transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:13] Hey ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of The Flank. I'm Joe Mbatha, one and only, some of the best analysis in the game. Give it up for the world champ himself, Christopher Duarte Parasite. We got the multi-world champion, the multi-champion, a legend, and I can't recall the space. Give it up for Patrick Price Akes. We got another multi-champion, world champion in the building. Give it up for the legend Dylan Attach Price, and then we got the multi-FPS champion of the world. Give it up for Ian Enable Wyatt, AKA that nub. What's going on, gentlemen? How are we feeling? How are we doing, Pat? How are you doing, Pat? You doing all right? We'll start with you.

Speaker 2:
[00:51] Doing good, Tom. I wasn't supposed to be on today. You hit me up. I'm here. I guess you just know Ben's kind of ass on Tuesdays, especially, but I'm here to fix that. Other than that, I'm doing good.

Speaker 1:
[01:04] I just wanted you here, Pat. That's all. It's just like having you here. They love you. What about you, Ian? How you doing?

Speaker 3:
[01:10] Doing fantastic, Tom. As always, sixers in a griller, trying to tie the series up.

Speaker 1:
[01:16] What's the score now? What is it?

Speaker 3:
[01:20] 90, it's like 91, 84.

Speaker 1:
[01:21] Oh shit, it's a must win, right? It's a must win?

Speaker 3:
[01:24] Yeah, yeah, we can't go down low, too.

Speaker 1:
[01:26] Oh man, best of luck. I don't know, it sounds like they're losing that one, though, dub. Hopefully, they make the comeback. Absolutely. Duarte, what's going on, Duarte? How you been?

Speaker 4:
[01:35] I'm good, I'm good. I mean, we haven't talked since, I think, Friday, but I've had a great weekend. Call of Duty was great. Elite qualifiers were great. Lots of cod to talk about that we didn't get to discuss because of the weekend.

Speaker 1:
[01:47] Yeah, yeah, we had the elite qualifiers on Sunday. We had some big matchups. Stallings are playing as well. And with some of the matches that were on Sunday, we decided to postpone the show for a couple of days. And we'll go over to matches from Sunday. But the qualifier has been phenomenal. I know, Dylan, you've been working with the Stallings a little bit. How you been? We actually got our first set of Elite matches tomorrow. So it's gonna be a big day tomorrow.

Speaker 5:
[02:08] I'm feeling good, but I'm looking even better. I got my Stallings hoodie came in. I'm looking like a million dollars.

Speaker 1:
[02:15] Come on, Dylan, look at you.

Speaker 5:
[02:17] I'm feeling good now, Tom. I'm feeling good.

Speaker 1:
[02:19] Yes, sir. Go get your merch, zumba.gg. What a pleasure. Absolutely. We're gonna go over the three matches from Sunday briefly. We're gonna give our thoughts. We're gonna take a look at the Minor Tournament Bracket this weekend as well. We're gonna build our bracket. And then we also got a top 10 list here from Nameless. I think we should take a look at it, maybe get our own top 10 in here and build our own list. But let's hop right into it. Before we do, I want to talk about something first. First and foremost, just going down memory lane here. I saw this on Reddit today, Pat. Pat, do you remember pushing Nate Shot? I just saw this today. I said, fuck it, let's pull it up on the show.

Speaker 3:
[02:52] Shook his titties up.

Speaker 1:
[02:54] Man, Pat, what happened?

Speaker 2:
[02:56] That was 16 years ago.

Speaker 1:
[02:57] Oh, wait, Nate Shot pushed you. Oh, wait, who pushed him? I forgot.

Speaker 3:
[03:02] Pat got sonned by Nate.

Speaker 5:
[03:05] W Press, Nate. W Press.

Speaker 2:
[03:07] I pushed him, but that was damn, that was forever ago, bro. That was Chicago 14 years ago, I think.

Speaker 1:
[03:14] Damn. That's actually crazy, bro. You're a vet, Pat.

Speaker 2:
[03:17] You're a vet. We lost. We lost the tournament, but won the map count.

Speaker 5:
[03:23] How the fuck did that work?

Speaker 1:
[03:24] How did that happen, Pat?

Speaker 2:
[03:25] Yeah, I don't know. Nate's girlfriend was running tournament direction at UMG at the time. Shit was just sketch.

Speaker 1:
[03:31] No way, Pat. No way.

Speaker 2:
[03:33] Big team breaking GAs had the auto foul. It was just one of those events, you know, in the in the cold suburb of Chicago. But I mean, we saw what happened that year. It didn't really matter. But yeah, I mean, a long time ago, but this CS one was different, though. This was on stage. That guy just acted like the cameras weren't on. That was crazy.

Speaker 1:
[03:54] Wait, what was? What are you talking about?

Speaker 2:
[03:56] The CS one was a 10 year ban is insane. The one you just pulled it up.

Speaker 1:
[04:02] Oh, that was CS.

Speaker 2:
[04:03] Yeah, someone compared it to me.

Speaker 1:
[04:05] And I wasn't even reading it.

Speaker 2:
[04:07] Just the guy wrote, they were lined up on the stage and the guy just walked up and like rocked the guy for no reason.

Speaker 1:
[04:16] That's fucking insane. I think a lot of there's been a lot of fights, bro, in the call. Did he seem to do what they didn't? Didn't you and Pat get into it?

Speaker 4:
[04:24] Yeah, I wasn't anything crazy.

Speaker 6:
[04:25] We were, you know, we were waiting a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[04:27] I thought he scooped you up.

Speaker 4:
[04:29] Me and Pat had each other at, we had each other's callers, but nothing happened.

Speaker 5:
[04:33] Was it at UMG DC in the Pro Lounge?

Speaker 4:
[04:35] I thought it was at Dallas.

Speaker 5:
[04:37] Was it at Dallas? I thought it was at DC.

Speaker 4:
[04:38] Might have been DC.

Speaker 5:
[04:39] Before something happened there. It's all good, water in the bridge.

Speaker 3:
[04:42] And he was about to fuck Pat up, though. I'll be the one to say it. I don't got a dog in that.

Speaker 4:
[04:49] We were passionate, young, but I ain't like this man. I got nothing but respect for Pat.

Speaker 5:
[04:54] We should have beat the nubs ass after he cost us that event because he was sick. DC, DC, DC. That was really creepy, too.

Speaker 3:
[05:02] I had I was playing with tissues in my nose.

Speaker 2:
[05:06] I was sick.

Speaker 1:
[05:08] He did have some tissues in his nose.

Speaker 3:
[05:10] I remember you and I go talk about the two events before that. You know what I mean? Go look at the final.

Speaker 1:
[05:14] That was for the three people.

Speaker 5:
[05:16] I was with the three people, man.

Speaker 1:
[05:18] Yeah, I should.

Speaker 3:
[05:21] I shook Pat's hand after one of the series of the event before, and he got me fucking sick. Nasty bitch, but it's a gamer flu.

Speaker 2:
[05:30] Making shit up because you just depress your six or so. It's all good.

Speaker 3:
[05:34] We're about to win a game. Lock in.

Speaker 1:
[05:35] Absolutely. But before we get into matches, another thing I want to talk about real quick is the new meta today, Duarteck. I want to pick your brain a little bit about the meta and kind of your thoughts on it. So the NPC comes into the game, and it's pretty crazy. We're seeing four of them on a map. People are running around. They're getting turned. I mean, we saw Dashie running an NPC, which I feel like you don't see often, Dashie with a sub. So they decide to make some changes to it. And I guess what, Duarteck, they got rid of some muzzles. Any recoil muzzle, right? They got rid of that.

Speaker 4:
[06:07] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[06:07] They changed the barrel. And they did some shit to the AR too, right Duarteck? Explain to everybody what they did and kind of what's going on with the map.

Speaker 4:
[06:15] I think the ARs stayed the same. So it's the same shit. Everyone's going to be running the fusion barrel, recoil springs, nothing changes. As for the sub, yeah, they took away like recoil attachments and things that make it good at range. But dude, I had this rant actually last night. And I think the way the pros are GA and shit is ass backwards. All right, let me pick your brains here.

Speaker 1:
[06:36] Oh, God.

Speaker 4:
[06:37] So, with the M15, everyone thought that gun was broken up close. Okay, right? I'm not wrong. So, how do you make a gun worse up close? You make it fucking aim in slower, or you reduce the fire rate. Obviously, they didn't nerf it. So, aiming in slower would have been the wise choice at the time. What did they do? They took away the muzzle and made it recoil more. That doesn't affect its close range capability. It makes it worse at range. All right, now let's look at the MPC. What is the MPC's problem? It's a fucking shotgun up close. It aims in instantly, you can quick scope with it, and yet they're taking away recoil and range on it. I think it's ass backwards. I don't really see the logic in the way they're GA'ing attachments. It doesn't make fucking sense with their logic and why they think a gun is broken. Although I do think this is a substantial nerf to the gun, it's still good. I don't think it's going to fix the problem, and I think you'll still be seeing SMGs run around like crackheads and instakill ARs before they can even pull their guns up. So, yeah, I don't know. The pros are a little bit weird with the way they GA things.

Speaker 1:
[07:40] I think they like it. I think they like the changes. I mean, I don't know. I haven't talked to all the pros. I mean, I've talked to like a couple of them, but I mean, I'm not too sure about how they feel about it. I saw Hook trying to run a drop-vict today. He was trying to go back to that, but then eventually he ended up taking the NPC back out. But I didn't notice that we were still seeing like, for instance, Scar, we were still seeing four ARs on each team. And I saw people doing that. So I don't know. I really don't know. I feel like we got to give it more time and see like how it plays out. But I do think we can all agree that this meta plays better. Would you guys agree? I feel like the NPC is just more fun to watch. Maybe from an entertaining standpoint, from a player standpoint, I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[08:15] It's definitely a lot more entertaining. It's definitely a lot more entertaining. When the subs are better, they get to like run around and make plays and like take over games. It's a lot more fun to watch. I think the issue with it right now that the pro players are having, especially like the top tier pro players that shoot really straight. They're like, oh dude, I'm dying in this fucking burger. I'm dying to this guy. Like this guy should not be killing me. So that's why they watch it change because like their egos are getting in the way a little bit. They're saying this shit is too easy to use, but the game is way more fun when it's a subdominated game. Hundred percent.

Speaker 4:
[08:41] Yeah, I also just think. But the thing is, though, there's other options that they haven't tried. Like, and I think the reason the time to kill is so fast and why people feel like they're dying to people that are worse than them is because the gun aims in instantly. So that means you don't get punished for being out of position or sprinting because it literally aims in so fast that it doesn't matter if you get caught sprinting, you just die. Not only that, the time to kill up close is just really strong. There's other alternatives to that. There's guns that are in the middle. Like I suggested the BST with 5.56 rounds. I've said it a hundred times. It aims in faster than the Dravik still. So you still get a faster handling weapon. It has a little bit better range than the MPC, but it kills slower than the MPC. It's in between the MPC and the Kogat. So like you have options out there that make the time to kill artificially bigger by... Because time to kill doesn't just encompass bullets and fire rate. It encompasses ADS speed, right? Because unless you're pre-aiming all the time, which doesn't happen, you have to aim in your gun, then shoot the gun, then kill the player. All of that combined adds to the TTK of the game. And they don't realize that. So they just see, oh, this gun kills fast. Why? Because it fucking aims in instantly and shoots fucking nuclear missiles. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[09:54] Yeah. I mean, I also felt like if the MPC was so good, like maybe bringing back some other ARs, because aren't there ARs right now that are GA'd that are pretty good?

Speaker 5:
[10:01] Uh, well, they tried that one. What was it like the Cotov?

Speaker 1:
[10:06] Yeah, they were trying something.

Speaker 3:
[10:08] But that was really good, right?

Speaker 4:
[10:09] It was the Voyaq.

Speaker 5:
[10:11] The Voyaq. Yeah, the Voyaq. That gun was... The thing is, in this game, all the ARs are OP as fuck. Like, that's the issue. Like, there's not just M15. The other gun was a three bullet kill. Like, there's really just too many good ARs in this game to make it an even balanced meta. You kind of just need two OP guns, which is what they have right now.

