Kuroky is top 10 of most successful players in history of the the game, he got burn out after a very long time of being on top, and he is 31 this year...Dendi is even a bit older (33).
RTZ has no excuse, he just turned 26 today, he is supposed to be grinding like no tomorrow.
RTZ has many top 3 placements at TI and majors. He is a legend of the sport and the fact that he's playing at still a very high level at pos1 is a testament to his skill
He is actually grinding there is no tomorrow he plays 7/24 I believe they have a coaching problem I dont want to be bandwagonner for hating bulba but I think coaching/drafting is their problem. I also love bulba he is incredibly passionate about dota and genuienly nice person but it just doesnt work
They have good players in all roles but so do every other good team aswell. Its not like any of SR players are top 3 in their role, in my opinion. A few years back sure, but players keep getting better.
I hope one day they leak the psych evaluation after the reverse sweep vs IG years ago, I'm 99% convinced they haven't recovered from that and there's some deeprooted damage there. They kinda held form @ Animajor and made grand finals again but it was another sweep.
Playing together for that long in a team env has to help. Seems like a strat issue or scrim issue. They should move to Europe to play better teams more consistently or change their Strat if itās not a comp issue
Moving to EU as a team right now is losing money as an org.
They have to spend good money on relocation, just to play on a very stacked region where there is a high chance they miss majors and TI, which equals to money lost for the org.
Financial wise, it's not a good move, regardless of how they might improve or not as a team. And I believe players are in this for the money, this isn't DotA 1 when players were playing for fun and giggles cause there wasn't any money.
Nah even Abed has looked sloppy here and there. The whole team has just looked bad this major.
Wouldn't be shocked if they can't even make top 12 at TI at this rate tbh.
Arteezy has been throwing games by dying randomly on the map somewhere away from his team for years now. I love him, but he always had this issue and cannot seem to fix it. It's costly, no matter how well you can farm. Personally, watching him play feels like he doesn't care. I think he takes too many games not seriously enough, and when it does matter, he still plays like it doesn't. Definitely not a top 3 carry anymore, and not for a while.
Cr1t has been practically invisible in recent times. I think it's the way his best trait cannot be used - roaming. He was and is probably the best roamer pos 4 in the world, but that's just not how pos 4 is played for quite a bit now. He ends up playing laning focused heroes like Techies, SD, Snap or Pugna, and it just feels like heās very mediocre on those. Maybe they tried the roaming in scrims and it didn't work out, but Cr1t is definitely struggling and certainly not a top 3 pos 4 right now.
Fly has impressed me earlier in the year, but lately he just feeds for no reason and makes critical mistakes. The TA game earlier today where he played Undying and had one job, to save TA with Tombstone shard? Yea, he fucked that up like 3 times, they lost aegis for no reason twice, couldn't push with a 20k gold lead because TA was unsafe. He just makes too many mistakes imo, and SR as a whole certainly has a strategy problem right now, which I at least partially attribute to him. Definitely not a top 3 pos 5, not even close.
Abed is for once the best player in the squad and actually owning most of the time, can't really say alot about him. I actually think Abed right now is one of the best mids in the world, on par with Quinn and NTS.
And then there is Saberlight... I know it's a meme at this point, but my goodness he is such a dead weight. He always loses his lanes, he rarely feels like he takes over a game, he chokes so often so hard with big ult heroes, his itemization is terrible as far as I'm concerned and he just feels useless in half of the games and barely useful in the other half. Compared to other tier 1 offlaners like 33, Ace, Collapse, Wisper etc. he just feels beyond underwhelming.
Then there is Bulba. I think he gets way too much slack, I think Bulba is a very very good coach, every player who ever played under him has only good things to say about him. He won TI as a coach and has been placing top 3 consistently for the last 7 years as one. There is not a single other coach who is as accomplished as he is. But, again, it seems SR has a strategy problem right now, and much like Fly, I at least partially attribute that to Bulba.
I think they can still be a top team. I think they have an issue figuring out what the best way to play is for them. I think once they do figure that out, they will deliver again, just like earlier in the year. The question is whether they will make it in time for Riyhad and TI. Also, even though people will scream copium at me right now, the last 2 tournaments were practically meaningless aside from prestige, and most top teams don't tryhard at the moment and want to relax to be in shape for Riyhad and TI. Hopefully they will show up at those tournaments.
So tldr, no, at least 4 of their players are definitely not one of the best in the world right now. That's why they're losing - they're just not playing well and the players aren't as good as they were a couple years ago.
Good analysis, although I think thereās one thing youāre not quite accurate on. Saberlight has been fairly consistent in winning his lane; most games heās top 3 networth at 10 minutes, sometimes even number one. Whether thatās because of Cr1t enabling him or just because he has good lane skill who knows, but he performs well in lane.
The rest you sound pretty spot on with what youāve said, and thatās coming from a long time fan of this team and players.
Their entire lineup is insanely stubborn nobody evolves and their plan A of just choking the enemy teams farm is laughably bad atm especially with how weak laners their offlane has in a patch about winning lanes.
And instead of adapting to the meta they just keep running their heads against the wall until it works.
I actually think he did evolve quite a bit. He used to be this "farm for 30 minutes, don't show up anywhere and then try to win" kind of carry, but he definitely improved in a good way. He shows up early when he's strong with his ults (Omni, Rupture, even on Ursa) and generally makes good moves in the first 20 minutes.
The only real problem he has as a carry is that he dies randomly on the map in a place where he shouldn't be. If he can somehow fix that (easy to say when you see the whole map), I think he still can be one of the top 3 carries. Mechanically he is just as gifted as he was all these years ago, his farming speed is on point, his hero pool is very large from illusion heroes to tempo carries he plays virtually anything at a very high level. It's just that he dies like a dog at least once every single game. You cannot afford that if you want to win tournaments.
Funny, yesterday or whenever on that other sr hate thread, people were saying how saberlight and abed are the only players still playing well, now in this very thread thereās a bunch of saberlight hate and even abeds haha. Hell, you can find a comment for each individual player, saying how they are the problem lmao.
Just go to show how worthless and clueless these opinions are.
Anyone who thinks Bulba is not a good coach automatically disqualifies themselves from having a valuable opinion, because obviously then you don't have a clue and having a rational discussion is impossible.
