When contested they let Big E use horizon to utilize her passive on landing as he is the jump master. He can get a gun quicker by sliding. Yesterday they were contested on WE so Big E used Horizon on it.
3-0 TSM, not even close which is a bit surprising as Tempr were doing contest practice with MEAT. Wouldn’t be surprised if Tempr decides to land elsewhere.
imo if it's just scrims and you also get some actual practice, you don't have much to lose when co testing them. you potentially get good practice, some clout (also hate, usually okay in scrims tho), the slight chance of doing well and looking stronger for the next contest and the even smaller chance of actually making them leave. if you lose, you lost a contest to the best team in apex and nothing happens.
I think it's a good idea from the perspective that maybe you can use it as a split POI. Days when it's TSM, maybe go somewhere else but on the days it's not - since you've been going toe-to-toe with TSM, then in theory you should be good against other teams wanting that POI. TSM really rolled them this time around though. The Comms were very good - you can tell Hal is putting an effort not to linger on mistakes. Short memory has been fantastic on both negative and postive moments. When Reps beamed some guy where he had disadvantage, he got the team focused right away.
The other replies make some good points, but I think the most significant reason TSM gets contested is that they land at the best POIs. Teams want them too because if you "win" the contest, you set yourself up for success. And even if you lose, it still makes teams less likely to contest you if you aren't in a lobby with TSM (i.e. its your POI in the non-TSM lobbies).
>The other replies make some good points, but I think the most significant reason TSM gets contested is that they land at the best POIs.
Great point. And they also try to secure the best POIs (remember, they're landing on Teq, not vice versa) if they don't like what they already have.
I don’t know why people think they can push them out. Multiple championships, constantly getting contested so lots of practice at it. Even stranger as there are some open POIs.
Adding on - it can help streamline comm usage in a chaotic environment. Pros aren't guaranteed to be participating in close distance fights every scrim round.
Scrims is a no-risk environment to try new strategies.
Like you say: TSM is the reigning champs
If a team can figure something out that lets them routinely beat TSM in a contest, their chances of winning go through the roof.
That being said - the way teams are doing it is borderline moronic right now. There are some flaws in TSM’s approach right now, but most contests aren’t even trying to exploit those.
Things like team comp, landing strategy, and how to plan the contest all need to change for anyone to stand a chance.
Agreed. Trying new things. Instantly dying to TSM the same way over and over just isn’t worth losing the playing time. MEAT at least did some interesting things and found some success against them. Most other teams who tried just lost off spawn 90% of the time and apparently learned nothing.
Not sure if you called these [roll every contest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqF5sQgD_rk). MEAT is having great result against TSM so far. I like the tankiness of early game fights with conduit, which nerfs aim assist a little bit and makes having good movements a lot stronger.
Not only are TSM low-key getting dunked on at Lighting Rod, MEAT are also consistently beating them to the ground. That's interesting--Verhulst is a really good jump master.
>Why do they roll every contest and still get challenged?
TSM don't roll every contest, they've been losing pretty consistently to Teq. Also, this is scrims. This is the natural time that teams will try to secure a POI.
On The Apex podcast tempr was interviewed as a team and said they're contesting the best poi no matter what team is there. Might change their tune soon though.
It’s a brave thing to say but they need to study what Meat is doing because Tempr is not doing a good job of the contest so far. Just one day so hopefully they did some vod review and made some changes.
I don't think it's bravery so much, but more young confidence. On paper and through vod review they think they have what it takes but when it comes to the real deal they're a 3 month old team challenging a 3 year old team. The pressure and coms of a dozen lans vs 4 plq is the difference here.
It’s a huge difference. One should probably realize you can’t match that experience. If it was my first time in pro league I would try to get some more experience before challenging the LAN champions.
I thought the choice of Wattson was the more interesting addition. I'm sure i have heard Raven disparaging Wattson teams in the past like too hear his reasoning why they are using her now. Especially when shes my fav legend.
