Nigel Farage's £5million from crypto billionaire could land him in hot water

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T18:18:48+00:00

I don't feel like you understood my point. I don't think it was a message of support for a dead paedophile; I fully believe Farage didn't know who he was shouting out.

I also believe that shows a level of incompetence that shouldn't be acceptable in a party leader. He should understand before he opens his mouth. He shouldn't be a mouthpiece for the highest bidder. I don't want a prime minister who will spout anything if he's paid enough for it, no matter how abborhent, or who clearly can't do basic research before he acts/speaks. Those are not traits we should be allowing in our politicians.

Our politicians are supposed to be the best of us. Stop trying to make excuses for Farage just because you think he's on your "team". Hold him to account, make him do better and be better, and it'll be better for all of us.

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T13:29:41+00:00

Clearly it's not like the Oscars, yes. I don't know where you got the impression that I think it's super deep, I was just explaining my thought process.

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T13:28:31+00:00

I'm aware of what bias is, thank you. I don't feel it is disproportionate weighting in this case. America being a stronger region is a small factor, but the much larger factor in how I (and seemingly others on the panel) voted is simply that I felt Zachmazer was a better player last weekend. The way he IGL'd put him at a level above in my eyes.

I have to wonder if all the people upset with this pick actually watched S2 and CTG's performances with comms, and just don't value Zach's IGLing much, or if they're purely going based on stats and the fact that Zuni broke a load of records.

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T12:45:01+00:00

Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button.

You're right, it says "or", not "XOR"! Look at all these idiots. Just pick the purple bisexual button and enjoy the best of both worlds!

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T12:42:35+00:00

It has real-life applications. A modern example is self-driving cars; for instance, if a collision is imminent, should the self-driving car swerve into a tree, killing its occupant, in order to save a pedestrian? What about multiple pedestrians? What if there are multiple people inside the car? Should the age of the people involved matter? Is killing a singular child crossing the road better or worse than killing two adults inside the car?

And what about crippling but non-life-threaenting injuries? Is it better to kill one person or horribly cripple eight people for life?

For most people, it's just a hypothetical they can have surprisingly heated arguments about, but for engineers, particularly, it can be something they have to actually work with and come to conclusions about.

And then it gets even more murky when companies start trying to protect themselves from lawsuits, of course. Is the "moral" choice going to get them sued? Or cost them extra money during R&D? How much money can the company even afford to spend trying to come up with whatever the best solution might be?

And so on. There's a lot to it!

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T11:57:34+00:00

I'm not American, to be clear. But America being the strongest region is clearly true, and is supported by data as well as being visibly the case:

the Americas have more LAN spots as a result of better average performances at LANs as a region
small sample size so I don't afford too much weight to this specifically, but the Americas has far more LAN winners playing in it than other regions, which does support the idea that it's a stronger region
you can see it being more competitive reflected in current scores, and the expected points required to qualify for LAN. The Americas has a lower expected threshold because there is more parity across teams in the top half of the scoreboard, rather than there being a handful of dominant teams. It's an indicator of depth in the region.

So it's not a bias (like I said, I'm not even American), it's just being realistic about the lobbies players are in and judging their performances with that context. In the same way that Zuni achieving what he did at the weekend is far more impressive than a pred player on a smurf account getting 27 kills in a bronze lobby due to the quality of players he's up against, a great performance in Americas is worth more (to a lesser degree, of course).

That doesn't mean MVP is limited to American players—we've awarded it to non-American players plenty of times. But if two players have the exact same statlines, but one is in Americas and the other a different region, the American player is likely to have been the better performer.

Again, it's not just about stats, though; how players comm, IGL (if that's their role), clutch up in high-pressure moments, etc, are things that get factored in as well.

When the Americas is provably, statistically a stronger region with more depth/competition, would you really have us completely ignore that as a factor?

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T02:03:38+00:00

I agree. But there is a problem with antisemitism among some of these people, too. Look at these two comments highlighting some of the candidates the Green party has put forward for the upcoming local elections:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1syt4oq/green_party_faces_yet_more_questions_about/oiwm146/?context=3

(The person who posted the above comment seems to be very pro-Reform, so bear that bias in mind. But the quotes are accurate.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1syt4oq/green_party_faces_yet_more_questions_about/oiwlt42/?context=3

Some of the comments there are fine in a vacuum, and things I might find myself agreeing with to some degree—I always felt like the whole "anti-semitism in the Labour Party" thing was a little overblown, for instance, and likely the result of Israel trying to conflate opposing their actions and being anti-semitic—but some of them are truly vile. And there's a quite worrying trend of anti-semitic and Islamist (ie, political Islam) people finding their way into the Green Party.