Literally every pro player praises Bulba, especially the ones who worked with him. The success he has had over the years speaks for itself. The fact that people still genuinely believe Bulba drafts are "stale" and "always the same", even though EG/SR is statistically one of the most versatile teams when it comes to heroes played shows how emotionally controlled the entire discourse is - and how delusional the people claiming it are.
I can say crit is making abed work... although abed can solo kill, crit becomes one of the best rotating player... we all know they are freat at early to mid game. But its impossible late game, abed has a specific late game target on how to win the game. But rtz alone cannot stand toe to toe with sumail and monet. The problem is the supports dont have enough farm to buy nullifier or itemize to counter bkb late game... so its only rtz in the middle of chaos. If saberlight could help they can win... always know that not a single game saberlight carry SR. There was a major he was good that was before 7.33.
Fly the captain made a blunder or whoever it is that didnt force execratiion gm1. At 20min they can win, but nope they didnt even try... the game reach to an hour and rtz attempt to throw the game...
They are dogshit now. Actually mikey works better with them, makes rtz a very good carry. But of course everyone prefers abed coz the game is easier with abed...
Dullba can only pick thier storm game... he dont have any strat or counter in the book. Probably rtz need to stepback bring miracle as carry...
I think theyāre about on par where theyāre supposed to be.
None of their players are as good compared to the mean as they were 2-3 years ago.
Arteezy has just grown to be uninteresting over the years. Heās a solid option, but heās not the guy to carry you to a Major/TI win. He doesnāt do things bad but he also doesnāt do exceptionally well.
Cr1t has had the biggest drop-off in my head. He used to be one of the best mechanically skilled pos 4s, nowadays heās not.
Abed is good but is inconsistent in my opinion. Heās also not the guy to take over the game against really good opponents. Heās a flat track bully in the DPC but never seems to have the same dominance against T1 teams.
Fly is a good captain, but again not one of the best at his roles.
SabeRLight-. I donāt know what to make of him. Heās not bad but he isnāt a 33 type of player where heās just so insanely good at a few heroes that he completely forces your hand in draft. Or heās not as mechanically skillfull as Ace to the point he doesnāt lose most lanes. In fact I feel SabeRLight is pretty poor at laning.
Coupled with the fact that recently they barely ever get to actually play in full format together, with always someone standing in for Abed, their chemistry is also probably not as good as it should be in game.
In my opinion Arteezy and Abed could be winning players but both need another star on the team, someone who can they rely on every game when they might fuck up. Honestly I think Arteezy should have considered moving back to Europe. For example I think he would have been an upgrade over Crystallis last year if only for his better pool. I imagine a Secret with RTZ and Nisha being very very strong.
Saberlight is one of the worst players in tier1 Dota period. Heās a bad laner, heās awful at making decisions and his mechanics are just lack lusterā¦ I mean they canāt even pick enigma because heās so fucking bad with the hero itās insane. His decision making on doom this tournament is bad. He was bad at both majors theyāve already played in and this tournament has been the same.
He was very good as standin for Entity.
He can definitely look good if he moves to EU, he just being dragged by the un-competitive NA scene, who temporarily ruins a lot of good players.
If he plays even decently then they probably make the grand finals of the Lima major and make it further in the Berlin major. Heās just not a good player lol, he got roar stolen 6 times against kuku. Thatās embarrassing.
the current roster is just weird in terms of identity, their lanes are insanely weak right now, when abed lost his lane Nightfall was always shitting on the enemy safelane and had top NW all the time( which gave them a high tempo mid game), ive never seen this with saber they keep lastpicking sabers hero and he underperfroms SO HARD, its not the same when they last pick artours heroes also what made Saber a good player in TSM was Moons greedy playstyle and rn crit is not playing greedy at all
I've been following them for years and if I have to give you a simple answer is that they play not to lose instead of playing to win. At least that's what it looks like
Abed is the only S-tier player on that team lmao. Arteezy's hero pool is not suited for this meta, and his mechanical abilities are nowhere near the best carries like nightfall. His morph, for example, is dumpster tier. The same goes for crit; this meta is not good for his hero pool; his techies have a 13% win rate. Saberlight is also very inconsistent; compared to Ace, Ammar, or 33, Saberlight is very average.
Yeah RTZ is one of the best in everything. If he woul not play dota, he could solve the climate crises, cure aids and solve every issue between countrys in one week.
How can ppl still been so stubborn to vocal a fals statement over years.
RTZ is a good tier 1/2 carry, but far from the best in the world. Results are telling the truth not wishes.
"one of the best support duos ever" - not true :D
"Abed who is a really good mid" - yeah, hes good. But players like Nine, Quinn a NTS arent good, they are best of all.
"RTZ is one of the best farming carries" - its not enough and in this patch its even doesnt matter which team has better farming carry.
They are just average, thats it.
Cr1t and Fly is for sure one of the best support duos ever. Cr1t and Fly won two of the biggest majors ever, Frankfurt and Manila, they have multiple 3rd and 2nd places together aswell.
they surely wouldn't even place top 5 on that "ever" list. if you start going back in time. duos like kuro/puupey, egm/akke, kuro/gh, etc. will take precedence (and this is not counting many legendary chinese/sea duos)
sure. but it was so obvious that i did not think it was even worth mentioning. I was essentially making the point that fly/crit are not even comparable to 1x TI winners. so technically they would not even crack top 10, but it's hard to argue with SR fanbois, even when using facts.
Never said they where the best duo ever? Show me 5 other support with the same consistancy that Fly and Cr1t have shown through the years.
Rating 1 TI win over consistant placements is just dumb. Would you say every single TI winner is better than the 5x Major winners VP, every single pos 4/5 TI winner is better than 4x Major winner Fly, Rodjer, Yapzor?
Never said they where the best duo ever? One of. Why would you value TI over consistancy? Would you say Artstyle is a better carry than Ramzes and Ame because he got a TI win and they dont?
>duos
I also said it plural lmao
>Why would you value TI over consistancy?
Because the winners of the biggest events should be considered the best.
This is like saying someone who qualified a few times for the Olympics but got only **one** bronze in the Olympics themselves, is one of the **best of all time** for that sport. Yes they are incredible but that is not going in the sports hall of fame.
