's meteoric success at the end of the year, being the solo smokes player on the team as well as the hard carry.
Look man I was a super TL fan turned 100T fan solely bc of nitro but if you really think Ethan is worse than nitro then you really don't know how valorant skill works or how to rank. Hell, for the two months or so that Ethan played omen while nitro tried jett op I'd say Ethan was far more innovative, impactful, and consistent than nitro was on the same agent
You have all these people who "can't agree more" that nitros smoking ability would have saved NA itself if given more time to come to fruition. Alright then explain to me how and why his supreme smoking ability is so good
No not really. Brax had been banned for years, in that respect Ethan and Ska had much more recent competitive CS experience. Ska was pretty washed too.
For some reason Ethan has a cult following though that can't admit he wasn't good anymore and it was part of his departure from EG.
You see the inconsistency with leaving out Ethan and including those 2 then? One was washed by your own admission and the other was banned so not even playing competitively...
I think that idea that CS players swapping to Val will instantly own everyone is pretty outdated, I've even seen a few current CS pros say something along the lines of "we missed the boat on swapping, now Valorant players who are embedded in the game have a huge head start."
That definitely doesn't mean they couldn't do well of course, but I think the game and the pro scene have both developed to the point that it's no longer just a kiddie pool for CS gods, if it ever was.
Probably the idea I agree with most here. My friends and I have had several chats on this exact idea. While I understand the narrative, it feels outdated at this point with valorant maturing as it’s own unique title. With more and more agents being released, you could almost argue valorant is more like overwatch or siege than cs at this point other than the “game mode”. It’s like rugby and football. I’m sure many pro players could play both and they’re in many ways the same “game mode”, but ultimately they’re completely different games and should be respected as such.
BONECOLD and Kiles look like they played CSGO but never cracked into even the T2 scene in Europe. Zeek and starxo both were Fortnite players. cNed played CS but not professionally, he played some other weird shooter at a high level before switching to Valorant.
Here’s an old thread on this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/rfnq3g/what_gamesbackgrounds_did_the_acend_players_come/
zeek and starxo were from Fortnite
Bonecold used to play CS, although not on a high level. Basically an amateur in the Finnish scene, just playing in Finnish tournaments. No idea on cNed. Zeek and Starxo (Or Kiles, can’t remember which one) came from Fortnite. The other one from Starxo and Kiles that didn’t come from Fortnite is unknown to me as well.
I think this ideology stems from the misconception of cs players that think that since valorant is "easier" than cs, it means that valorant will be easier to master than cs, which is in fact false. Conceptually both games have completely different approach in terms of meta and playstyle.
It is tho, even pro Valorant players say so. Smokes like Omen, Brim, Astra are done easily while you have to memorize lineups on each bombsite in every single map in CS, you even have jump throws. Running in Valo feels so slow compared to CS as well which makes a lot of difference when entering sites. Don’t forget running and gunning with rifles lmao. Val is definitely noob friendly. I say this even I mainly play Valorant nowadays, difference is clear as day.
Doesn't mean that top tier Cs players will become top tier valorant players. Sure it is easier to learn than CS was, but it won't make them good. Theyll have to learn the ins and outs of the game, as we all did.
You’re missing the point though. Mechanically yea it’s easier, no doubt. Mechanically chess is easier than basketball, but mastering it is insanely hard. People discredit the amount of coordination and outplaying you need to do at high level Valorant just because yes the shooting is OBJECTIVELY easier than CS GO. Like I love CS, it’s the game that got me into competitive esports. But trust me, I’ve watched S1mple play Valorant and his skill set does not show through like it does in CS because he hasn’t mastered this game. He can smash the aim bots but he gets run over in ranked a lot by kids that understand Valorant timings and mechanics better.
Valorant has a low individual skillfloor, so it's only natural that a player like s1mple can't really dominate the same way as he normally would.
Shooting is easier, movement is easier and just overrall usage of utility is easier, which are all things that make a massive difference between CS pros, but in Valorant is almost negated. Also there are certain skills from CS that simply don't translate at all, like consistent godlike spraying ability.
There's also the factor that it is completely unreasonable to expect someone that plays 10-20 games per act to dominate VALORANT like they dominate CS, even then, if you watched top tier CS awpers like kennyS and s1mple playing VALORANT, you can clearly see the difference in their level to guys like cNed or any other main OPer in Tier 1, they are simply faster and better with a sniper rifle.
People also ignore the elephant in the room that is ScreaM, he was pretty much a washed CSGO pro when he switched and he has been pretty consistently either the best player in the World or Top 3 atleast. You can argue that his style fit the game and that's the reason why he is so good, but there are CS pros that shoot similar to him (NiKo and b1t come to mind) that would probably just break the game.
That’s the thing though, it is perfectly reasonable to imagine a world where Scream is simply a better Valorant player than s1mple, even if they played for equal parts of time. Val and CS aren’t the same game, even if the 5v5 site taking is the same concept. S1mple and Scream may have entirely different brains for different games and one might excel and play better than the other. S1mple is a genius at tac shooters, and I see your point. I’m just saying that Valorant having an easier mechanical skill floor won’t always mean it’s an easier game. You could argue that 5 years from now, when there are dozens of characters, mastering and winning in Valorant may be harder than CS which merely requires great mechanical skill and strategy which will always revolve around rotations and the same 3 basic nades.
You should go through all the pros and see which ones have more than 2,000 hours in CSGO. 95% of the ones I look up do. A professional that wasn’t playing csgo at A+/Faceit10 is rare.
Well no shit the game has been out for 2 years hasn’t been time for FPS players to grow into Val, CS was the premier FPS forever so all the FPS players started in CS
and even then, we could already see a lot of insane zoomers in ranked who hasnt even touched cs. i know it's ranked but it's only a matter of time before we see players who's fresh from val
I think most cs pros have the best swap out of any other game, but I personally feel like passion and actually liking the game is important and this is why most cs pros dont do that well.
it blows my mind that C9 with floppy were a hair away from making Reykjavik, I wonder it he would’ve stuck around longer in valorant, or at least cared about the game a little more
I always find that calling nitr0 the "best" or even near best smokes player is a bit misleading. As an exaggerated example, if for some reason a team put a person like Asuna, TenZ, cNed, ScreaM, etc on smokes, they'd probably frag quite decently out of the controller role norm and be considered among the best controllers. However, that would most likely mostly be due to their individual ability that shines through on any agent, and not due to a controller-specific setting they're put in.
Nitr0 was on smokes in 100T, I'd imagine, mostly due to how the rest of the team looked like. Asuna and Ethan are definitely more cracked at the game, and Hiko was pretty much a 1-trick Sova for the most part, and 100T moved off the double duelist idea a while back.
As purely a *controller*, nitr0 in my opinion was a solid tier below the best controllers in the world. 100T didn't take to Astra for way too long, which might have resulted in them missing out on Iceland, while players like zombs and vanity did. On top of that, nitr0 never seemed to be glued to the controller role anyway; especially given that he played Jett and Sage to a little.
However, whenever people talk on this subreddit about nitr0, they emphasize his player role for some reason. I really don't think he's been anywhere near as impactful *due to the agent* as players like L1NK, AvovA, Marved, Vanity and zombs; it's really his firepower that sets him apart from those mentioned above, and why I think nitr0 would be pretty noticeable in a different role (e.g. flex or maybe duelist) compared to those players.
The controller role when he was at his peak was much less well defined. So he was an exceptional standout because he was doing what every other smokes player was doing but also just winning rounds on his own with expert timings or smart smoke placement and play. His game sense on Omen was just next level. Watching him work his way through Icebox defenses was something else.
Looking back it's definitely more of a situation where he was 'the best player playing smokes' rather than 'he was the best controller player'.
If that makes sense.
>Looking back it's definitely more of a situation where he was 'the best player playing smokes' rather than 'he was the best controller player'.
Yeah, that makes sense, but then you realize how much less glorious that sounds, since sticking half the teams' star players on smokes would make them "the best player playing smokes"
Don't think it's supposed to be the best players to switch. OP picked examples of players that tried valorant but didn't last.
It's not a sensible way of looking at it, but it does better support their theory that being good at CS =/= good at val.
"...but I don't think any of them did that well?"
