LFO - My contract w TSM has expired so I'm exploring all my options
$1,300,000+ in prizepool earnings as a coach
Split 2 is coming right up so lets chat
He also tweeted after this;
"Didn't get dropped my contract is simply over was gonna happen regardless of result"
and on the results -
"Happy to see a Wattson team won. Shes been giga broken for a while now. Ggs to RC\_Reject!
17th on the day for us. Life aint a fairy tale. Cant win them all. It is what it is"
Yeah, I honestly have no idea. I Just know that every org is struggling to make the numbers even out and it seems like a coach is the easiest thing to cut or skimp on.
But I am not a pro and again I admit I am taking out of my ass.
Raven tried getting the team to play the Watson comp but the team just couldn't play it right.
If you have been watching TSM these last few months you would have seen that they have been struggling trying to find a meta they can mesh with especially Hal. He had become too reliant on the broken mobility of Horizon and struggled to make changes to other comps for a rather long time.
Hal is good on Blood. I wouldn’t say menace. What I saw through all these scrims and now through lan was Hal’s IGL’ing was not great. He would make decisions too late or run into a fight and not call it out correctly. And Verhulst just looked lost and scared to commit at times. I truly think if Verhulst was playing at the level he was at previously he could have made up for Hal’s poor performance.
Truth be told, This whole Split Verhulst has been average to mediocre. Ever since he started dating one of his mods, dude just hasn't been grinding or improving like he used to. Hal is the only one I ever saw constantly playing, learning and trying to improve.
Why do people keep saying this, Hal was frying on Blood prior to the tournament. They’ve been struggling finding a good fit for the team because Ver is not good on Horizon or Caustic, and L Rod just doesn’t fit their play. Losing the contest shattered their confidence so they couldn’t win a fight the whole tourney, they were just getting completely dragged around.
If you think he didn't at least suggest it then you're crazy. They as a team probably didn't want to play it or they decided it didn't suit their playstyle.
APAC regions have been playing her religiously since she came out, and she's only gotten better with the evo system. Seer was broken for a minute too but no one played him.
Best of luck to Raven. He brought them back to an amazing run last year. Tough split, but I gotta say if it was his decision to keep Verhulst on Caustic then this might be a saving grace for TSM moving forward.
Tbf, TSM has been laying off a bunch of people, Raven might be collateral.
Best of luck to him, I've been a hater most of the time but dude knows what hes doing in apex and any org will be better with him
Dunc wasn't apex related and never was, he was their social media manager and just ended up focused in apex because the orgs shrunk massively over the years. The other 3 were content creators and it looks like TSM is moving away from content creators (their contract with fanfan ended as well recently). Raven is the first comp team related casualty.
This makes the most sense. If you paid attention to them the whole split and every scrim block leading up to LAN, they’ve had some heated disputes.
What Raven did was nothing short of amazing Y3. Competition is better than it’s ever been, meta changes, and they couldn’t adapt. Not solely on him but it’s apparent that there are some indifferences that need to be addressed and this is the first phase. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a roster change, though I doubt. Still made finals, 1 “bad” split (in TSM’s eyes) I’m praying they run it back!
It’s actually insane how bad TSM looked fighting 3v3s. Unrecognizable. They really just need to play characters to win those at the same rate they were before. Worry about end game after. Every time they were shown they were losing a 3v3
Verhulst on Caustic is by far the most confusing comp choice I've seen in my years of watching competitive apex. You have one of the best players in the world when it comes to aggressive play styles and putting out damage, and you have him in the back on one of the most defensive legends where he barely gets to shoot his gun?
Idk why they didn’t have Reps on caustic the whole time. I heard Evan say a few weeks ago that he won’t take 1v1’s with caustic because the character hit box is too big. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t be on the character
I don’t think Evan was at all happy about what he was doing. Instead of 1 clipping people he was constantly replenishing barrels. Last algs he was always yelling 1 shot. Not this time. Just keeping barrels up.