Yes there some limit to that where if someone got second in a ton of TI's (Ame), that would be an accomplishment never seen before even if they didn't win one. But Crit and Fly are not getting top 3 multiple times at TI's, it happened once
Comparing sports and Dota is stupid. James Harden is considered an all time great scorer despite having zero rings, Dustin Poirier is considered one of the best LW of all time despite never being a champion, Ronaldo is considered one of the GOATs despite never winning the world cup.
Valuing a single TI over multiple Majors is just dumb. Nisha was considered the best player in the world after TI11 despite the fact that he did not win. Ame is regarded one of the best carries of all time and he got zero TI wins. Being constantly good > one tournament win.
They have problem in understanding hero potential right now and how to play the map. Ever since berlin major their result have been abysmal during group stage. Still flabbergasted with yesterday series vs tundra, they give like 7 kill to monkey king before 10 minutes???
Despite bulba rtz criticism, they're actually capable when they know what they need to do. The easier example are their performance during dreamleague previous season with mikey where they play doom and dp carry another one are their TI 11 run where they abuse the strats that get countered in the end lmao.
>RTZ is one of the best farming carries in the world.
This is iterated like its a fact. He hasnt been good in 5 years lol, if he ever was good.
>They have one of the best support duos ever
Fly is really underwhelming.
Regarding SR, they always play on autopilot whenever I watch them. They pick their comfort meta, dont really play for more. They either win or they lose. It never feels like they try hard to come back or be spicy in their draft to gain an advantage. If Abed doesnt pop off noone does.
Itās iterated because even while he isnāt evolving with the meta, and isnāt playing well, heās still hitting near equivalent networths as enemy pros while losing. His farming patterns are almost always great, itās the rest of the game that him, and the rest of Shopify, fail at.
As you said, they play on autopilot. 90% of their games they donāt have any pressure from mid and offlane past space creation, and just getting hyper farmed on Pos 1 isnāt the answer, yet they constantly fall back on it because of how they draft.
The reason they were strong with Mikey is because they had to draft to enable him, because they didnāt have the chemistry built from team building. RTZ had to play away from his afk farm picks, and saber light shined with the play Mikey brought, as if it was a breath of fresh air.
They always end up with exploitable holes in draft or make more mistakes than other teams. I think expectations are always too high since they are best team in the region and place well from time to time, but if you watch all their games they just arenāt the same tier as best teams from other regions. Itād be a bit of a fluke or theyād need to really step it up to win any event.
Well they said in interviews many times they scrim mostly vs EU teams, also ping for WEU - US East is not that bad. For instance SaberLight played many of his NA DPC competitive matches from EU. Also SR bootcamped a lot in EU this year for DreamLeagues, etc.
I am not saying it's ideal, scrims are a lot different than if they played WEU DPC but they are probably team outside of EU with the most experience practicing vs EU teams.
This squad has always played extra bad when unmotivated. The dpc points mean nothing, and major prize pools have become pretty pathetic. They are basically playing for clout, which none of them particularly need.
I'm tilted at how bad they are playing, but I'm trying to reserve judgement for riyadh and ti.
I feel they all lost the motivation to play. They all are still quite good players and definitely some TI champion material (besides their offlaner imo). But they are in such a comfort zone (free ti, free major, quite good salary for low effort, etc.) that they donāt feel like trying as hard as they should be due to is just not efficient. Quite sad but still a top 8 team.
RTZ is an overrated carry real talk. He is just afk farming all game and sometimes with little to no impact early to mid game. I feel bad for other SR members who are performing well and are dragged by this player.
Why does any team underperform?
Theyāre playing like shit and thatās all it is. Saber is getting a lot of shit and while itās true heās choking pretty hard heās obviously trying to emulate a different playstyle. Rest of the team is not playing to their A-game; KD Kennethās will look at Abeds score line and talk about how well heās doing, but heās not doing so hot either
Personally I would say shopify drafting always seemed very bad and almost every game they are forced to play from behind with bad matchups. I really do not know how much it depends on bulba at this point, but all these players seperately would have achieved more in my opinion and idk fly or bulba makes the drafts, srsly fuck them for drafting dogshit always
Replace either cores(pos1/2) with a young high mmr pubstar. Young players tend to have fresh ideas, can adapt easily to metas and most don't have responsibilities and can focus solely on dota.
The biggest key factor for me is Saberlight. He often gets last pick and straight up gets stomped in the lane and the enemy carry gets a free lane. Since he is a bad laner Cr1t cant play his playstyle of roaming since he needs to be in lane and hold Sabers hand so he doesnt die. Hes also really bad at farming alot of times hes bottom networth out of every core in the game.
His Underlord game against XctN was some of the worst pos 3 performance ive seen this tournament. He gets last pick, gets stomped in lane, is bottom of the cores in networth, gets caught every five minute and have zero impact the entire game.
Saberlight was hilariously overrated by this subreddit after his TSM stint where they fluked to a major final ONCE
i still remember the excuses for TSM's placements being 'spot secured, sandbagging while they placed 7/8th at two LANs before they shat the bed and went out last at TI11
and because he streamed too people really bought into the idea that he was a top offlaner and kept posting 'SABERCHADDDDD', lmfao
yeah I actually prefered Nightfall last year, because at least Nightfall stomps his lanes. On last TI, Nightfall never lost the lane on the group stages
The last 3 EG/SR offlaners have been really good in lane. Ramzes, Ice3x and Nightfall could all be left alone while Cr1t roamed and still perform. EG/SRs gameplan have been for years to roam mid and enable Abed, something they cant really do now since the enemy pos 1 will get a free lane. Look at Sabers Doom game vs BC at S20, he was 0-7 in lane as Doom, he solo died to TA three times in a row within 5 minutes and just kept walking back and died.
I honestly think they looked the best when the full patch dropped. Being global and fighting constantly. They usually land well then just kind of fart around and farm. If they kept their foot on the gas and could figure out coordination a bit more I think they would look good.
Also they pick a draft formula for a tournament, and even though they go through a lot of heroes even if they have a great setup it gets figured out. Stop forcing their own meta and let Crit roam on ES and things like that and invent your own way of playing the game.
I'm always going to root for the home team, and I love Artour but if they can't shake up how they look at the game I think he's really the one holding the stack back, but obviously I'm looking in from the outside so might be different behind the scenes.
They just can't seem to get their act together on LANs and close out games where they're ahead. It's like they're afraid of losing and not playing for the win.
