NRG’s Austin “crashies” Roberts talks about current meta, teamplay and wanting to meet FNATIC and Liquid in Masters Tokyo Playoffs
Defeating T1 in a nerve-rackingly close Winner’s Bo3 match has granted NRG Esports a spot in the Playoffs of Masters Tokyo. The North Americans had to rely on many instances of individual plays, especially clutches from their Initiator crashies, to win the game.
In a post-match interview, crashies was asked whether he was concerned at all about being reliant on individual plays more than a cohesive team effort. “Yeah, we definitely played super sloppy today, in my opinion, and, I mean, heroics were definitely pulled out today as well, and obviously, we don’t wanna win like that. We wanna win with good team play, good strats, good anti-strats. So we’re looking to clean it up for Playoffs, obviously.” crashies replied.
NRG have already played in five different maps in only two matches. They have once again shown their Harbour-Viper composition on Bind and several other strategies in multiple maps. Going into the Playoffs, the teams waiting on the other side have already seen how the North American squad has been playing.
“I definitely think we played a lot of maps, and it’s a lot of info for teams that are in Playoffs watching us, so we just have to go back to the drawing board and hopefully come up with new stuff in time.”
The other day, NRG’s in-game leader Pujan “FNS” Mehta talked about having only two compositions per map since having more can become confusing.
Credit: Riot Games
crashies spoke about which teams he wanted to fight against in the Playoffs, and he put the European squads above every other option. “I’ll take FNATIC. We’ve never played FNATIC before. I’ll take Liquid cause they look really good right now and beat FNATIC in EMEA. So, you know, one of the two. I mean, LOUD, we played so many times, so hopefully not LOUD again.”
LOUD and NRG had multiple encounters at VCT Americas, with NRG being the only team to defeat the Brazilian Titans. The Initiator also showed interest in fighting Paper Rex in the Playoffs – “I just wanna play Paper Rex at their full strength with ‘something.’ So, hopefully, something’s able to make it.”
Lastly, crashies criticized the current Controller meta compared to the old Chamber meta that has been long gone since the massive nerfs to the Sentinel Agent. “I think this Harbour meta is a little boring, to be honest. At least with Chamber meta, you had to push the OP back a lot, you had to be a lot more strategical (with) how you played the game, and right now, it’s just a bunch of spamming Phantoms through smokes.”
PLAYOFFS BOUND! @NRGgg takes the series win vs T1. #VALORANTMasters pic.twitter.com/dDPKq8uxs8
— VALORANT Champions Tour (@ValorantEsports) June 13, 2023
After losing to NRG, T1 will have to face the winner of the NAVI vs EDG encounter on their second opportunity to make it to the Playoffs.
estnn.com
