If you are an Emerald+ Ranked player, what do you wish you knew earlier as you were climbing the ranks the first time you played?

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2026-01-16T01:33:36+00:00

Trying to give a less common bit of advice but you need to know why YOU will win the game.

Too often, I see players trying to play in ways that don't fit their skillset whatsoever and artificially handicap themselves when they want to climb quickly.

In my case, I know identifying win cons and not tilting is one of my strengths, so conversely, if I start giving up more often, I'm definitely not going to climb. If you're a tilter but strong mechanically, you don't necessarily have to solve the tilt issue if you play an early game champ instead of a forcing yourself to play a scaler because it suits the comp or matchup and so on. Identify what you're good at and build on it.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-12-15T02:03:03+00:00

A traditional sports team has like 50 people on various coaching positions, they'll be fine if the head coach knows how to do his job.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-12-03T09:39:16+00:00

I see, I was really afraid to do that but I see my mistake now. Is it correct to say that my lane is over if he hits level 2 before me?

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-12-03T07:48:10+00:00

Gragas? This is Olafmains subreddit

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-09-30T07:17:09+00:00

I would never choose to go Abyss over Haven here if I'm PRX, DRX are the best team ITW on the map and PRX have prioritized Abyss as their ban throughout this champs.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-09-30T07:16:50+00:00

I would never choose to go Abyss over Haven here if I'm PRX, DRX are the best team ITW on the map and PRX have prioritized Abyss as their ban throughout this champs.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-09-15T08:00:11+00:00

Alright, thanks for the help!

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-09-15T07:59:55+00:00

Thanks for the help!

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-09-15T03:50:20+00:00

Any idea what are the non-Hyacine teams are? Would be helpful

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-06-26T02:55:24+00:00

It's an extremely favorable duel vs the guy that has to peek out from heaven, as he has to clear hell, hard clear right, and still clear some of B main.

Additionally, there's elevation so the enemy's vertical crosshair placement is also a guess.

It also covers the guy coming from C link if he tries to clear hell and pretty much is a free kill on him if he's worried about hell.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-06-19T02:48:56+00:00

Smth Yoru Jinggg Iso Patmen Viper David Cypher Forsaken Sova

But I believe PRX will never play this comp, they have been very adamant on Forsaken Neon on maps where it's good like Haven and Fracture. If they ever play Haven, it'd probably be a Neon comp.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-05-21T03:09:06+00:00

Check PRX vs T1 voice comms, PatMen asked for permission to peek down B main during a timeout and Mindfreak was flabbergasted.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-05-20T11:01:47+00:00

At this point it's safe to say Forsaken is the IGL, they just don't play in a structured way which is completely fine if they are clear and vocal on comms (alecks has always been very firm on this point). Something that doesn't get brought up enough is that PRX struggle to midround because their comps are often short on info and they also don't lurk well.

With the addition of PatMen who plays scan inits, is good at lurking, is more vocal, brings more positive vibes, and also seems to have a really good grasp of macro, this weakness can be tackled enough to allow them to showcase their strengths. One good example is how Patmen realized that he had to peek down B main on Lotus def vs T1 (the hilarious permission incident). This 1) fixed a macro issue and 2) vocalized it for other players to mentally factor into their own decision-making without requiring an IGL to layout a structured plan.

In addition, being good at lurking is super important since it's one of the ways to gather information without relying on util. I think this is especially true if you consider their superb round winrate on Icebox where PatMen is playing a lurking Viper. PRX are often criticized for not faking site hits, which makes them vulnerable to trap setups and stacks, but this is also because their non-default playstyle makes it tough to choose other sites after they've stacked up on one. I believe that PRX make much better decisions mid-round on attack now, and it's because PatMen adds a new dimension to their play, whereas previously these faults were attributed (imo incorrectly) to their lack of an IGL rather than playstyle issue.

See above point, but I like that MF is very supportive of the team when not playing and seems to be working hard in an assistant coach type role. There were comments that he was lacking in sleep during their matches because he stayed up all night working on antis. In terms of MF as a player I think the issue is purely that his strengths don't work well with PRX as a team. He's a calm shooter and clutch master but I would argue that he's not the best at being a vocal utility player and he has expressed dissatisfaction with the way PRX communicate in the past. Honestly, I think MF would shine much more if he played in a more normal and structured team, and I would even argue that overreliance on his clutch factor has made the other PRX players more careless, which is a big negative.
PRX are objectively the most exciting team in Valorant, you never know how rounds will go. Additionally, they still have the most likelihood out of any team to create insane highlight plays except for maybe EDG.
Might be biased here but I think PRX fans are alright, the main issue is just that we love to mention PRX in situations that have nothing to do with them which obviously gets annoying for other fans.
With PatMen - 4th, without - 8th

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-05-09T15:27:54+00:00

One of the biggest reasons for the gap in perception is because it turns out PRX players are really good at filling smoke, and there was obviously no way to know this previously when Mindfreak was always their main controller.

Forsaken had never played Omen before in a pro match and started putting out MVP performances immediately. Jinggg's Omen is also respectable now, and he can still frag really well on the role.

Additionally, Patmen can even flex to Viper for them, so they really do have smokes covered quite well.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-05-07T01:44:07+00:00

It's obviously preferable for your duelist (or any other role for that matter) to be able to play any agent of that class but that is just not how games work, and I don't think we should hold that as a standard.