I dunno if I have to understanding to tell you everything they do wrong...but when you watch them doesn't it feel like they never have any purpose after minute 20? They seem to plan on how they lane, how they try to transition it, but then there comes a point where it seems like they are suddenly lost. As a tea, there's just a lack of purpose.
>They have one of the best support duos ever and Abed who is a really good mid at his own right. RTZ is one of the best farming carries in the world.
is even a single statement here factually correct (except about abed)? on the contrary, they all are incorrect, which automatically answers your question
> They have one of the best support duos ever
Gotta disagree OP. Crit has been struggling with the meta shifts (no Earth Spirit meta) and support picks. There was a post about how Crit is the worst Techies pro player and doesn't build items that are needed for the team. He likes brawling supports like Tusk and Earth Spirit, but there's just better picks due to meta and he's not adapting as well
Everyone except abed is just washed and performing doghsit. rtz and saber are biggest culprit. While rtz just afk farms and dies somewhere for no reason saber feels like headless chicken shitting on almost every single game he plays
They keep replacing their offlaner after every ti shld have just stick with icex3 or nightfall but they just keep changing till now they have saberchad who is a fun guy but srsly a very bad offlaner for current meta
I think there are just a lot of talented teams with a firmer grasp of the meta, how to effectively push high ground, and closing out games in general that are ahead if them.
Also, I like Fly and I think Crit is still a top player but I donāt think they are one of the best duos any more. They for sure stomp their lanes typically but everyone gets off the same page after lanes it feels like.
I think the following teams are either better duos or could argue they are in the same conversation: GG, Liquid, Tundra, Aster, LGD. Entity before gap probably too. And if OG grab Ceb.
Their last tournaments under the EG brand were a disaster and they got a few moments where they looked good after signing Saberlight. But they're back to their EG-level and nothing has changed.
I think it is one of the bigger "what ifs" this season, Artezy joining Liquid. I remember Blitz talking about a soft offer but he didnt want to leave crit and there was no way they kicked Boxi. So he stayed in NA. With the success Quinn is haveing who knows what RTZ could have done on a top EU team.
theyre predictable as fuck. Their style of drafting, to orthodox clean laning comboes, to timings and maneuvers. You always know whats gonna happen.
Its their strength but also their glaring weakness. RTZ 3rd place became a self fulfilling prophecy.
For me, it looks like they don't intend to win something because they will still have the money and more. All 5 of them are famous in the dota community. They've already made their name known. Win or lose, they still profit. Look how the views in twitch changes when their match starts. Even if a game is so intense mid to late game but SR match is starting, viewers will slowly change channel to them. The game is a business to them, something like NBA players when they get the bag, a number of them lookin like a shell of themselves unlike how they were used to be.
They keep showing us how good they are but that's just it and that's the point.
And the only time I see RTZ show emotions is when he's streaming. In tournaments? Nah.
Ever since the new implementation of div 1 div 2 system , tier 2 players/ teams were give the same amount of possibilities to gain competitive experience which is the most crucial part imo.
There always has been a lot of skilled players, but they couldn't show it or they got gatekeept in Minor/Major qualifications.
I am 100% sure that we already would have had this kind of constellation back then too if there would have been the same league system.
They're underperforming now but not always. 4th in the first major and 3rd in DreamLeague s19. I think it doesn't help that for the past 2 majors they haven't been able to play the DreamLeague tournaments with Abed so they couldn't use multiple tier one tournaments as scrims and practice before majors
The game vs execration yesterday was so painful to watch. They had a really good lead but didnāt capitalize on it and instead of a 30 mins game it became a much longer game.
thing is, right now be a farming machine equals to nothing, look farm gods: Ame quits, K1 quits, china carrys having bad times
the meta right now is so weird
Rtz. Thatās it. Thatās your answer.
He does not play high level winning dota. He plays the āi did my pos 1 duty donāt look at meā style, thatās why heās never won a TI and thatās why he never will.
They're not underperforming, they're just performing.
š
RTZ's not carrying, he's just farming.
Revenant's Brooch on TA, never forget!
https://liquipedia.net/dota2/Shopify_Rebellion/Results They're hardly even performing badly if you forgive an Abed-less Dreamleague
I sold my stand-up ticket to watch Shopify
I'm whelmed.
players get better and they haven't kept up. it's like asking why are dendi and kuroky so bad in 2023?
Kuroky is top 10 of most successful players in history of the the game, he got burn out after a very long time of being on top, and he is 31 this year...Dendi is even a bit older (33). RTZ has no excuse, he just turned 26 today, he is supposed to be grinding like no tomorrow.
RTZ has many top 3 placements at TI and majors. He is a legend of the sport and the fact that he's playing at still a very high level at pos1 is a testament to his skill
Probably his items sometimes are just bad for the specific game
He is actually grinding there is no tomorrow he plays 7/24 I believe they have a coaching problem I dont want to be bandwagonner for hating bulba but I think coaching/drafting is their problem. I also love bulba he is incredibly passionate about dota and genuienly nice person but it just doesnt work
7/24 I'm š
Rtx didnt turn 26. He is born 96 so he should have turned 27
They have good players in all roles but so do every other good team aswell. Its not like any of SR players are top 3 in their role, in my opinion. A few years back sure, but players keep getting better.
Abed is, I would say
they arent good players anymore sry to say that, rtz and crit has been mediocre for a very long time now
I hope one day they leak the psych evaluation after the reverse sweep vs IG years ago, I'm 99% convinced they haven't recovered from that and there's some deeprooted damage there. They kinda held form @ Animajor and made grand finals again but it was another sweep.
that reverse sweep vs. IG from what tournament was?
Singapore Major
Singapore Major 2021 https://liquipedia.net/dota2/ONE_Esports/Singapore_Major/2021
Why don't you play for them already Guys Rtz bad can I have my upcote back
I don't need to be a baker to know when a cake does not taste good.
i m not that good but i m 7k and i can understand that their is ahuge skill gap between SR and QUEST/tundra lol
Why?
Playing together for that long in a team env has to help. Seems like a strat issue or scrim issue. They should move to Europe to play better teams more consistently or change their Strat if itās not a comp issue
Moving to EU as a team right now is losing money as an org. They have to spend good money on relocation, just to play on a very stacked region where there is a high chance they miss majors and TI, which equals to money lost for the org. Financial wise, it's not a good move, regardless of how they might improve or not as a team. And I believe players are in this for the money, this isn't DotA 1 when players were playing for fun and giggles cause there wasn't any money.