Speaker 4:
[10:28] Yeah. The thing is, though, again, the pros are just so misinformed. Like, the AR that they brought in, the MK35, it has no recoil, right? But it's the slowest killing AR in the game to the body. And they don't... They're like, Oh, it's OP. It's literally the slowest aiming in and the slowest killing weapon. But it's OP, apparently. When the M15 has faster fire rate, kills faster, has better handling, make it fucking make sense, bro. They're just not consistent with the way they do anything. And they don't really... They're just like, Oh, this gun's OP because they use it and kill somebody. They don't even realize what OP means.

Speaker 1:
[11:03] Do you like the meta, Duarte? Do you like seeing the NPCs? Like, how do you feel about the meta now?

Speaker 4:
[11:07] I do. I think it's better this way. But I still think the way that they GA things and reason for things, they just don't make sense. I think there's other alternative attachment combinations that they could use that would overall make it better and more punishing for some machine gun players to run around because you can have two things true. You can make it so the gun still has great handling. It's still gonna be better and faster than the Dravik. It's still gonna have a better fire rate. It's still gonna kill faster up close, but you need to balance a way to punish people that are just recklessly running around because you look at every other game that we've played in the history of God, even like the old games, like the attack sprint games. Even with the rival, if you were sprinting around the map and you got caught sprinting, you still got, you still were killed most of the time by a person pre-aiming. In this game, there's zero benefit to, or zero detriment to sprinting around with that NPC. You just get caught sprinting, it doesn't matter. You aim in faster than everything by like a million times. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 1:
[12:07] Yeah, so the changes, bullet velocity barrel only on the NPC, damage range, damage range barrel allowed on the M15, no real coil muzzles, no VAS convergence underbarrel on AR, and no flow guard foregrip on NPC. So a lot of rules here that the pros are going to have to go through. They just got to remember their class. But yes, clearly the pros messing with the attachments. We'll see how it plays out. They had the NPC for a little while, they tried it for a couple of days, now they're making changes to the attachments. I think we have to give it a little bit more time and see how it plays. But anybody got anything else to say about the meta or the guns? Nub, Pat, Dylan, anything you guys want to say?

Speaker 3:
[12:43] He was spot on.

Speaker 5:
[12:44] Yeah, I agree 100%.

Speaker 3:
[12:47] It's definitely better as a viewer though, Tom, for sure. It's more entertaining, I will say that.

Speaker 1:
[12:52] It plays more like a normal sub. The dropping didn't feel like a sub, and it didn't shoot like a sub. It almost felt like a crossover AR, like an AR sub. Which somebody told me, I think it was Symbols today, told me that Awakening and Challengers wasn't using an AR, they would use the Dravik as an AR. And I'm like, that's faded. At least to me, I think that's faded personally. But all right, let's move on. Pat, you got anything to say? You don't give a fuck.

Speaker 2:
[13:19] No, not about the current game. Chris got that unlocked.

Speaker 1:
[13:23] Yeah, that's Duarte's field right there. That's why I went with Duarte for that one. But let's hop into the matches from Sunday. We'll give our thoughts. We'll talk about some of these results here. We have Toronto Coy going up against the Boston Breach. This one was a 3-1 victory for Toronto Coy. We start things off at a dead hard point where Toronto get the win 250 to 178. Boston are able to bounce back on fringe S&D 6-4. Then we get to an exposure overload. Toronto win that one 4-3. And then we get to a gridlock hard point where Toronto close it out 250 to 191. I like that we're seeing a lot of the new maps getting into these maps. We also had a map 5 plaza, if it were to get there. Well, scroll down and take a look here at the stat sheet. You got a 1.14 from Kleenex, a 0.9 from Insight, a 1.04 from Jota Sieves, and a 1.12 coming in from Kips. On the other side, everybody negative, except for Nasty with a 1.08. But you got a 0.82 from Afro, a 0.9 from Purge, and a 0.91 from Spart. Well, scroll down and take a look here at the stat sheet. We got Kips, the match MVP with a 1.14, and a 0.56 in Essadina, 1.3 in Overload. So the rookie coming into Toronto and making a name for himself. Kips been looking really good. Pat, we'll start with you. Toronto, they come out, they take care of the Boston breach, but I still think you have some worries. If you're Toronto, maybe with Jamie, his damage again just seems pretty low. And great today, our plan, Boston. Go ahead, Pat. Floor is yours.

Speaker 2:
[14:48] Yeah, guy sucks, don't need to get a drop. They need to get someone else they want to win. On the side of Boston, I mean, Purge had his best series in a long time, .9. They, Afro somehow played worse, but I mean, again, Purge's best series that we talk about is literally 8.9.

Speaker 1:
[15:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[15:05] Yeah. I agree with you, though. I mean, Toronto's out here playing 3-4, bro. It's impressive what they're doing. I know Kips was in the chat, like standing up for Jamie and whatever, but like, I mean, it's I get it. It's tough. It's tough to make those calls, but you just got to make them, bro. It is what it is.

Speaker 1:
[15:23] Yeah. I'm surprised by both of these teams. I actually thought we were going to see a Boston change going on like after the weekend before the minor tournament.

Speaker 2:
[15:29] How have they not made a change? I don't understand.

Speaker 1:
[15:32] Yeah. I'm a little shocked by it as well.

Speaker 2:
[15:36] They don't have a sub, I'm guessing, so they have to actually pick somebody up. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[15:40] I don't think so. They released Snoopy completely.

Speaker 1:
[15:44] What do you think about the new maps, Pat? We saw some French Search. We saw Gridlock Heartpoint. You've been enjoying the new maps?

Speaker 2:
[15:50] Well, there's only one new map, right? It's Sake. All the other ones are throwbacks.

Speaker 1:
[15:54] Yeah. Throwbacks. Yeah. But new maps in the rotation. Gridlock Heartpoint got added in and then French Search, which is obviously an old one.

Speaker 2:
[16:00] It's for sure better than what it was, but I still think there's changes to be made still. I don't know how scarred it is at all.

Speaker 1:
[16:08] But yeah, I think a few people just scarred. What about you doing? You like in a new maps?

Speaker 5:
[16:14] Oh, yeah, the maps play well, especially in Heartpoint. I think gridlocks good. It's very like you actually have to fucking rotate and you can't just keep head bashing hills to try to break. Maybe you do that if you have P2 on gridlock and people to try to bang the front. You're not going to break that shit. Same thing with the P3, the showers. So yeah, like you have to be perfect. You have to be in sync on the pinch because they spawn on the hill if you are blocking the certain spawn. So I'm not going to do maps. I think Fringe S&D plays well. So everything's been good so far. S&D map pulls good. Hardpoint still kind of stinks a little bit. We just need to get a couple of new maps in there. Maybe exposure back after they fix it. But yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:51] People were talking about adding in Sake S&D. Sam was talking about it a little bit in the watch party. I mean, I feel like the way that that map is laid out could actually work. I mean, obviously we would have to see it play out more, but Scar S&D is horrible. Like Scar Search needs to be removed from the map.

Speaker 5:
[17:06] It's terrible.

Speaker 1:
[17:07] So it would be cool to see them add another map into it, maybe search. But what do you think?

Speaker 2:
[17:12] It's hard point. What are you at it?

Speaker 1:
[17:14] Yeah, that map is also terrible. That map is crooked. I can't believe it's still in a rotation. What did you think of the series, Joe?

Speaker 5:
[17:23] Well, I did my first ever less one through three on Perjay, and that's why he had a legacy series. So they still ended up losing a legacy series with the.9, but that's on me because I finally did it for the first time ever. But nasty is continuous to be in hell still. I just feel bad for this guy at this point. Like it has to be demoralizing every day. Him going into the practice room like, all right, guys, like, let's go. Let's watch VOD. Let's practice. Let's get better. But he knows damn well they're not going to get better. Their schedule only gets harder from this point on. So like this team is kind of just fucked no matter what they do. Yes, they should make another change. Will it change anything? Not really. They might have more fun in scrims and more fun while they play. But this team's already done for champs. They're just playing for EWC at this point and maybe some dope to try to get their their stocks a little bit higher for next year. But yeah, nasty. He's been locked up in solitary confinement this whole year. They need to free him. And I kind of agree with what Pat said about Toronto. I think Toronto is a solid roster. But to get to that championship caliber, because they're so fucking close, like Kip's transformed this team ever since he joined them and he is disgusting, probably going to end up being the rookie of the year, in my opinion. But I think there's one player away from being able to compete for championships every single event. So that one top three might have chocked them for the year, but we'll see how it plays out.

Speaker 1:
[18:39] Yeah. What about you, Ian? Toronto goes up against Boston. Boston continue to struggle. Toronto may be one step away. What do you think of the series?

Speaker 3:
[18:46] I mean, it's a shame because they're one step away. Their one piece is on the other team. Like if they had Nasty on Toronto, I think that they actually could be competing for chips right now. Toronto looks really good as a team. They're definitely one of the better teams in the league. And Insight is that safety net. I hate to just keep bringing it up. They're just not going to win unless they somehow stumble across the finish line with Insight having a generational series in the finals. It's just not going to happen. They're going to be a top 14 because they are a good team. They have pieces. Jota Sears has been great. Kleenex has obviously been stepping it up ever since going back to the sub and with the meta. And Kipsch is, like Dill said, rookie of the year. And I know it sounds hell disrespectful, but there's really no disrespect to Insight. He just, there's just not enough firepower. And it's a shame because he's not bad. But if they want to win, they have to make a change. And I know the players, they're gonna obviously believe in Insight. Things are going well. They're winning series right now. And they're teammates. So like, but in the back of their heads, they know. You know what I mean? They know that they're not winning an event.

Speaker 1:
[20:04] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[20:05] With this four.

Speaker 5:
[20:06] No, can I say something real quick?

Speaker 3:
[20:08] Of course.

Speaker 5:
[20:09] I was gonna say, so it's like not just everyone drop as they drop as they drop Insight. For more like gameplay things too, as Call of Duty goes on, the season progresses. The game only gets quicker. The decision making gets faster. Everyone learns the game. They know the routes to take. The teamwork gets better for all the teams. And right now, with the MPC meta, you see teams like Optic play. You see teams like FaZe play. The fucking pace they're playing at is insane. I'm pretty sure in the FaZe series, three of them had 100 kills. So like it's only gonna get quicker from here on out. And Insight just has to speed it up. If he's gonna stay on this team, Insight has to speed it up in the game for them to even have a chance. Like when these terms make deep runs.

Speaker 3:
[20:43] Yeah, I mean, the thing is like, do I think Toronto could beat FaZe, Optic, like any of the other top teams that we talk about at a major?

Speaker 5:
[20:52] Of course.

Speaker 3:
[20:53] I just don't think that they're gonna be able to beat multiple of them, which is what you have to do if you want to win the event. And nobody cares about getting top three. Like yeah, it's better than getting rounded, but every player at the major wants to win the tournament. That's the symbol of that. That's the end goal. The end goal is that, oh, we got top three. We could be happy with that. Yeah, you're getting money and it's better. It could be worse, but if these guys want to win, we've been saying, yeah, I think that's just gonna be a thing. And who knows? They probably won't drop inside.

Speaker 4:
[21:25] But I just don't see them being like a championship caliber team.

Speaker 1:
[21:29] What did you say to our team?

Speaker 4:
[21:31] They also need to, well, yeah, but that requires a buyout, that requires Boston being willing to let them leave, like, blah, blah, blah. Like, I'd be more, obviously, I think that they would have to find a suitable replacement, but the fact that they're not reaching out is like the questionable thing. Because with Toronto, like, especially we just have this conversation, I feel like every year, it's like good enough to compete, not good enough to win at times. Like, that's just their thing. And I don't know why they just haven't done it. I think it's just because there's probably loyal to the guy. I mean, he's been a part of their organization for such a long time, but I mean, it is what it is, man. I feel like we talk about this a lot. But with fucking Boston, bro, it's free nasty, bro. It's been free nasty. I feel bad for him, man. I think Boston is just terrorizing his career right now. And for him to be the only one out of that LA Thieves line up, like just not really finding any sort of success after the year on that Thieves line up and then Surge and then just to now, it just sucks, man. I feel bad for the kid. But yeah, I don't know what Purge is still doing on this team. And as for the like series, I mean, I'm still surprised teams are playing Toronto on Den. I mean, if that's two series again in a row.