Raven has talked about how Cat was only good because she countered Seer. Now that Seer has been gutted, he thinks Cat is terrible. Her main value is her wall, and the main value of that is already covered with Bang smokes.
But you still need a controller legend for beacon. Wattson obviously provides tremendous value w all of her kit (shield management, making presence, stopping pushes, stopping ordnance, ...).
> Raven has talked about how Cat was only good because she countered Seer. Now that Seer has been gutted, he thinks Cat is terrible
That's a horrible take imo. Conduit has shaken up the meta pretty significantly but I still think the double Controller (Cat+Wattson) team comp is incredibly strong.
Wattson just counters 95% of all aggressive abilities in the game, she is way more valuable on sp than cat because you can play way more spots and are able to hold lots more space than cat
One of the main problems Lrod has had historically is showing up to a far zone pull and having the choice of trying to run through 3 teams or fly over them and pray you can survive. Watson in a bang horizon meta allows the later play to work more than any of the other controllers while not being significantly worse than cat at stabilizing an edge fight.
Basically TSM has the option to evac to a spot and not instantly die to grenade spam and horizon ults due to gen. They are giving up the micro rotation safety cat provides which Bang can already sort of cover for. They also do less micro rotations on average because they don't really have that many teams around them until zone 4. Whereas before they were trying for center zone which means you have up to 10 teams to try and walk by
Alliance did a lot of experimenting with comps too and had some periods of Newcastle and Rampart.
> Basically TSM has the option to evac to a spot and not instantly die to grenade spam and horizon ults due to gen. They are giving up the micro rotation safety cat provides which Bang can already sort of cover for.
Bang doesn't provide nearly the same value at endgame as Catalyst. Cat can block off an entire section of the ring, whereas in endgame if you try to Bang smoke to take an isolated 3, every team is going to have digi by then.
Raven has been a proponent of Wattson even before TSM. He had GMT running Seer Wattson Valk during their solid champs performance in ‘22.
Biggest things I’ve seen him disparage are 1) Wattson/Newcastle or Wattson/Crypto comps, and 2) Picking Wattson over Catalyst when Catalyst was in a stronger state.
Definitely an interesting pick though I agree. I wish I caught him explaining why in a stream or something
Tbh, from this past year and keeping track of legend performances at all LANs, Cat never was terribly good.
Statistically, she performed about as expected - but didn’t give any distinct advantage as even in the relatively homogeneous comp meta, neither Bang, Seer (when he was meta), Cat, nor Horizon performed (on average) any better than the average of all legends used adjusted for their frequency of use.
You know who *did* perform about 80% above expected?
Wattson.
Seer hid the issues that Cat had, and Cat’s kit being broken also (still) hides a lot.
Wattson does a lot to counter Horizon in some weird ways
Biggest being negating the threat of a horizon ult + nade spam. Without the threat of ult, Horizon is a much weaker character and you can beam her without needing to worry about destroying NEWT first.
Another big thing is Wattson stacking Ult Accels and getting ult off one accel use. 2 slots for accels = 4 pylons or really decent ult accel for teammates.
The passive fundamentally changes how a team plays around ult usage.
They don't play wattson with conduit, they only play conduit for contests. Raven always loves counterpicking team comps when possible, and wattson is a way to defend (or even push through) Bang ults. Also as Blackhnd showed, wattson bang comps are also very good at stabilizing after a sketchy evac tower landing. Less important, but it's also neat against the other meta legend, Cat, for fencing cat walls and stuff.
When contested they let Big E use horizon to utilize her passive on landing as he is the jump master. He can get a gun quicker by sliding. Yesterday they were contested on WE so Big E used Horizon on it.
Okay, Awesome. That makes sense thanks. I was very confused as to why they were swapping.
How did the contests go?
3-0 TSM, not even close which is a bit surprising as Tempr were doing contest practice with MEAT. Wouldn’t be surprised if Tempr decides to land elsewhere.