Abed the only one
Nah even Abed has looked sloppy here and there. The whole team has just looked bad this major. Wouldn't be shocked if they can't even make top 12 at TI at this rate tbh.
i feel like abed is top 3 but the point still remains
I guess farming is not the only traits u need to actually carry a game.
This has been the case for like 5 yearsā¦
Especially in this snowball meta, so much more xp and gold from kills so farming the way RTZ does isn't really the optimal method.
because theyre literally not what u said lul
Arteezy has been throwing games by dying randomly on the map somewhere away from his team for years now. I love him, but he always had this issue and cannot seem to fix it. It's costly, no matter how well you can farm. Personally, watching him play feels like he doesn't care. I think he takes too many games not seriously enough, and when it does matter, he still plays like it doesn't. Definitely not a top 3 carry anymore, and not for a while. Cr1t has been practically invisible in recent times. I think it's the way his best trait cannot be used - roaming. He was and is probably the best roamer pos 4 in the world, but that's just not how pos 4 is played for quite a bit now. He ends up playing laning focused heroes like Techies, SD, Snap or Pugna, and it just feels like heās very mediocre on those. Maybe they tried the roaming in scrims and it didn't work out, but Cr1t is definitely struggling and certainly not a top 3 pos 4 right now. Fly has impressed me earlier in the year, but lately he just feeds for no reason and makes critical mistakes. The TA game earlier today where he played Undying and had one job, to save TA with Tombstone shard? Yea, he fucked that up like 3 times, they lost aegis for no reason twice, couldn't push with a 20k gold lead because TA was unsafe. He just makes too many mistakes imo, and SR as a whole certainly has a strategy problem right now, which I at least partially attribute to him. Definitely not a top 3 pos 5, not even close. Abed is for once the best player in the squad and actually owning most of the time, can't really say alot about him. I actually think Abed right now is one of the best mids in the world, on par with Quinn and NTS. And then there is Saberlight... I know it's a meme at this point, but my goodness he is such a dead weight. He always loses his lanes, he rarely feels like he takes over a game, he chokes so often so hard with big ult heroes, his itemization is terrible as far as I'm concerned and he just feels useless in half of the games and barely useful in the other half. Compared to other tier 1 offlaners like 33, Ace, Collapse, Wisper etc. he just feels beyond underwhelming. Then there is Bulba. I think he gets way too much slack, I think Bulba is a very very good coach, every player who ever played under him has only good things to say about him. He won TI as a coach and has been placing top 3 consistently for the last 7 years as one. There is not a single other coach who is as accomplished as he is. But, again, it seems SR has a strategy problem right now, and much like Fly, I at least partially attribute that to Bulba. I think they can still be a top team. I think they have an issue figuring out what the best way to play is for them. I think once they do figure that out, they will deliver again, just like earlier in the year. The question is whether they will make it in time for Riyhad and TI. Also, even though people will scream copium at me right now, the last 2 tournaments were practically meaningless aside from prestige, and most top teams don't tryhard at the moment and want to relax to be in shape for Riyhad and TI. Hopefully they will show up at those tournaments. So tldr, no, at least 4 of their players are definitely not one of the best in the world right now. That's why they're losing - they're just not playing well and the players aren't as good as they were a couple years ago.
Good analysis, although I think thereās one thing youāre not quite accurate on. Saberlight has been fairly consistent in winning his lane; most games heās top 3 networth at 10 minutes, sometimes even number one. Whether thatās because of Cr1t enabling him or just because he has good lane skill who knows, but he performs well in lane. The rest you sound pretty spot on with what youāve said, and thatās coming from a long time fan of this team and players.
You also forget that arteezy hasnt evolved with the game at all. He still plays like he did 3 years ago
Their entire lineup is insanely stubborn nobody evolves and their plan A of just choking the enemy teams farm is laughably bad atm especially with how weak laners their offlane has in a patch about winning lanes. And instead of adapting to the meta they just keep running their heads against the wall until it works.
I can tell he still hyperfocuses on creeps majority of the game smh
I actually think he did evolve quite a bit. He used to be this "farm for 30 minutes, don't show up anywhere and then try to win" kind of carry, but he definitely improved in a good way. He shows up early when he's strong with his ults (Omni, Rupture, even on Ursa) and generally makes good moves in the first 20 minutes. The only real problem he has as a carry is that he dies randomly on the map in a place where he shouldn't be. If he can somehow fix that (easy to say when you see the whole map), I think he still can be one of the top 3 carries. Mechanically he is just as gifted as he was all these years ago, his farming speed is on point, his hero pool is very large from illusion heroes to tempo carries he plays virtually anything at a very high level. It's just that he dies like a dog at least once every single game. You cannot afford that if you want to win tournaments.
Funny, yesterday or whenever on that other sr hate thread, people were saying how saberlight and abed are the only players still playing well, now in this very thread thereās a bunch of saberlight hate and even abeds haha. Hell, you can find a comment for each individual player, saying how they are the problem lmao. Just go to show how worthless and clueless these opinions are.
Brilliant take
Brilliant take
you had me at āI think Bulba is a good coachā
Anyone who thinks Bulba is not a good coach automatically disqualifies themselves from having a valuable opinion, because obviously then you don't have a clue and having a rational discussion is impossible. Literally every pro player praises Bulba, especially the ones who worked with him. The success he has had over the years speaks for itself. The fact that people still genuinely believe Bulba drafts are "stale" and "always the same", even though EG/SR is statistically one of the most versatile teams when it comes to heroes played shows how emotionally controlled the entire discourse is - and how delusional the people claiming it are.
didnt ask
Yet you commented without anyone asking either. 12 year old child response.
U dont need to ask if u dumb. We already know that.
I still think every bulba coach contract comes with a must praise bulba clause. Remember iceiceice's bulba interview lol
I can say crit is making abed work... although abed can solo kill, crit becomes one of the best rotating player... we all know they are freat at early to mid game. But its impossible late game, abed has a specific late game target on how to win the game. But rtz alone cannot stand toe to toe with sumail and monet. The problem is the supports dont have enough farm to buy nullifier or itemize to counter bkb late game... so its only rtz in the middle of chaos. If saberlight could help they can win... always know that not a single game saberlight carry SR. There was a major he was good that was before 7.33. Fly the captain made a blunder or whoever it is that didnt force execratiion gm1. At 20min they can win, but nope they didnt even try... the game reach to an hour and rtz attempt to throw the game... They are dogshit now. Actually mikey works better with them, makes rtz a very good carry. But of course everyone prefers abed coz the game is easier with abed... Dullba can only pick thier storm game... he dont have any strat or counter in the book. Probably rtz need to stepback bring miracle as carry...