Speaker 1:
[22:41] It is so weird.

Speaker 4:
[22:43] Toronto are gods on that map. They win it damn near every single time. And yeah, I mean, Toronto still look good, man. I expect to make a deep run in the major or the minor tournament, regardless of what we say about their team right now.

Speaker 1:
[22:56] I wonder if Nastie's like communicating to Boston management to like, yo, we need to make changes. You know what I mean? Like he's probably in a weird position, but at the same time, it's like, I wonder if he's being vocal about it, you know, and actually saying something and like trying to do something about it. Cause I mean, bro, I remember back in the day, people would be benching themselves, you know, like, yo, we either make a change or I'm just not playing. People used to do that back in the day, which is obviously probably a lot harder to do now, but I'm just shocked honestly by some of these teams. And yeah, I mean, Boston now too, on the standings, they're kind of out of the champs race, I feel like in a way, like, especially Dylan, you said their schedule's insane, right? Coming up.

Speaker 5:
[23:32] Yeah, I think they still have to play like a FaZe, a LAT, or like Optic or Falcons. It's like all top, top teams.

Speaker 1:
[23:38] Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, anybody else got any final thoughts on Toronto or Boston Dylan? I completely agree with you. The way that this game is played, it's just like taking space and quit trading, like Jamie's gonna have to step it up in terms of just pace. Like even if they're winning, bro, like you can't have two, 3000 damage less, like half the interactions of everybody else. There was one map where somebody had like 30 and he was, what was the map where like two or three of his teammates had like 30 kills and he had like eight kills? It was like eight and 10.

Speaker 5:
[24:06] I'm pretty sure that was map one.

Speaker 1:
[24:07] I was like, bro, what is going on?

Speaker 5:
[24:08] Yeah, it was map one.

Speaker 1:
[24:09] This is insane.

Speaker 5:
[24:12] But yeah. If you want their schedule for the major three qualifier, it's Optic, Paris and G2 is their last three matches.

Speaker 1:
[24:18] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[24:19] For Boston, so.

Speaker 1:
[24:19] Yeah, it's shocked.

Speaker 5:
[24:20] Cooked.

Speaker 1:
[24:21] Cooked, absolutely cooked. Any final thoughts, guys? Any other final thoughts? All right, let's go.

Speaker 2:
[24:26] No, not really.

Speaker 1:
[24:27] You good, Doug?

Speaker 2:
[24:27] You good?

Speaker 1:
[24:28] All right, let's go to the next one. There's actually some frustrations from the Falcons camp after this series, because this one was actually closed. We might need to take a look at the ending to that fourth map. But we get into FaZe Vegas versus the Riyadh Falcons. We start things off on a Colossus hardpoint FaZe. They come out strong. They went 250 to 158. Then we go to the fringe S&D Falcons with a big bounce back. In that one, they win that one 6-2. I think FaZe threw a few rounds in that one. I think there was like a 1v3 and a 1v2. Then we got a SCAR overload, a FaZe win that one 5-4, and then a SCAR hardpoint, which goes all the way down to the wire. In my opinion, Falcons probably could have won that map. And somehow, someway, Chris Lair, Simp the Pimp, finds a three-piece at the end of that one and gets FaZe into that hardpoint. So we're gonna have to take a look at that one. What's going on? Take a look at the stats here and see what's going on. The only guy positive for the Falcons was Kizmit with a 1.02. He had over 100 kills in a series as well. A 0.94 from Pred, a 0.86 from XNED, and a 0.92 from Selium. On the other side, he had a 0.94 from O4. He had a 1.11 from Abouza, a 1.10 from Drozza, and a 1.09 from Simp to Pimp. Everybody from the FaZe boys cooking. You had Abouza as your match MVP. He had a 1.18 in hardpoint, a 0.63 in search, and a 1.09 in overload. Abouza has been very, very good for the FaZe boys. Some people are saying he's had an MVP season, might be top five. We'll get there at the end of the show when we make our top 10 list, but Abouza going absolutely nuts. Ian, we'll start with you at the bottom, we'll work our way up. FaZe, they come out, they take care of the Falcons, but it was a close series, to be fair. Falcons are actually pushing FaZe to their limits. What did you think of the series?

Speaker 3:
[26:09] It was a very close series. I'd like the Falcons, they definitely could have won it. Obviously, everybody saw the clip where you could tell that there was some frustration in the Falcons' camp. I mean, the series itself was entertaining. Falcons are obviously beating themselves up because not only did they lose their 0-2 in the qualifier, but I think the bigger issue for the Falcons is... I actually, I didn't say this when we brought it up during the last flank, but I think how Klay and management went about them trying to make a team change is the right move. The issue is a lot of the Cob Pros don't have, like, the mindset for that to not break them. Like, trialing and figuring out is how you should go about it, but most of the Cob Pros have egos, you know, big egos, and, like, they don't like that. And then it starts just cracking the inside of the team, because now players are like, oh, they don't want to play with me, this and that. It falls through, right? It falls through, which sucks. But now they're just like, they're double guessing everything, is what it seems like, because XNIP, for example, has a certain mindset on how he wants to approach the game. And it's completely different compared to Kizme and Pred. And now, they're like, I don't know, it just now it seems like it's a competition between the people involved with Falcons to just stay on the team. Yeah. Which once that happens, blow it up. This is just, you're never going to be successful. And it sucks because I actually, like I said, I agree with how Clay went about it, Clay and the Falcons management. But I mean, FaZe got the dub, it was gritty, 04. He had, I'm pretty sure he had map one, he cooked map four, he had a 0.6. And so that probably helped Falcons keep it a little closer. But I mean, FaZe handled business, you know, the reigning chance for the reason.

Speaker 1:
[28:11] Yeah, let's go to you, Pat. Pat, what did you think of the series? Falcons, they kept it closed, but FaZe, they get the W.

Speaker 2:
[28:17] I disagree with everything Nub just said.

Speaker 3:
[28:20] Of course, Pat, he's one of them cats I'm talking about.

Speaker 2:
[28:25] I think the reality is, bro, is you can't go about it that way and then not make a change. Like, if you're gonna do that shit.

Speaker 3:
[28:33] You can't if you've got grown men who understand this is a job, Pat. They understand, don't take it personally.

Speaker 2:
[28:38] No, because it's not even personal at that point. They know they suck, right? And then they don't change. So in reality, they still know they suck. Like, I just feel like if you're gonna do that whole trial shit and open up the roster change exploration, you gotta commit, bro. You can't just like backpedal and then not make a change.

Speaker 3:
[28:56] Not if you trial it and you're like, damn, we suck even more like this.

Speaker 2:
[29:00] Bro, because they tried to do that. Like, who did they try? They tried fucking Academy players. They didn't even like really reach out and try. Like, they could have got, they could have made a change if they wanted to make a change, is what I'm saying. So I think they're brain dead. I think this team is fucked. I mean, I've never thought FaZe were that good. They've needed roster change for a long time. But yeah, I mean, yeah, they play close series, but it's like this team is so mid for the amount of money that they're putting into this team. They're a super mid team. So yeah, I just think they need to commit to a change.

Speaker 1:
[29:39] What do you think about going full NA or full Saudi, just picking one? Cause at least with full Saudi, they would build an identity, right?

Speaker 2:
[29:47] Yeah, flip a coin, bro. Who cares? Just literally flip a coin. Decide, like this fucking experiment of like, let's just filter in Saudi players with top American talent to see what we can do. It's just, it's so dumb.

Speaker 1:
[30:00] Yeah. What about you, Duarte? What do you think of the series?

Speaker 4:
[30:04] I mean, just talking about the series and just the Falcons in general. Like we used to talk about them not being too good at search. They were struggling to win it. They get a win here, but they've also started to struggle in their respawns. They've started to struggle in their respawns, even dating back to LAN, where they've just struggled in everything realistically. But they're just, they're not improving, obviously. I think that's probably a caveat to the role changing and then the trialing. And it's just, they're just in a really shit spot where I think the management, the players, they don't know what the fuck to do. They're probably just in this limbo of like, are we going to make a change? Are we not going to make a change? Like, how are we going to improve? Where's that going to come from? Is it going to come from getting a new player? Do we got to fucking lock in? How is this role change going to swap? Like, are team around the new meta? Like, there's just so much going on within the camp, the game and everything that they're probably just, they're in the head right now. And I kind of feel bad for them. Obviously the players, right? They're just like there to try to play and lock in. And they're just, they're dealing with so much shit right now and nothing seems to be going their way. I truthfully don't really know what they should do. Like I genuinely don't know because they tried QK and he was not playing well in their trials. And they're just kind of stuck.

Speaker 1:
[31:15] Which is also kind of weird. The trials are always weird to me because it's like, well, you give a guy what? Two scrims, two days? And what are two days? They just get comfortable. Like how do you get comfortable in two days with a team you never played with before?

Speaker 2:
[31:25] And one play, bro, and the reality is one person on the team could not want that change to happen. So it's like, they're not incentivized to go hard. It's, bro, it's a lose-lose. Like it's literally a lose-lose.

Speaker 1:
[31:37] I saw somebody in the chat say, if we go full Saudi, it would just be the same situation in Black Ops 6. But I do think there's a lot more Saudi talent now that they didn't have, or at least we didn't see in Black Ops 6. I mean, you look at challengers now, and you had a Saudi team win Major 1, and they got top two at Major 2. Right, so you know there's talent there that can compete with, you know, NA players. It's just about finding the right people, right? Like finding the right players.

Speaker 3:
[32:01] I think there's no chance they go full Saudi, though, because you basically...

Speaker 1:
[32:05] This year, they won't. Maybe won't need it this year. They've invested way too much money to do it this year.

Speaker 4:
[32:09] I think what sucks, though, and like, yeah...

Speaker 1:
[32:11] Which is why, Ian, they should just go full NA and then just, if anything, develop XNAT through challengers and just keep developing him and just keep making him a better player. And if they actually want to win something this year, they should take the team full in it.

Speaker 4:
[32:24] I think the problem here lies, though, with the full Saudi thing is, listen, I'm gonna rip the Band-Aid off. The challengers and the pro scene, obviously, is completely different. In the UK, he's tried in challengers. He played in those scrims, in those trials, and to my knowledge, they didn't go well, and that was against pros. The only person that is genuinely proven they shoot back against pros in the Pro League was Kix. That's the only guy I remember shooting back.

Speaker 6:
[32:48] Yeah, Dak was a demon.

Speaker 4:
[32:50] The rest of them, granted, it's a different year, it's a different game, they've had more time to develop. They're just not proven against the pros at all. Yeah, they've had success in challengers, but again, I'm just using QK as an example because he played well in challengers and then started scrimming with the pro team and it was awful. So I honestly don't know. Like I said, they're in limbo, I feel bad for them, it's hell. I don't know what they're gonna do, but I mean, guess we gotta wait and see.

Speaker 1:
[33:18] Yeah, yeah, I wanted to take a look at the ending of The Hardpoint just on Scar because I did come down to the wire. It was a really close map. This is kind of where we saw the argument with the Falcons, which we could pull up after the fact after we watched the clip here. But I'm just gonna play it out from here. There's about 20 seconds left on the P2 on Scar. And we're going to a P3 rotation. So you can see how it's getting set up. Kismet's gonna get there early, and he's gonna get through to green here. And while he's doing that, the rest of his team's coming off spawn blue. Kismet's actually gonna do a great job. He's gonna get a kill and get pushed up into green. And of course, the only player they gotta work with is SimpThePimp trying to cut them. But Kismet again, just doing such a good job, pushing out green, getting these kills. And this is kind of where they throw it away. I do think Kismet maybe could have stayed pushed up green, but anyway, he made the play, he gets the kill. And this is what a lot of people are talking about. MC comes in with a team kill, accidentally kills his teammate, and then he does find two after the fact. But looking at the mini map now, you got a guy watching cross, you got three guys on a plane holding hill. This just can't get broken. And somehow, someway, Chris Lair, Simp finds an aid kill, finds a gunfight mid-map, hits the plane, wins another one, Exit tries to come a second time. He's dead. And Chris Lair pops a four-piece to win the game. Is there anything from the Falcon setup that you guys thought they could have changed?

