EDG's Valorant Success and Meme Evolution

Get ready to learn Chinese buddy is an NBA meme that started in November 2022 as a joke threat to sports players who have been performing poorly or failed in other ways. The macro implies that due to their performance a player doesn't belong in a top tier competition and instead should be playing in a lower tier league such as China's CBA. Now this meme also spread its way over towards Valorant as well as you can see here what is up with the China meme. One day this get ready to learn Chinese appeared and I don't know why was posted on the Valorant competitive subreddit. And so why did this meme come about? Well in Valorant, the game in China was released a little bit later than it was everywhere else and before it actually officially got released in China there was kind of just an underground unofficial Chinese pro circuit going on kind of under the radar but we all kind of knew that it existed. But still the pro scene in China was seen as a bit of a wild west. China didn't get its VCT league until a year later than the other three regions. And in that league and the performances across the board, it was just a little bit shaky overall. And generally, the Chinese teams, apart from EDG, who did okay a couple times, finishing fifth, sixth once. Generally, the performances were okay, but they never really made it too far. And last year, world champion Boostio from EG said this. China will never be better than NA, for one, in Valorant. Well... Yeah, EDG from China won champs. But just before we get into how EDG won the tournament and flip the meme on its head, we do have an announcement because we are doing a TMV tournament. And so here's all you need to know. First thing you need to do is join the TMV. discord here you can come and join the tmv discord in the link in the description and then from there you need to find the announcements channel come to the server info announcements and then in announcements you can go to the pinned messages in announcements and look at this magnum has posted this let's go there the throw city clash so here in the discord server we are doing a little valorant tournament here where anyone can enter any ranks can enter whatsoever and you and your band of randomly carefully chosen teammates picked by the mods will fight out to win both glory and better yet money the group stage is on september 28th and 29th and the playoffs will be on october 5th and 6th there is a 2 euro entry fee but this does not apply to twitch subs or youtube members of me so if you want to become a twitch sub or a youtube member this is a good time because you won't have to pay the entry fee and the prize will be 120 euros for first 80 for second and 40 for third place now unfortunately this is going to be an eu emea only tournament and you need to have a maximum ping of 100 ms to frankfurt otherwise you won't be able to take part in it if you are from a pack or an a don't worry because next year we are hoping to run one of these tournaments for each of those regions as well and get three tournaments on the go it's going to be 160 spaces for 32 teams of five players Already about half of them are gone and it's gonna be first come first serve So if you want to play in this tournament and potentially win some money Then come and join the TMV discord and come and sign up today So now let's talk about EDG and how did they win the grand final? How did they become world champions? And actually it started horrendously for EDG The first map was some of the worst Valorant you will see. I mean you're just gonna see I'm gonna show you four rounds in a row here of their attack side and it is dreadful the mistakes they were making were awful as you'll see and it kind of starts with smoggy here but let's start with this round which is kind of one of the key themes where they're actually going to lose the time in a horrendous way here right so it's 4-2 the game's not you know out of hand yet you know we're in a fine spot and edg i'm just going to play this faster for you because it's going to be pretty slow they're going to come and default a bit they're going to destroy this trip here with the shug dart but they go back and you can just see that they're a bit unsure right like okay we've defaulted a bit towards garage now we're going to come back towards a but cancang is going to push up towards b on his own and cancang gets a bit fortunate here that he he doesn't die essentially to a soverald that's going to come out he's going to be under a lot of pressure as you'll see he's going to get stunned here you know get flash get stunned soveralded he does well to actually survive here and now the rest of the team is going to just kind of panic towards c and just be running it down towards c the thing is they only have one smoke so even though kenken gets that kill they don't have a smoke here for garage and so when they come out benji's there to just absolutely mop them up as you can see but we get into this position now it's a 3v2 the smoke comes down 22 seconds left right not looking great if we take a look at the map you know Kang Kang's still over towards B So Smongy's kind of completely on his own. So what are we gonna do? Well Smongy's about to make A horrendous mistake. You're not coming out unscathed. 2v3. EDG are going to have to pull out something incredible here, and they've only got 15 seconds. Time is just against them. The ult? Yeah, ult pivot over and away, but again the timing is going to be brutal. KangKang still collects the one. It's a 2v2, but it's a four second to go. He missed it! He's missed the timing! What's he doing? Brutal! And nerves! Frantic on stage, on display. So consider that they just lost that round in that fashion, and then take a look at the very next round as well, because this is incredible. To lose that round, and again, I'm going to play at two times speed, because you're never going to guess how they lose this round, right? Here we start. again with a bit of a default uh here towards mid and out towards being garaged right but it's slow as you'll see and then they decide okay we don't like that we're going to come back to a instead let's drone on a and you know kind of come and take a and at this point it's all fine right they come down a okay we get to this point we push them back okay we're down to 50 you know four seconds left like it's fine you know we're coming down here you know out towards a this is all fine looks like they're gearing up to do an a exec which he choose to look this is all fine Right, we get to this point in the round, the wall goes up, they try and do an exec, ooh, they don't like the util that comes back out at them, so then they just run away, and now there's only 37 seconds left, but now they're just going to run away back to C. But the thing is, of course, at no point in this round have they touched C, so they've got no idea what's going on here, they're just guessing that heretics, you know, aren't there, but then because of this deep trip that's going to reveal them just here, now they're just trying to do a C