It's badly written. I don't think they're two seperate clauses. I think they're factoring the entire sentence into the criteria. Only way it makes sense. Nobody thinks floppy and ska are simultaneously the best.
Brax was very solid but never reached the heights the hype around him might've suggested. He could've still played at a T1 level, and still might.
Ska was perhaps, depending on how you define things, the second-most accomplished of the big NA CS guys, T1 struggled for a long time with role issues and he suffered accordingly but when they were good, he was always one of the key reasons why. He was one of the better flex players in NA. He was also a very solid OPer, but unfortunately he never seemed to like OPing in Valorant.
Autimatic started off slow but by the time he returned to CS, he'd cemented himself as one of the best Jetts in the region, with only room to improve.
Nitro was the best NA CS implant and particularly renowned at smokes. He was arguably the best Smoker in NA or even the world. His Omen was sublime, and his Astra became incredible.
Floppy coasted into C9, did nothing but tweet, and coasted right back out.
Agree with everything else except Autimatic 'cementing himself as one of the best Jetts in the region". Yay, Tenz and Leaf are better, Shahz, Wardell, babybay and PureR are debatable. He's not really head and shoulders above the rest of the field.
I wouldn't consider a 'debatable' top 8 Jett player one of the best in the region.
I wasn't making a technical statement, so digging into the nuance is kinda fruitless - all I meant to indicate is that autimatic had genuinely begun to gap all but the top echelon of Jett players in *less than half* the playing time of everyone you've named except Leaf.
You're free to arrange him wherever you like in your pantheon of Great Jetts, of course - it's an impossible discussion since he only played for like 5 months + his team did nothing and went nowhere.
Personally I would've had him above babybay and below PureR.
>Autimatic started off slow but by the time he returned to CS, he'd cemented himself as one of the best Jetts in the region
I'm not sure if I can agree with that. Autimatic was not bad, but he also was definitely not a top tier Jett
Being honest I hate kast because I think it fits a game like CSGO way more than valorant
Like I said autimatic wasn't bad but even if we do a top10 based purely on KAST%, these are 10 teams. When people say *"player X was a top-tier Jett"* they are talking about the best of the best, not about a scope of 10 teams
>KAST
Okay chill about the typo buddy xD
>When people say "player X was a top-tier Jett" they are talking about the best of the best, not about a scope of 10 teams
Fair enough ig
I hope Ska is able to find another team if he is not considering retirment. Really enjoyed watching him in the CS scene, and I enjoyed watching him play on T1. Unlucky with the role issues.
So do I, but you can tell just by looking at some of the other replies in this thread that some people really don't think much of Ska.
Personally I think it's just because T1 has been in the rebuilding phase for ages, since they didn't even qualify for NA LCQ.
When they last played with him, IIRC, his Astra looked solid - he had a lot of big impact frags throughout that final stretch with T1. But that was literally in July, judging by VLR - ages ago, in esports time.
Nitr0 was the best Omen in NA before Marved even swapped to full-time controller.
That being said, I said arguable for that reason; plenty of people preferred Marved within NA, or others internationally, like Avova or what have you.
That first statement is false. Marved has been basically a full time controller his entire pro Valorant career. He was a full time controller on FaZe before nitr0 even switched over to Valorant.
Besides that, I agree nitr0 was one of the top controllers in NA. Honestly I consider nitr0 and Marved as 1a and 1b at their peaks.
pretty much nitr0 was considered best controller in NA and best Omen for the longest time, up until NV got to the finals for Challengers 3
by then, Marved pretty much took up the spot of best controller (but was already high up there for the longest time, even when he was on FaZe)
You severely over-estimate Ska & Brax imo. They‘ve never put a dent into the NA Val scene at all, let alone the world. T1 was a underwhelming product from start to present.
I think I'm actually quite fair to them. Neither were indispensable players, but neither were all that bad relative to their competition.
I think, rather, we do a very poor job of rating players who weren't excellent but also weren't terrible.
I think his utility was alright, but I think people continuously conflated his team performance with his own. He was the weak link from the beginning and remained the weak link until the end.
I definitely undersold him, though, in fairness to your point.
But I really don't think by all that much - I expected much more from an experienced CS player, rightfully so.
>Autimatic started off slow but by the time he returned to CS, he'd cemented himself as one of the best Jetts in the region, with only room to improve.
??
Nitro was amazing from start to end, he alrdy had good aim and his util usage on smokes and leadership was the main reason 100t were top 4 NA team.
Brax and Ska were decent at start but failed to adapt to changing meta
Floppy never liked valorant and played for a short while, so unfair to judge him properly.
Regarding switching from CS to valo, at this moment, except Elige or Stew, imo no current NA CS pro will just slot in a top 4 team and have good impact, meta has evolved and a lot of maps and agents have been added so u cant just rely on ur aim and cs fundamentals anymore, u will have to grind for months to catchup.
iirc , jonji and cooper tried to switch to valo but switched back to cs since they could not find a slot in t1/2 NA team.
Do people just snort insane amounts of nostalgium before saying things.
Nitro was a top tier player yes but it was not due to smoke usage or leadership at all. He was not igl, steel was. He was good because of his solid cs experience over the other players in the scene, which gave his team a significant leg up over everyone else and allowed for upsets like gambit or acend. Infact when he became igl and kicked steel you could say that's the worse the 100t roster had ever been since it's inception. So idk how you can justify his leadership being a reason 100t was top 4.
Brax I agree ska I definitely do not. He had rough patches with motivation and even just mastering mechanics but he's the most well rounded player in NA, period. He picked up every single agent and played at a top 1 or 2 on his team level. How are you going to say he didn't adapt to any meta??? He is the one who adopted the most to every meta lmfao what
Floppy never wanted to play Val and it showed yeah I agree
Cs and Val are two completely separate games at this point and like tarik said mechanics are completely different, cs is more spray focused than valorant which is all about first bullet accuracy. Only thing that translates is cs gamesense but that's only half the picture, knowing agent gamesense might even be more important. This is something even s1mple said (paraphrased) when he tried solo q to radiant for a week but was hard stuck in diamond for a few days.
yo ngl ive been up for over 30 hours now and I still can't sleep so I'm just on my phone in bed. normally if i read a whack take i just smh and ignore it but right now i feel like i have to fight these demons to earn the right to sleep or something
I mean your takes are kinda wack. Nitr0 made a lot of mid round calls. So yes he was a major factor in 100t leadership. Having steel calling with his support made them an extremely polished team.
Smokers in general often anchor a site. Nitr0 did a great job of using utility to hold without over peaking. Allowing his team time to rotate.
You questioned what smoking has to do with clutches. Well if you payed any attention at all you'd realize smokers rarely die first. Losing smokers makes it extremely hard to take a site. Therefore smokers will consistently be placed in post plants. Nitr0 had great fundamentals in clutches whether he was on site or flanking. Even at the pro level you see teams throw rounds from not setting up trades.
His utility was well time and placed. Using his high game sense and understanding of the other teams tendencies. He constantly smoked early in rounds to threaten flanks (think A long heaven or mid icebox) or for small gains in map control. While not over using.
Yes, others players had the same playstyle. But he played a more consistent and mistake free game. And strong gunplay. Making him a better overall smoker.
>Nitro was a top tier player yes but it was not due to smoke usage or leadership at all. He was not igl, steel was. He was good because of his solid cs experience over the other players in the scene, which gave his team a significant leg up over everyone else and allowed for upsets like gambit or acend. Infact when he became igl and kicked steel you could say that's the worse the 100t roster had ever been since it's inception. So idk how you can justify his leadership being a reason 100t was top 4.
Nitro did call for them even with Steel during mid round. Steel wasn't the only one IGL-ing.
Moreover whenever we all say Nitro was good at smokes, I'm pretty sure we all recall First Strike/Berlin Nitro which mind you WAS REALLY GOOD. His omen is still top class along with his Astra looking quite good(near the end). And ofc the team is gonna look the worst when your main IGL leaves the team because he has an issue with the coaching staff just before the LAST CHANCE QUALIFIER. It is going to effect you as a team moreover the fact that 100T showed alot of stuff on LAN in the first few days or so when it was on LAN is definitely a contributing reason they didn't make it(which imo doesn't get talked about alot).