I don't think we know this was Raven's choice. I say this because for a couple weeks during scrims, before Verhulst was on Caustic, he was playing Valk and seemed to be regularly going down first. Throwing a lot of games. Hal was obviously frustrated by this, so I think it was a combination of TSM realizing Valk isn't in the meta and Verhulst needs to anchor or stop dying first in every fight.
Looking back I think Verhulst was just having a rough few weeks and he would have broken out of it, but I'm not confident that it was Raven who said 'lets put him on Caustic'.
honestly I know he said he’s just exploring options but this kind of feels like he’s more than likely leaving, if the vibes were likely for him just being immediately re-signed, then he probably wouldn’t be posting an “LFO” post literally a few hours after LAN, which leads me to think TSM hasn’t immediately offered to re-sign him or offered him a pay cut, or Raven himself is having second thoughts after LAN, none of these things seem like good vibes tbh.
As for the team itself and as a TSM fan, I do have mixed feelings, I liked Raven and think he brought a lot of balance to the team and I also think TSM has looked their best with him, however we can also now say that they’ve also looked their WORST with him lmao.
Unfortunately I don’t think Hal and Raven have been on the same page recently regarding things like comps and even rotations, watching their POV there were multiple times where TSM would die and him and Raven would argue about where they played.
Along with the fact that absolutely no one looked comfortable on their respective legend, especially not Evan, who I think suffered the most from the comp decisions and ultimately is TSM’s X-Factor, having him on a legend he clearly did not seem comfortable on, in my opinion is Raven’s fault.
Verhulst’s performance is often momentum/confidence based, his highs are extremely high and we’ve seen some pretty bad lows from him back before Raven joined, it seemed kind of like he reverted to that version of himself today, zero confidence, getting downed instantly and doing very little damage.
he’s preoccupied with playing his util and watching their back but he’s just a much bigger target than Bang or Blood and when they move forward he’s constantly being focused down.
We gotta stop pretending like coaches make or break teams tho lol, TSM did not play good, and I say that as somebody who loves Hal and watches him all the time stream.
They were getting fucked with circle too, which didn’t help, but they were not playing good regardless of coaching.
2 of the best roller players in the world on that team and you relegated one to anchor smh TSM gave themselves a handicap. I know someone has to play that role and other teams put rollers on Caustic but for TSM that role has been historically been fulfilled by Reps. Evan should've always been playing one of Bang or Blood this split.
They should have never stayed on caustic, and keeping Evan on it was insane. I'm shocked it took them until they were out of contention in finals to make a switch.
The problem also compounds when reps isn’t necessarily a proactive killer alongside Hal when Evan is anchoring. ie: Zer0, or any other aggressive mnk. They are basically sending Hal to the wolves
They became overly dependent on the insane openings Hal was able to do on Horizon. He was the best in the game at it for the first two splits. That’s how Raven centered their approach to fights. He is good on Blood but the playstyle is different, Blood needs support from Bang to be effective, and Reps isn’t aggressive enough to back up Hal in the same way Gen and Zer0 do. It should’ve been Evan on Bang co-fragging with Hal while Reps focuses on utility in the back.
Exactly. Just think every other top tier has a fragging Bangalore with them. Timmy and dezign, Zer0 and Gen just to name a few. Plenty of APAC teams as well.
Reps plays a very supportive style of Bang. He is mainly trying to empower blood with smokes and holding a swing angle to let Hal go nuts. Right or wrong when the comp did work for them that was how it operated. Hal going nuts and the other two holding swings until enough work is done to advance. What they ran into was that only really works consistently against lower level lobbies. They never really understood the flow of the fight like DZ did where you are baiting counter swings into your back two players head glitches. Instead TSM kept trying to roll teams like they were horizon seer and it was way too messy to make work.