exec with no time. Cacophony of all of it into the back of the site we go, twists and turns, the tails being weak, but it's all on Heretics'side. Again, EDG, the clock being the biggest enemy, Boo just stays alive. Then in the very next round, they then do this, another big mistake by Smoggy in this one, as they come for this Aexec again here, EDG, and again, they're going to put up this wall and kind of, you know, fake and pretend like they're going to do an Aexec here. hoping to bait out some of that util it's quite a nice idea right but just a drone comes out this time right heretics aren't fooled they don't see anything else on the wall and they aren't fooled and they don't do anything right then they trap can can great play there from heretics and now again without your neon are you gonna do this exec they decide no we're not we're instead just gonna come back to b here after we just are a bit indecisive again here edg don't know what we're doing we're gonna just run back and pivot towards b but i mean again you're about to see a horrific mistake here from from smoggy in just a second because as we come up to b you know and it looks free like we can probably get the plant down here but now the smoke comes up and now he's gonna do this trip once more they've walked up right close and they will be breaking this one tp no there's no cover and woots right there for the punish chichu vacuuming up space hoping the rotations are abound Might be able to catch this timing, yes! Head miss! Blue just trying to catch that sightline, Kay just dropped down, trying to get his team in, 14 seconds, again time, running away from them. 10 seconds left. Potentially trying, nobody's gonna stick this plan, and MiniBoo cleans up the flank. Forward aggression, showcased by Chichu, he knows he has to take risks, he knows the matters need to be taken into his own hands, no rough-ups. Reveals all, the TARDIS dealt with, and the Heretics have players, they've got bodies, they've got Utah, and they've got guns! The aim on display. Now yeah, that's- That TP wasn't very good, was it? And EDG, as you saw, end up losing the round. But it is even worse when I tell you that Smoggy has two smokes to use as well. And he doesn't use either of them and just TPs onto B and just dies instantly. And then finally here on Haven, round number 10. Remember, this is four back-to-back rounds that I'm showing you here, right? This is crazy that this happened all back-to-back. And again, we're going to see here from EDG. It's an early default out towards A. And, you know, they think they're going to create some pressure. But you... They just were in their own head, right? After creating this A pressure, we then got our silver, you know, coming back here to do some shock darts on B. There's just so many different ideas going on here. Chichu, again, just, it's like refusing to move anywhere, essentially. He's just always sitting back here, not doing much. But again, they aren't properly defaulting, really. They're just kind of chilling here, hoping that Team Heretics are going to do something. And again, I'll just... Play it on two times speed and you see that literally nothing is happening, right? This drone comes out, they don't want to get seen by the drone on A, so they hide from it, which is fine, but now again, the clock is ticking down and we're going to start this exec here, but I just want you to focus on, this exec is just not going to be very good. And heads are being popped, rattled off the shoulders. Chichu is going to try and make a play. Makes his way over towards Siebert, again 17 seconds left, Josh. There's barely time for the spike to get there. This keeps occurring. Amar dashes and scrambles towards the end of the game. At the end of the round, Chichu at least will push back Minibu. Caught by the trip! Six seconds, caught by the trip! Four seconds, you've got to stick it! And he has to sub to Isaac! Wu will pay for it for his life, but at the end of the day! So, just not very good, right? I mean, it starts off with this exec being done in stages, right? So our Breach Utility is coming out, right? But nothing else is. Okay, so our Breach Utility, we've now stunned an Aftershock from our Breach and Omen Flashed. But KangKang hasn't stunned yet, and so now he stuns. But he's still not out. He still hasn't come out at all, right? So we're still just sitting in the smoke. We still aren't out. He still has his wall to use as well, but he's just not going to use it. Because now he's just going to run in. just on his own with no util right just just really really bad and then obviously as you saw at the end of the round there they pivot towards c and they don't have time again this was horrendous from edg in map one and that's what makes what happened in map two so surprising because their attack on haven was woeful but then they came to map two and they won 11 rounds on their attack side in the first half of sunset and it was like a different team turned up right like let's take a look at this round round number five now in this one team heretics have been struggling with b main control early they're 4-0 down in this round i'll just show you here so it's already 4-0 to edg and so team heretics coming off a timeout decide we're gonna take b main control we're gonna own this space and you just saw edg be very very you know incoherent and not knowing what they're doing and panicking and everyone's on different pages but just take a look at this that as soon as they see this pressure coming out the nade the omen flash the dart here instantly they're gonna come and do an a split like instant straight away they decide okay i don't need to play this on two times speed this time because look straight away there's a lot of pace of we are going and doing this and we're going to come and do this b split and not only are they going to come and do a b split but it's a sorry an a split it's a really really nice decisive one where they take complete control and play perfectly as a team the way up through mid as well this time it might not be anticipated benji he's gone he's taken out The swipe of a hand and a glide from KangKangMan. Woot needs to try and make the play. Attempt to dominate the angle. And so EDG were decisive. They knew what they were doing, and this continued throughout the entire half. And they had some really, really nice executes as well, like here in round 11. Reserves are going to need to be tapped into. heretics doubled up trying to hold it stunned good connection reveal onto all of them and now the side swipe they all topple they all fall an attempt by benji fishy and so we see that all of the util is combined nicely all of it pretty much hits kang kang does the perfect thing really as a duelist here which is he survives right so in we come we flash we're gonna slide out across the dart now lands you know i mean we're running into you know like this is good for team heretics right like kang kang's on his own but he does really well to just you know stun them survive Makes them run away. They're getting revealed by the dart. Simon's