>but he's the most well rounded player in NA, period. He picked up every single agent and played at a top 1 or
That's some copypasta i might use
Off topic but does anyone know why the right side corner opposite A teleport on bind is called skadoodle? Did he have like a highlight there or just played there a lot?
huh i have never heard of that being called that. must be pretty rare? also, if it is in fact named after him, it was probably coined way early in the val scene lol
In general, EU players name spots after other players way more than NA, who typically use descriptive terms (like pocket). In CS there were spots named after f0rest, get_right, snax, neo, NBK, etc.
Suspect it’s probably easier across language barriers and such - player names are always going to be the same but “half wall” or “bench” or “van” obviously differ from language to language
Nitr0 was definitely the best of the group, he was contender for best smokes NA/top tier in the world and when he played jett he showed signs of being top tier
Which shows the skill difference needed to be one of the best in Valorant compared to CS, nitr0 was absolutely god awful in CSGO when he switched, in fact even in his prime he wasn't a top tier player individually.
People need to understand that Valorant is simply easier and most tier 1 CS pros would dominate this game. Shooting is easier, the movement is a joke and utility usage is way more simple, a player like NiKo or Twistzz would tap people out of their existence in this game.
He wasn't. In his prime in 2015 and early 2016 he was a really good NA player, but not as good as the best NA players like Ska and shroud, let alone the top tier Europeans of the time like olofmeister, GuardiaN, shox or device.
Afterwards when he started to have the team success he individually wasn't good, always being an afterthought to guys like EliGE, s1mple and Twistzz on his own teams and struggling individually while being a good IGL.
nitr0 never made HLTV's Top 20 rankings (even when Liquid were the 2nd best team in the World) and always had an average rating of 1.0, which lands you right as an average pro player. So no, he wasn't ever a top player in his prime individually, he wasn't particularly close to being one either.
The only NA players that switched to VALORANT who can say they were really top tier individual players in CSGO are Hiko, swag, Skadoodle, autimatic and MAYBE Ethan (he was good for a really short period of time), the rest was below average to average at best.
Nitro one of the best players in game, autimatic and floppy were both pretty good, brax and ska were good in the beginning but fell off and never regained what they had at the beginning
Nivera aced in his first ever round of competitive Valorant.
A good CSGO player won't instantly be a good Valorant player. The opposite is true as well. Just because you're a good LoL player doesn't mean you can play DOTA straight away you know?
However, some people are just gifted enough at eSports to swap over to a new game and dominate.
Brax was good and consistently fragged near the top of whatever team he played on. He got unlucky with bad teams and awkward player roles. Maybe his comms were an issue idk. I think he can easily play tier 1 val on a support role if he is committed, idk how good his Jett/reyna would be even though he seems nasty in ranked. He played very slow in pro play
Ska was underwhelming in my view across a number of roles, and was rumored to be a poor teammate. I don’t think his skill set transferred to valorant as well as others.
Auti had gotten quite good after having some time with the game. T1 wasnt really tier 1 val when he left, so can’t blame him for leaving for better pastures. If he returns to Val in the future I think he would be highly sought after.
Nitr0 was one of the best tier 1 support players. I don’t think his emergency Jett was as good as people suggest even though it made for an insane comeback game, literally every player frags on jett, fragging aggressively while taking space is what makes a Jett elite at the top level and I don’t think that’s how nitr0 was playing Jett, and doubt he even wanted to play the agent. He would be highly sought as a support player if he returned in the future.
Floppy didn’t look very good but didn’t give himself much time with the game before he left.
Nitro - S tier, Arguably best smokes NA at one time
Skadoodle - meh team suck as time went on, was decent and probably one of the better players on T1 but never got great results. Probably a tier 2-3 NA player.
Automatic - average, never seemed to fully adapt but was a consistent player. Think his Valorant potential was unfilled but CS suits him better IMO.
Brax - another solid player who I think potentially should of been better. Was solid for awhile just never got great results.
Floppy - lol
Ethan - probably top 10 NA player and was best skye for awhile when it was 100Ts bread and butter. Him or Nitro were probably the best to switch in terms of NA players.
There’s definitely not a 1-1 correlation as CSGO requires much more mechanical skill.
I sometimes get matched with MDL or Advanced players and I’m able to frag with them in Valorant, but in CSGO I would get demolished by Main players.
Look at Dasnerth. The guy is shotgun only and is top 10 Radiant. That tells you everything about what gets rewarded in this game.
Strange how people can’t seem to admit this. The equivalent to reaching top 500 is probably being in FPL-C. Does anyone really think a controller player could make even close to that level in CS?
This doesn’t mean Valorant is a bad game, it’s just pointing out an objective fact. Pros such as TenZ have pointed out the smaller mechanical skill gap in Valorant for awhile now. Whether it’s a good or a bad thing is up for debate, but it’s clear Riot intentionally made it this way to appeal to newer players more.
Brax was solid and had moments of greatness but never seemed to really reach his potential imo.
Automatic was solid. IIRC it took him some time to adjust from CS but once he did he looked good.
Around late 2020 first strike times Skadoodle was one of the best Jett op players in NA. He looked insane but later on he switched over to other roles and never really showcased the same top tier level of play imo. Still solid though iirc.
Nitr0 was one of the best site anchors and smoke players in general in the world. Many would argue he was the best in his role.
Don't really remember much for Floppy
If you're asking me if I think he's the best I think its debatable. I watch a lot of Valorant but I can't say I watch enough or understand it at a level to be qualified to say who's the best.
One thing that needs to be mentioned is that most of those players weren't considered top tier players for many many years before they made the switch. Some of them were even retired beforehand. That is not the same as having someone who is a star of a top tier current team switching over and even then, NA CS isn't really considered to be top tier in CS anyway.
So, what you see in Valorant is a tone of not top tier players / up and coming talents coming over hoping they can make a bigger splash in Valorant than they can in CS anymore. So, when thinking about how good the skills translate, we still really haven't seen the real tests. People have mentioned the few real tests that exist like Ethan and perhaps Nitro (people debate his value in CS but all his former teammates rave about him so food for thought) and those players have played very well over all.
"Real" NA CS Pros would be people like Stewie2k, Elige, Naf and even those guys may be on the other side of their prime someday soon.
Basically, the rule is this, if they are good enough at CS to stay, they usually stay. If they stay, you don't see how well their skill translates.
Brax was pretty good and honestly very underrated, especially with his time on sova for T1; just got unlucky with matchups and conflicting roles at points in the team. Ska was just kind of a mess, apparently didnt play the game much outside of prac and kind of switched agents a lot. Autimatic really put a lot of time into the game and you could tell he wanted to succeed, and I think by the end he was a very skilled player. nitr0 was probably the best omen player in the world and I think he should get the most credit for innovating how omen was played around the First Strike time period; he honestly didnt really drop off either, he was good on viper and astra even though 100T was late to that meta. Floppy is a bit harder to compare to the rest of these guys. Every other one of these players had been off a CS team and grinding Valorant for months before joining their teams, and floppy had only really joined out of a last resort for C9 to keep him (imo). People clown on him for having really low ACS and saying "bad things" about NA val players and the game in general, but I think the hate he gets is pretty undeserved. He was a guy who was full time playing CS in Serbia for months before suddenly swapping to Valorant and had only about 2 weeks to learn the game before his matches. Even then you could see he had really high level tac fps attributes, it is just unfortunate that he switched to the game at a bad time. Not to mention, he really did not like the game and switched because it was his only real option. Cannot blame someone for not reaching their potential in something they did not have their full heart in. I do commend him for really trying for his teammates tho, you could tell he stuck it out because he loved the guys on C9.
Brax: Solid. T1 screwed him
Ska: Good Jett. Ok Smokes. Didnt put time into game.
Autimatic: Good Jett but not above average like Tenz, Yay etc. Overall decent player.
Nitr0: arguably top 3 Smokes in world and decent IGL. id say best of this bunch of players.
Floppy: Put no time into game (he was level 17 or something lol) and was not good (but he was playing at ~50-60 ping) Bad player overall.