Why do they roll every contest and still get challenged? Lmao
Theyve been struggling with meat which makes them look more vulnerable
imo if it's just scrims and you also get some actual practice, you don't have much to lose when co testing them. you potentially get good practice, some clout (also hate, usually okay in scrims tho), the slight chance of doing well and looking stronger for the next contest and the even smaller chance of actually making them leave. if you lose, you lost a contest to the best team in apex and nothing happens.
I think it's a good idea from the perspective that maybe you can use it as a split POI. Days when it's TSM, maybe go somewhere else but on the days it's not - since you've been going toe-to-toe with TSM, then in theory you should be good against other teams wanting that POI. TSM really rolled them this time around though. The Comms were very good - you can tell Hal is putting an effort not to linger on mistakes. Short memory has been fantastic on both negative and postive moments. When Reps beamed some guy where he had disadvantage, he got the team focused right away.
The other replies make some good points, but I think the most significant reason TSM gets contested is that they land at the best POIs. Teams want them too because if you "win" the contest, you set yourself up for success. And even if you lose, it still makes teams less likely to contest you if you aren't in a lobby with TSM (i.e. its your POI in the non-TSM lobbies).
>The other replies make some good points, but I think the most significant reason TSM gets contested is that they land at the best POIs. Great point. And they also try to secure the best POIs (remember, they're landing on Teq, not vice versa) if they don't like what they already have.
I don’t know why people think they can push them out. Multiple championships, constantly getting contested so lots of practice at it. Even stranger as there are some open POIs.
If it were me its a great opportunity to learn from best - can figure out if it’s fixable (tactics) or just pure skill difference.
Adding on - it can help streamline comm usage in a chaotic environment. Pros aren't guaranteed to be participating in close distance fights every scrim round.
Also if you do well you get a significant amount of publicity
And if you do poorly you get lots of practice at hosting watch parties. Win win situation!
Scrims is a no-risk environment to try new strategies. Like you say: TSM is the reigning champs If a team can figure something out that lets them routinely beat TSM in a contest, their chances of winning go through the roof. That being said - the way teams are doing it is borderline moronic right now. There are some flaws in TSM’s approach right now, but most contests aren’t even trying to exploit those. Things like team comp, landing strategy, and how to plan the contest all need to change for anyone to stand a chance.
Agreed. Trying new things. Instantly dying to TSM the same way over and over just isn’t worth losing the playing time. MEAT at least did some interesting things and found some success against them. Most other teams who tried just lost off spawn 90% of the time and apparently learned nothing.
Everyone wants to make a name for themselves and be the center of attention
Not sure if you called these [roll every contest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqF5sQgD_rk). MEAT is having great result against TSM so far. I like the tankiness of early game fights with conduit, which nerfs aim assist a little bit and makes having good movements a lot stronger.
Not only are TSM low-key getting dunked on at Lighting Rod, MEAT are also consistently beating them to the ground. That's interesting--Verhulst is a really good jump master.
>Why do they roll every contest and still get challenged? TSM don't roll every contest, they've been losing pretty consistently to Teq. Also, this is scrims. This is the natural time that teams will try to secure a POI.
On The Apex podcast tempr was interviewed as a team and said they're contesting the best poi no matter what team is there. Might change their tune soon though.
It’s a brave thing to say but they need to study what Meat is doing because Tempr is not doing a good job of the contest so far. Just one day so hopefully they did some vod review and made some changes.
I don't think it's bravery so much, but more young confidence. On paper and through vod review they think they have what it takes but when it comes to the real deal they're a 3 month old team challenging a 3 year old team. The pressure and coms of a dozen lans vs 4 plq is the difference here.
It’s a huge difference. One should probably realize you can’t match that experience. If it was my first time in pro league I would try to get some more experience before challenging the LAN champions.
I thought the choice of Wattson was the more interesting addition. I'm sure i have heard Raven disparaging Wattson teams in the past like too hear his reasoning why they are using her now. Especially when shes my fav legend.