done a really good thing here where he's coming down this way. We actually Omen Flash this, which is probably allowing him to take this so aggressively right here and, you know, be across. He's also, you know, just coming out here, KO-alting them as well, speeding them up, you know. And what do you do here? You know, what do you actually do here? Nobody's also solo-alting them. These guys, this was already a 5v3, right? This was definitely going to be a 5v3 no matter what happened, pretty much. Really good stuff. And then on the... Cherry on top, we also get a really nice trade there on Benji at the end. It was a different team that turned up for map two. From some of the worst rounds you will see in map one, to some of the best rounds that you will see in map two. So map 1 was a stomp for Heretics, map 2 was a stomp for EDG, but map 3 was actually much closer. And from here on out, the maps would be a little more close and a little more tense in general for the final three maps. But on map 3, I think really what the difference was, was that EDG were just coming up with some big time plays. Left on the clock, that's not enough time to plant, the defenders are already going to be in, trying to deny. As EDG are trying to deny Rubble currently. Big reveal, big coverage, mini-boo! Straight up and over Benji Fishy looking to contain, plugging up the holes but he is alone, isolated Smoggy. Bite of the apple, tap tap of the rifle, resets it. The draw on his core, oh good plays being made all across the board! G2! You didn't have to do it to him, not like that! embarrasses heretics in Vue 3. He is the immovable object of EDG. And could we have it any other way? One thing I want to point out about this clip, though, is that even though ChiChu goes crazy, there is help from the rest of the team, right? That what you're going to see here is Simon, when this door gets tapped and in they come, he's going to stun from miles away, really, right? And he's going to stun and really help him, you know, be able to kind of win this first fight. and maybe without this stun you know this doesn't happen right because uh here miniboo's having to run away from the stun woot gets hit by the stun so woot's kind of a free one but miniboo can't trade that instantly because he's running away from the stun but i mean this is insane by chichu obviously as we can all tell and then the fact that he gets all four is just it's just absurd and this to me was the difference on lotus here where edg were just able to steal some rounds like that that they really shouldn't have been able to and here's another great example instant there with a stun and a swing once more from Simon but not dead yet, need to find some value I believe Smoggy will have to hunt down some kills TP from Chichu, punished and it leads it down to one, the rookie Struggling this series at least in this map as well with his confidence and he's got to do it against Minibu Benji swapping of weapons pass the rifle over to the healthier player and a lockdown committed Simon how do you play this forced to press forwards potentially there he's overstaying his welcome swings potentially footsteps down You demon in white! And so this third map I think did come down to some of those fine moments like those but also it should be said that EDG's attack side here on Lotus is just also very good as this round will show you. You don't believe it! He's just given them the map! EDG up to 11, all to the back pocket of Simon. And MiniBoot, hard committed, Amore to try and clear his way through, but he's straight up in the air, it's Clay Pigeon shooting, and Kankang not to be denied! He's cracked the site wide open! And then we come to Bind, which was probably one of the best maps in VCT history, extremely, extremely close that I think came down to two crucial rounds that again are kind of difficult to describe. The score was this, it was 12-9, it's round 22. EDG have started their comeback here after Team Heretics have got to 12. And Team Heretics are just gonna go for an A-Split exec here, they're gonna throw a Snakebite into Shower. The thing is, they're gonna run into nobody here towards Short who's gonna get smoked off with the one-way here from the brim. And he has a judge in this position. How he lives for how long he does, I have no idea. Got no armor to go along with it though. Potential tool that they could use. Slower play by her and it takes some still. They are in the driving seat. Nobody Tucks himself close, a bit of stray spam, but nobody finding a mark. He's weaving around them, dancing around them eventually. So nobody there with the judge managing to keep them in that round EDG, but now you're gonna see one of the to me what is one of the most iconic things i think i've ever seen in a vct game there's so many details to this that are just incredible kang kang has his ult here we get into a 3v2 But at this point, you know, they're trying to close out the game here, Team Heretics. So they think, okay, I'll just go for my Gecko Walt. But because of the nade, the nade is going to cancel the Gecko Walt, which means that, again, like there's more time pressure here on Heretics because they were probably relying on this being like, oh, okay, this is going to be the thing that, you know. can kind of secure us a bit more time and we have the mosh pit and of course and we have the brim moly as we see so they're playing for time here these two thinking that they they've got it but now boo has to panic because they were relying on this gecko to buy them the first bit of time but now it's not so now he has to send his brim moly because uh you know our gecko isn't in position to do the mosh pit either here and that is just one of the most iconic things i think i've ever seen chichu just running into the molly body blocking it so simon can stick the diffuse was just amazing and then finally we'd come to round number 24 and again pressure's on the line what are you going to call on bind well again it's just going to be an a hit here from team heretics keeping it simple and again they do line up to kind of do this kind of you know showers crunch they send the snake bite in there as you see but they decide that they don't like it early right this fate haunt reveals boo uh just here uh so boo gets revealed so he decides well i can't really do much with that so now we're just gonna all come down short And the thing is when you all come down short, you know, there isn't much space here They have one saving grace here do team heretics and that is that they've got this Vipers pit with Benji Which obviously he's got a judge for the last round So he was just planning on using that Vipers pit and it got very very messy and very very chaotic Yeah, but it's all on the line and they're all grouped up This is very much looking like an all-in play and approach. Pawns is not broken They didn't spam right through the box and opening kill onto Smorky, pit in place Nobody's seeking to answer back. This is where KangKang should be looking to pick up the rifle. He does. They have Thrasher trying to clear the