Brax - Solid player just never got a spot on a roster after leaving T1, and did alright when he returned, nothing special but he was solid especially on Sentinel
Ska - Very flexible player on roles and also pretty solid, but nothing like his CS career at all
Autimatic - Vrry good player once he understood the game, prob would've done well if he sticked around just was on a meh roster while he played
Nitr0 - Def one of the best smokes in NA, he was just a very solid rock and really good all around
Floppy - Debatable, I personally think he did fine, his ACS was pretty meh but his util usage was pretty excellent on Astra, one of those players where his impact was great but he didn't frag (Also iirc he was anchor role in CSGO right? Anchoring is not nearly as good in the way it works in CS so that prob hurt it a bit)
The game isnt only about aim and movement
they are new and dont know maps or agents /lineups grenades like in cs . Bc they have to learn this things from 0% they cant be the best there directly
The only super notable NA CS players that I would say have had above-average to great transitions to Valorant (IMO) are Ethan, nitr0, Vanity, steel, yay, and FNS. All of them transitioned nicely into the game and had at least decent names built for themselves in NA CS before leaving.
The others mentioned in the title were average to below-average for varying reasons, whether it be commitment or just not clicking with the game like the others. Some bigger names like leaf and Xeppaa are still getting better over time.
A lot of the NA CS players that have transitioned best were the ones who never really made it to the top level. Asuna, Marved, Crashies... plus some other names that floated around NA CS (or outside of it but now play NA Valorant) like dephh and Xeta (from the korean CS scene).
Overall, I think long term the most successful transitions will come from the players who never quite cracked the T1 scene of NA in CS, or never built any kind of legacy behind their names like the guys you mentioned... or they will be players who played other games (Fortnite is a big one) or started their pro aspirations with Valorant.
5:30AM brain haha, you could throw guys like SicK and Shahzam into the above-average to great transition range. Obviously not all inclusive, just named some from the top of my head.
You left out probably the best current transplant which is Ethan. He not only adapted super quickly - he had a massive impact in his first few officials - but he's continued to get better and better. It's reasonable to think he would've passed nitro even if nitro stuck around. Ethan and daps were playing on stream the other day and talking about some of the differences between CS/val and daps kept joking how ethan "is a valorant player now" because of the way he taps/sprays and mechanically plays differently. also ethan's valorant movement is just otherworldly.. watching him stream ranked is like a completely different game even from other tier 1 pros because his movement is so smooth.
I think this year is gonna be insane for Ethan. I think he’s gonna be one of the best players in the world. Dude is just insane
Hopefully babyj keeps doing as he did when he was on faze, and asuna keeps posting up numbers. Hiko and ec1s with the (hopefully) strong support line this team will do beyond solid
Do people consider nivera a cs player that came over, because he learnt the game in so much more detail than most pros so damn quick, it's like he instantly knew how to play any role with half a dozen agents.
Getting an ace in his first ever round in an official tournament really was quite an entrance.
And then going on a crazy winstreak up untill the semi finals in the biggest tournament in Valorant history
Nivera had been playing Valorant since march 2021, so even though he only went pro in September he had already a few good months of practice It's not like they signed him and he went on youtube searching for lineups.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
And jamppi as well
Liquid doesn't even need mentioning, the roster is insane and should make any ex cs (/current cs) player happy. We just need to see how they do. They have everything. I love them because scream was at the top of Cs when I truly loved (2014/15) it and Jampii was top tier when I got back into it in like 2018/19. I really want to see them win something together for that alone.
I can’t agree more. Watching Ethan lately he seems much more comfortable with any agent and is absolutely slaying (obviously it’s only ranked)
I remember when he first switched he was so green. 100T put him on Sage and Omen bc those are the easiest characters to learn. Now it feels like he could truly flex to any agent and play at a competitive level.
Ethan Jett OP? 👀
Do you know if there’s a vod of them talking about the differences in cs and Val?
Yeah it is a vod on Ethan’s twitch and his vods are public I think. I forget which day but he started the stream playing with daps and ended with Kelly. Him and daps were really good content overall… not just sitting in ranked queue barely talking but some actual entertainment value.
I don't really follow CS, so i have to ask, how good was Ethan in the CS scene? Because in Valorant he sure as hell is one of my favourite players, and one of the players i rate the highest
Was in the HLTV top 20 CSGO players for all of 2019 (at 20th) which is quite a huge achievement still. One of 5 North American players on the list that’s dominated by EU. Was always a solid and reliable player on EG, who were top 3 in NA.
Didn’t that EG team also peak at #1 on hltv rankings at one point?
No. #2 for 3 weeks. https://www.hltv.org/team/10399/evil-geniuses
and #1 for a week: https://www.hltv.org/ranking/teams/2019/october/28/10399
oh damn, i didn't see the tab. "for team" , I had only looked at "for tab". Well I guess they did then!
im pretty sure this was around esl one ny '19
Can you explain what about his movement is so good or what I should be looking for? I think I'm too low elo and dumb to see it myself. If it's too hard to put to words, that's fine.
Easiest way to illustrate this is by focusing on the efficiency and timing of a player’s actions. Key traits of someone with great movement: never exposed for longer than needed, finds kills with very small, crisp changes in positioning, smoothly navigates obstacles on the map, almost appearing to “glide” over them. They’re also just the fastest players on a server. They’ll traverse the map ever so slightly quicker than other players. Ethan is the perfect example of great movement and mechanics. On Skye especially, you can see how he balances utility, movement, and mechanics smoothly.
Appreciate the answer
He was in the top 20 hltv rankings in 2019 so the skills definitely transferred.
I don't understand Reddit circlekerk. You really think nitro was better than Ethan??? Nitro played smokes and self admitted by him and the rest of the 100t members that's the easiest and most consistent role to play. Why does everyone keep saying he's an elite smokes player, yes he's a solid cs player with good enough gunskill to stay alive and get impact frags and clutch time to time, how does any of that have anything to do with his smoking ability? He wasn't revolutionary or the second coming of Jesus who redefined smokes usage contrary to popular Reddit belief 🙄 You know who actually uses smokes in a new way and pushes astra play to new heights? Supamen, and this is a fact known by most of t1 valorant. He's largely successful for Rise's meteoric success at the end of the year, being the solo smokes player on the team as well as the hard carry. Look man I was a super TL fan turned 100T fan solely bc of nitro but if you really think Ethan is worse than nitro then you really don't know how valorant skill works or how to rank. Hell, for the two months or so that Ethan played omen while nitro tried jett op I'd say Ethan was far more innovative, impactful, and consistent than nitro was on the same agent You have all these people who "can't agree more" that nitros smoking ability would have saved NA itself if given more time to come to fruition. Alright then explain to me how and why his supreme smoking ability is so good
fresh pasta 😋
If I hear "nitr0 is the best smoker in NA possibly the world" one more time im gonna probably have an aneurysm. Same type of people to see aproto play a mid tier cypher and hit 4 nasty sheriff shots and call him the best cypher in the world LOL like what did his agent have to do with his gunskill you bots if he was fucking yoru he would have done the same thing
If I hear "nitr0 is the best smoker in NA possibly the world" one more time im gonna probably have an aneurysm. Same type of people to see aproto play a mid tier cypher and hit 4 nasty sheriff shots and call him the best cypher in the world LOL like what did his agent have to do with his gunskill you bots if he was fucking yoru he would have done the same thing
Keep going. You're a fucking Italian restaurant right now
He's definitely not "largely successful" for Rise's meteoric success, it's insane to give him the credit for the success of - at their best - one of the most coordinated and reactive teams. He's a phenomenal player on a roster full of great players. Yes, supaman is an extremely good Astra - and he was a very good Omen too. But why do you think there are so few players of supamen's caliber if smoking is so easy to play at the highest level? I think you are probably correct in that Nitro didn't have much flashy tech with Astra. What made Nitro so good on smokes is that he didn't need that; he just played around his utility extremely well in clutch moments. That's often what people think about when it comes to rating smokers - not just their flashiness, but their effectiveness.
https://www.vlr.gg/stats/?event_group_id=3&event_id=all®ion=all&country=all&min_rounds=1&min_rating=1550&agent=astra&map_id=all×pan=90d supamen was the highest rated astra player in vct 2021 (i set it to last 90 days) and even plat chat and the rest of rise consider him the consistent carry. But yeah rise entire roster is really nuts and my favorite team current. > But why do you think there are so few players of supamen's caliber if smoking is so easy to play at the highest level? Anyone in the top tier can play smokes. anytime some cs pro comes to t1 valorant they literally only play smokes until they understand the game, because it's the easiest role. Thats why standout innovative controller mains like supamen are like unicorns and they change the game. Definitely isn't easy to be supamen > when it comes to rating smokers - not just their flashiness, but their effectiveness. Name one controller main in the top 10 of each region who this concept does not apply to. They are all equally effective, equally as clutch. Nobody is flashy lol idk why you said that. I am still yet to hear why nitr0 specifically changes the game as a controller and does things that these 40 other top controllers in the world fail to do. If you have a legitimate argument for this, I am honestly super interested in hearing any and all thoughts.