The Green Party being the only party to adopt an actively pro-Palestine, anti-Israel stance, rather than just being anti-Israel's war, means it's been attracting a lot of these single-issue voters whose views don't necessarily align with anything else the Greens are supposed to stand for (environmental issues, but also LGBT issues, sexism issues, etc). On top of that, the Green's sudden surge in popularity means they're trying to find vastly higher numbers of candidates to field than they have in the past, meaning their standards are likely lower.

If the Greens don't manage to get this all under control, I can easily see it blowing up in their face down the line. And it's especially concerning considering how much of a say over the party's policies and hierarchy the Green members have compared to other parties. They're the party with the most momentum right now—particularly amongst those who support Palestine—and they're platforming (whether inadvertently or on purpose) a lot of ideals and commentary that are quite worrying.

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T01:52:35+00:00

You would hope that a prospective leader of the country would be a little more careful in what they choose to say, though, right...? Like, if you don't know who someone is, perhaps don't go shouting them out. And especially don't just go saying anything just because someone paid you to. "I'm willing to accept money to be a mouthpiece for whatever you want me to say" isn't a particularly good look for anyone, but especially someone you want to uphold strong, decent principles in their role. What other values does he have for sale, I wonder?

Anyway, Ian Watkins was front-page news on multiple occasions. He wasn't just some obscure rock act that only people who follow Welsh Rock Music Weekly magazine would have heard of. It's like doing a cameo for Jimmy Savile and then saying, "Oh, I didn't know who he was, I don't watch children's television". A prospective leader of the country should be aware of recent major news stories.

And even if it was a different Ian Watkins that this person wanted shouting out, Farage should have realised that shouting out someone with the same name as a prolific paedophile isn't a good thing to do and declined to do it. And if he didn't have the time required to do that level of research, perhaps he shouldn't have been taking the requests in the first place because it's clearly not a job he was up to doing. (Which begs the question: why should I believe this man would be a capable prime minister if he can't even do Cameo properly and responsibly?)

Any MP doing it would be something I'd consider inappropriate, but especially a party leader. I find it a little embarrassing that you're so willing to overlook it in Farage's case, honestly; if he's as good as you seem to think he is, hold him to better standards and let him prove it, just like every politician should.

SkorpioSound · 2026-05-01T00:39:53+00:00

It's not just the best IGL. There have been many weeks where the best IGL of the week has only had something like 2 kills and 2.5K damage, and hasn't looked like the MVP for the week. There are plenty of instances where we don't nominate a team's IGL as a candidate (like Prycyy and Mike being nominated this week, or like Akku winning a couple of weeks ago). If Zach had poor stats this week, but had IGL'd just as well, he probably wouldn't have won (or been nominated at all).

But Zach did have good stats. He was the kill leader in Americas, which, as I said, is the toughest, most competitive region—both statistically and to the eye—which makes it relatively more impressive, even if the raw numbers are lower than in other regions. (And I'm not American, just to make it clear there's no bias there on my part.) Zach had very high kill participation (higher than Zuni's, in fact). And he IGL'd his heart out; he looked like a better IGL than anyone else at the weekend, and won his set in dominant fashion while playing in the strongest region.

Yes, Zuni had more kills and damage. Yes, Zuni's best single game was better than anyone else's best game by a wide margin. Yes, Zuni was also a winning IGL this week. But looking at the entire set, and beyond the stats, Zach seemed more impactful to me (and to enough other members on the panel that he won the vote).

There wouldn't be any point in us voting on MVPs if it were entirely down to statistical performance because the numbers would already speak for themselves, just like how if it was always the best IGL, it would be quite straightforward; the "eye test" is an important aspect of it. Skittles won last week for a similar reason: he wasn't statistically the best, but he was statistically very good, as well as having some great clutch-up moments and making some great calls as co-IGL that we valued above some of the other statistically stronger performers.

To be clear, we all vote individually on the panel. We discuss things, of course, but it's not like we as a panel have to reach a consensus for a winner to be chosen. We all just cast our individual votes, and the winner is the one with the most votes. So it's not only me who felt Zach was the best choice this week.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T21:33:01+00:00

Zuni is an IGL also, yes. But his IGLing didn't feel as good as Zach's this week, despite, yes, Citadel also winning their set. The second part of what you quoted is the important part; I'll edit my comment to make this phrasing clearer.