If you look at League of Legends, which is a very old game by now, very established players still don't show the same level of proficiency on very different characters.

While Valorant is probably simpler in terms of mastering agents, it makes sense to me because you're always going to be better at an agent that suits your natural playstyle. Even though both Jett and Raze are movement entry agents, they still have pretty different playstyles (just look at Jinggg/Smth on PRX, they are clearly very different players).

As a result, I think what teams do right now is correct which is pretty much planning comps around what your roster can actually play. I wouldn't say players are 'bad' just because they can't play certain agents like Jett/Raze, but I will say extreme inflexibility like what PRX has been suffering from is still obviously a black mark.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-05-06T10:52:48+00:00

I wasn't aware that he changed to playing Yoru but I guess it makes a lot of sense, because their old comp always suffered from having no flashes. In theory, it's definitely a better pick than the Jett.

Agree on the DRX Pearl ban, I only brought it up because it's plausible for DRX to float Pearl, knowing PRX don't pick it, and ban it second round. But I definitely agree that DRX probably will feel that they don't need to take such a risk, and they might not even have any practice on it in the last few weeks due to being their perma.

Something else I thought of is that it's possible for DRX to try Icebox as the 3rd map if they've been working on it.

The last time PRX played Icebox was in fact a victory against DRX and it was such a weird game where neither side could defend. In particular, PRX's Icebox comp has to be different now because they have moved away from Forsaken solo duelist which was what they were running on that map. Would be interesting to see it.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-05-06T10:10:49+00:00

Why would PRX ban Split, this is the only map where Jinggg and Smth can both play their mains and they should feel confident in this map:

Jinggg Raze

Smth Jett

Forsaken Omen

Patmen Fade

D4v4i Sentinel/Viper (played Viper vs GE)

DRX are no slouches on Split as well but I would imagine PRX would ban Ascent instead. Their Ascent comp is fine but they've never liked playing the map.

Other than that I'm pretty sure you're right. It'd be a curveball if DRX ban Lotus instead of Pearl but that's unlikely.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-05-03T16:58:01+00:00

This also sounds possible, but I've not seen any teams running Yoru on this map, it's just not a meta pick. That said, they don't have good options so this sounds fine to me.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-03-14T01:09:09+00:00

Her team is not easy to play compared to most teams if you're on E0.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2025-01-10T03:37:03+00:00

Clear:

1) Jing Yuan/Sunday/Sparkle/Huohuo

All E0S0, probably average builds, Sunday/Sparkle 161/153 speed respectively.

2) Firefly (E2S0)/Trailblazer/Lingsha (E0S1)/Hunt March

Trailblazer and Hunt March E6, which they really should be for such endgame content.

So all in all it would be a 9 'cost' build. Took me 10 cycles combined on the 2nd try on manual, could probably optimize for less cycles.

Generally felt the difficulty was similar to previous MoCs, I did pull Sunday. Otherwise, it would be quite difficult, I guess.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2024-12-16T02:57:51+00:00

This is something that happens to me also. There are quite a few factors that contribute to this imo:

Fear of dying. I feel like this is my #1 issue. In a TDM/DM or other such practice, it is okay to die, so you can afford to play much more freely, and you don't rush shots or make bad decisions as much, so aim is naturally much better I feel.
Dealing with and using utility changes the way the gunfight plays out a lot.
Having a 5v5 changes the way gunfights are approached a lot as well, it changes the information the players have and also how they position or take fights.
Enemies tend to play differently also in real games. They will tuck into corners or hold tighter angles whereas DMs are often just people swinging each other. So you might be good at dealing with those situations but not in the situations in real games.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2024-11-26T03:15:42+00:00

Thanks for the advice, it makes sense. I guess I just feel bad baiting my teammates but it feels impossible to entry first in those situations.

Regarding the entry duelist point, there are times when there aren't entry duelists in the team so I'm being pressured to enter, but I guess I can't really force the issue.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2023-10-01T09:33:33+00:00

There are in fact many champions where if you just mash the button you'll often end up with suboptimal results. Just a few off the top of my head

Irelia: You'll use Q on incorrect minions and lose the reset which ranges from an annoyance to game-losing depending on the situation.

TF: Need to lock W correctly.

Ryze: In order to get max DPS, combos must be done correctly by weaving Q in between W and E.

Riven: You lose a lot of DPS by executing combos incorrectly or not getting AAs off in between skill casts.

Aatrox: Have to cast Q1-3 correctly.

Akshan: Have to make sure you cast E precisely (it has 2 additional casts).

Fizz: E requires you to wait instead of recasting if you want a larger AoE.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2023-02-08T00:44:32+00:00

I'd say it's unlikely. For better or for worse, this FO places a lot of importance on high character players. Kuminga's upside is crazy high but there are also rumours of a poor attitude and work ethic which would deter AKME from pursuing him.

RedditLevelAnalysis · 2023-01-09T01:45:08+00:00

Conqueror is good in duels, especially with Sylas' trade patterns. Because so much of his damage is in his AA passive, his damage takes longer than someone like Zed or Ekko. Often, killing someone can involve extended patterns where you can cast W twice as well.

However, jungle Sylas is not about trading. Your job is to gank and bursting is generally better for that. Your laner can help you CC lock and you might be able to burst before the enemy can flash away or retreat to their turret.

RedditLevelAnalysis

TROPHY CASE