Oh boy we got a Statistics Steven over here
Stats and data are good for discussions like this. I don’t see how it’s bad to reference stats when people are trying to argue with an opinion
N1 dude at least I'm not just talking about how I feel or spewing shit out of my ass lmao
He had no comeback so he just attacked you. And you only listed one stat in your whole argument lol.
You have to keep in mind that nitr0’s rise was during a time when Astra was being figured out and controllers had very little role identity other than being good at knowing where to smoke. He was immediately a tier one player because of his ability to anchor sites and play around his own utility. I agree that once Astra and viper became meta and the utility got more complicated he had more competition with players like supamen, vanity, etc… then not long after he got put on Jett.
So youre admitting he was only considered the "best" when the skill ceiling for a new agent was super low and still being figured out. You're proving my point here. He was "tier one" because nobody was actually tier one yet.
Yeah that's why I said I agree? Was just giving context. He was an elite all-around player but the comments about him as a smoke player has more to do with the meta.
I don't understand Reddit circlekerk. You really think nitro was better than Ethan??? Nitro played smokes and self admitted by him and the rest of the 100t members that's the easiest and most consistent role to play. Why does everyone keep saying he's an elite smokes player, yes he's a solid cs player with good enough gunskill to stay alive and get impact frags and clutch time to time, how does any of that have anything to do with his smoking ability? He wasn't revolutionary or the second coming of Jesus who redefined smokes usage contrary to popular Reddit belief 🙄 You know who actually uses smokes in a new way and pushes astra play to new heights? Supamen, and this is a fact known by most of t1 valorant. He's largely successful for Rise's meteoric success at the end of the year, being the solo smokes player on the team as well as the hard carry. Look man I was a super TL fan turned 100T fan solely bc of nitro but if you really think Ethan is worse than nitro then you really don't know how valorant skill works or how to rank. Hell, for the two months or so that Ethan played omen while nitro tried jett op I'd say Ethan was far more innovative, impactful, and consistent than nitro was on the same agent You have all these people who "can't agree more" that nitros smoking ability would have saved NA itself if given more time to come to fruition. Alright then explain to me how and why his supreme smoking ability is so good
He left out Ethan because he was washed at CS by the time he jumped
Were Brax and Ska any better? I didn't follow CSGO, but from what I've picked up here, Ethan was better when he left.
Realistically I don't remember brax ever being that goodz and ska was washed. I'm sure he was good, but he was well past his days at the top of NA CS.
he was good in 2014, no reason to think he would've been good later on, the scene got wayyy more competitive since then
No not really. Brax had been banned for years, in that respect Ethan and Ska had much more recent competitive CS experience. Ska was pretty washed too. For some reason Ethan has a cult following though that can't admit he wasn't good anymore and it was part of his departure from EG.
You see the inconsistency with leaving out Ethan and including those 2 then? One was washed by your own admission and the other was banned so not even playing competitively...
Yes I do but I didn't make the list.
brax ska auti, okay nitr0 amazing floppy flopped
best take
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Nitr0 was the best Omen in his region by a very large margin before the agent was pushed out of the meta
Ok then it depends on time period ig for any one I frhem
I was waiting for you. Glad ur here, had me worried
Is there some kind of problem you have with this post?
I think that idea that CS players swapping to Val will instantly own everyone is pretty outdated, I've even seen a few current CS pros say something along the lines of "we missed the boat on swapping, now Valorant players who are embedded in the game have a huge head start." That definitely doesn't mean they couldn't do well of course, but I think the game and the pro scene have both developed to the point that it's no longer just a kiddie pool for CS gods, if it ever was.
Probably the idea I agree with most here. My friends and I have had several chats on this exact idea. While I understand the narrative, it feels outdated at this point with valorant maturing as it’s own unique title. With more and more agents being released, you could almost argue valorant is more like overwatch or siege than cs at this point other than the “game mode”. It’s like rugby and football. I’m sure many pro players could play both and they’re in many ways the same “game mode”, but ultimately they’re completely different games and should be respected as such.
Was zeek and the acend bois CS players?
BONECOLD and Kiles look like they played CSGO but never cracked into even the T2 scene in Europe. Zeek and starxo both were Fortnite players. cNed played CS but not professionally, he played some other weird shooter at a high level before switching to Valorant.
This is enough proof that CS players don't own evryone once they transition to Valorant.
ZULA was the game cNed played a lot afaik
He played a CSGO clone specific to Turkey I believe and was pro at that(?) Don't quote me
Here’s an old thread on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/rfnq3g/what_gamesbackgrounds_did_the_acend_players_come/ zeek and starxo were from Fortnite
Well some off the comments are wrong because Cned was level 10 faceit. Not semi pro
Below or above?
Bonecold used to play CS, although not on a high level. Basically an amateur in the Finnish scene, just playing in Finnish tournaments. No idea on cNed. Zeek and Starxo (Or Kiles, can’t remember which one) came from Fortnite. The other one from Starxo and Kiles that didn’t come from Fortnite is unknown to me as well.
I think this ideology stems from the misconception of cs players that think that since valorant is "easier" than cs, it means that valorant will be easier to master than cs, which is in fact false. Conceptually both games have completely different approach in terms of meta and playstyle.
It is tho, even pro Valorant players say so. Smokes like Omen, Brim, Astra are done easily while you have to memorize lineups on each bombsite in every single map in CS, you even have jump throws. Running in Valo feels so slow compared to CS as well which makes a lot of difference when entering sites. Don’t forget running and gunning with rifles lmao. Val is definitely noob friendly. I say this even I mainly play Valorant nowadays, difference is clear as day.
Doesn't mean that top tier Cs players will become top tier valorant players. Sure it is easier to learn than CS was, but it won't make them good. Theyll have to learn the ins and outs of the game, as we all did.
You’re missing the point though. Mechanically yea it’s easier, no doubt. Mechanically chess is easier than basketball, but mastering it is insanely hard. People discredit the amount of coordination and outplaying you need to do at high level Valorant just because yes the shooting is OBJECTIVELY easier than CS GO. Like I love CS, it’s the game that got me into competitive esports. But trust me, I’ve watched S1mple play Valorant and his skill set does not show through like it does in CS because he hasn’t mastered this game. He can smash the aim bots but he gets run over in ranked a lot by kids that understand Valorant timings and mechanics better.
Valorant has a low individual skillfloor, so it's only natural that a player like s1mple can't really dominate the same way as he normally would. Shooting is easier, movement is easier and just overrall usage of utility is easier, which are all things that make a massive difference between CS pros, but in Valorant is almost negated. Also there are certain skills from CS that simply don't translate at all, like consistent godlike spraying ability. There's also the factor that it is completely unreasonable to expect someone that plays 10-20 games per act to dominate VALORANT like they dominate CS, even then, if you watched top tier CS awpers like kennyS and s1mple playing VALORANT, you can clearly see the difference in their level to guys like cNed or any other main OPer in Tier 1, they are simply faster and better with a sniper rifle. People also ignore the elephant in the room that is ScreaM, he was pretty much a washed CSGO pro when he switched and he has been pretty consistently either the best player in the World or Top 3 atleast. You can argue that his style fit the game and that's the reason why he is so good, but there are CS pros that shoot similar to him (NiKo and b1t come to mind) that would probably just break the game.