pit. There's still many chances for EDG to take it to overtime. Flying Control, Watch4, and like you said, Thrasher's gonna be clearing, leaving the way through. Path, potentially. Here, lying in wait, Thrasher's there alongside, and sees his players seem to be defended! Woot steps up to the challenge but drops inside KangKang! Overtime in sight! And EDG are hungry for it, trying to will it for the win. forwards, views the nade, but the shots are LINE! THEY DON'T HAVE IT! TIME! TIME! IT'S NOT A LINE MAN! HEALTH BREAK! FOR ADG! Yeah, an incredible last round, the saddest ace of all time in round 24 from Kang Kang that would take us to map 5. And map 5 also had its fair share of just crazy chaotic rounds of people finding win conditions from absolutely nowhere. Like this one, round number eight, where EDG are on the attack. As you can see, the time is getting low. And you know what that means. But they're just going to end up here coming for an A exec, as you can see from Team Heretics. They're actually against an eco here. So even though the time is low, you know, Team Heretics, they don't have any guns. And it's actually going to go okay for EDG to start off with. But then the way that they lose this round is chaos. They are just sat back pretty passively. And okay, this one's an eco, but... It's reminiscent of how they've played the majority of their defense half so far. I need to see them get aggressive on defense here I think. That push back, dash is active. In through, there's a slider, the timing's for Rien, the shot just missing. Defense in order here, Simon just pushing back the invaders onto the site, it is theirs. Rien's ult has popped off, it's a winnable scenario and the kill is collected. Fight needs to go down, four seconds, nobody will be able to stick it tonight! From the break, Heretics found their answer. So Team Heretics were able to win that round, but EDG were able still to put together a really good attacking half. And they did it, and we're going to show this round here, round number 11, because this I think is pretty a good example of how EDG managed to win their attacking side. Because they're going to do something that's kind of become a bit of a theme on Abyss for really gaining attackers advantage. And that is being able to just attack in towards mid here. And EDG are playing an interesting comp with an Astra Omen. right double controller and i do think that double controller is how we'll see abyss you know obviously is the new map kind of be played more and more because i think these double controller comps are working pretty well because it allows you to attack mid more and you know myself and many others initially look to this map i'm like there's no point in going mid don't even worry about it but actually as it's played out it seems like at least at this point defenders don't really have the the right protocols of how you actually deal with mid right and so we see here a good example where edg they use the double control to smoke up both sides of mid just here and Kang Kang walks in towards the kind of uh you know little area with the doors and it's going to create some pressure right and now they do a bit of an a fake here where we're sending an omen flash out here uh for Kang Kang you know we've got multiple players in here we're omen flashing we're droning down here we're making this look like it's going to be an a split but very quickly we're actually going to pivot and come back towards the b site and it's going to be very difficult for team heretics to know what to do and you're going to see it these guys here they they Think that this is an A split, right? So they're going to come charging out here. The thing is, EDG are going to pivot back to them and all of a sudden there's going to be four people in mid and they're in a 2v4. Bodies are still lining up, reinforcements arriving here in the footsteps. It's a rumble and a scattered fight indeed. Skirmish to be taken, EDG! So in response there, what you might have heard was the Gecko ult coming out and it actually does manage to hit onto nobody who was droning out towards A. So now it's going to be very interesting where Buu is going to try and push this and get this kill, but he's just too far away. The map is just too big. And you see the problem with when people come mid, it's like, what do you do if you're mini-boo here, right? You're the guy on B. You've got people pressure probably coming from you this way, but it's very difficult to push out this way, right? It's just very hard because they can be in so many different positions, right? Like, where do you end up going? Do you end up just trying to chill behind this box, but eventually you're going to get seen here? Like, it just seems like there isn't a great answer here for them to do. So mini-boo deals what most players probably would, which is just kind of chill here, hiding on the back side. But unfortunately for him, that's not a good solution either. Honestly again the scaling is required, tucks to the side and the weapon's right out, ready to strike! Buu is dropped in place and Mini Buu left with it all to do! It's just not possible! So EDG won 8-4 on their attacking side, but their defensive side did not go so well. And in fact they really won this tournament and this game because of two moments. in my opinion one came on this pistol round because if they didn't win this pistol round they probably don't win this game considering how most of the rest of the half went but thankfully for them nobody did this mid connector now if simon wants to rotate it's got to go all the way through spawn and same could be said for kang kang and smoggy that puts hold on Nobody and Shishu on an island, but nobody. What are you doing? Giving away your position here. I mean, far and a dart. He gets away with it. The play was being made here and they've lost control of mid. The bow says, oh my god! Nobody! Oh, goodness me! So that round got EDG up to nine and then they won the second round as well. And they even won their bonus round. We got to 11-4. So yeah, that was it. GG. It was over. EDG won. Apart from that. that wasn't really it because Team Heretics won five rounds in a row and we actually got back to 11-9 and it looked like EDG were panicking they didn't have any answers they were struggling obviously they were playing a no sentinel comp here so there was some gaps for them and because they're trying to fill some of those gaps that meant there was less players to defend the sites which then meant that they couldn't hold on to the sites and so things weren't going so well but whilst the meme of get ready to learn Chinese buddy might be dead there is one saying in Valorant Which is definitely still true. And that is, when a team is making a big comeback, but they fail, they always fail against an eco round. And the saying goes, it's always an eco. And to these EDG players, the pressure shifted onto them, and KangKang forced a step up to the moment. That's to avoid, and shots are fired! KangKang! He's monstrous when he gets going! And he does it! Oh my sake, I had to do it!