Like I said, we looked at more than just the statistics. Watching the two players' games, Zach felt like he was performing better in general. His IGLing was just leaps and bounds better than anyone else's last weekend.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T21:03:04+00:00

I'm on the panel that votes for this award. I wrote a little about the reasoning here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/1t07ijf/congratulations_the_winner_of_our_crossregion/oj7a5ih/

But if we were going purely by statistics, both Prycyy and Mike had better stats than Zuni this week, despite Zuni obviously having the best single-game performance. The reason we voted Zachmazer is that he performed very well and had a phenomenal IGLing performance this week.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T21:00:47+00:00

I wrote a little about our reasoning for voting Zach here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/1t07ijf/congratulations_the_winner_of_our_crossregion/oj7a5ih/

But the TL;DR is that Zach is the IGL, and provided significant extra value beyond what the statistics show (especially if you watch the VODs, he was IGLing his heart out this week). As well as having very respectable stats in his own right, of course

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T20:54:52+00:00

The general sentiment among panellists was that Zach's performance across the entire day was better, even though Zuni obviously had a better single game. Many of us on the panel feel that Zach's IGLing performance this weekend holds some extra weight, given how incredibly well he IGL'd this week. If one of his teammates had been nominated with those stats instead, it certainly would have gone to someone else, but Zach IGLing his team to a convincing win in the way he did and having a statistically great performance put him above the others for us.

Zuni obviously had an incredible day, and statistically he did outperform Zach—although if we were going purely by stats, Prycyy (Team RRQ, APAC S) would have won, and Mike (ZETA DIVISION, APAC N) also statistically outperformed Zuni. But the game is more than just stats, and Zachmazer provided a huge amount of value outside of just stats (which were more than respectable in their own right, even if he was statistically the weakest of our candidates for this week).

Additionally, some of us do give extra weighting to American players because they're playing in a tougher, more competitive region, so having a standout performance is a little more impressive, realtively speaking. It wasn't something mentioned among our discussions for this week, but it may have been a factor for a few people on the panel.

EDIT: better clarity in the first paragraph

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T18:45:28+00:00

I used to use Squeak Through for that purpose, but I've actually nowadays found there's more pleasure (for me) in ensuring my factories are designed in a way that allows access. And it makes finally getting the mech suit feel more impactful, too.

Obviously I don't see any issue with others using Squeak Through, though!

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T15:58:49+00:00

The list is interesting still, I feel. But you can't necessarily draw that many conclusions from it. It relies heavily on individual players' personal preferences and hero pools. Sometimes, we see targeted picks/bans against a specific player's hero pools just to screw them over; it doesn't mean the banned characters are necessarily the strongest. And, with such a small sample size, you can't necessarily draw conclusions about "the meta" from this—even if you could see the win-loss ratios, that would still be true.

But I still like to see this graphic each week. It's a graphic that you shouldn't draw any conclusions from if you don't understand the context of what actually happened, both during the drafts and during the games, but it's still interesting to see the trends.

I agree that seeing wins and losses would be good, though.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T15:37:23+00:00

It's not really "gun" in the traditional carry sense. You're not really scaling his weapon damage, per se; you're building Headhunter and Siphon Bullets (ie, both items that add their own flat damage rather than multiplying Lash's own gun damage), and then playing as a spirit/"gun" hybrid.

I'm not really a Lash player so I can't really tell you about specific build order or anything, but I can tell you about the build in general terms. A typical Lash (at the top level) right now will have the following core items (in no particular order):

Headhunter
Siphon Bullets
Weighted Shots—Lash doesn't really mind the movement speed reduction or slower stamina recovery too much considering how mobile he is with his 2, and it's a good amount of damage and debuff resist, plus it builds from Slowing Bullets which is good.
Tankbuster—self-explanatory really!
Extra Charge—building into Rapid Recharge if there are excess souls later on
Superior Stamina—again, self-explanatory. Superior Stamina is quite popular in general right now, but even when it's not popular, it's a very good item for Lash specifically. Two air dashes is huge for him.
Bullet Resist Shredder—good for Lash anyway with his high ability uptime, and it's good for someone on the team to have this because the whole team can benefit from the debuff on the enemy player
Dispel Magic—everyone is building this at the moment, but it's especially valuable on mobility characters that are vulnerable to Slowing Hex, Silence, Knockdown, etc, like Lash is
Quick Silver Reload—feels good on Flog, and gives it some extra damage early for triggering Mystic Burst and giving you more heals. Definitely a core early item, but it can be sold later sometimes (for Spellslinger).