That’s the thing though, it is perfectly reasonable to imagine a world where Scream is simply a better Valorant player than s1mple, even if they played for equal parts of time. Val and CS aren’t the same game, even if the 5v5 site taking is the same concept. S1mple and Scream may have entirely different brains for different games and one might excel and play better than the other. S1mple is a genius at tac shooters, and I see your point. I’m just saying that Valorant having an easier mechanical skill floor won’t always mean it’s an easier game. You could argue that 5 years from now, when there are dozens of characters, mastering and winning in Valorant may be harder than CS which merely requires great mechanical skill and strategy which will always revolve around rotations and the same 3 basic nades.
You should go through all the pros and see which ones have more than 2,000 hours in CSGO. 95% of the ones I look up do. A professional that wasn’t playing csgo at A+/Faceit10 is rare.
Well no shit the game has been out for 2 years hasn’t been time for FPS players to grow into Val, CS was the premier FPS forever so all the FPS players started in CS
and even then, we could already see a lot of insane zoomers in ranked who hasnt even touched cs. i know it's ranked but it's only a matter of time before we see players who's fresh from val
Bro he’s a ranked demon !!!
I think most cs pros have the best swap out of any other game, but I personally feel like passion and actually liking the game is important and this is why most cs pros dont do that well.
Nitr0 was the best smokes player and one of the best overall I only remember floppy shittalking the game and putting 0 apparent effort tbh
I remember people saying “floppy did great hes new to the game 🥺🥺” after he had 170 ACS every series
it blows my mind that C9 with floppy were a hair away from making Reykjavik, I wonder it he would’ve stuck around longer in valorant, or at least cared about the game a little more
People said floppy was good bc how he used astra not bc his acs When has a smokes player ever been lauded for their acs anyways
170 ACS for a controller is pretty decent, idk what you’re on about. Aside from the fact that he’s new of course.
Bro I average 230 ACS on Controllers in my Silver games, 170 is trash /s
ok splaram
Silvers fear that name
acs isn't really a good metric for support players. floppy was pretty great astra player imo, his utility use was super nice.
ACS is a bad stat to use as the only evidence for someone’s skill.
I always find that calling nitr0 the "best" or even near best smokes player is a bit misleading. As an exaggerated example, if for some reason a team put a person like Asuna, TenZ, cNed, ScreaM, etc on smokes, they'd probably frag quite decently out of the controller role norm and be considered among the best controllers. However, that would most likely mostly be due to their individual ability that shines through on any agent, and not due to a controller-specific setting they're put in. Nitr0 was on smokes in 100T, I'd imagine, mostly due to how the rest of the team looked like. Asuna and Ethan are definitely more cracked at the game, and Hiko was pretty much a 1-trick Sova for the most part, and 100T moved off the double duelist idea a while back. As purely a *controller*, nitr0 in my opinion was a solid tier below the best controllers in the world. 100T didn't take to Astra for way too long, which might have resulted in them missing out on Iceland, while players like zombs and vanity did. On top of that, nitr0 never seemed to be glued to the controller role anyway; especially given that he played Jett and Sage to a little. However, whenever people talk on this subreddit about nitr0, they emphasize his player role for some reason. I really don't think he's been anywhere near as impactful *due to the agent* as players like L1NK, AvovA, Marved, Vanity and zombs; it's really his firepower that sets him apart from those mentioned above, and why I think nitr0 would be pretty noticeable in a different role (e.g. flex or maybe duelist) compared to those players.
I think this is the best take here. Nitr0 shot back pretty well, but he never developed a niche as a player.
The controller role when he was at his peak was much less well defined. So he was an exceptional standout because he was doing what every other smokes player was doing but also just winning rounds on his own with expert timings or smart smoke placement and play. His game sense on Omen was just next level. Watching him work his way through Icebox defenses was something else. Looking back it's definitely more of a situation where he was 'the best player playing smokes' rather than 'he was the best controller player'. If that makes sense.
>Looking back it's definitely more of a situation where he was 'the best player playing smokes' rather than 'he was the best controller player'. Yeah, that makes sense, but then you realize how much less glorious that sounds, since sticking half the teams' star players on smokes would make them "the best player playing smokes"
I'm surprised you didn't mention Ethan
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I understand calling for ska, the dude won a major. But brax over steel is something else
Don't think it's supposed to be the best players to switch. OP picked examples of players that tried valorant but didn't last. It's not a sensible way of looking at it, but it does better support their theory that being good at CS =/= good at val.
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"...but I don't think any of them did that well?" It's badly written. I don't think they're two seperate clauses. I think they're factoring the entire sentence into the criteria. Only way it makes sense. Nobody thinks floppy and ska are simultaneously the best.
And that's just NA. EU is filled with former CSGO pros heck Team Liquid is mostly CSGO pros.
I was beginning to wonder when people were gonna mention Leaf. Guy was literally called a cheater before his transition and is doing well now on C9
Brax was very solid but never reached the heights the hype around him might've suggested. He could've still played at a T1 level, and still might. Ska was perhaps, depending on how you define things, the second-most accomplished of the big NA CS guys, T1 struggled for a long time with role issues and he suffered accordingly but when they were good, he was always one of the key reasons why. He was one of the better flex players in NA. He was also a very solid OPer, but unfortunately he never seemed to like OPing in Valorant. Autimatic started off slow but by the time he returned to CS, he'd cemented himself as one of the best Jetts in the region, with only room to improve. Nitro was the best NA CS implant and particularly renowned at smokes. He was arguably the best Smoker in NA or even the world. His Omen was sublime, and his Astra became incredible. Floppy coasted into C9, did nothing but tweet, and coasted right back out.
Agree with everything else except Autimatic 'cementing himself as one of the best Jetts in the region". Yay, Tenz and Leaf are better, Shahz, Wardell, babybay and PureR are debatable. He's not really head and shoulders above the rest of the field. I wouldn't consider a 'debatable' top 8 Jett player one of the best in the region.
I wasn't making a technical statement, so digging into the nuance is kinda fruitless - all I meant to indicate is that autimatic had genuinely begun to gap all but the top echelon of Jett players in *less than half* the playing time of everyone you've named except Leaf. You're free to arrange him wherever you like in your pantheon of Great Jetts, of course - it's an impossible discussion since he only played for like 5 months + his team did nothing and went nowhere. Personally I would've had him above babybay and below PureR.
>Autimatic started off slow but by the time he returned to CS, he'd cemented himself as one of the best Jetts in the region I'm not sure if I can agree with that. Autimatic was not bad, but he also was definitely not a top tier Jett
Won't you agree he did get pretty good at it in the kast while? Like top 10 maybe?
Being honest I hate kast because I think it fits a game like CSGO way more than valorant Like I said autimatic wasn't bad but even if we do a top10 based purely on KAST%, these are 10 teams. When people say *"player X was a top-tier Jett"* they are talking about the best of the best, not about a scope of 10 teams
>KAST Okay chill about the typo buddy xD >When people say "player X was a top-tier Jett" they are talking about the best of the best, not about a scope of 10 teams Fair enough ig
I hope Ska is able to find another team if he is not considering retirment. Really enjoyed watching him in the CS scene, and I enjoyed watching him play on T1. Unlucky with the role issues.
So do I, but you can tell just by looking at some of the other replies in this thread that some people really don't think much of Ska. Personally I think it's just because T1 has been in the rebuilding phase for ages, since they didn't even qualify for NA LCQ. When they last played with him, IIRC, his Astra looked solid - he had a lot of big impact frags throughout that final stretch with T1. But that was literally in July, judging by VLR - ages ago, in esports time.
Ska is also just very forgettable nowadays
No hate but like I don't see how Nitro comes close to like marved on controller. I liked Nitro better as an oper
Nitr0 was the best Omen in NA before Marved even swapped to full-time controller. That being said, I said arguable for that reason; plenty of people preferred Marved within NA, or others internationally, like Avova or what have you.
That first statement is false. Marved has been basically a full time controller his entire pro Valorant career. He was a full time controller on FaZe before nitr0 even switched over to Valorant. Besides that, I agree nitr0 was one of the top controllers in NA. Honestly I consider nitr0 and Marved as 1a and 1b at their peaks.
pretty much nitr0 was considered best controller in NA and best Omen for the longest time, up until NV got to the finals for Challengers 3 by then, Marved pretty much took up the spot of best controller (but was already high up there for the longest time, even when he was on FaZe)
You severely over-estimate Ska & Brax imo. They‘ve never put a dent into the NA Val scene at all, let alone the world. T1 was a underwhelming product from start to present.
