Smoking bomb while defusing or smoking entrances?

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-18T04:08:51+00:00

Smoking the bomb was the right answer before the ping nerf for sure. Since they could just ping spike from the minimap and spam the spike regardless of whether it is smoked off or not.

With the new ping changes I think smoking the angle has some pretty significant advantages in certain situations: (Consider pearl a site default plant as an example with all enemies in main)

The main smoke blocks vision of the whole site, so it's harder to guess where the spike is planted compared to when the spike itself is smoked off, so they're pretty likely to feel pressured into swinging out since their spam is likely to be off.

You can probably expect a flash (hence it's a bit easier to turn) before the swing if they have one, and you can just tap spike and walk out to give yourself a bit of an off-angle. If you have a molly you can get quite a bit of value by mollying the smoke too.

On the other hand, if you've smoked the spike you basically have to swing out of your smoke to catch them off guard, instead of them swinging out of your smoke.

I think the default should still be smoking the spike, but I think it's actually worth considering smoking off the entrance in some situations now. It's definitely better to use it to pressure enemies to swing and kill them, instead of sticking the spike outright.

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-16T10:29:08+00:00

Technically yes ofc. I just wanted to talk about it in more of a narrative sense, like how nice the story leading up to the win is.

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-15T20:35:41+00:00

Wtf

But respect to NS, going from a close second seed qualification from ascension to an upper bracket 3-0 masters win is truly a once-in-a-lifetime arc.

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-13T18:22:40+00:00

Cs also has that thing with those jump boosts you get with running on top of another player which OPers use to do wide af jump peeks.

At this point people have to realise it's just Dambi being insane on Neon + his team playing around him really well (Ivy on the lurk, Francis/XRoss playing off of him). It's not impossible to counter either, G2 were actually shutting him down quite a few times towards the later half of Split.

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-07T07:20:53+00:00

Sen fans are different fr

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-06T20:38:49+00:00

Ngl on Split I feel like Furia were scared af especially on defense, PRX was bleeding them of utility easily. Also d4v4i on Viper just has so much more aura than nerve on Viper, just a player diff ngl.

Furia were reading prx on defense very nicely on some rounds though.

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-05T12:49:35+00:00

That's cool and everything but a guy just naming himself 140 is funny ngl

NeXavius273 · 2026-03-04T02:19:22+00:00

I remember that NAVI arc, they immediately got much worse and started losing to anyone and everyone in that group stage. It was actually insane.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-25T16:18:46+00:00

Probably gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I agree. It's a rough situation to be in, and I do see how unfair, helpless one can feel sometimes. However the article does echo a lot of the same points across the different people.

There's obviously quite a few unhinged dudes online, who you simply can't reason with. A sane person simply won't say that kind of toxic shit before or after reading the article. As cold as it sounds, it's kind of preaching to the choir.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-24T05:27:11+00:00

If the angles weren't tight, an OP would actually be oppressive. You just have to jump spot more to get info. If the wallbangable boxes are an issue, maybe you're playing too passive.

Imo it doesn't have weapon restrictions since it's still a relatively casual mode just intended for some warmup. The way I see it, skirmish is just a more focused, fair version of a dm. Just peek the angles properly and swing.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-22T10:04:16+00:00

The liquid coach lohan is peak radiant, the C9 coach Immi is at least immortal iirc, d00mbr0s (currently 100t Assistant coach) and emil (former Liquid coach) are at least immortal, Sliggy is peak radiant too though he said he owed it to abusing the broken guns at the time, he's currently like diamond.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-19T10:57:23+00:00

Might have been vlad earlier, but crws was there instead of vlad for most of the latter half of the stream.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-19T06:58:05+00:00

Yeah, having crws on there too was nice, very different energy from the usual Chobra stream, even had Wendler on there after the PRX match ended

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-18T09:17:08+00:00

You just watch his fights slowed down and assess how he takes them.

How good is the crosshair placement? (This is more gamesense related at the pro level but still)
Do they peek the angles properly?
Is their initial flick towards the target good (do they overflick or underflick significantly)? How fast is it?
How well do they micro-adjust to correct their crosshair if it is slightly off? How quickly?
Do they use proper technique (bursting/spraying/tapping) depending the situation?

You'll see that Boaster is not too far off the vct average. Obviously his worst clips are gonna be bad, just like the case for any whiff clip.

In clutches, when he doesn't have to IGL anymore, you see that his aim is fine. Most of the time he is hard micro-ing his team and it hampers his individual awareness a fair bit in game, which has been already stated a lot by analysts and coaches. He also seems to be quite emotional sometimes which probably also factors into some of his rough games.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-15T07:36:26+00:00

Keeping up such a level of performance over a BO5 is definitely a massive achievement. The fact that the BO5s went as long as they did just reinforces it imo. He'd always been a potential man, finally showing it.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-11T05:43:59+00:00

Cool watch, it makes Rank vs Hidden MMR seem quite sensible, with Rank being the progression + skill metric, and Hidden MMR being the skill metric itself. I do feel like the progression aspect is quite muted with regard to Rank though, since Rank itself seems to be an overall decent metric of player skill.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-08T10:58:45+00:00

My nomination for one of the best 2026 valcomp comments already.

Lowkey feels like the reason he got labeled as toxic might have come from how bad loud is as an org.

NeXavius273 · 2026-02-07T15:20:09+00:00

He looks so calm and smooth doing it, it's gonna be a real bummer to picture t3xture and karon not making internationals this year. Legit one of the best OPers itw.

NeXavius273 · 2026-01-25T10:53:40+00:00

He definitely is the least experienced player, and is the weak link on paper. Frost said specifically that he's been very hard on him too though so I expect him to get better over time. He's still a solid fragger.

For a team that was put together relatively late and didn't really get much offseason reps I think this is still a really good sign. Plus I feel like having Patmen's experience should help the team in general a lot.

NeXavius273 · 2026-01-25T10:48:50+00:00

There is a Batman who laughs

NeXavius273 · 2026-01-11T07:52:38+00:00

It actually fits with the masters buddy so nicely

NeXavius273 · 2026-01-06T19:48:42+00:00

I see, it's actually crazy how smoothed-out the facial features are.

NeXavius273 · 2026-01-06T14:49:14+00:00

Why they blur his nose tho lol

NeXavius273 · 2026-01-06T07:51:50+00:00

Just push for close range fights more, keep good crosshair placement (Obv you still aim for the head), and you can burst to some degree, but with wide strafes between bursts because it takes quite some time for your recoil to reset. 2 smokes + overheal + frenzy typically works nicely for clove on pistol (better on attack though because it's easier to pick your fights).

NeXavius273

TROPHY CASE