One day this get ready to learn Chinese appeared and I don't know why was posted on the Valorant competitive subreddit. And so why did this meme come about? Well in Valorant, the game in China was released a little bit later than it was everywhere else and before it actually officially got released in China there was kind of just an underground unofficial Chinese pro circuit going on kind of under the radar but we all kind of knew that it existed. But still the pro scene in China was seen as a bit of a wild west. China didn't get its VCT league until a year later than the other three regions.

And in that league and the performances across the board, it was just a little bit shaky overall. And generally, the Chinese teams, apart from EDG, who did okay a couple times, finishing fifth, sixth once. Generally, the performances were okay, but they never really made it too far. And last year, world champion Boostio from EG said this.

China will never be better than NA, for one, in Valorant. Well... Yeah, EDG from China won champs. But just before we get into how EDG won the tournament and flip the meme on its head, we do have an announcement because we are doing a TMV tournament. And so here's all you need to know.

First thing you need to do is join the TMV. discord here you can come and join the tmv discord in the link in the description and then from there you need to find the announcements channel come to the server info announcements and then in announcements you can go to the pinned messages in announcements and look at this magnum has posted this let's go there the throw city clash so here in the discord server we are doing a little valorant tournament here where anyone can enter any ranks can enter whatsoever and you and your band of randomly carefully chosen teammates picked by the mods will fight out to win both glory and better yet money the group stage is on september 28th and 29th and the playoffs will be on october 5th and 6th there is a 2 euro entry fee but this does not apply to twitch subs or youtube members of me so if you want to become a twitch sub or a youtube member this is a good time because you won't have to pay the entry fee and the prize will be 120 euros for first 80 for second and 40 for third place now unfortunately this is going to be an eu emea only tournament and you need to have a maximum ping of 100 ms to frankfurt otherwise you won't be able to take part in it if you are from a pack or an a don't worry because next year we are hoping to run one of these tournaments for each of those regions as well and get three tournaments on the go it's going to be 160 spaces for 32 teams of five players Already about half of them are gone and it's gonna be first come first serve So if you want to play in this tournament and potentially win some money Then come and join the TMV discord and come and sign up today So now let's talk about EDG and how did they win the grand final? How did they become world champions?

And actually it started horrendously for EDG The first map was some of the worst Valorant you will see. I mean you're just gonna see I'm gonna show you four rounds in a row here of their attack side and it is dreadful the mistakes they were making were awful as you'll see and it kind of starts with smoggy here but let's start with this round which is kind of one of the key themes where they're actually going to lose the time in a horrendous way here right so it's 4-2 the game's not you know out of hand yet you know we're in a fine spot and edg i'm just going to play this faster for you because it's going to be pretty slow they're going to come and default a bit they're going to destroy this trip here with the shug dart but they go back and you can just see that they're a bit unsure right like okay we've defaulted a bit towards garage now we're going to come back towards a but cancang is going to push up towards b on his own and cancang gets a bit fortunate here that he he doesn't die essentially to a soverald that's going to come out he's going to be under a lot of pressure as you'll see he's going to get stunned here you know get flash get stunned soveralded he does well to actually survive here and now the rest of the team is going to just kind of panic towards c and just be running it down towards c the thing is they only have one smoke so even though kenken gets that kill they don't have a smoke here for garage and so when they come out benji's there to just absolutely mop them up as you can see but we get into this position now it's a 3v2 the smoke comes down 22 seconds left right not looking great if we take a look at the map you know Kang Kang's still over towards B So Smongy's kind of completely on his own. So what are we gonna do?

Well Smongy's about to make A horrendous mistake. You're not coming out unscathed. 2v3.

EDG are going to have to pull out something incredible here, and they've only got 15 seconds. Time is just against them. The ult?

Yeah, ult pivot over and away, but again the timing is going to be brutal. KangKang still collects the one. It's a 2v2, but it's a four second to go.

He missed it! He's missed the timing! What's he doing?

Brutal! And nerves! Frantic on stage, on display.

So consider that they just lost that round in that fashion, and then take a look at the very next round as well, because this is incredible. To lose that round, and again, I'm going to play at two times speed, because you're never going to guess how they lose this round, right? Here we start. again with a bit of a default uh here towards mid and out towards being garaged right but it's slow as you'll see and then they decide okay we don't like that we're going to come back to a instead let's drone on a and you know kind of come and take a and at this point it's all fine right they come down a okay we get to this point we push them back okay we're down to 50 you know four seconds left like it's fine you know we're coming down here you know out towards a this is all fine looks like they're gearing up to do an a exec which he choose to look this is all fine Right, we get to this point in the round, the wall goes up, they try and do an exec, ooh, they don't like the util that comes back out at them, so then they just run away, and now there's only 37 seconds left, but now they're just going to run away back to C.

But the thing is, of course, at no point in this round have they touched C, so they've got no idea what's going on here, they're just guessing that heretics, you know, aren't there, but then because of this deep trip that's going to reveal them just here, now they're just trying to do a C exec with no time. Cacophony of all of it into the back of the site we go, twists and turns, the tails being weak, but it's all on Heretics'side. Again, EDG, the clock being the biggest enemy, Boo just stays alive.