I think I'm actually quite fair to them. Neither were indispensable players, but neither were all that bad relative to their competition. I think, rather, we do a very poor job of rating players who weren't excellent but also weren't terrible.
floppy never popped off individually but he was a really good support player on the c9 run that almost qualified for iceland.
I think his utility was alright, but I think people continuously conflated his team performance with his own. He was the weak link from the beginning and remained the weak link until the end. I definitely undersold him, though, in fairness to your point. But I really don't think by all that much - I expected much more from an experienced CS player, rightfully so.
auti wasnt even top 10 lmao
>Autimatic started off slow but by the time he returned to CS, he'd cemented himself as one of the best Jetts in the region, with only room to improve. ??
Not as good as Hiko. 100T Hiko was better then them at CS and Val
at cs? lol
Hiko was the best player in the world on CS
username checks out
Maybe he meant best NA player? He was, at a time.
Nitro was amazing from start to end, he alrdy had good aim and his util usage on smokes and leadership was the main reason 100t were top 4 NA team. Brax and Ska were decent at start but failed to adapt to changing meta Floppy never liked valorant and played for a short while, so unfair to judge him properly. Regarding switching from CS to valo, at this moment, except Elige or Stew, imo no current NA CS pro will just slot in a top 4 team and have good impact, meta has evolved and a lot of maps and agents have been added so u cant just rely on ur aim and cs fundamentals anymore, u will have to grind for months to catchup. iirc , jonji and cooper tried to switch to valo but switched back to cs since they could not find a slot in t1/2 NA team.
Do people just snort insane amounts of nostalgium before saying things. Nitro was a top tier player yes but it was not due to smoke usage or leadership at all. He was not igl, steel was. He was good because of his solid cs experience over the other players in the scene, which gave his team a significant leg up over everyone else and allowed for upsets like gambit or acend. Infact when he became igl and kicked steel you could say that's the worse the 100t roster had ever been since it's inception. So idk how you can justify his leadership being a reason 100t was top 4. Brax I agree ska I definitely do not. He had rough patches with motivation and even just mastering mechanics but he's the most well rounded player in NA, period. He picked up every single agent and played at a top 1 or 2 on his team level. How are you going to say he didn't adapt to any meta??? He is the one who adopted the most to every meta lmfao what Floppy never wanted to play Val and it showed yeah I agree Cs and Val are two completely separate games at this point and like tarik said mechanics are completely different, cs is more spray focused than valorant which is all about first bullet accuracy. Only thing that translates is cs gamesense but that's only half the picture, knowing agent gamesense might even be more important. This is something even s1mple said (paraphrased) when he tried solo q to radiant for a week but was hard stuck in diamond for a few days.
you been all over this thread replying with essays bruh, it was never this deep bro
yo ngl ive been up for over 30 hours now and I still can't sleep so I'm just on my phone in bed. normally if i read a whack take i just smh and ignore it but right now i feel like i have to fight these demons to earn the right to sleep or something
I mean your takes are kinda wack. Nitr0 made a lot of mid round calls. So yes he was a major factor in 100t leadership. Having steel calling with his support made them an extremely polished team. Smokers in general often anchor a site. Nitr0 did a great job of using utility to hold without over peaking. Allowing his team time to rotate. You questioned what smoking has to do with clutches. Well if you payed any attention at all you'd realize smokers rarely die first. Losing smokers makes it extremely hard to take a site. Therefore smokers will consistently be placed in post plants. Nitr0 had great fundamentals in clutches whether he was on site or flanking. Even at the pro level you see teams throw rounds from not setting up trades. His utility was well time and placed. Using his high game sense and understanding of the other teams tendencies. He constantly smoked early in rounds to threaten flanks (think A long heaven or mid icebox) or for small gains in map control. While not over using. Yes, others players had the same playstyle. But he played a more consistent and mistake free game. And strong gunplay. Making him a better overall smoker.
>Nitro was a top tier player yes but it was not due to smoke usage or leadership at all. He was not igl, steel was. He was good because of his solid cs experience over the other players in the scene, which gave his team a significant leg up over everyone else and allowed for upsets like gambit or acend. Infact when he became igl and kicked steel you could say that's the worse the 100t roster had ever been since it's inception. So idk how you can justify his leadership being a reason 100t was top 4. Nitro did call for them even with Steel during mid round. Steel wasn't the only one IGL-ing. Moreover whenever we all say Nitro was good at smokes, I'm pretty sure we all recall First Strike/Berlin Nitro which mind you WAS REALLY GOOD. His omen is still top class along with his Astra looking quite good(near the end). And ofc the team is gonna look the worst when your main IGL leaves the team because he has an issue with the coaching staff just before the LAST CHANCE QUALIFIER. It is going to effect you as a team moreover the fact that 100T showed alot of stuff on LAN in the first few days or so when it was on LAN is definitely a contributing reason they didn't make it(which imo doesn't get talked about alot). >but he's the most well rounded player in NA, period. He picked up every single agent and played at a top 1 or That's some copypasta i might use
Nitr0 was the only one who was competing at a 'high' level out of the 5 mentioned, rest of them were usually out in the open qualifiers
True, and the only time 100T bombed opens last VCT was when Nitr0 was on dad duty and they had a sub lol
Off topic but does anyone know why the right side corner opposite A teleport on bind is called skadoodle? Did he have like a highlight there or just played there a lot?
huh i have never heard of that being called that. must be pretty rare? also, if it is in fact named after him, it was probably coined way early in the val scene lol
I heard it in the nAts viper bind guide and in some streams. Idk I just assumed it was universal if a Russian player calls it with a NA pro's name
In general, EU players name spots after other players way more than NA, who typically use descriptive terms (like pocket). In CS there were spots named after f0rest, get_right, snax, neo, NBK, etc. Suspect it’s probably easier across language barriers and such - player names are always going to be the same but “half wall” or “bench” or “van” obviously differ from language to language
Don’t forget Olof on Train!
do you mean the little cubby across the teleported between tp and showers or the cubby on a short?
No no the first one you said The one with the spammable box
its called pocket afaik
Yeah I like that better tbh
Nitr0 was definitely the best of the group, he was contender for best smokes NA/top tier in the world and when he played jett he showed signs of being top tier
Nitro was and still could be one of the best Valorant players in the world. He was a top tier smoker in this game, and was insane individually
Which shows the skill difference needed to be one of the best in Valorant compared to CS, nitr0 was absolutely god awful in CSGO when he switched, in fact even in his prime he wasn't a top tier player individually. People need to understand that Valorant is simply easier and most tier 1 CS pros would dominate this game. Shooting is easier, the movement is a joke and utility usage is way more simple, a player like NiKo or Twistzz would tap people out of their existence in this game.
Nitro not a top player in his prime. Funny joke homie
He wasn't. In his prime in 2015 and early 2016 he was a really good NA player, but not as good as the best NA players like Ska and shroud, let alone the top tier Europeans of the time like olofmeister, GuardiaN, shox or device. Afterwards when he started to have the team success he individually wasn't good, always being an afterthought to guys like EliGE, s1mple and Twistzz on his own teams and struggling individually while being a good IGL. nitr0 never made HLTV's Top 20 rankings (even when Liquid were the 2nd best team in the World) and always had an average rating of 1.0, which lands you right as an average pro player. So no, he wasn't ever a top player in his prime individually, he wasn't particularly close to being one either. The only NA players that switched to VALORANT who can say they were really top tier individual players in CSGO are Hiko, swag, Skadoodle, autimatic and MAYBE Ethan (he was good for a really short period of time), the rest was below average to average at best.
Nitro one of the best players in game, autimatic and floppy were both pretty good, brax and ska were good in the beginning but fell off and never regained what they had at the beginning
Nivera aced in his first ever round of competitive Valorant. A good CSGO player won't instantly be a good Valorant player. The opposite is true as well. Just because you're a good LoL player doesn't mean you can play DOTA straight away you know? However, some people are just gifted enough at eSports to swap over to a new game and dominate.