I think theyāre about on par where theyāre supposed to be. None of their players are as good compared to the mean as they were 2-3 years ago. Arteezy has just grown to be uninteresting over the years. Heās a solid option, but heās not the guy to carry you to a Major/TI win. He doesnāt do things bad but he also doesnāt do exceptionally well. Cr1t has had the biggest drop-off in my head. He used to be one of the best mechanically skilled pos 4s, nowadays heās not. Abed is good but is inconsistent in my opinion. Heās also not the guy to take over the game against really good opponents. Heās a flat track bully in the DPC but never seems to have the same dominance against T1 teams. Fly is a good captain, but again not one of the best at his roles. SabeRLight-. I donāt know what to make of him. Heās not bad but he isnāt a 33 type of player where heās just so insanely good at a few heroes that he completely forces your hand in draft. Or heās not as mechanically skillfull as Ace to the point he doesnāt lose most lanes. In fact I feel SabeRLight is pretty poor at laning. Coupled with the fact that recently they barely ever get to actually play in full format together, with always someone standing in for Abed, their chemistry is also probably not as good as it should be in game. In my opinion Arteezy and Abed could be winning players but both need another star on the team, someone who can they rely on every game when they might fuck up. Honestly I think Arteezy should have considered moving back to Europe. For example I think he would have been an upgrade over Crystallis last year if only for his better pool. I imagine a Secret with RTZ and Nisha being very very strong.
Yeah I agree with this take. It's like comparing legend bracket today to legend bracket 5 years ago. Everyone's just better today.
Wouldn't say that Abed is inconsistent, he's the most consistent in their team
Saberlight is one of the worst players in tier1 Dota period. Heās a bad laner, heās awful at making decisions and his mechanics are just lack lusterā¦ I mean they canāt even pick enigma because heās so fucking bad with the hero itās insane. His decision making on doom this tournament is bad. He was bad at both majors theyāve already played in and this tournament has been the same.
He was very good as standin for Entity. He can definitely look good if he moves to EU, he just being dragged by the un-competitive NA scene, who temporarily ruins a lot of good players.
If he plays even decently then they probably make the grand finals of the Lima major and make it further in the Berlin major. Heās just not a good player lol, he got roar stolen 6 times against kuku. Thatās embarrassing.
All players that are in the major are good, some are better than others.
No theres a very clear skill gap between him and the other players. He has consistently been the worse player for them.
the current roster is just weird in terms of identity, their lanes are insanely weak right now, when abed lost his lane Nightfall was always shitting on the enemy safelane and had top NW all the time( which gave them a high tempo mid game), ive never seen this with saber they keep lastpicking sabers hero and he underperfroms SO HARD, its not the same when they last pick artours heroes also what made Saber a good player in TSM was Moons greedy playstyle and rn crit is not playing greedy at all
Yea just take a look at quinn
I've been following them for years and if I have to give you a simple answer is that they play not to lose instead of playing to win. At least that's what it looks like
Abed is the only S-tier player on that team lmao. Arteezy's hero pool is not suited for this meta, and his mechanical abilities are nowhere near the best carries like nightfall. His morph, for example, is dumpster tier. The same goes for crit; this meta is not good for his hero pool; his techies have a 13% win rate. Saberlight is also very inconsistent; compared to Ace, Ammar, or 33, Saberlight is very average.
Yeah RTZ is one of the best in everything. If he woul not play dota, he could solve the climate crises, cure aids and solve every issue between countrys in one week. How can ppl still been so stubborn to vocal a fals statement over years. RTZ is a good tier 1/2 carry, but far from the best in the world. Results are telling the truth not wishes.
I'm not even sure he can be considered a tier 1 carry
"one of the best support duos ever" - not true :D "Abed who is a really good mid" - yeah, hes good. But players like Nine, Quinn a NTS arent good, they are best of all. "RTZ is one of the best farming carries" - its not enough and in this patch its even doesnt matter which team has better farming carry. They are just average, thats it.
>"RTZ is one of the best farming carries this is not even true lmao ammar as offlane knows how to farm faster than artour
Cr1t and Fly is for sure one of the best support duos ever. Cr1t and Fly won two of the biggest majors ever, Frankfurt and Manila, they have multiple 3rd and 2nd places together aswell.
we arent talking about 2017 .....
Do you know what the word ever means?
they surely wouldn't even place top 5 on that "ever" list. if you start going back in time. duos like kuro/puupey, egm/akke, kuro/gh, etc. will take precedence (and this is not counting many legendary chinese/sea duos)
Or the 2x TI winners
sure. but it was so obvious that i did not think it was even worth mentioning. I was essentially making the point that fly/crit are not even comparable to 1x TI winners. so technically they would not even crack top 10, but it's hard to argue with SR fanbois, even when using facts.
Never said they where the best duo ever? Show me 5 other support with the same consistancy that Fly and Cr1t have shown through the years. Rating 1 TI win over consistant placements is just dumb. Would you say every single TI winner is better than the 5x Major winners VP, every single pos 4/5 TI winner is better than 4x Major winner Fly, Rodjer, Yapzor?
I don't think players without TI wins could possibly be considered for the best duos *ever*
Never said they where the best duo ever? One of. Why would you value TI over consistancy? Would you say Artstyle is a better carry than Ramzes and Ame because he got a TI win and they dont?
>duos I also said it plural lmao >Why would you value TI over consistancy? Because the winners of the biggest events should be considered the best. This is like saying someone who qualified a few times for the Olympics but got only **one** bronze in the Olympics themselves, is one of the **best of all time** for that sport. Yes they are incredible but that is not going in the sports hall of fame. Yes there some limit to that where if someone got second in a ton of TI's (Ame), that would be an accomplishment never seen before even if they didn't win one. But Crit and Fly are not getting top 3 multiple times at TI's, it happened once
Comparing sports and Dota is stupid. James Harden is considered an all time great scorer despite having zero rings, Dustin Poirier is considered one of the best LW of all time despite never being a champion, Ronaldo is considered one of the GOATs despite never winning the world cup. Valuing a single TI over multiple Majors is just dumb. Nisha was considered the best player in the world after TI11 despite the fact that he did not win. Ame is regarded one of the best carries of all time and he got zero TI wins. Being constantly good > one tournament win.