Speaker 5:
[34:37] Dylan, Dylan, talk to me, Dylan, talk to me. If you go back to where MC literally, he needed Exit, unfortunate. Then he gets two kills middle of the map. When you get two kills in a lane, just hit that lane out, put pressure on the other team. Like Simp is not able to get to the spot he gets to if he does that. I think at MC's mind, he wanted to go back and throw a trophy, but at that point, bro, just you're right there already, hit the lane out and get those kills, put pressure, layer the defense essentially. But he goes back, throws the trophy. If you look at the trophy later on the clip, it was a shit trophy too. So yeah, Pred still might have died to tax, but maybe when MC got on the hill, he wouldn't have got hit by it if he threw a better trophy. And even when Exit hits mid-cut, Pred was on hill, Selling was on the plane. Exit should have played it more aggressive too, because if you look, Simp wouldn't have been able to just jump out of green if Exit just like chows that angle. And unknowingly, he would have probably shot Simp to the side. But they just needed to put pressure.

Speaker 2:
[35:32] He just got gunned, no?

Speaker 5:
[35:33] He got gunned. He could have pushed. Look, he ran up to the cut. Right here, there's two down. Just get aggressive on them. Why are you backing up when you just go and chow the rest?

Speaker 2:
[35:42] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[35:42] You only need one wave.

Speaker 2:
[35:44] That's all you need to do. That was already on the head.

Speaker 5:
[35:46] Yeah, Selling on the head, he press on hill. You have team shots. Just take a confident chow. But I think it starts with MC backing up, then throwing a shit trophy. The next did not pushing, getting ripped.

Speaker 1:
[35:56] That's how this game is played, Dylan. Like you got kills, like just push, just take the chow. Like just slide out, take a chow. If you win the fights, good. If you don't, it's fine. Like you, worse comes to worse, you tag them up and they're weak and they can't really do anything, right? You get the info and they're weak, they can't push up. You just come off spawning, you just keep flooding, right? Or he could have pinched it. I mean, pinching might have been a little risky, but I mean, it would have been better, I think, than just standing here, right? Either just take the child mid-cut or just pinch top green.

Speaker 5:
[36:23] He just slides in Chowzie, literally kills Simba while his teammates are looking over him, too, to relieve pressure, like it makes things so much easier.

Speaker 4:
[36:30] The only reason that he has the backup there is he thinks he's going to get pinched green, which I guess is not the worst play in the world. Like, I'm not going to sit there and nitpick that he didn't, like, hard shell that because if he, like, sits there on that headglitch and gets shot in the back green, the fucking play plays out the same.

Speaker 5:
[36:46] There's just not much time, though, because that's the thing.

Speaker 4:
[36:48] I'll be honest, bro, he just...

Speaker 5:
[36:48] They can't really take that route, to be honest.

Speaker 4:
[36:50] He just got gunned. He just got gunned bad.

Speaker 3:
[36:53] Well, that's why I think he was mad, though. So, I mean, you guys both had valid points. I think that XNIP was mad, though, because it should have been MC in that spot.

Speaker 4:
[37:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[37:05] He sees MC be backing up. He's coming off spawn. Now, he needs to go to that spot. And I do agree, like, he could have played it differently, he could have played it a little bit more aggro. I also agree with Chris, like, in his head.

Speaker 1:
[37:19] MC could have definitely pushed here, bro.

Speaker 3:
[37:21] In that moment, end of the game, 10 seconds left, XNIP just wants, he's just trying to get one. And he gets gunned by Simp, so I think he's frustrated, like, damn, I lost that gunfight to Simp.

Speaker 4:
[37:31] Which he wins that gunfight.

Speaker 3:
[37:33] You know what I mean? Yeah, but it's like, I'm trying to salvage the situation that MC already fucked up.

Speaker 4:
[37:39] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[37:40] You know what I mean? So, like, that's why he, that's why I think he was so pissed about it.

Speaker 4:
[37:44] Sometimes he could have been knife out, literally running at top green, like, and they would not have flipped or anything, and he could have had, like, an avenue to shoot them on the back.

Speaker 1:
[37:51] Like, they're nading X, and it was also big, bro. It was, again, pushing them in a good spot. That was tough, for sure.

Speaker 5:
[38:00] This is a type of shit that happens when your team's in shambles. Everything had to go wrong for them to lose this. And guess what? Everything went wrong. Yeah. And now they're even, now they're just shocked, like it's over.

Speaker 3:
[38:10] Yeah. And I don't know, I mean, I don't know how their team dynamic is and how they go about it in coaching. I don't think coach Jim Bob Cooder would do this, but you guys know how it is too. Like there's like superstars on every team. So when you go over film, it's like, like X did probably thinks like, I'm going to be the one getting cooked when we're going over film, when it was MC. You know what I mean? Who like really fucked up that play, which could have potentially forced the game five. Like if, if Clay and whoever else isn't actually calling out MC in that situation, like I'm not saying that's a thing, but it's possible that it could be like that. Just that causes more frustration with X because it's like this motherfucker can't do no wrong, but I'm under a microscope right now. Yeah, he feels like it's not like that, but he was super frustrated.

Speaker 1:
[39:02] So it does feel that like that a little bit from the outside looking in. There's a it feels like this has always been a thing in God, by the way, where like somebody's like the scapegoat on a team, right?

Speaker 4:
[39:11] I mean, we do it on the show. Like, granted, we've analyzed this clip here. We've been the ones like a lot of the time saying, oh, yeah, XNED needs to go or like he's probably the one that needs to go just because of what we've seen so far, which I think we are still in the right here. Like I think he has underperformed. But like you got to think like if we're saying it probably, you know, that's that type of thing is probably something that he's on just he's just under fire right now. Yeah, I guess to him.

Speaker 1:
[39:37] Here's the clip after the fact. Let's tune in real quick. It's 14 seconds. This is after they lost the map for on Scar. Let's tune in.

Speaker 2:
[39:44] Are we not talking, dude?

Speaker 1:
[39:47] Not to win.

Speaker 3:
[39:48] They want all of them green.

Speaker 7:
[39:51] All of them green boys.

Speaker 3:
[39:53] All of them green.

Speaker 7:
[39:54] We did the next bit.

Speaker 1:
[39:58] Yeah, which I agree with XNid about them not taking space. I think those...

Speaker 2:
[40:02] MC don't give a. That guy has money.

Speaker 3:
[40:06] Bro, and next thing I fucked, back to back lives. He tried to take space, got team-naded. That's tough. And then someone else on his team should have been taking space, and they didn't. So now he had to go do it.

Speaker 2:
[40:17] MC said, that's what happens, man.

Speaker 3:
[40:19] Good try, guys.

Speaker 1:
[40:21] AD was looking at him.

Speaker 5:
[40:22] I'll see you in a couple of days for scrims, guys. Good try. Good try.

Speaker 1:
[40:25] AD was looking at him like, oh, shit. You know what I mean? Here we go.

Speaker 5:
[40:29] This team at this point just has to rip the bandaid off and make a change, whether it's the right change, the wrong change, a change is needed. It just has to happen, bro. Their trust is just going down more and more. These players don't trust each other. They're not going to be able to work together and improve that much in this short amount of time. Like there's been too much history between them. They got to just rip the band off and do it.

Speaker 1:
[40:49] I agree. We'll see what they end up doing moving forward. At this point, they might just keep the team the same based on what they did from the trial period. But I mean, who knows? I saw a lot of people coming for Clay's neck. I don't think there's much Clay could do. I'm going to be honest. I think there's probably some pushback from management with some of the things. Or maybe not. I actually don't know. But would you guys say Clay is a big factor in this? I saw a lot of people coming for Clay's neck on the timeline.

Speaker 6:
[41:15] They were calling him the white face devil.

Speaker 4:
[41:17] I don't think that's the case when it comes to like their game. Like, I mean, I'm sure he's telling them the right shit. At the end of the day, they got to execute it. But when making like team decisions, like he's probably the closest one.

Speaker 1:
[41:30] Yeah, that has a lot. There's only so much to do, right? Like, I mean, if you're in Clay's position, you know.

Speaker 4:
[41:34] Yeah, I don't think it's fair to come at him.

Speaker 1:
[41:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:36] You're not fucking making a roster change. I blame him for that. They tried one guy, one guy that you couldn't have found anybody better, like of all the people that people talk about are like, next up. They tried one guy.

Speaker 3:
[41:49] I mean, but Pat, we've been talking about this. We don't know, unless you get Coach Jim on The Flank. And even then, he's probably not going to say what's being said behind closed doors. Like, we don't know how much control he has. Like, if management is saying, no, like that, we could only try this guy out or this guy out or this guy. You can't just go pay like, I'm not saying that's the case. But maybe it is. I don't think Clay would be like, bro, you know, Clay Pat, you think he's not going to try and fucking make a change if the change is needed.

Speaker 7:
[42:24] I got to stop in here real quick.

Speaker 3:
[42:25] Here we go.

Speaker 5:
[42:26] Calculated. Yes.

Speaker 7:
[42:27] I talked about this in the beginning of the year on the show. Is this how it kind of works with Falcons that are e-sports? They have coaches, they have GMs, they have staff, but the general sense in the other e-sports they've been is that decisions are made pretty top down from CEO, like upper management, like above the coach, above the GM. And as you guys know, that's frustrating in a situation, specifically this situation, which no matter what route they go, someone's holding a massive alley. The fans are pissed because they drop X-Men, or the team is pissed because AP is the one getting rotated out. You know what I'm saying? They're in a tricky spot, and the players probably feel like they don't have any real control of the situation, no?

Speaker 1:
[43:08] Do the fans want Saudi representation, or do they just want the win? Yeah. What do they want?

Speaker 4:
[43:13] A lot of the Saudi fans literally think that X-Men is not the problem. I'm not saying he's the problem, but like that's like the way they say, cause I see, dude, I saw so, when this trial period was coming over, I saw so many tweets on my For You page of like Saudi posts that were translated, and they were just roasting Pred, basically saying that like he doesn't play for the win, he doesn't care about the org to keep X-Ned and all this stuff. So I think the fans are definitely, they want X-Ned on the team.

Speaker 3:
[43:40] Do we know for sure that it's kind of that situation where the players don't want X-Ned and they want Pred, but the fans want like, do we know that's the case?

Speaker 5:
[43:53] We could assume, I don't even know. There's not like 100%, but we could assume that the players are probably wanting to get rid of X-Ned. And then the org obviously wants to keep X-Ned. And the only other player they try was QK, who is also Saudi as well. So like they want a Saudi player on the team, of course, but probably the players, the coach, Clay, they probably do want to have an NA player on the team.

Speaker 4:
[44:16] I'm going to be completely honest, though. Like we, like a lot of people sit there and like, they'll talk about how X-Ned underperforms and blah, blah, blah. But like, just knowing the guy and watching him play, I think he's like one of the most selfless players on the team. And he's still, he doesn't put up, it's not like he's putting up the fucking horseshit. Like he's just not playing insane. Like we don't, he's not putting up the stats that some of his other teammates do. And I think he genuinely actually has a, at least in Respawn, he has a good idea of how to play the game. And I just don't think.

Speaker 7:
[44:42] Here's a problem.

Speaker 4:
[44:44] He struggles on land, but he's not, I don't think he's like the world's world's worst. I'm not sitting here and say he shouldn't be dropped. But like, I think the way some people like make it seem is that like, they get rid of XNED and find somebody, unless they're fucking finding somebody that is literally a superstar player. I think their results as a team might still be very similar.