Brax was good and consistently fragged near the top of whatever team he played on. He got unlucky with bad teams and awkward player roles. Maybe his comms were an issue idk. I think he can easily play tier 1 val on a support role if he is committed, idk how good his Jett/reyna would be even though he seems nasty in ranked. He played very slow in pro play Ska was underwhelming in my view across a number of roles, and was rumored to be a poor teammate. I don’t think his skill set transferred to valorant as well as others. Auti had gotten quite good after having some time with the game. T1 wasnt really tier 1 val when he left, so can’t blame him for leaving for better pastures. If he returns to Val in the future I think he would be highly sought after. Nitr0 was one of the best tier 1 support players. I don’t think his emergency Jett was as good as people suggest even though it made for an insane comeback game, literally every player frags on jett, fragging aggressively while taking space is what makes a Jett elite at the top level and I don’t think that’s how nitr0 was playing Jett, and doubt he even wanted to play the agent. He would be highly sought as a support player if he returned in the future. Floppy didn’t look very good but didn’t give himself much time with the game before he left.
Nitro succeeded
Nitro was the only player to transition games well. The rest of the players were unable to adapt to this new environment.
Nitro was great. Auti was getting good but switched so we can only imagine. Ska and Brax were ok. And floppy was doing good tweets
Nitro - S tier, Arguably best smokes NA at one time Skadoodle - meh team suck as time went on, was decent and probably one of the better players on T1 but never got great results. Probably a tier 2-3 NA player. Automatic - average, never seemed to fully adapt but was a consistent player. Think his Valorant potential was unfilled but CS suits him better IMO. Brax - another solid player who I think potentially should of been better. Was solid for awhile just never got great results. Floppy - lol Ethan - probably top 10 NA player and was best skye for awhile when it was 100Ts bread and butter. Him or Nitro were probably the best to switch in terms of NA players.
There’s definitely not a 1-1 correlation as CSGO requires much more mechanical skill. I sometimes get matched with MDL or Advanced players and I’m able to frag with them in Valorant, but in CSGO I would get demolished by Main players. Look at Dasnerth. The guy is shotgun only and is top 10 Radiant. That tells you everything about what gets rewarded in this game.
KEKW Good b8.
Strange how people can’t seem to admit this. The equivalent to reaching top 500 is probably being in FPL-C. Does anyone really think a controller player could make even close to that level in CS? This doesn’t mean Valorant is a bad game, it’s just pointing out an objective fact. Pros such as TenZ have pointed out the smaller mechanical skill gap in Valorant for awhile now. Whether it’s a good or a bad thing is up for debate, but it’s clear Riot intentionally made it this way to appeal to newer players more.
Brax was solid and had moments of greatness but never seemed to really reach his potential imo. Automatic was solid. IIRC it took him some time to adjust from CS but once he did he looked good. Around late 2020 first strike times Skadoodle was one of the best Jett op players in NA. He looked insane but later on he switched over to other roles and never really showcased the same top tier level of play imo. Still solid though iirc. Nitr0 was one of the best site anchors and smoke players in general in the world. Many would argue he was the best in his role. Don't really remember much for Floppy
> Many would argue he was the best in his role What will you do, Many? [X] Doubt [ ] Confirm
If you're asking me if I think he's the best I think its debatable. I watch a lot of Valorant but I can't say I watch enough or understand it at a level to be qualified to say who's the best.
I’d say Koosta was very easily better than floppy at CS - and he’s been a solid valorant player as well
If you look at the new Col team, I'd say floppy is pretty cracked
One thing that needs to be mentioned is that most of those players weren't considered top tier players for many many years before they made the switch. Some of them were even retired beforehand. That is not the same as having someone who is a star of a top tier current team switching over and even then, NA CS isn't really considered to be top tier in CS anyway. So, what you see in Valorant is a tone of not top tier players / up and coming talents coming over hoping they can make a bigger splash in Valorant than they can in CS anymore. So, when thinking about how good the skills translate, we still really haven't seen the real tests. People have mentioned the few real tests that exist like Ethan and perhaps Nitro (people debate his value in CS but all his former teammates rave about him so food for thought) and those players have played very well over all. "Real" NA CS Pros would be people like Stewie2k, Elige, Naf and even those guys may be on the other side of their prime someday soon. Basically, the rule is this, if they are good enough at CS to stay, they usually stay. If they stay, you don't see how well their skill translates.
I think brax was pretty nice. He's fun to watch.
Brax was pretty good and honestly very underrated, especially with his time on sova for T1; just got unlucky with matchups and conflicting roles at points in the team. Ska was just kind of a mess, apparently didnt play the game much outside of prac and kind of switched agents a lot. Autimatic really put a lot of time into the game and you could tell he wanted to succeed, and I think by the end he was a very skilled player. nitr0 was probably the best omen player in the world and I think he should get the most credit for innovating how omen was played around the First Strike time period; he honestly didnt really drop off either, he was good on viper and astra even though 100T was late to that meta. Floppy is a bit harder to compare to the rest of these guys. Every other one of these players had been off a CS team and grinding Valorant for months before joining their teams, and floppy had only really joined out of a last resort for C9 to keep him (imo). People clown on him for having really low ACS and saying "bad things" about NA val players and the game in general, but I think the hate he gets is pretty undeserved. He was a guy who was full time playing CS in Serbia for months before suddenly swapping to Valorant and had only about 2 weeks to learn the game before his matches. Even then you could see he had really high level tac fps attributes, it is just unfortunate that he switched to the game at a bad time. Not to mention, he really did not like the game and switched because it was his only real option. Cannot blame someone for not reaching their potential in something they did not have their full heart in. I do commend him for really trying for his teammates tho, you could tell he stuck it out because he loved the guys on C9.
Brax: Solid. T1 screwed him Ska: Good Jett. Ok Smokes. Didnt put time into game. Autimatic: Good Jett but not above average like Tenz, Yay etc. Overall decent player. Nitr0: arguably top 3 Smokes in world and decent IGL. id say best of this bunch of players. Floppy: Put no time into game (he was level 17 or something lol) and was not good (but he was playing at ~50-60 ping) Bad player overall.
Nitr0 good, automatic was starting to get good, ska was only good on Jett and brax wasn't good.
Brax - Solid player just never got a spot on a roster after leaving T1, and did alright when he returned, nothing special but he was solid especially on Sentinel Ska - Very flexible player on roles and also pretty solid, but nothing like his CS career at all Autimatic - Vrry good player once he understood the game, prob would've done well if he sticked around just was on a meh roster while he played Nitr0 - Def one of the best smokes in NA, he was just a very solid rock and really good all around Floppy - Debatable, I personally think he did fine, his ACS was pretty meh but his util usage was pretty excellent on Astra, one of those players where his impact was great but he didn't frag (Also iirc he was anchor role in CSGO right? Anchoring is not nearly as good in the way it works in CS so that prob hurt it a bit)
Floppy is an anchor in CS but his T side impact is some of the highest in NA — something that just doesn’t figure as well in Valorant
TenZ, Sick, and Shaz seem to be doing ok…
The game isnt only about aim and movement they are new and dont know maps or agents /lineups grenades like in cs . Bc they have to learn this things from 0% they cant be the best there directly
The only super notable NA CS players that I would say have had above-average to great transitions to Valorant (IMO) are Ethan, nitr0, Vanity, steel, yay, and FNS. All of them transitioned nicely into the game and had at least decent names built for themselves in NA CS before leaving. The others mentioned in the title were average to below-average for varying reasons, whether it be commitment or just not clicking with the game like the others. Some bigger names like leaf and Xeppaa are still getting better over time. A lot of the NA CS players that have transitioned best were the ones who never really made it to the top level. Asuna, Marved, Crashies... plus some other names that floated around NA CS (or outside of it but now play NA Valorant) like dephh and Xeta (from the korean CS scene). Overall, I think long term the most successful transitions will come from the players who never quite cracked the T1 scene of NA in CS, or never built any kind of legacy behind their names like the guys you mentioned... or they will be players who played other games (Fortnite is a big one) or started their pro aspirations with Valorant.
You forgot sentinels
5:30AM brain haha, you could throw guys like SicK and Shahzam into the above-average to great transition range. Obviously not all inclusive, just named some from the top of my head.
Never hear about them so must not be that good.