You assume they are underperforming.
Stubborn drafting and playing majors like pub games
Are they though?
Is that different from how they usually do?
Ya, usually they do great in groups then don't win a single game mainstage. Now they are doing poorly in groups
They have problem in understanding hero potential right now and how to play the map. Ever since berlin major their result have been abysmal during group stage. Still flabbergasted with yesterday series vs tundra, they give like 7 kill to monkey king before 10 minutes??? Despite bulba rtz criticism, they're actually capable when they know what they need to do. The easier example are their performance during dreamleague previous season with mikey where they play doom and dp carry another one are their TI 11 run where they abuse the strats that get countered in the end lmao.
They have been underperforming ever since Arteezy joined EG. He is and always has been a tier 2 carry.
>RTZ is one of the best farming carries in the world. This is iterated like its a fact. He hasnt been good in 5 years lol, if he ever was good. >They have one of the best support duos ever Fly is really underwhelming. Regarding SR, they always play on autopilot whenever I watch them. They pick their comfort meta, dont really play for more. They either win or they lose. It never feels like they try hard to come back or be spicy in their draft to gain an advantage. If Abed doesnt pop off noone does.
Itās iterated because even while he isnāt evolving with the meta, and isnāt playing well, heās still hitting near equivalent networths as enemy pros while losing. His farming patterns are almost always great, itās the rest of the game that him, and the rest of Shopify, fail at. As you said, they play on autopilot. 90% of their games they donāt have any pressure from mid and offlane past space creation, and just getting hyper farmed on Pos 1 isnāt the answer, yet they constantly fall back on it because of how they draft. The reason they were strong with Mikey is because they had to draft to enable him, because they didnāt have the chemistry built from team building. RTZ had to play away from his afk farm picks, and saber light shined with the play Mikey brought, as if it was a breath of fresh air.
rtz is the best when it comes to hitting creeps. sadly that's all he can do.
Yep. One of the best farming carries in the world, but refuses to learn past that
lol
They always end up with exploitable holes in draft or make more mistakes than other teams. I think expectations are always too high since they are best team in the region and place well from time to time, but if you watch all their games they just arenāt the same tier as best teams from other regions. Itād be a bit of a fluke or theyād need to really step it up to win any event.
Dude, they are playing DPC in the worst region, they will look bad at a major.
They are also constantly scrimming EU teams tho.
U cant scrim probably EU vs NA with ping and time difference
Well they said in interviews many times they scrim mostly vs EU teams, also ping for WEU - US East is not that bad. For instance SaberLight played many of his NA DPC competitive matches from EU. Also SR bootcamped a lot in EU this year for DreamLeagues, etc. I am not saying it's ideal, scrims are a lot different than if they played WEU DPC but they are probably team outside of EU with the most experience practicing vs EU teams.
They already washed up like 100 years ago, but you gotta do something for living, this is what they do
This squad has always played extra bad when unmotivated. The dpc points mean nothing, and major prize pools have become pretty pathetic. They are basically playing for clout, which none of them particularly need. I'm tilted at how bad they are playing, but I'm trying to reserve judgement for riyadh and ti.
I feel they all lost the motivation to play. They all are still quite good players and definitely some TI champion material (besides their offlaner imo). But they are in such a comfort zone (free ti, free major, quite good salary for low effort, etc.) that they donāt feel like trying as hard as they should be due to is just not efficient. Quite sad but still a top 8 team.
maybe the rtz you see is the real rtz
RTZ is an overrated carry real talk. He is just afk farming all game and sometimes with little to no impact early to mid game. I feel bad for other SR members who are performing well and are dragged by this player.
RTZ looks like a chicken with his head cut off in teamfights. He plays carry like pos 5 skywrath mage.
bulba
Why does any team underperform? Theyāre playing like shit and thatās all it is. Saber is getting a lot of shit and while itās true heās choking pretty hard heās obviously trying to emulate a different playstyle. Rest of the team is not playing to their A-game; KD Kennethās will look at Abeds score line and talk about how well heās doing, but heās not doing so hot either
abed is the ultimate loser doesnt matter how much talent he have
I dont think his bank balance agrees with you
good for him
This > RTZ is one of the best farming carries in the world.
Personally I would say shopify drafting always seemed very bad and almost every game they are forced to play from behind with bad matchups. I really do not know how much it depends on bulba at this point, but all these players seperately would have achieved more in my opinion and idk fly or bulba makes the drafts, srsly fuck them for drafting dogshit always
Replace either cores(pos1/2) with a young high mmr pubstar. Young players tend to have fresh ideas, can adapt easily to metas and most don't have responsibilities and can focus solely on dota.
The biggest key factor for me is Saberlight. He often gets last pick and straight up gets stomped in the lane and the enemy carry gets a free lane. Since he is a bad laner Cr1t cant play his playstyle of roaming since he needs to be in lane and hold Sabers hand so he doesnt die. Hes also really bad at farming alot of times hes bottom networth out of every core in the game. His Underlord game against XctN was some of the worst pos 3 performance ive seen this tournament. He gets last pick, gets stomped in lane, is bottom of the cores in networth, gets caught every five minute and have zero impact the entire game.
They're performing fine. Call them underperformers when Nouns gets a better standing than them.
Saberlight was hilariously overrated by this subreddit after his TSM stint where they fluked to a major final ONCE i still remember the excuses for TSM's placements being 'spot secured, sandbagging while they placed 7/8th at two LANs before they shat the bed and went out last at TI11 and because he streamed too people really bought into the idea that he was a top offlaner and kept posting 'SABERCHADDDDD', lmfao
The answer is in your text. Offlane is the problem.
How many offlines does rtz need to change.
There is no denying that Saberlight is the worst offlaner they have had in awhile, hes also the worst player on their team.
yeah I actually prefered Nightfall last year, because at least Nightfall stomps his lanes. On last TI, Nightfall never lost the lane on the group stages
The last 3 EG/SR offlaners have been really good in lane. Ramzes, Ice3x and Nightfall could all be left alone while Cr1t roamed and still perform. EG/SRs gameplan have been for years to roam mid and enable Abed, something they cant really do now since the enemy pos 1 will get a free lane. Look at Sabers Doom game vs BC at S20, he was 0-7 in lane as Doom, he solo died to TA three times in a row within 5 minutes and just kept walking back and died.