Speaker 7:
[45:01] It's always awkward puzzle pieces. Here's the thing, though, of course, I will say XNED Respawn numbers aren't bad. The problem is this team is not a good search team. And XNED numbers are some of the worst.

Speaker 4:
[45:14] Which is very strange because I feel like the Saudi teams and the players, they kind of came from that S&D and they usually should excel in that, but they're not.

Speaker 7:
[45:22] I mean, he just he like right now, if you look at Falcon Stats, S&D, like they can't get bloods. They don't really win rounds three before they don't. When they're man up for three, they do close. They have a tough time in situationals when like bombs down or they're planted on both sides of it. And the problem is excellent on staying alive in those rounds to be a factor in that situation. And a lot of it is actually coming down to an AG clutch, who actually, AG has been pretty clutch in a number of situations this year. I just think like when you look at what their main problem is, like that's when you start to realize, well, he's just played a rotate out to fix that is excellent. But to your guys' point, like is there anybody out there in any challenges that really would fix it? I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[46:00] Well, the thing is, Ben, if you actually, because I got put on, I think, Cap and Nameless told me to watch it. They told Sam and I to watch it. If you watch the start, the break of exposure overload versus G2 when they were down 2-0, bro, I think Falcons might have one of the worst arrows across from any CDL team. And like, I don't really want to blame Exit too much for this because he gets active and tries to put pressure on the map. But if you watch everyone else, no one else was moving. And he was watching the cut, watching the flank when they had kills. And Exit led with the ball left, came back to mid and was the first guy in line middle after that too. So like, I think this team has very shitty arrows. So even if they do get rid of Exit, I still don't see this team being that good to be completely honest.

Speaker 4:
[46:45] Exactly.

Speaker 5:
[46:46] Those guys, I have no idea what they're doing.

Speaker 1:
[46:48] That was good. I think what's out, it's mainly just the land thing. Like he just hasn't put in the same performances on land that he was online, but he's gotten better. I still think the communication thing might be a thing. I know he's gotten better with that, but just like a small talk, like the little things in the middle of a game, but there's really not much to do. There's a lot of people too that they could have trialed. I don't know why they just settled for one or two players. It was just QK. Was that the only one? Wasn't there somebody else too? Who was the other one that they trialed? I thought it was just QK. I thought they trialed somebody else, but they trialed one guy.

Speaker 7:
[47:22] They trialed somebody else who wasn't reported, Tom.

Speaker 4:
[47:26] Tom. Oh, Phil. Wait, they trialed somebody else that wasn't reported?

Speaker 5:
[47:45] I think we're in the wrong world, too. That's why they're having all these issues now.

Speaker 4:
[47:48] And then on top of that, when they trial them, was it MPC meta?

Speaker 5:
[47:51] No, no, no.

Speaker 4:
[47:53] Like, exactly, dude, they're in hell. They're literally in fucking permanent hell.

Speaker 1:
[47:57] But who was the other person they trialed? Can we just say that? Why is this so secretive?

Speaker 5:
[48:04] No, we wouldn't know. There's no way.

Speaker 7:
[48:06] No, it was just you and I were saying we don't, Tommy, please.

Speaker 1:
[48:09] No, I thought that's what you just said, Ben. I thought you just said that there was somebody else that they trialed.

Speaker 7:
[48:13] No, no, no one.

Speaker 1:
[48:13] I misheard you then. My bad. I misheard you. I saw people saying in the chat, Leaky, Leaky, I thought they heard the same thing. Did he not say, he said that. Did he not say that? Am I fucking tripping?

Speaker 7:
[48:24] No, I didn't say, I think I said like, if like I was saying, like, if they want to go down the route, like there just aren't a lot of options, but it's like, to your point, and we all agree, I just, they, they are, you guys will go look at the major three draw. They'll probably play FaZe again if they win their first match.

Speaker 1:
[48:42] Oh, Duarte, they said it, somebody said it.

Speaker 4:
[48:43] I didn't say it, or maybe you guys misheard what I said.

Speaker 5:
[48:46] I didn't say they tried multiple people.

Speaker 1:
[48:48] That's all right, that's all right. They tried QK, and yeah, apparently, they were saying MC wasn't trying, when they tried QK, which is kind of crazy.

Speaker 3:
[48:57] Insane, yeah, that's insane.

Speaker 1:
[48:59] But any other final thoughts on the Falcons and FaZe? Any other final thoughts, guys? Absolutely, let's move on to the last series of the day, and then we'll make our bracket for the minor tournament, and we'll take a look at the top ten list. I don't know if we're going to have much to say about this one. Even though I do think they kept it somewhat close, we got Optic Texas going up against Cloud9 New York. Obviously Cloud9 at the bottom of the league, Optic Texas at the top. Optic, they get a 3-1 victory against Cloud9 here. We start things off at a Colossus hardpoint, where Optic win 250 to 186. Then we got a fringe S&D, where Cloud9 close it out 6 to 5. A SCAR overload, where Optic win that one 5 to 2. And then a gridlock hardpoint, where Optic win that one 250 to 210. So Cloud9 keep it up with Optic, but not able to get the job done as we got a red carpet for Cloud9. You got to encourage at a.93, hide with a.88, Nezra with a.86, and Okiz with a.73. On the other side, it's a complete opposite. You got a green carpet, you got Shotsie with a 1.34. And this one, you got a 1.01 from Merc, a 1.2 coming in from Hook, and a 1.09 from Dash. You will scroll down and take a look at a match MVP. It's going to be Shotsie with a 1.4. You got an in hardpoint, a 1.25 in S&D, and a 1.25 in overload. Shotsie doing a fantastic job here. In this one, Pat, we'll go to you. We'll work our way down. Pat, Optic Texas, they got a 3-1 victory here over Cloud9. What did you think, Pat?

Speaker 2:
[50:31] I ain't ever seen them play like this against the top teams. They just be noobs laying, I guess, these shitters at the bottom. But, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:38] That's some style he's talking about there, Pat.

Speaker 2:
[50:41] Well, right now, they suck. Yeah, they're shitting.

Speaker 1:
[50:43] It is.

Speaker 2:
[50:46] Yeah. I mean, this is, again, bro, it's honestly at that point where these guys, Boston, they're all the same. They're out of champs. They're horrible. A weird, weird state. They're not really playing for anything. They're just playing to get shit on the rest of the year. Which kind of sucks for broadcast, but yeah. I mean, I guess the best thing they can do is show weaknesses in other teams, which they did. Opti, I guess, indeed, don't look that good. But yeah, that's really all I got, Tom.

Speaker 1:
[51:20] Yeah. I mean, there's not really too much to say about this series. Dylan, you got anything you want to say about this series?

Speaker 5:
[51:25] It's just the hard points. The Cloud9 actually started off really well in both hard points. But with Cloud9, no matter how good they start, they're probably still going to lose it. And they were actually piecing. I think Encouraged was piecing with the NPC. And I know Dan, well, after this series, we'll probably see it in the process a month from now. After this series, they're going to be like, wow, these Cloud9 kids were shooting with the NPC. I know the players on Optic were definitely losing full. They were dying to some of these Cloud9 players with the NPC. Yeah, we got to do something about this gun if C9 is able to get kills.

Speaker 1:
[51:54] So do you guys agree that it lowers the skill gap, the NPC? That's the consensus. That's what it seems like the pros were saying, that the NPC meta was lowering the gap.

Speaker 5:
[52:02] Especially with the old build, it was up close, someone could just shotgun. So it definitely lowered it a bit.

Speaker 4:
[52:08] It didn't change. Yeah, it definitely lowers the skill gap, because again, say it one more time, I'm gonna put it to bed. You did it, even with these GA's, you didn't nerf anything that it excelled in. You nerfed all the things that was weakened by taking some of these attachments out, which doesn't fucking make sense. If a gun is really broken and causing the meta to be fucking easy for people to use, you gotta nerf the things it's good at, not the things it's weak at. It doesn't fucking make sense. It's gonna be the same shit. It's gonna be the same fucking broken weapon. And people are still gonna complain. Mark my fucking words.

Speaker 1:
[52:43] Any thoughts on the series, Duarte?

Speaker 4:
[52:45] No, Optic just taking care of business. C9 made it close in the hard points. But yeah, I still got nothing about these guys. The only shining light for this team, at least that I've seen for this whole season so far, is Nezra. I think that guy is actually kind of talented. Like, his POV is really good to watch, as much as the team kind of sucks.

Speaker 1:
[53:04] You haven't liked a little bit from Encouraged? Encouraged is pretty good too. I feel like Encouraged has been doing his thing too.

Speaker 4:
[53:09] Everyone else is whatever. I mean, Hyde, I didn't really expect much of him just because he has like actually the least amount of experience.

Speaker 1:
[53:17] That guy's still in high school.

Speaker 4:
[53:19] And he's also playing on cable. So, I mean, he's kind of on a lose-lose, so I'll hold my opinions on him.

Speaker 3:
[53:24] But on cable, in 2020.

Speaker 4:
[53:26] Encouraged and Nedra are definitely pretty good, man.

Speaker 1:
[53:29] Okiss has really struggled. I love Okiss, but he has really struggled since coming to the Pro League. It's been tough for him. He had his moments in Challengers, but again, these guys are struggling to get top 16 in Challengers.

Speaker 2:
[53:41] He's the only player in the league worse than Purge.

Speaker 1:
[53:44] Is he? Oh, TK's in the chat. Look, TK, that's his Fortnite duo right there.

Speaker 3:
[53:49] All right, Kloof.

Speaker 5:
[53:51] It's just, Oguz got set up, to be fair. Like, everyone expected this from him, bro.

Speaker 4:
[53:55] These Fortnite kids, bro.

Speaker 3:
[53:58] That's the thing that, well, that's the thing that sucks. None of these cats are probably going to get another chance. Yeah, I mean, realistically, this was like, you kind of got to just like take the opportunity and really show some with what you got.

Speaker 4:
[54:12] This is still good for, this is still good for Okish. So like this experience.

Speaker 3:
[54:16] Yeah, I had a good experience. But like, I don't see any four of these, like going in the next year. They're not going to get an opportunity. You know what I mean? They got blessed to even get this.

Speaker 2:
[54:26] Is because Cloud9 was playing less than minimum wage.

Speaker 3:
[54:28] I know, I know. That's what I'm saying. Like they had it. All four of those players had to take this opportunity. But I mean, I would agree, like, I think Nezra and Encourage have been like the quote unquote best.

Speaker 4:
[54:42] I think Nezra can get a sub spot if he continues to like at least play well, even if they struggle with him.

Speaker 3:
[54:47] But they're what I'm saying as a as a numbers guy, it's more likely that we never see these guys in the CDL again. I got it on a starting roster unless they expand.

Speaker 6:
[55:00] I mean, these guys, they still have like, it's just how it is.

Speaker 4:
[55:03] They still have splits and they still got to go to majors. I know, I know. And they're scrimmin and stuff like that. Like if they're doing well in their practice sessions, they have like some good matches even if they don't fucking win them all. It's not, it can create some opportunity for at least one of them.

Speaker 3:
[55:18] I just want to make it clear. I'm not saying like, oh, these guys are dog shit. They don't deserve it. We just know how the game goes.

Speaker 2:
[55:25] You know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[55:25] We know, and look at the numbers, 48 pros in the league. These guys, the only reason why they took this opportunity is because everyone else ahead of them declined. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[55:36] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[55:36] Like you were hoping that one of them, at least one of them really shines so they can progress and get another opportunity, but it's just most likely not happening. And that was kind of the reality going in. And that's most likely what the reality is gonna be, what the future is gonna be.