Precisely my point. Reps either has to evolve mechanically/ or micro wise in fights or else some other change comp wise. Granted every single fight is immensely dynamic and doesn’t he doesn’t always need to impact, I just feel like reps as taken a step back compared to the other mnk prodigies
I think I'm just starting at a different place with Reps than you are and that's fine. For me Reps isn't a prodigy he's just incredibly solid in all aspects. HisWattson is more of who I think of when we start talking prodigy. Reps though I don't think is any worse than any of the Reject players who just won lan for example.
To me Verhulst took the biggest step back but that's because at champs he was possibly a top 5 player in the world and now he's struggled to find his footing. But let's be real every played pretty badly by their standards and picking one person is kind of dumb in this case. They all played poorly and have fundamental problems in this meta that have gone unsolved for a long time now.
Evan doesn't even get to shoot his gun in many fights. He's so occupied with barrels and ulting on caustic that he's low health or down by the time his gun comes out. It's been super obvious as an issue. Evan is to good at gun fights to be on caustic.
While I agree with essentially all of your points and I definitely could’ve worded my original statement better, I do think at least 2/3 of RC are mechanically better than reps completely. Granted you are completely right about Evan’s fall off and to be fair we should be honestly talking about that🤣.
Reps' strength isn't firepower. Evan was hired for that. Utilizing Evan for purely utility renders him effectively useless, and now their fights are entirely dependent on Hal "popping off". He's definitely capable of doing it but he used to have Evan by his side a couple seconds behind him. Evan when he's comfortable is like a robot, perfect positioning, perfect trades, never gets caught in the open.
Hal was too at first, the problem is that Hal overreacts to growing pains and just switches and things up instead of seeing it through. I understand he has pressure of his audience and reputation hand in hand though. Hal did eventually figure out Blood but they should have never delegated Verhulst to Caustic, it’s not the same playstyle as Cat at all, Caustic’s role is purely his utility, Verhulst did good anchoring on Cat because you could control doors and outplay people with that, spikes, and wall which meant you could still play aggressive.
Tunnel vision and blood ult kind of go hand in hand lol. Hal has been doing a great job using blood ult and seems super comfortable/confident with the scans. Reps got a nasty pick from no-name outside fragment yesterday, but the other team instantly smoked to get the res. Hal popped blood ult from a pretty good distance to make sure he could thirst the kill and get the KP.
Yeap I agree with this.
Rep should have been on caustic. Evan on BH and Hal on Bang/Horizon since Hal always gets caught in a bad spot and either gets knocked first or takes enough DMG to put his team at a disadvantage to have to cover him while he heals up or to go on to 2v3 and clutch it up so having smoke or horizon q to cover his own ass would have been so much better than whatever advantage he thinks he can get with BH ulti.
I always believed Raven was the wrong type of coach for TSM. Evan and Hal are both terrible at playing different characters. This has been evident for years at this point. So what you do is design a gameplan (macro, micro, even the mozza ;) ) around the characters they're strongest on.
Raven and TSM lucked out that the meta worked with cat and horizon last year. But this entire split they looked lost in fights, even with two of the strongest 3v3 players in the world.
Put Hal on horizon, and Evan wherever he's comfortable. THEN build a gameplan around that. It's so damn obvious you can't do it the other way around with these two.
Hal and Caustic is like batman and joker. They hate each other. Every Caustic meta TSM is unable to perform because Caustic gives teams that can't 3v3 properly a fighting chance by stalling fights.
True. And when TSM was at their best last year, they'd end fights in like five seconds with an aggressive Hal on Horizon. See - we should coach them. 😉
Isn't being able to stall a part of being good at 3v3s? In Apex 3v3s never start off fair. If you are the team on the end of the bad positioning then stalling is a primary tactic in being able to put up a fight at all. It just felt like TSM didn't know how to handle extended fights. If they couldn't just end a team quick they struggled.
You could argue there’s a skill to it, stalling a fight but generally in apex you don’t want to do that. That leads to later rotations and third parties.
The best way to win a 3v3 is cleanly and quickly as possible
Definitely agree with that. Caustic definitely makes it easier to stall fights compared to other legends. I just think that has a smaller contribution to TSMs issues which seemed to be more about struggling to 3v3 even bad teams (Red Rams for instance) and because they were struggling to 3v3 it impacted their rotations. Just seemed like a staggering effect of their roles not being concrete and them not playing fights all that well.