Then in the very next round, they then do this, another big mistake by Smoggy in this one, as they come for this Aexec again here, EDG, and again, they're going to put up this wall and kind of, you know, fake and pretend like they're going to do an Aexec here. hoping to bait out some of that util it's quite a nice idea right but just a drone comes out this time right heretics aren't fooled they don't see anything else on the wall and they aren't fooled and they don't do anything right then they trap can can great play there from heretics and now again without your neon are you gonna do this exec they decide no we're not we're instead just gonna come back to b here after we just are a bit indecisive again here edg don't know what we're doing we're gonna just run back and pivot towards b but i mean again you're about to see a horrific mistake here from from smoggy in just a second because as we come up to b you know and it looks free like we can probably get the plant down here but now the smoke comes up and now he's gonna do this trip once more they've walked up right close and they will be breaking this one tp no there's no cover and woots right there for the punish chichu vacuuming up space hoping the rotations are abound Might be able to catch this timing, yes! Head miss!

Blue just trying to catch that sightline, Kay just dropped down, trying to get his team in, 14 seconds, again time, running away from them. 10 seconds left. Potentially trying, nobody's gonna stick this plan, and MiniBoo cleans up the flank. Forward aggression, showcased by Chichu, he knows he has to take risks, he knows the matters need to be taken into his own hands, no rough-ups. Reveals all, the TARDIS dealt with, and the Heretics have players, they've got bodies, they've got Utah, and they've got guns!

The aim on display. Now yeah, that's- That TP wasn't very good, was it? And EDG, as you saw, end up losing the round.

But it is even worse when I tell you that Smoggy has two smokes to use as well. And he doesn't use either of them and just TPs onto B and just dies instantly. And then finally here on Haven, round number 10. Remember, this is four back-to-back rounds that I'm showing you here, right? This is crazy that this happened all back-to-back. And again, we're going to see here from EDG.

It's an early default out towards A. And, you know, they think they're going to create some pressure. But you... They just were in their own head, right?

After creating this A pressure, we then got our silver, you know, coming back here to do some shock darts on B. There's just so many different ideas going on here. Chichu, again, just, it's like refusing to move anywhere, essentially.

He's just always sitting back here, not doing much. But again, they aren't properly defaulting, really. They're just kind of chilling here, hoping that Team Heretics are going to do something.

And again, I'll just... Play it on two times speed and you see that literally nothing is happening, right? This drone comes out, they don't want to get seen by the drone on A, so they hide from it, which is fine, but now again, the clock is ticking down and we're going to start this exec here, but I just want you to focus on, this exec is just not going to be very good.

And heads are being popped, rattled off the shoulders. Chichu is going to try and make a play. Makes his way over towards Siebert, again 17 seconds left, Josh.

There's barely time for the spike to get there. This keeps occurring. Amar dashes and scrambles towards the end of the game.

At the end of the round, Chichu at least will push back Minibu. Caught by the trip! Six seconds, caught by the trip!

Four seconds, you've got to stick it! And he has to sub to Isaac! Wu will pay for it for his life, but at the end of the day! So, just not very good, right?

I mean, it starts off with this exec being done in stages, right? So our Breach Utility is coming out, right? But nothing else is.

Okay, so our Breach Utility, we've now stunned an Aftershock from our Breach and Omen Flashed. But KangKang hasn't stunned yet, and so now he stuns. But he's still not out.

He still hasn't come out at all, right? So we're still just sitting in the smoke. We still aren't out.

He still has his wall to use as well, but he's just not going to use it. Because now he's just going to run in. just on his own with no util right just just really really bad and then obviously as you saw at the end of the round there they pivot towards c and they don't have time again this was horrendous from edg in map one and that's what makes what happened in map two so surprising because their attack on haven was woeful but then they came to map two and they won 11 rounds on their attack side in the first half of sunset and it was like a different team turned up right like let's take a look at this round round number five now in this one team heretics have been struggling with b main control early they're 4-0 down in this round i'll just show you here so it's already 4-0 to edg and so team heretics coming off a timeout decide we're gonna take b main control we're gonna own this space and you just saw edg be very very you know incoherent and not knowing what they're doing and panicking and everyone's on different pages but just take a look at this that as soon as they see this pressure coming out the nade the omen flash the dart here instantly they're gonna come and do an a split like instant straight away they decide okay i don't need to play this on two times speed this time because look straight away there's a lot of pace of we are going and doing this and we're going to come and do this b split and not only are they going to come and do a b split but it's a sorry an a split it's a really really nice decisive one where they take complete control and play perfectly as a team the way up through mid as well this time it might not be anticipated benji he's gone he's taken out The swipe of a hand and a glide from KangKangMan.

Woot needs to try and make the play. Attempt to dominate the angle. And so EDG were decisive.

They knew what they were doing, and this continued throughout the entire half. And they had some really, really nice executes as well, like here in round 11. Reserves are going to need to be tapped into. heretics doubled up trying to hold it stunned good connection reveal onto all of them and now the side swipe they all topple they all fall an attempt by benji fishy and so we see that all of the util is combined nicely all of it pretty much hits kang kang does the perfect thing really as a duelist here which is he survives right so in we come we flash we're gonna slide out across the dart now lands you know i mean we're running into you know like this is good for team heretics right like kang kang's on his own but he does really well to just you know stun them survive Makes them run away. They're getting revealed by the dart. Simon's done a really good thing here where he's coming down this way.

We actually Omen Flash this, which is probably allowing him to take this so aggressively right here and, you know, be across. He's also, you know, just coming out here, KO-alting them as well, speeding them up, you know. And what do you do here?

You know, what do you actually do here? Nobody's also solo-alting them. These guys, this was already a 5v3, right? This was definitely going to be a 5v3 no matter what happened, pretty much. Really good stuff.