Speaker 2:
[55:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[55:52] Are you sure? You guys got anything else to say before we take a look at the bracket here for the minor tournament? All righty. Let's hop in and take a look at the bracket. We take a look at our first round. We got Toronto Coy going up against Carolina Royal Ravens, which I actually think could be a good one. Winner of that series will play Optic Texas. Then we got G2 Minnesota going up against Cloud9. Winner of that will play the Los Angeles Thieves. Then we got the Riyadh Falcons going up against the Vancouver Surge. Winner of that will play FaZe Vegas. And then of course we got the Miami Heretics going up against the Boston Breach. The winner of that one will play the Paris Genomates. So I always like seeing some tournaments. I think the more tournaments we get, the better. So being able to see, granted, this is online, which kind of sucks, but it is cool that we get to see a bracket and see a tournament this weekend. And I'm excited for it. We're going to go through all these matches and give our thoughts. We got Toronto Coy going up against Carolina. What do you guys think about that one? Who do you think is winning that one? You think I can see Carolina winning this?

Speaker 5:
[56:50] I can. I think Carolina is just... Especially with how this meta is working, their team got way worse.

Speaker 1:
[56:55] You think so?

Speaker 5:
[56:56] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[56:57] And if they had Nero, they might have gotten better.

Speaker 5:
[57:00] If they had a guy that could just run around, get two bullet kills with a sub, they probably would be in a good spot right now, but they lost that. And I think Toronto's gotten way better, too. This meta is built for Joe and Kleenex. Kip runs it down, too, so I think Toronto's actually a really good team with this meta right now.

Speaker 1:
[57:16] What do you think, Pat? Toronto, probably the favorites going into this one?

Speaker 2:
[57:19] Yeah, they get three before this one, for sure. Honestly, I mean, this whole bracket is kind of crazy. They might as well just be a 14 bracket. I got the favorites winning all the way to top four.

Speaker 4:
[57:31] Who are the favorites in the Riyadh and Surge series?

Speaker 2:
[57:35] The higher seed the team, the favorite. That works.

Speaker 1:
[57:38] The Falcons.

Speaker 4:
[57:40] You think it's the Falcons? I think the Surge can actually beat the Falcons. I think the Surge are probably going to beat the Falcons right now.

Speaker 1:
[57:46] The Surge did get a couple of wins.

Speaker 4:
[57:47] With the way they're playing, 100% I'm recency-biasing she's in this team for sure in this series, if I had to pick.

Speaker 1:
[57:57] Vancouver has been looking weirdly good. I don't know if they can keep it up, but they have been shining. I don't know what's going on with that team. Hopefully, they can make it run. It would be cool to see Vancouver starting to kick up a little bit and starting to compete because it feels like they haven't really been able to do that.

Speaker 4:
[58:14] With the way G2 is playing, I wouldn't be surprised if Cloud9 somehow pushes the series. I'm not saying they win it, but the way G2 has been playing, that's also a map that...

Speaker 1:
[58:23] Nah, G2 has been winning that, I think.

Speaker 4:
[58:25] They should, they should, but G2, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[58:30] But if we had to choose, we'd probably choose Toronto.

Speaker 2:
[58:34] I got the favorites all the way to top forward.

Speaker 5:
[58:36] We got Toronto.

Speaker 1:
[58:37] We got G2.

Speaker 4:
[58:38] Yeah, G2 for sure.

Speaker 3:
[58:39] I think I agree with Chris, though, Lowkey. The Falcons are actually like the vibes in Surge got to be way astronomically better than Falco's.

Speaker 4:
[58:49] I remember TJ had, TJ had or still has a winning record against Pred, bro. Pretty sure he does. Could be wrong.

Speaker 3:
[58:57] I think that's the one series that I could see the upset happening.

Speaker 5:
[59:01] It's a 50-50 series. It's not as dominant, it's not as one sided as we think.

Speaker 2:
[59:07] Let me just ask you another question. Whoever wins that, do you have either the main phase or no?

Speaker 1:
[59:12] Hell no.

Speaker 5:
[59:12] Hell no. Of course they lose.

Speaker 1:
[59:14] Who do you guys want to go with, Falcons or Surge?

Speaker 2:
[59:16] What should we do?

Speaker 3:
[59:17] I think we should go Surge.

Speaker 1:
[59:18] You want to take a risk? Go with Surge?

Speaker 5:
[59:21] Go Surge. Go Surge.

Speaker 1:
[59:22] I'm down. Let's go with Surge. Let's move on.

Speaker 4:
[59:25] We're down the Falcons right now, man.

Speaker 3:
[59:26] We've all been there, man. When you're in the Falcon situation, it should, like, even if you are trying, the effort's not there, man. You're not locked in. You, like, you feel helpless.

Speaker 1:
[59:39] Okay. Optic Texas versus Toronto Coy. What would you guys do with that one? That could be a good one. I still think Optic have the edge.

Speaker 2:
[59:46] So until Toronto drop Jamie, I'm never picking them against the top 14.

Speaker 3:
[59:51] Yeah, I think that's an Optic win.

Speaker 1:
[59:54] Duarte, do you guys agree with that?

Speaker 5:
[59:56] I got it. I agree, but I think this series is, I think this series is going to be real close. I'm not going to lie. I would not be surprised if it's trying to upset, but of course, go with Optic right now.

Speaker 3:
[60:06] I think that series may depend heavily on the maps, on the vetoes.

Speaker 1:
[60:11] Well, hopefully they vetoed Den. But why do teams keep playing Toronto on their best?

Speaker 4:
[60:15] Optic is one of the only teams. I do not mind seeing them play Den.

Speaker 3:
[60:19] They could square up. They could square up.

Speaker 1:
[60:21] Yeah, I mean, I guess. Why even give them the opportunity to play their best map? Just get it out.

Speaker 4:
[60:27] Well, they also might just be weak at something.

Speaker 3:
[60:29] Not comfortable with some of the newer maps, too.

Speaker 1:
[60:31] Maybe.

Speaker 3:
[60:32] Like, you don't have as many reps.

Speaker 1:
[60:35] Yeah, you could be right. What about LA. Thieves and G2? That's going to be an interesting one.

Speaker 5:
[60:39] Thieves. I got Thieves.

Speaker 1:
[60:40] Oh, you guys all got Thieves in that one?

Speaker 5:
[60:42] Yeah. If they lose, they'll blow it up. This is a creme hard carry series. If he doesn't hard carry, they're cooked. Because I think Hydra and Abyss are actually going to be frying.

Speaker 1:
[60:50] I don't know. Granted, with scrims, G2 looked good today. They're just inconsistent. You just don't know what G2 you're going to get. I mean, I saw them play against Optic today, and they looked pretty good against Optic.

Speaker 4:
[60:59] Thieves and G2, Colossus will probably be a map. Just because Thieves have been good at it, G2 are comfortable on it. Then for the rest of the map set, I don't know if Thieves' S&D is going to improve. That's like a niche for Minnesota. I don't know. It could be close, but I doubt it.

Speaker 1:
[61:15] Okay, so we're moving up Thieves. You guys want to move Thieves up?

Speaker 4:
[61:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:18] Okay, then we got FaZe versus Vancouver. I think we all got FaZe in that one.

Speaker 5:
[61:22] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:23] I don't know if there's any objections.

Speaker 6:
[61:25] Surge's vibes aren't that good.

Speaker 5:
[61:27] Van Gooner Surge is going down to this one for sure.

Speaker 4:
[61:29] This is single.

Speaker 7:
[61:31] Van Gooner Surge.

Speaker 5:
[61:32] Everyone calls him that, man.

Speaker 6:
[61:34] This is single labor.

Speaker 3:
[61:35] He messes up once, man. He gets a little freaky once, man. That's what we know, man.

Speaker 1:
[61:42] And then we got the Paris Générés going up against the Miami Heretics. This can be a good series. I do think Miami might be on the decline, though. I don't want to like, you know, yeah, it's a maybe. It's a maybe because I do think Miami is a good team, but I think the whole Rial situation might have been causing some internal problems.

Speaker 2:
[62:00] They make a change, Tom. You still thinking they're going to make a change?

Speaker 1:
[62:05] 100 percent.

Speaker 4:
[62:07] I also don't think they I also don't think this team likes this meta.

Speaker 1:
[62:11] I did say Miami was signing Rial and everybody was saying I was wrong, Pat. Everybody was. I was even the Intel accounts were calling me out. I was just early, Pat. I was just early. And what do you know? The Intel accounts were saying that it's not true. And then two days later, Rial signs with the Miami heritages. So never wrong. Just early. But I do think same with the Falcons, right? Like when you when you when you bring people on the trial or in the Miami aspect of it, you bring somebody on as a substitute, kind of puts in the back of people's heads like, yo, you know, what's going on, right? Is it is a change coming? Like what's happening? And it's either going to make them a better team because it motivates them and they step up or make some worse because now everybody's in their heads. And, you know, they start playing more selfish. They maybe don't see eye to eye. Maybe there's some internal problems. It kind of just depends on how Miami deals with it, to be honest with you. But I have the general made to that one. Does anybody got Miami and that one? I got the general made personally.

Speaker 3:
[63:05] No, I think I agree on the general made.

Speaker 1:
[63:09] All right. And then we got the Paris general made to going up against FaZe Vegas. Who do you think takes that one?

Speaker 4:
[63:15] I think FaZe are the stronger team, but I think general made actually do stand a chance. They've been looking a little bit better. I think Neptune and Dan have been fucking cooking.

Speaker 5:
[63:24] I'm going to look at this past weekend, too. Yeah, it's just the thing. They have Sib online. That's the issue. They have Sib online, so that is like a different vibe.

Speaker 3:
[63:33] Right. You know, it's a lot.

Speaker 5:
[63:35] But it's like, yeah, he'll be going harder versus FaZe. I feel like when he plays like the shitty teams online, he even tries less. But when he's playing against the good teams, like he has a little more fire in him.

Speaker 3:
[63:45] I think this goes game five.

Speaker 1:
[63:48] He got taken in up if he had to choose.

Speaker 3:
[63:50] I got that little man with a lot of punch. Tomas, that guy, you know who that is.

Speaker 1:
[63:56] All right, yeah, so let's move up FaZe Vegas. Any objections to moving up FaZe?

Speaker 4:
[64:02] No, FaZe has been unreal.

Speaker 1:
[64:04] Okay. And then of course, we got LA Thieves going up against Optic. Who's going to meet FaZe? Optic or LA Thieves? What do you guys think?

Speaker 2:
[64:09] I got Thieves.

Speaker 1:
[64:13] Why, Pat? Why?

Speaker 2:
[64:14] I don't know. I just knew Mediton, new meta, new maps. I think it just favors Thieves here.

Speaker 1:
[64:19] I'm going to go with Optic personally. I'm going to go with Optic. I still think Thieves are like... They're good, but they're not as good as they can be yet.

Speaker 4:
[64:29] I need to see more.

Speaker 3:
[64:30] I hope this meta turns Hydra into MVP Hydra again, but I think it's still too early to tell. I don't know. I want to say Thieves.

Speaker 1:
[64:42] I don't think shooting's their problem. I don't think the meta means anything because I don't think shooting's an issue for them, to be honest.

Speaker 4:
[64:47] It does. It does. Listen, the way Hydra plays solo, not only does bigger maps favor him, but the quicker he can kill his opponents, the fucking more loss this guy can get on the map. So I think it does help him.

Speaker 2:
[64:58] Not to mention, Optic was getting belted by G2 today.

Speaker 4:
[65:02] It helps a BZ a lot too. Like a BZ's been played really good with the NPC so far, so we'll see.

Speaker 1:
[65:07] It does get them to play a little bit more aggressive, but I do think the cohesion of the team still needs to be there. Adding, changing a meta doesn't change the decision making is where I was going with it, right? I think at the end of the day, they still gotta make the right decisions, take the right routes, make the right plays, challenge the right gunfights. It's just, I do have Optic in this one. Pat's got Thieves, Duarte, you got Optic?

Speaker 4:
[65:28] I still got Optic. I just need to see more from Thieves. I think that Thieves can push it, but I gotta see more with the new meta and the maps for them.

Speaker 2:
[65:36] If you mind, Optic was losing S&Ds to Cloud9.

Speaker 1:
[65:39] That's true, but a lot of people have lost S&Ds to Cloud9.

Speaker 3:
[65:41] Yeah, that's probably the only thing they're good at.

Speaker 2:
[65:45] Yeah, but was G2 belting other teams? I didn't see that. Optic got belted by G2 today. Thieves handled G2 easily.