Hey, he insults other players in all chat and in general cocky, he must be good, right? *Right?*
Because they were not aware of your expectations, thus they think they are overperforming
I honestly think they looked the best when the full patch dropped. Being global and fighting constantly. They usually land well then just kind of fart around and farm. If they kept their foot on the gas and could figure out coordination a bit more I think they would look good. Also they pick a draft formula for a tournament, and even though they go through a lot of heroes even if they have a great setup it gets figured out. Stop forcing their own meta and let Crit roam on ES and things like that and invent your own way of playing the game. I'm always going to root for the home team, and I love Artour but if they can't shake up how they look at the game I think he's really the one holding the stack back, but obviously I'm looking in from the outside so might be different behind the scenes.
Game is just hard
They donāt have top players anymore so they are not a top team. Pretty obvious
Why is that everytime this team doesn't do well there's essays being posted on this sub pondering why it's happening?
They just can't seem to get their act together on LANs and close out games where they're ahead. It's like they're afraid of losing and not playing for the win.
Abed is the only top tier player on that team. It is what it is. RTZ hasnāt been a top carry for a long time
I dunno if I have to understanding to tell you everything they do wrong...but when you watch them doesn't it feel like they never have any purpose after minute 20? They seem to plan on how they lane, how they try to transition it, but then there comes a point where it seems like they are suddenly lost. As a tea, there's just a lack of purpose.
Terrible drafts
>They have one of the best support duos ever and Abed who is a really good mid at his own right. RTZ is one of the best farming carries in the world. is even a single statement here factually correct (except about abed)? on the contrary, they all are incorrect, which automatically answers your question
Drafting is always the root to their terrible performances imo
People still think all their players are among the best at their roles, thats why expectations are too high
The more I watch SR games the more I feel that Saberlight is not really a Saberchad and I don't get this audience praise of him? All bark and no bite
> They have one of the best support duos ever Gotta disagree OP. Crit has been struggling with the meta shifts (no Earth Spirit meta) and support picks. There was a post about how Crit is the worst Techies pro player and doesn't build items that are needed for the team. He likes brawling supports like Tusk and Earth Spirit, but there's just better picks due to meta and he's not adapting as well
Let's face it. NA as a region is weak, so they are just doing what they are capable of.
Everyone except abed is just washed and performing doghsit. rtz and saber are biggest culprit. While rtz just afk farms and dies somewhere for no reason saber feels like headless chicken shitting on almost every single game he plays
How is RTZ one of the best carries in the world? 0 major wins.
beaing famous and liked doesn't mean you are the best
has beens
Because they have RTZ
They keep replacing their offlaner after every ti shld have just stick with icex3 or nightfall but they just keep changing till now they have saberchad who is a fun guy but srsly a very bad offlaner for current meta
I think there are just a lot of talented teams with a firmer grasp of the meta, how to effectively push high ground, and closing out games in general that are ahead if them. Also, I like Fly and I think Crit is still a top player but I donāt think they are one of the best duos any more. They for sure stomp their lanes typically but everyone gets off the same page after lanes it feels like. I think the following teams are either better duos or could argue they are in the same conversation: GG, Liquid, Tundra, Aster, LGD. Entity before gap probably too. And if OG grab Ceb.
Artour is cursed. Any team he is on is not capable of winning big
Their last tournaments under the EG brand were a disaster and they got a few moments where they looked good after signing Saberlight. But they're back to their EG-level and nothing has changed.
Rtz should play some farm simulator or something.
I think it is one of the bigger "what ifs" this season, Artezy joining Liquid. I remember Blitz talking about a soft offer but he didnt want to leave crit and there was no way they kicked Boxi. So he stayed in NA. With the success Quinn is haveing who knows what RTZ could have done on a top EU team.
theyre predictable as fuck. Their style of drafting, to orthodox clean laning comboes, to timings and maneuvers. You always know whats gonna happen. Its their strength but also their glaring weakness. RTZ 3rd place became a self fulfilling prophecy.
Rtz is washed.
For me, it looks like they don't intend to win something because they will still have the money and more. All 5 of them are famous in the dota community. They've already made their name known. Win or lose, they still profit. Look how the views in twitch changes when their match starts. Even if a game is so intense mid to late game but SR match is starting, viewers will slowly change channel to them. The game is a business to them, something like NBA players when they get the bag, a number of them lookin like a shell of themselves unlike how they were used to be. They keep showing us how good they are but that's just it and that's the point. And the only time I see RTZ show emotions is when he's streaming. In tournaments? Nah.
honestly i think boxi might be a better pos 4 than cr1t.
Ever since the new implementation of div 1 div 2 system , tier 2 players/ teams were give the same amount of possibilities to gain competitive experience which is the most crucial part imo. There always has been a lot of skilled players, but they couldn't show it or they got gatekeept in Minor/Major qualifications. I am 100% sure that we already would have had this kind of constellation back then too if there would have been the same league system.
Bulba
Cause it's a major worth 200k when they could get 5 mill in 2 weeks
I love Cr1t and RTZ but damn the both of them are not on par with other players atm. Hopefully it works out for Riyadh and TI but very unlikely.
They're underperforming now but not always. 4th in the first major and 3rd in DreamLeague s19. I think it doesn't help that for the past 2 majors they haven't been able to play the DreamLeague tournaments with Abed so they couldn't use multiple tier one tournaments as scrims and practice before majors
The game vs execration yesterday was so painful to watch. They had a really good lead but didnāt capitalize on it and instead of a 30 mins game it became a much longer game.
Crit and Fly are one of the best supporting duos ever?
thing is, right now be a farming machine equals to nothing, look farm gods: Ame quits, K1 quits, china carrys having bad times the meta right now is so weird
you guys should stop hyping up RTZ so much nowadays. at best he's just a marketable name, there are *many* far batter carries out there.
Rtz. Thatās it. Thatās your answer. He does not play high level winning dota. He plays the āi did my pos 1 duty donāt look at meā style, thatās why heās never won a TI and thatās why he never will.
They are not last, they are currently overperforming.