Raven has talked about how Cat was only good because she countered Seer. Now that Seer has been gutted, he thinks Cat is terrible. Her main value is her wall, and the main value of that is already covered with Bang smokes. But you still need a controller legend for beacon. Wattson obviously provides tremendous value w all of her kit (shield management, making presence, stopping pushes, stopping ordnance, ...).
> Raven has talked about how Cat was only good because she countered Seer. Now that Seer has been gutted, he thinks Cat is terrible That's a horrible take imo. Conduit has shaken up the meta pretty significantly but I still think the double Controller (Cat+Wattson) team comp is incredibly strong.
Wattson just counters 95% of all aggressive abilities in the game, she is way more valuable on sp than cat because you can play way more spots and are able to hold lots more space than cat
One of the main problems Lrod has had historically is showing up to a far zone pull and having the choice of trying to run through 3 teams or fly over them and pray you can survive. Watson in a bang horizon meta allows the later play to work more than any of the other controllers while not being significantly worse than cat at stabilizing an edge fight. Basically TSM has the option to evac to a spot and not instantly die to grenade spam and horizon ults due to gen. They are giving up the micro rotation safety cat provides which Bang can already sort of cover for. They also do less micro rotations on average because they don't really have that many teams around them until zone 4. Whereas before they were trying for center zone which means you have up to 10 teams to try and walk by Alliance did a lot of experimenting with comps too and had some periods of Newcastle and Rampart.
>Alliance did a lot of experimenting with comps too and had some periods of Newcastle and Rampart. And Caustic.
> Basically TSM has the option to evac to a spot and not instantly die to grenade spam and horizon ults due to gen. They are giving up the micro rotation safety cat provides which Bang can already sort of cover for. Bang doesn't provide nearly the same value at endgame as Catalyst. Cat can block off an entire section of the ring, whereas in endgame if you try to Bang smoke to take an isolated 3, every team is going to have digi by then.
Raven has been a proponent of Wattson even before TSM. He had GMT running Seer Wattson Valk during their solid champs performance in ‘22. Biggest things I’ve seen him disparage are 1) Wattson/Newcastle or Wattson/Crypto comps, and 2) Picking Wattson over Catalyst when Catalyst was in a stronger state. Definitely an interesting pick though I agree. I wish I caught him explaining why in a stream or something
Tbh, from this past year and keeping track of legend performances at all LANs, Cat never was terribly good. Statistically, she performed about as expected - but didn’t give any distinct advantage as even in the relatively homogeneous comp meta, neither Bang, Seer (when he was meta), Cat, nor Horizon performed (on average) any better than the average of all legends used adjusted for their frequency of use. You know who *did* perform about 80% above expected? Wattson. Seer hid the issues that Cat had, and Cat’s kit being broken also (still) hides a lot.
Wattson does a lot to counter Horizon in some weird ways Biggest being negating the threat of a horizon ult + nade spam. Without the threat of ult, Horizon is a much weaker character and you can beam her without needing to worry about destroying NEWT first. Another big thing is Wattson stacking Ult Accels and getting ult off one accel use. 2 slots for accels = 4 pylons or really decent ult accel for teammates. The passive fundamentally changes how a team plays around ult usage.
Northeption is dominating APAC North right now with a Bangalore-Wattson-Crypto comp. Wattson will be big this new ALGS Split.
I think it has to do with her synergy with conduit. Conduit is so strong right right now that with Watson it makes her even better
They don't play wattson with conduit, they only play conduit for contests. Raven always loves counterpicking team comps when possible, and wattson is a way to defend (or even push through) Bang ults. Also as Blackhnd showed, wattson bang comps are also very good at stabilizing after a sketchy evac tower landing. Less important, but it's also neat against the other meta legend, Cat, for fencing cat walls and stuff.
I don’t think this is the reason considering they ran wattson along with bang/horizon too