And then on the... Cherry on top, we also get a really nice trade there on Benji at the end. It was a different team that turned up for map two. From some of the worst rounds you will see in map one, to some of the best rounds that you will see in map two.

So map 1 was a stomp for Heretics, map 2 was a stomp for EDG, but map 3 was actually much closer. And from here on out, the maps would be a little more close and a little more tense in general for the final three maps. But on map 3, I think really what the difference was, was that EDG were just coming up with some big time plays.

Left on the clock, that's not enough time to plant, the defenders are already going to be in, trying to deny. As EDG are trying to deny Rubble currently. Big reveal, big coverage, mini-boo! Straight up and over Benji Fishy looking to contain, plugging up the holes but he is alone, isolated Smoggy. Bite of the apple, tap tap of the rifle, resets it.

The draw on his core, oh good plays being made all across the board! G2! You didn't have to do it to him, not like that! embarrasses heretics in Vue 3. He is the immovable object of EDG. And could we have it any other way?

One thing I want to point out about this clip, though, is that even though ChiChu goes crazy, there is help from the rest of the team, right? That what you're going to see here is Simon, when this door gets tapped and in they come, he's going to stun from miles away, really, right? And he's going to stun and really help him, you know, be able to kind of win this first fight. and maybe without this stun you know this doesn't happen right because uh here miniboo's having to run away from the stun woot gets hit by the stun so woot's kind of a free one but miniboo can't trade that instantly because he's running away from the stun but i mean this is insane by chichu obviously as we can all tell and then the fact that he gets all four is just it's just absurd and this to me was the difference on lotus here where edg were just able to steal some rounds like that that they really shouldn't have been able to and here's another great example instant there with a stun and a swing once more from Simon but not dead yet, need to find some value I believe Smoggy will have to hunt down some kills TP from Chichu, punished and it leads it down to one, the rookie Struggling this series at least in this map as well with his confidence and he's got to do it against Minibu Benji swapping of weapons pass the rifle over to the healthier player and a lockdown committed Simon how do you play this forced to press forwards potentially there he's overstaying his welcome swings potentially footsteps down You demon in white! And so this third map I think did come down to some of those fine moments like those but also it should be said that EDG's attack side here on Lotus is just also very good as this round will show you.

You don't believe it! He's just given them the map! EDG up to 11, all to the back pocket of Simon. And MiniBoot, hard committed, Amore to try and clear his way through, but he's straight up in the air, it's Clay Pigeon shooting, and Kankang not to be denied! He's cracked the site wide open!

And then we come to Bind, which was probably one of the best maps in VCT history, extremely, extremely close that I think came down to two crucial rounds that again are kind of difficult to describe. The score was this, it was 12-9, it's round 22. EDG have started their comeback here after Team Heretics have got to 12. And Team Heretics are just gonna go for an A-Split exec here, they're gonna throw a Snakebite into Shower. The thing is, they're gonna run into nobody here towards Short who's gonna get smoked off with the one-way here from the brim. And he has a judge in this position. How he lives for how long he does, I have no idea.

Got no armor to go along with it though. Potential tool that they could use. Slower play by her and it takes some still.

They are in the driving seat. Nobody Tucks himself close, a bit of stray spam, but nobody finding a mark. He's weaving around them, dancing around them eventually. So nobody there with the judge managing to keep them in that round EDG, but now you're gonna see one of the to me what is one of the most iconic things i think i've ever seen in a vct game there's so many details to this that are just incredible kang kang has his ult here we get into a 3v2 But at this point, you know, they're trying to close out the game here, Team Heretics. So they think, okay, I'll just go for my Gecko Walt.

But because of the nade, the nade is going to cancel the Gecko Walt, which means that, again, like there's more time pressure here on Heretics because they were probably relying on this being like, oh, okay, this is going to be the thing that, you know. can kind of secure us a bit more time and we have the mosh pit and of course and we have the brim moly as we see so they're playing for time here these two thinking that they they've got it but now boo has to panic because they were relying on this gecko to buy them the first bit of time but now it's not so now he has to send his brim moly because uh you know our gecko isn't in position to do the mosh pit either here and that is just one of the most iconic things i think i've ever seen chichu just running into the molly body blocking it so simon can stick the diffuse was just amazing and then finally we'd come to round number 24 and again pressure's on the line what are you going to call on bind well again it's just going to be an a hit here from team heretics keeping it simple and again they do line up to kind of do this kind of you know showers crunch they send the snake bite in there as you see but they decide that they don't like it early right this fate haunt reveals boo uh just here uh so boo gets revealed so he decides well i can't really do much with that so now we're just gonna all come down short And the thing is when you all come down short, you know, there isn't much space here They have one saving grace here do team heretics and that is that they've got this Vipers pit with Benji Which obviously he's got a judge for the last round So he was just planning on using that Vipers pit and it got very very messy and very very chaotic Yeah, but it's all on the line and they're all grouped up This is very much looking like an all-in play and approach. Pawns is not broken They didn't spam right through the box and opening kill onto Smorky, pit in place Nobody's seeking to answer back.

This is where KangKang should be looking to pick up the rifle. He does. They have Thrasher trying to clear the pit.

There's still many chances for EDG to take it to overtime. Flying Control, Watch4, and like you said, Thrasher's gonna be clearing, leaving the way through. Path, potentially. Here, lying in wait, Thrasher's there alongside, and sees his players seem to be defended! Woot steps up to the challenge but drops inside KangKang!

