Most Flexible Players of VCT Masters Tokyo
Different regions having clashing styles is what makes for unique matches and helps drive worldwide competition. For example, America and Europe tend to stick to one strategy and perfect it while less populated regions can find unique strategies to give them an upper hand.
Character specialists like Derke on Raze can be flashy and Controller specialists can dominate the map, but some players find their value in their wide mastery of different agents even against the best players in the world.
Letting f0rsakeN Flex His Mastery
As a Pacific team, Paper Rex has a few unique compositions and strategies they have developed where America and Europe tend to stick to their meta. One of their more interesting choices is having f0rsakeN flex to Neon whenever they go to Fracture.
On maps with longer, narrow corridors, Neon is a perfect option for teams who develop a faster playstyle like Paper Rex and the Brazilian team LOUD.
Continuing the trend, whenever Paper Rex is taken to Bind, f0rsakeN flexes to Harbor who is another unpopular choice. This strategy seems to be one of their best as f0rsakeN is consistently running the lobby on this unique choice, and statistically is his strongest agent.
Overall f0rsakeN played eight games of duelist with a majority being on Jett due to her strength as an agent, but he was also able to flex to Cypher and his signature Harbor for half the tournament.
Initiating and Controlling with C0M
Revealing the area on Sova for maps such as Ascent and Fracture opens up space for the rest of his team to work, while controlling the area with Viper on other maps like Lotus, Split and Pearl are some of C0M’s main points of expertise.
If needed he may also swap to Breach as he did in the first match against Fnatic where Ethan, the primary Breach player, needed to swap to Skye for flashes and easier initiations.
Evil Geniuses consistently look strong while C0M is on Viper, and while not on the level of someone like Chronicle, he has a strong argument as the best Sova in the world.
Smoggy’s Mix-ups
Smoggy is an interesting player because of his ability to main Breach while flexing to duelist. Whenever EDward Gaming looked to run double duelist compositions with their main duelist, ZmjjKK, they turned to Smoggy’s flexibility to fill the role perfectly. While he isn’t the best Raze or Jett on his team, it’s hard to play up to the best duelist in China.
Double duelist is a rarer composition, but certain maps and team styles make it a great choice. This team finds a sweet spot in the abilities of agents like Raze and Jett so that one can entry, usually the Jett, and one can play late entry or default.
EDward Gaming generally runs the standard meta compositions, but the dichotomy of Smoggy’s ability to play both the agent making space and the one that uses it makes him one of the most valuable players on EDward Gaming.
Written by Andy Haggard
This article was created as part of an internship collaboration with NACE