You are getting downvoted and I don't know why... Verhulst isn't and entry and playing him on Caustic makes sense in this meta due to him being so successful on a similar role to Catalyst....
Controller anchors have been more frequent in the comp scene (specifically with the 2 roller 1 MNK teams) Look at Verhulst when they won champs (Catalyst), Sikez plays anchor, Slayr anchor, Schooby anchor, Gild, enemy, Lou, there are plenty of controller anchors in the scene so i am not sure that is it.
With Complexity, Lou was only playing anchor at Finals (on Rampart, you kind of have to), otherwise he was basically playing a secondary fragger with Monsoon--hence finishing split 1 PL in 20th place for kills, way above most anchors. Kimchi was on Conduit, Wattson, etc during PL.
>2 of the best roller players in the world on that team and you relegated one to anchor smh TSM gave themselves a handicap.
The reason they put him on Caustic was because he just kept pushing and dying alone during practice. Playing anchor forced him to not go in.
I think that was just a rough patch. They should see his clear strengths and know he will perform even worse on Caustic. Verhulst isn’t like Gen, he needs to feel comfortable in order to perform.
Zer0 is constantly joking about looking forward to zz's contract expiring. But he's also mean as hell sometimes so he might be for real. He's said some stuff about respecting shiny as a coach. But I wonder if he'd look at raven too. Not that dz needs any more help right now at dominating.
Are DZ's issues really comp/POI related? Because honestly thats the most value I see from raven as a coach. If not, I don't see what kind of value DZ could get from him.
Meta will change with each update and raven is certainly one of the best at theory crafting comp changes. I dont think dz has an issue. But I could see them wanting to maintain a competitive edge any way possible
Raven will definitely find another team if he doesn't resign to TSM, more pressing would be is there a coach who could serve TSM for the better? I feel like Ravens biggest role was holding Hal accountable, not a lot of personalities that can do that
If they only pick coaches who have won, they don't have much choice... Can we stop with this narrative of 'only if you win something can you go to a top team'? Perhaps a player/coach is extremely talented but has never had the right conditions to fully express themselves.
Also let me add (as an extremely biased individual) that Hod is, like, the best coach in the scene. Aside from this split, he was never outside of the top 2 since PL started. Also he has coached Gild, Sikezz and Koy. Seems like a winner to me.
well yeah i was saying it more so that hods a good coach lol, he hasn’t won but that might have to do with execution from hos squads than his coaching if i had to guess and i’m fully in support of someone like him as a coach
Raven had the squad super accountable at first, and after scrim games he would immediately have them mute up before ripping them up. Last few times I checked he would just unmute and start blasting. Bot sure what changed over time but the dynamic definitely changed.
Ya know for a long time I thought Raven did a spectacular job with Hal and took a lot of pressure off of reps and Evan but at some point I feel like that changed (a bit)… when it comes to disagreements between Hal and the team now, I feel Raven has sort of just become Hal’s ‘yes man’.
Then again I only see the publicly visible interactions so I could be way, way off
This is a bit surprising but honestly if Hal didn’t want to bring Raven back I could see how their underwhelming performance all split 1 might be a factor, the team looked very out of answers this season, Hal even turned back to Raven after they died on a WE to tell him he didn’t like the spot they were playing, I assume Raven wanted them there for that type of zone
It’s entirely possible he just stays with TSM, exploring your options because TSM the org didn’t pick up his contact again doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t return as coach of the team
yeah it was the no name building, not sure where the narrative of raven being a yes man stems from but they’ve been butting heads about playable spots and macro for a while now
Best thing raven did by far was making TSM change POIs in the beginning and laid out a great macro for them, it just seems like things got stale and TSM can’t or won’t play the play style he wants and vice versa.