Overtime in sight! And EDG are hungry for it, trying to will it for the win. forwards, views the nade, but the shots are LINE! THEY DON'T HAVE IT!

TIME! TIME! IT'S NOT A LINE MAN!

HEALTH BREAK! FOR ADG! Yeah, an incredible last round, the saddest ace of all time in round 24 from Kang Kang that would take us to map 5. And map 5 also had its fair share of just crazy chaotic rounds of people finding win conditions from absolutely nowhere.

Like this one, round number eight, where EDG are on the attack. As you can see, the time is getting low. And you know what that means. But they're just going to end up here coming for an A exec, as you can see from Team Heretics.

They're actually against an eco here. So even though the time is low, you know, Team Heretics, they don't have any guns. And it's actually going to go okay for EDG to start off with.

But then the way that they lose this round is chaos. They are just sat back pretty passively. And okay, this one's an eco, but...

It's reminiscent of how they've played the majority of their defense half so far. I need to see them get aggressive on defense here I think. That push back, dash is active.

In through, there's a slider, the timing's for Rien, the shot just missing. Defense in order here, Simon just pushing back the invaders onto the site, it is theirs. Rien's ult has popped off, it's a winnable scenario and the kill is collected. Fight needs to go down, four seconds, nobody will be able to stick it tonight! From the break, Heretics found their answer.

So Team Heretics were able to win that round, but EDG were able still to put together a really good attacking half. And they did it, and we're going to show this round here, round number 11, because this I think is pretty a good example of how EDG managed to win their attacking side. Because they're going to do something that's kind of become a bit of a theme on Abyss for really gaining attackers advantage. And that is being able to just attack in towards mid here.

And EDG are playing an interesting comp with an Astra Omen. right double controller and i do think that double controller is how we'll see abyss you know obviously is the new map kind of be played more and more because i think these double controller comps are working pretty well because it allows you to attack mid more and you know myself and many others initially look to this map i'm like there's no point in going mid don't even worry about it but actually as it's played out it seems like at least at this point defenders don't really have the the right protocols of how you actually deal with mid right and so we see here a good example where edg they use the double control to smoke up both sides of mid just here and Kang Kang walks in towards the kind of uh you know little area with the doors and it's going to create some pressure right and now they do a bit of an a fake here where we're sending an omen flash out here uh for Kang Kang you know we've got multiple players in here we're omen flashing we're droning down here we're making this look like it's going to be an a split but very quickly we're actually going to pivot and come back towards the b site and it's going to be very difficult for team heretics to know what to do and you're going to see it these guys here they they Think that this is an A split, right? So they're going to come charging out here. The thing is, EDG are going to pivot back to them and all of a sudden there's going to be four people in mid and they're in a 2v4. Bodies are still lining up, reinforcements arriving here in the footsteps.

It's a rumble and a scattered fight indeed. Skirmish to be taken, EDG! So in response there, what you might have heard was the Gecko ult coming out and it actually does manage to hit onto nobody who was droning out towards A. So now it's going to be very interesting where Buu is going to try and push this and get this kill, but he's just too far away. The map is just too big.

And you see the problem with when people come mid, it's like, what do you do if you're mini-boo here, right? You're the guy on B. You've got people pressure probably coming from you this way, but it's very difficult to push out this way, right? It's just very hard because they can be in so many different positions, right?

Like, where do you end up going? Do you end up just trying to chill behind this box, but eventually you're going to get seen here? Like, it just seems like there isn't a great answer here for them to do. So mini-boo deals what most players probably would, which is just kind of chill here, hiding on the back side. But unfortunately for him, that's not a good solution either.

Honestly again the scaling is required, tucks to the side and the weapon's right out, ready to strike! Buu is dropped in place and Mini Buu left with it all to do! It's just not possible!

So EDG won 8-4 on their attacking side, but their defensive side did not go so well. And in fact they really won this tournament and this game because of two moments. in my opinion one came on this pistol round because if they didn't win this pistol round they probably don't win this game considering how most of the rest of the half went but thankfully for them nobody did this mid connector now if simon wants to rotate it's got to go all the way through spawn and same could be said for kang kang and smoggy that puts hold on Nobody and Shishu on an island, but nobody. What are you doing? Giving away your position here.

I mean, far and a dart. He gets away with it. The play was being made here and they've lost control of mid.

The bow says, oh my god! Nobody! Oh, goodness me!

So that round got EDG up to nine and then they won the second round as well. And they even won their bonus round. We got to 11-4.

So yeah, that was it. GG. It was over. EDG won.

Apart from that. that wasn't really it because Team Heretics won five rounds in a row and we actually got back to 11-9 and it looked like EDG were panicking they didn't have any answers they were struggling obviously they were playing a no sentinel comp here so there was some gaps for them and because they're trying to fill some of those gaps that meant there was less players to defend the sites which then meant that they couldn't hold on to the sites and so things weren't going so well but whilst the meme of get ready to learn Chinese buddy might be dead there is one saying in Valorant Which is definitely still true. And that is, when a team is making a big comeback, but they fail, they always fail against an eco round. And the saying goes, it's always an eco.

And to these EDG players, the pressure shifted onto them, and KangKang forced a step up to the moment. That's to avoid, and shots are fired! KangKang!

He's monstrous when he gets going! And he does it! Oh my sake, I had to do it!

Transcript for:EDG's Valorant Success and Meme Evolution

Transcript for:
EDG's Valorant Success and Meme Evolution