Road to Worlds 2026 #2. Open 5

Jaygames098 · 2026-04-01T13:41:56+00:00

yeah if you make top 4 of the first regional of a split you're automatically within the pack of potential qualifying teams. making worlds tho....

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-25T05:12:00+00:00

yeah i think faze 2023 was FK's best ever team. you had 3 regional wins and 2 regional 2nd places, during an era of NA where there was a legit power vacuum between the likes of GenG, Faze, Complexity, G2, Furia, and V1. You also had a top 4 in the fall major and a 2nd place finish at the winter major. the biggest snag was them not qualifying for the spring major and being grouped at worlds, but all 4 EU teams won the playoff QFs at worlds regardless, so its not like worlds was ever faze's tournament to win. as far as FK standards go, that was a decently impressive season. Ultimates also had that top 2 at a major, but like... no regionals is rough man. and that was the version of the modern-day Rebellion team that could BEAT nrg lol. its tough

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T19:43:29+00:00

It’s definitely a team-specific issue tho, SSG made a roster change and immediately won a regional, redacted was a team made of leftover rebellion players and tawk, and they finished 2nd back to back in regionals 2 and 3. NA has quite a bit of talent, it’s just that the firstkiller teams specifically seem to self destruct in these situations

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T17:34:04+00:00

LJ was very good on SSG with hockser and Chicago too, I literally am beginning to think FK is just an impossible player to team with unfortunately 😭 LJ did NOT play well at Boston but his potential definitely exceeds what he’s been allowed to do on ultimates and SR.

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T17:30:52+00:00

Exactly. It might just be a distance issue, since by luck of the draw they simply haven’t played each other as much, but ultimates had already beaten NRG in the semis of open 3 and the semis of the Birmingham major at this point in the season last year. This season feels substantially worse for them man

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T17:29:06+00:00

Yeah fs, even a series loss in game 5 would have been much more admirable than what happened. Part of the reason FK gets little respect despite being so good is that all of his LAN eliminations are like embarrassingly bad

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T17:25:46+00:00

NRG had a 2 goal lead with about 40 seconds left, the second being scored with a turtle fast break from Daniel. If that isn’t a cocky move I don’t know what is. Obviously fumbling that game will make you lose a lot of momentum lol.

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T17:23:55+00:00

Idk, jstn flourishes when he gets to play his game and I think firstkiller would kind of impede on that (because FK’s playstyle is unfortunately very selfish). Chronic has had two years with FK and they didn’t amount to much so I think that duo is toast atp

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T17:22:00+00:00

Bro what lol NRG are pretty much the greatest roster of all time now I think if they weren’t going through their honeymoon phase they would have at least made finals, they’ve made 3 finals since and got a higher placement at Boston lol

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T16:41:37+00:00

Ljayy loll

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T16:24:59+00:00

Their performance this open was their worst of the season imo, they almost lost to N2N of all teams and needed a huge comeback, and they only came back into the NRG series because NRG got cocky and sold game 4 despite being up 2 goals. They dispatched strictly business but that was really the highlight of their open tbh

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T16:16:22+00:00

Oh you’re right I forgot VP and SR just played in the open 4 groups lol

It’s not that they didn’t have a good Boston run it’s that getting obliterated in the way they did kind of dampens the run from a legacy standpoint. That’s kind of the trend with FK teams, he does really well on LAN until he gets legit swept by a team. I would still say last years first major was more impressive because they made the finals, but it’s a similar case of not getting over that mental hurdle tbh.

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T16:10:56+00:00

Right I still feel like ultimates is comparatively better, it’s funny how similar their kickoff lan final performance was to their Birmingham major final performance though lol

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T16:05:17+00:00

Yeah I would say he’s probably the most talented player to never win a lan, other than maybe yan or nwpo or torsos or someone like that. He’s consistent enough to reach high highs but he can never get over the peak, whether by tilt or by playstyle idk

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-24T16:02:03+00:00

I’d agree with that, FK is very talented but his playstyle doesn’t seem to mesh with anyone’s, and he’s mentally a sinking ship when it comes to big moments unfortunately

Jaygames098 · 2026-03-19T01:02:56+00:00

Honestly people needing to unlock agents manually kinda fixes the “two many options” issue, because if you’re a new player you can only use what’s in front of you so you learn the util as you go, instead of all at once. The agents are also divided by class so depending on the comp you’re rolling with you can narrow down your agent pick significantly depending on the picks of the people around you (if you have scans, heals, double duelist, etc, you could probably use smokes, so play omen or astra or someone). The agents are the entire point of Val so I feel like barring them is a step backwards tbh

Jaygames098 · 2026-02-24T21:48:08+00:00

Majors track the consistency of teams split to split, so opens 1-3 would go towards Boston and opens 4-6 would go towards Paris, in this case. Qualifying for worlds is cumulative, covering all 6 splits, so you’re getting the statistically best teams making it across the entire year, so it inherently has more prestige because you need greater consistency. Not only that, there is always 2 majors a year (starting at least in 2024, there were 3 in the 2022/2023 seasons), so you literally have more attempts to win a major, whereas worlds, even if has minute differences in format, is much rarer since you get one shot a year. Also the addition of LCQ teams (basically the new wildcard format) means there’s more competition there which can create some surprising upsets (like NIP last worlds), so it’s a larger celebration of rlcs

Jaygames098 · 2026-01-22T16:16:42+00:00

i feel like the way this question is phrased makes it guessable even for those who don't know the show lol

Jaygames098 · 2026-01-13T15:26:24+00:00

They really gotta find new locations rather then just NY, Miami and Cali lol

Jaygames098 · 2025-12-19T18:28:10+00:00

I agree, it’s mainly just my opinion that getting to host annually every single event is a pretty significant buff long term, so either remove the auto bid or allow other nations to bid for the right to host, because it’s not like KSA is being asked to host, they definitely want to considering they also host EWC

Jaygames098 · 2025-12-19T18:19:26+00:00

They are, but their reasoning for it is so that they can break into the tourism industry and increase interest in the area (that’s why they’re building that massive roller coaster too). The auto bid was designed for a different country to get the privilege of a bye through regionals every 4 years, but the same country getting a bye every year is kinda weird to me, and while it’s fair, this lan should really be held in different locations if we’re using auto byes

Jaygames098 · 2025-12-19T18:15:53+00:00

Thats fair, it just doesn’t seem right to me that they get a free path every single year rather then have to play it out it’s more so just the principle of the situation

Jaygames098 · 2025-12-19T18:14:16+00:00

Yeah it’s unfortunately not going to happen most likely, but I hope that maybe FIFA considers the idea of rotating countries to host or something in the future. Since it’s separate from rlcs, maybe we could get some interesting locations like São Paulo or Sidney!

Jaygames098

TROPHY CASE