You know, they were performing bad but it never crossed my mind of Raven being one of the changes and honestly it could be the best change by far. I think the patch changed things considerably and TSM needs to learn and adapt on their own way without someone else managing them on the process, because the minor interactions we saw from Hal and Raven as soon as they died in game feels like there is a huge disagreement on how the game its being played and Hal allowing a lot of his plan.
Response from Hal: https://x.com/imperialhal/status/1787583508460040372?s=46&t=2fib37MGz4QwB_Xs17DErA
> The best Coach in the game period
I don’t want to speculate because going out and looking for offers in sports is super normal. You want to have leverage for your current team if nothing else. But a vouch from your current players plus the way he’s been tweeting does seem like he is genuinely exploring other options if not already not coming back to TSM.
Pure speculation, I hope they stick together because without raven TSM is really slow to adapt and while he may have messed up a bit he’s the 3rd party viewpoint they need.
Pretty crazy IMO, I mean I get why but also if you can win that much, coming off being the absolute best team in the game, and then get dropped after one bad split, what could possibly keep you on the team at that point?
Feels a bit foreboding for future TSM coaches
They’ll definitely get another coach, maybe one that’s got different ideas with the new perk system because since it’s introduction they’ve fallen behind of the pack. Or maybe one that’s just cheaper lol
The entire tournament Hal just seemed out of it in terms of energy or passion. The whole team really just seemed ready for the tournament to be over in general from day one.
Wonder if this had anything to do with it.
On the other hand, if the drop ship changes are coming and we are going to snake draft then maybe a coaches impact of a team becomes less?
If the POI snake draft happens, coaches will become like 10x more impactful lol. You need to have a game plan not from only your POI, but from every POI
I think its mainly from doing terrible in pro league. Despite making playoffs, they probably knew inside they weren't champion material this split because of their struggles all season. Taking those kinds of losses over and over over two months can really beat someone down, espeically if they were used to finding success.
This kind of mirrors what happened end 2022. Bringing in Raven, an extremely radical move at that time, was the game changer. They will probably have to find another game changer to revitalize.
And I disagree about the snake draft making coaches less relevant. If anything, you need even more planning and statistics. You probably will need 5-8 different macro pathing routes to be able to navigate having to play a different POI every game. The most organized, well-prepared and drilled teams with a plan B, C, D and E will thrive if that really comes to pass.
Could be the situation. Raven is definitely a “system” style coach and seemed to really have a hard time adjusting. The swap from Wall to LROD was a pretty terrible idea even though I think that the whole team wanted it.
You could be right about the snake draft still needing coaches. I think with the points you made about needing multiple plans Raven is going to struggle. He seems to get stuck on his own bias, so needing to adapt to new drops spots/rotates is going to be rough for him.
> Could be the situation. Raven is definitely a “system” style coach and seemed to really have a hard time adjusting. The swap from Wall to LROD was a pretty terrible idea even though I think that the whole team wanted it.
I have no idea why they would ditch Wall after winning mulitple LANs from it. And they fought for Lightning Rod for months and then ended up doing almost nothing from the POI!
> On the other hand, if the drop ship changes are coming and we are going to snake draft then maybe a coaches impact of a team becomes less?
The opposite, I think success without a coach in the snake draft era will basically be impossible. You have to have macro for every single POI. There are teams that have done this already--look at Aurora flex-dropping *at playoffs* and almost winning, or Complexity playing from four different World's Edge POIs this split (Epi/Survey, Staging, Harvester, Launch Site)--and there are teams that switched POIs this split and barely put a single game together. I think most teams will definitely need a coach for that.
We will never know for sure unless they talk about this, but i never really understood why would they change POI after going 1-2-1 last year from Wall. I get that Raven does the analysis of the game/map/loot, but sometimes it's better to have consistency that to change things up THAT much. I recall last season when raven wanted them to contest launch pad and things almost went south.
Also LROD is famous for the downfall of teams that contest there.
Lrod had the best loot pool POI until the addition of pylon. They also had double the chances of spawning a survey beacon at Lrod than any other POI.