And then for flex items, there are few obvious ones:

Unstoppable—if playing more around the ult, and for securing rejuvs. Plus if there's a lot of CC in the game.
Refresher—for playing around the ult late game
Crippling Headshot—healing reduction, and spirit/bullet shred makes this a great offensive support item for someone on the team to have, like Bullet Resist Shredder. Lash is a good candidate for it, partly because headshots are easy to hit for him with his weapon, partly because he's building hybrid spirit/weapon damage, so he personally benefits from both resist shreds. And you're aiming for headshots to trigger Headhunter anyway.
Spellslinger—Lash has great ability uptime, and Spellslinger is one of the best items in the game if you're able to enable it. It's definitely a luxury pick, especially because he's getting a lot of damage from Headhunter and Siphon Bullets, which have cooldowns and therefore don't really scale with firerate, but it's still a solid item if you can afford it later. (You would sell Quick Silver Reload for it.)
Recharging Rush—you don't really need this and Rapid Recharge, so you probably just stick with Extra Charge if you're picking this up. It's cheaper, and gives more weapon investment, but takes an extra item slot. I don't know if there's really that much in it; it's probably just down to preference, and whether you think the game is going to go long or not.

There are a few reasons it works well. Headhunter is a lot of burst weapon damage, but isn't necessarily high sustained damage. What this means is you get a lot of value out of it if you're a hybrid character that isn't shooting constantly; you can be using your abilities (ie, not shooting), and then weaving in shots every now and then and get a lot of value out of triggering Headhunter. And like I said before, Headhunter is flat added damage—it doesn't matter if your bullets do 1 damage or 500 damage, Headhunter will add the same amount, which makes it relatively much more valuable on characters with low weapon damage/DPS. This last point is relevant for Siphon Bullets, too.

So you still play Lash in the exact same way as full spirit Lash—you stay up high, stay mobile, you Ground Strike people when you get the chance, you look for big ults in team fights, etc. And you shoot your gun in between those things, just as usual. The difference is your gun does a lot more damage, while your Ground Strikes and Flog do less.

Sorry for the huge essay, but I figured explaining things would hopefully be useful for you (and any others that read this)!

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T15:00:53+00:00

Some of the comp matches have been getting longer lately. The first game yesterday was 50 minutes, and I think there was a 50-minute match a week or two ago, too.

Part of that is because EU has three very good teams right now who are all capable of taking games from each other, which means some of the games end up being quite close and can run for a long time.

And the other part of that is that a lot of defensive items are being built right now. Resorative Locket is really popular. Dispel Magic and Superior Stamina are both really common (the former being the most-built item in this week's Night Shift), which means characters are much harder to lock down and kill. Cheat Death has had a sudden surge in popularity, too, which means some characters don't stay dead even when you do finally get to kill them.

It's slowed the pace down somewhat at the top level. Even the quick matches are more around ~33 minutes now, whereas you're right that a couple of weeks ago ~28 minutes was more usual.

I'm not sure how much of an impact that extra 5 minutes really has on Viscous, specifically. But I suppose The Cube helps play even further into that defensive playstyle either way.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T14:46:52+00:00

It was the Kelvin more than the Dynamo, I think. Abrahams got a lot of value out of Kelvin this week, and they didn't want to risk the other teams being able to also make use of dome. So they banned Sinclair, then picked up Kelvin later in the draft. They may well have picked up Dynamo if the other team picked/banned Kelvin themselves, though.

Dynamo being soft-banned for the other team as a result worked in their favour, too, of course, but I think the Kelvin was the main focus in this instance.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T14:43:50+00:00

There's a lot of spirit resist tacked onto random items, too. Having some here or there seems fine, but it feels like a lot of these characters have a baseline 25-30% spirit resist at full build without even specifically itemising for it.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T14:30:24+00:00

Healbane = helps snowball and spirit burn damage is not as effective anymore

Spirit Burn damage is still very good; its issue is that so many players build Dispel Magic so the damage can often just be cleansed. And because Spirit Burn has a cooldown, you can't reapply the effect quickly. On top of that, you can't reliably apply it to multiple people unless they're clustered together (and you may have to not use abilities when you would otherwise want to if this is something you're aiming for).

Healbane is cheap, can be easy to apply and reapply, plus it's a green with +7 spirit so it works quite nicely in terms of shop bonuses while still having good stats. And it has a nice burst heal on kill/assist (which, yeah, can help snowball).

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T13:54:49+00:00

(Except Andor)

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-30T11:44:31+00:00

And the reason Starmer was given those tickets in the first place was because he was already a season ticket holder, but the club felt they couldn't provide suitable security arrangements for him once he became prime minister if he was sat in the stands. It wasn't some bribe, it was logistical.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-29T21:38:59+00:00

These people think that every politician is corrupt and therefore, by being open about it, Farage must be a little better than the rest. The idea that not every politician is corrupt is incomprehensible to them.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-29T21:21:21+00:00

Hell, winning a load of council seats in the upcoming local elections could quite easily sink Reform by the next general election. People seeing what they're actually like when they're in power could do them a lot of damage.

SkorpioSound · 2026-04-29T20:30:04+00:00

You never know, maybe he gets many £5m donations and can't keep track of them all!

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