Speaker 3:
[65:54] I mean, the series is more important for LAT. They need some life. Yeah, for Optic, obviously neither of these teams want to lose, but Optic has looked far better so far this year. You know what I mean? The vibes are definitely better. Thieves need a statement series.

Speaker 4:
[66:13] They got to say it's the final.

Speaker 2:
[66:14] Is there a prize pool for this?

Speaker 1:
[66:15] Yes, there should be.

Speaker 5:
[66:17] Yeah, it's probably like a winner take us all. Like last year, what was it, like 10K last year?

Speaker 2:
[66:21] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[66:22] No matter, it was something like that.

Speaker 1:
[66:24] Yeah, I don't know what the prize pool is, to be fair, of this one, but there's gotta be something. Oh, 20K.

Speaker 5:
[66:30] 20K? Oh yeah, 20K. I was like, yeah, 5K each. 5K each, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[66:34] It's gonna work right there.

Speaker 5:
[66:35] It was.

Speaker 1:
[66:35] What about you, Nub? You got Thieves or you got Optic?

Speaker 3:
[66:38] My heart's got Thieves, my brain's got Optic, Tomas.

Speaker 1:
[66:43] Damn, damn.

Speaker 3:
[66:43] You know, so I'm gonna say Thieves though. Oh man.

Speaker 1:
[66:46] We're gonna move on to Thieves.

Speaker 3:
[66:47] You always gotta trust your heart, man. Your brain can be fucking you up.

Speaker 1:
[66:51] Yeah, I don't know. Don't they say it's the opposite?

Speaker 3:
[66:54] Yeah, I think they do.

Speaker 1:
[66:56] Do you follow your heart or do you follow your brain? Which one do you follow?

Speaker 3:
[66:59] I follow the Nub, Tomas.

Speaker 1:
[67:01] Absolutely. You're funny. And then we got FaZe versus Optic in the grand final. Shocker. Who do you guys got in this one? I mean, my heart and my brain is saying FaZe. But what do you guys think? I mean, Pat, what do you got?

Speaker 2:
[67:20] FaZe for sure.

Speaker 1:
[67:21] You know, the Nub. I follow the Nub. You follow the Nub, I follow the Nub.

Speaker 2:
[67:25] I follow the Nub.

Speaker 3:
[67:26] I think, I mean, these two best teams in the game.

Speaker 1:
[67:29] Yeah, this one can go either way, I feel like. This one is kind of like flip a coin, right? But Pat, you got FaZe?

Speaker 2:
[67:34] Yeah, it's S tier versus A tier. It's FaZe.

Speaker 1:
[67:37] OK, dude, hit me, man. I think it's both S tier to be fair.

Speaker 5:
[67:42] I think they're both S tier.

Speaker 1:
[67:43] No bad juju, man.

Speaker 5:
[67:45] They got two top two's, though, back to back.

Speaker 2:
[67:47] Yeah, they broke in both of them, though.

Speaker 5:
[67:50] I mean, I probably, yeah, I got FaZe. I got FaZe winning this.

Speaker 1:
[67:53] You got FaZe, dude?

Speaker 2:
[67:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[67:55] OK, Duarte, who do you got?

Speaker 4:
[67:57] I got FaZe. I just think they keep getting better. Like, they just haven't slowed down at all.

Speaker 1:
[68:01] No, you got FaZe as well? Nobody's got Optic?

Speaker 3:
[68:06] You know, I'll go Optic, just in case the green wall wants to, you know what I mean, show up some love. But I think it's going to be close. I think it's going to be close. But you know what I mean? FaZe obviously has momentum.

Speaker 2:
[68:16] It's because it's because a huge legacy takeover online series.

Speaker 3:
[68:19] No, I mean, listen, bro, it's not like Optic. Like, we haven't seen Optic beat them. They already beat them at the last major. They just got veiled today finals, which happens. Like, it's where it matters.

Speaker 4:
[68:30] Just because the majority of us are picked in FaZe. The final like, oh, they'll pass like they can win.

Speaker 1:
[68:37] No, I mean, yeah. I mean, I think the grand final, it could go either way. I think some of these other series might be a little bit more lopsided. But I don't know. Maybe we'll see an upset somewhere in the in the bracket. You know, maybe we'll go figure something out.

Speaker 4:
[68:48] But it could be thieves. It could be thieves in the final series.

Speaker 5:
[68:52] Bro, watch that coy series.

Speaker 1:
[68:53] Yeah, it could be. But this is what we're rolling with. This is our bracket for the minor tournament. Obviously, we'll be running some episodes after the tournament and talking about all the matches. And yeah, we'll get all the coverage for you guys. And we're also having another flank episode sometime this week with Daniel Say. We're going to have an episode with Daniel Say. We've got some questions. As Daniel, he said he wanted to come on. So we're going to come on. And yeah, we've got some questions at the chat. The community gave us and we got some questions for of our own. But yeah, we got some questions for the commissioner of the city. Yeah, one day, I'll be a good one.

Speaker 2:
[69:24] It's a little how many days is this tournament?

Speaker 1:
[69:27] Three, three days. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[69:28] Friday, Friday to Sunday.

Speaker 4:
[69:31] And the Vancouver Surge are making the grand final legacy, legacy tournament at Van Buren or splurge is what the chat was saying.

Speaker 1:
[69:38] That is going to be popping after the coming through flash bank coming through. We got Nameless's top 10 players at this point in the season. He's got Neptune at number 10, Dashie at number nine, Dan Ghosty at number eight, Rancor at number seven, Shotzi at number six, Scrappy at number five, Abouza at number four, Jodecives number three, Merculeys number two, and Simp the Pimp at number one. He's got three honorable mentions, Hook the Nuke, Hydra and Kips, as his honorable mention.

Speaker 3:
[70:15] Insane, he doesn't have Hook at his top ten.

Speaker 5:
[70:17] Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 3:
[70:18] That is criminal.

Speaker 1:
[70:19] So that's what I would say is have Hook in the top ten. I see Nameless talk about, you know, please explain to me how, because based on the stats, he feels like Hook falls just outside the top ten, but that's my argument, is you can't really look at stats, especially when it comes to a player like Hook. But the stats don't really tell the whole picture of what a player's doing on the map and how impactful he actually is. I think Hook should be in the top ten. I was shocked that he was in the top ten.

Speaker 4:
[70:43] You guys all want to... We should all say our top ten right now.

Speaker 1:
[70:46] I also think Neptune can maybe be moved up.

Speaker 4:
[70:49] But why don't we just all list our top ten right now? Like who's your top ten?

Speaker 1:
[70:52] I mean, it's hard to say, but I would probably...

Speaker 4:
[70:55] Fire it off.

Speaker 1:
[70:56] I would go Simp, Merc, probably move a Booze at a three, Scrap, four, Shotzi, five. And then I'd have probably Joe Deceives around six. Probably... Or sorry, I'd probably have Joe. I'd probably have Neptune, six, Joe, seven. This is off the dome too, by the way. This is just off the dome on what I'm feeling, right? Not looking at stats. Probably Dan Ghosty, eight, dashy, nine, and then number ten, Hook. I mean, you gotta throw Hook in there. He has to be top ten. So that's probably my top ten.

Speaker 4:
[71:32] What about you, Pat?

Speaker 1:
[71:33] And honorable mentions? I mean, twins gotta be in there. I think 04 should be in there 100%.

Speaker 3:
[71:37] Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, this is a part of my team. I don't know how you got Hydra in honorable mention, but you don't have 04.

Speaker 4:
[71:47] Who's your top ten, Pat? Oh, oh, off the dome, bro, you got it.

Speaker 2:
[72:00] Rap Abusa, Joe, Rincor, Hook, Neptune, 04, 04, and Kips.

Speaker 1:
[72:16] People are shocked about people are shocked seeing Rincor in the top 10. People don't agree with that. I mean, the chat's obviously I don't agree with it.

Speaker 4:
[72:26] Or I don't agree with him being on there either.

Speaker 1:
[72:28] OK, why do I say why?

Speaker 4:
[72:30] I mean, I think he's good. I just don't think he's top 10. I think there's just players that are better than him right now. I would just push him out for Kyler and then make my list off that.

Speaker 1:
[72:40] I mean, I would explain just the plays on the map, but just in terms of being an impact on the map, I think RenKor is obviously very good at getting kills. But again, comparing him to somebody like Hook, for instance, I just feel like the routes he takes and the aggression he puts down and just like the little things that he does is just, you know, it's a big part of the game that the stats just don't show. But what about you, Dil? Dil, you got a top 10, anything you changed from Nameless's top 10?

Speaker 5:
[73:05] Yeah, a lot. Uh, I got a simp, Merc. Give me, you know, I could put like a booze, a third. I'll probably put like Shotzi 4, Joe 5, Scrap 6, OOX 7, Dashie 8, and then probably like Neptune 9, Ghostie 10. Then the Honorable mentions Hydra, Renkor, Kips.

Speaker 2:
[73:39] Really quick, really quick. This is the top 10 that we drafted. Simp, Merc, Scrap, Joe, Shotzi, Hydra, Dashie, Renkor. That was the top 10 that we drafted in fantasy.

Speaker 3:
[73:48] Yeah, because that's just stats.

Speaker 6:
[73:51] Yeah, it's all stats.

Speaker 1:
[73:52] Yeah. Stats are a little bit different.

Speaker 3:
[73:55] I want to have a kill whore on my team. I don't care if he's impacting the game in a good way or a bad way.

Speaker 1:
[74:01] You know who's criminally underrated, bro? Jaraz is like seriously underrated, bro.

Speaker 4:
[74:05] I think you guys underrate Dashie. You guys keep putting him around 8 and 9. Bro, outside of the grand finals where I think all of Optic played shit, he was damn near having an MVP tournament. And then on top of that, he's been good as fuck online in the majority of their matches. He's been good as fuck, easily the second best player statistically on their team. And he's playing the fucking team player role. I think he's disrespected, but I'm going to give my list. I think I got simp, I got murk, I got abuza, I got scrap, then I'll do probably shot see who dashy. I'd say Neptune, then ghosty, that's fine. And I don't know if, wait, how many did I list?

Speaker 1:
[74:54] I have no idea.

Speaker 3:
[74:55] You listed like five.

Speaker 4:
[74:55] I missed out Joe, I missed out Joe. Fuck, hold on. Simp, murk, abuza, scrap, then I'd say Joe, fuck, Kyler, Shotzi, dashy, Neptune, ghosty. There you go.

Speaker 3:
[75:13] Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1:
[75:14] I think you can put-

Speaker 4:
[75:15] Did I say dashy, I ate?

Speaker 1:
[75:16] I see a lot of people in the chat talking about lurks.

Speaker 4:
[75:18] I'm trying to list them off at the top of my head, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[75:20] I think lurks can definitely be like an honorable mention, right? I just think lurks is just with his team, bro. His team is just rough, bro. We also want to see results, too. I think it's kind of hard if they don't have the results.

Speaker 4:
[75:31] I had a scrap. I'm sorry. I think dashy's had a scrap for me. Scrap's been good, but-

Speaker 1:
[75:37] If we weren't going based on results, I'd probably have lurks top five. Who do you got?

Speaker 3:
[75:44] So I'll try to make this as simple as possible. I would put rancor in the honorable mention. So we would slot Kyler in. I would do the same top three. I would probably have- I think I would actually have Kyler in fifth. I would have Abouza in fourth still. Scrap would get moved down to like seven. Chaatzy would stay where he's at. I would swap Dashie and Ghostie and keep it like that. So it would be Simp, Merc, Joe, Abouza. Who?

Speaker 4:
[76:25] Dan's been better than Neptune?

Speaker 3:
[76:29] No, I meant swap them. So Dan would be 10, Net would be nine, Dashie would be eight.

Speaker 1:
[76:35] Yeah, I moved Neptune up on my list too. I think Neptune should be higher based on what we've seen so far. I'm surprised you guys have Joe Deceive so high up. I'm not saying he's bad. Joe Deceive is obviously a great player, top 10 player. But I don't know if he's top three, bro. I'll be honest.

Speaker 4:
[76:48] Yeah, I don't have him at top three.

Speaker 3:
[76:48] I just...

Speaker 1:
[76:49] I mean, here's the thing.

Speaker 3:
[76:51] Here's the thing. Abouza, Rancor, Dashie, Scrap, they're all great. But, bro, this has been a tale as long as we've been around. An impactful sub is just... Or like a really good sub is always just going to be more impactful.

Speaker 1:
[77:10] I see Nameless is in the chat. Nameless, would you say Joe is having an MVP season? Yes or no, Nameless? What do you think? Would you say that he's having like a season where you could think he's having like an MVP season right now?

Speaker 2:
[77:21] He's definitely not, bro. I don't know what Ed's saying, but he's doing one thing that nobody else on this list is doing. And that's carrying insight. He's the only one that's out there playing 3v4 and getting results.

Speaker 1:
[77:36] Nameless said yes, he's having an MVP season, which I don't know if I agree with that one.

Speaker 3:
[77:40] I mean, no, Joe deceives. I mean, his obviously it's not all about stats, but his stats are fucking insane. And not that like this is the end all be all, we do all agree he's in a much harder role than say someone like Ashati or Hook or even a Neptune.

Speaker 4:
[78:03] I mean, that's just because of the team he's on, but like, you know.

Speaker 3:
[78:05] No, I know, I know. I mean, you can't fault, like you can't fault anyone else for just being on a better team.

Speaker 4:
[78:10] We can't for sure say that, let's say Hook goes on that team and plays, doesn't play the same, like just based upon who he's surrounded by.

Speaker 3:
[78:17] I agree, I agree with you. I can't make that assumption. But I do think Joe is having an insane year.

Speaker 5:
[78:22] Of course.

Speaker 4:
[78:23] Yeah, he's really good.

Speaker 5:
[78:24] Joe is disgusting. And he does it all on the map, too.

Speaker 3:
[78:26] I mean, bro, not to be a BenJ, not to be a BenJ, but like, bro, he's literally so far this season, he's number three in overall KD. He's number six in hardpoint KD, number two in overload, number 14 in SND. His Slayer rating is insane.

Speaker 5:
[78:43] I got Joe T5 right now. He's pretty insane.

Speaker 3:
[78:46] I think at worst you put him at five, at the absolute worst.

Speaker 5:
[78:50] Yeah, that's why I put him at five. Yeah, he's doing a lot on the map, too.

Speaker 3:
[78:53] I think the biggest issue, though, and we all agree, is Kyler, to me, is closer to five than he is outside the top 10.

Speaker 5:
[79:00] Yeah, I got Kyler at like seventh, eighth-ish, because he has a big impact.

Speaker 2:
[79:04] Bro, Kyler's second best player on object, bro.

Speaker 5:
[79:07] The only thing that would say is holding Kyler back from the MVP year is Search. If Kyler's Search was as good numbers-wise, I know he plants bombs, I know he's selfless in Search, but if his Search was up there, too, then he could be an MVP candidate. It's just that's holding him back. He's not pointing at you at all.

Speaker 3:
[79:22] We don't see, it's not like when you talk about MVP, you talk about the communication and just what they do on the, what they bring to the team. But bro, he has been playing great, Cod for the most part, and he is everything for that team. But when you listen to the listen, it's like he lives selfless. Who are, he's the team leader.

Speaker 4:
[79:41] List the best players on Optic, one through four.

Speaker 2:
[79:44] Is that so easy, bro? It's Merc, Kyler, Dashie, Shotzi, and it's no debate, bro.

Speaker 4:
[79:49] Yeah, I have, I have, I have, I have Merc, Dashie, then Hook, then Shotzi.

Speaker 2:
[79:54] That's the worst player on Optic, if you think otherwise.

Speaker 4:
[79:57] Yeah, she's not the worst one. Dashie is not the worst player on Optic.

Speaker 5:
[80:01] I said Shotzi.

Speaker 4:
[80:02] Oh, sorry. Shotzi's been good. I mean, it's not, bro.

Speaker 5:
[80:05] Did you guys watch Major One?

Speaker 4:
[80:06] Just cause we say, just cause we say he's the worst player on the team. Like we were using worse as a connotation for bad when in reality, they're all fucking good. Yeah, they're just staying.

Speaker 5:
[80:15] They're all tall, force-hopped. The way Shotzi plays, he's so selfless and still running shit. Like when Shotzi's on point, he's the most impactful player in COD.

Speaker 1:
[80:24] Pat, you take Shotzi off that team and they're not as good as they are. And that's a fact.

Speaker 2:
[80:27] Yeah, he's a role player. He's not a superstar. He's a great role player.

Speaker 1:
[80:31] No, you're high, I think, Slade.

Speaker 2:
[80:33] He's bird poop, dashy, Shotzi, bro, one, two, four.

Speaker 1:
[80:38] I think it's pretty hard to argue. I just think people aren't doing what Shotzi's doing on the map. He's a type of player. The stat sheet doesn't show what he's doing, to be honest. I mean, I definitely feel like having him on the team just makes the game easier for everybody else around him, just like with how he plays. But yeah, I think it's pretty hard to rank them one to four because they're all like so different to team game. But, you know, anything else? Any other final thoughts or opinions or anything you want to share? Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[81:08] Anthony, miss, well, Kyler's name, right? The fuck is that? You got my Kyler Murray in the chat. His name, man.

Speaker 1:
[81:16] Any other final thoughts, guys, that you want to get off your chest before we head out of here? Any other final thoughts?

Speaker 3:
[81:21] It was the Smokin Boof for that top 10. That's my final thought.

Speaker 1:
[81:24] Yeah, that top 10 was terrible. Just like your top 30 list. His name was terrible. Number 30.

Speaker 5:
[81:28] He started the video. He started the video. I got ZooMaa.

Speaker 1:
[81:32] You put a guy, you put people in front of me with one event win. Oh, you're here. Oh, now you're here. Top 30 list. You put people in front of me with one event win.

Speaker 6:
[81:42] Yeah, I mean, hold on. We can revisit that whenever we want. About this list, though, I just heard all you guys rattle off. All have a different list off the top of your head. And most of you had or I think you had a hoop, what, 10. Where did you have them? You had them at six. So that puts them above who? So you have them at five. Who does that put them above?

Speaker 3:
[82:00] We could talk about puts them above. Well, I don't have the list up anymore.

Speaker 6:
[82:04] Well, let's put them above general thought, like to put them above scrap.

Speaker 3:
[82:08] I put them above rank. I mean, Raincore was outside the top stand for me. Put them above Neptune. Put them above Ghostie, Dashie. Yeah, I mean, obviously.

Speaker 6:
[82:19] To me, it's impossible to put them above Dashie. I think it's ridiculous. Dashie's been absurd. And to say Hook's impact just supersedes the top 10 players. I saw a lot of people arguing Rencore and Ghostie, like the two primary people. Ghostie's, in terms of impact, ton of impact, plays so much objective. He gets the kills.

Speaker 3:
[82:40] Ghostie's better than Rencore.

Speaker 6:
[82:42] He's a great communicator. In terms of Rencore, I mean, I feel like a lot of people are knocking him because of his team. Regardless of that, like his job is to slay. The amount of players that get dropped because they can't slay, the down damage is astronomical. It's still a major part of the game. So like, I don't know, I think it's difficult to boot Rencore off when he's been ridiculous. The switch up on him has been one of the crazy switch ups I've seen in a minute.

Speaker 5:
[83:08] Now, I mean, I see what you're saying with Rencore. I think Rencore has been insane. I do think in this game, he's not worse. But in Bo6, he had a more ethical arrow than he does in this game. And I think he's kind of becoming a product of his environment right now with that team, because I think all of them are starting to kill her a little bit more. I still think Rencore is fucking godlike. But I will say his impact is as great as the other players above him right now.

Speaker 6:
[83:31] But also, like, when you look at when you start saying like impact, like there's so much to that, it's like Hooks has the ability to play that way because of who he's teaming with, you know what I mean? So like, I don't think it's fair. I think it's fair to do that. Like, then in that case, then Envoy like shoots up a lot as well.

Speaker 4:
[83:49] Well, all top 10 lists and top whatever list, they're never going to be good because we can always argue like the things you don't see. 100%. So it was like, it's realistically all like damn near just your own opinion. Like, well, it is your own opinion. But like, we're not saying we switched up our Rencore to a place where he's not a good player.

Speaker 6:
[84:07] Like, if anybody was other players out there better is straight. It's straight opinion because who does have like a point in S&D? And it's not the list isn't all based on stats, by the way. Otherwise, Hydra would be in it. Shati wouldn't be in it at all. The Shatis really only is only a demon at S&D. So if people are going to say that the list is based on stats, they're fucking capped. I thought you said Neptune Neptune. It's not all based on stats. Well, you said that it's impact and stats were like. So like for Hook, another thing that kind of hurts in my eyes is one, his team is all insane. And so his main argument is his comms, which you can't like quantify on top 10. All these guys could have great comms, which friend court doesn't even speak English. So you guys wouldn't fucking know. And the second part of it is the point eight and S&D. And then in a hard point, like the guy doesn't play the objective and he's not, his stats aren't insane. It's like he's slaying crazy. So his whole impact in a top 10 is based on what you guys see in his arrow, where it's like, okay, that's fine. And that's why he's 11th. But to put him in 10 over some of the players in here is completely unfair. And you really can't back it up with anything. But like, I think the guy's insane. Like that statement is the only thing you could say to. Wait, he's top five.

Speaker 5:
[85:19] And do you remember when we're making that cheerless the other week? Didn't you say all of optic was S tier though? But then Hook's not top 10.

Speaker 6:
[85:24] I mean, all these guys are S tier players. I mean, really.

Speaker 5:
[85:27] So how is Hook, in your mind, an 11th best player still S tier?

Speaker 6:
[85:31] Well, this is on the season. Hook in the last stage, I think, was pretty ridiculous online. I mean, he was good on LAN too. But this is for the season. So this includes all of stage one, everything up until this point. The list would be wildly different if it was just the major and this last week of matches. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4:
[85:52] Well, yeah. That's true.

Speaker 6:
[85:54] Delay is going back to me. So I think people have roasted and goggles a little bit. And you can't take away what Rancor did all of last stage. He was, I mean, what, 65% of what we play is online. If we're talking season, it has to count for something.

Speaker 5:
[86:11] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[86:12] Absolutely. Thank you for joining The Flank. Nameless, what an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 5:
[86:15] Absolutely.

Speaker 6:
[86:15] Go back to Madden. Peace out, fellas.

Speaker 1:
[86:17] Later, brother. Peace out.

Speaker 5:
[86:18] Peace out.

Speaker 1:
[86:18] Thank you to Nameless for hopping in and explaining his top 10 real quick. What a pleasure. Any other final thoughts before we head out of here? Any other final thoughts?

Speaker 3:
[86:25] Nameless's list is dog shit still. I don't even know what he just said.

Speaker 1:
[86:28] It was terrible.

Speaker 3:
[86:30] It was as no matter which way he decides to slice it.

Speaker 1:
[86:33] But yeah, guys, that's going to do it for us today. Here at The Flank, make sure to like, comment and subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, go to anchor.fm. Slice The Flank to go audio to Cesarongo. Follow At The Flank on Twitter, At The Flank, pod on Instagram, and of course, zoom it out, gg. For the merch, we might have something special for you guys on four and 23 in a couple days. So yeah, keep your eyes out for that. You got Dylan Attach modeling the merch right now. Looking like a million dollars over there. So and of course, guys, stay safe, stay blessed. We'll see you guys in the next one. Take care, brush your hair. We'll see you guys next time in another episode of The Flank, which will probably be on Thursday at 2 p.m. Pacific. We're doing an early flank with Daniel Say, an early one.

Speaker 5:
[87:11] I want to be the earliest flank of all time, Tom.

Speaker 1:
[87:13] Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'll see you guys there, man. Peace out. Thank you guys for watching, man. Have a good one. Salute.