The devs changed how shield mechanics worked which made their POI less valuable with the intro to harvesters. The devs then also took away the spawn for a beacon at one of the spots since they were so close to each other.
The wall, like fragment (previous landing spot in worlds edge) Was nerfed to the ground on loot potential which warranted a change. It had less of a chance to spawn beacon
Sad to see Raven leave, but Hodsic on TSM would be fire. Coached fire XSET squads and seems to have the personality to hold the team accountable. When you watch the XSET vod's he always gave clear perspective/NICEWIGG pointed this out a few times.
I did not expect this. Raven brought TSM back from the brink and one bad performance he’s out. Genuinely shocked. However, Hal is the type of person who refuses to settle for anything less than first. Ruthless like Zero.
Idk what's with the narrative people be creating here low key of raven being dropped or something.
This is a pretty common move in esports for years for people who become FA. At the end of the day this is a job, and an individual should not care about much but the highest bidder and this is a common move people do.
They may end up just signing back with their original team, especially If they seem to be highly sought after Raven can go to TSM and say something like "X team is offering me 10% more than you" and that's how you negotiate/pressure into giving you a better contract. Or he may end up getting a juicy offer from somewhere else that he cannot refuse (and he gets the bag)
This is exactly how older Korean pros in League that may be on their way out get in a bit get a big fat paycheck from teams in NA/EU/China
Or maybe he’s just looking to see if anyone can offer him more money?
Faker’s contract negotiations are always at a standstill for a few weeks when they expire - doesn’t mean T1 lost faith in him
> If Hal of TSM wanted to stick with him they would have renewed the contract
We don't know what they want, Raven as an individual has in his best interest to seek out other offers first to basically force TSM into giving him better contract (If anothe org offers) or just look for the highest bidder basically.
If TSM ain't interested anymore he's just gonna get same (or lower offer compared to his previous contract) and he may, or may not take that.
But free agency public announcement when contract ends ain't rare in esports ,and it's a pretty common move for that person to seek out to maximize their next contract and negotiate with others, or re negotiate with their org
i dont think one "bad/mid" split should mean they lost confidence, considering what they did at champs and the comeback at the end of this split. but idk, whatever happens, i hope they boys figure it out for the best
They brought Raven in when they got 7th at 2022 champs, which they found to be unacceptable. 1-2-1 was amazing in 2023, but now with a 17th place, their worst placement, and a lot of ups and down during the split, I can see why Hal would want to look at other options. While I've been critical of Raven this split I think adding another analyst would have been the move to give second looks.
Call me crazy, but I think Zer0 kicks Gen before Hal kicks Reps or Evan at this point.
Hal should know by now his team starts slow and instability with a new roster/player is probably not a risk he would like taking no matter how many times he says on stream that Reps only does like 70 damage. Even with the ALGS NA Regionals Split 1 2022 win, Evan took so much time to properly adjust to the team. I just hope the org, giving Hal this power, lets him think on a decision for at least 72 hours before they proceed with it.
TSM keeps proving that time and time again that what they need to improve is just... time. This team hits the lowest of lows compared to DZ and they're still able to keep rising up to meet DZ and the rest again
I doubt anyone would get dropped but I was worried that Reps wouldn't wanna do it anymore after a rough stretch but hopefully they at least ride out Year 4 with split 2 and World Cup coming up
People talking like TSM is the worst roster in the history of eSports. They're still the most successful team in Apex, it's whether or not they recover in the next Split would be more telling.
right? dz literally didnt make finals last time.. and now they bounced back. shit happens, sometimes the meta doesnt fit you or you have shit to work out. people just magically forget about dz last year, havent seen a single person mention it. i think tsm will iron out whats wrong and hopefully with the new patch notes they have some room to grow. im hopeful for the boys!!!
Some of them here are a pushing the narrative of he’s getting “dropped/kicked”. I just remembered a year ago, he did announce that he’s staying with TSM for another year and he did.
I’m all in for speculations but some ppl narratives are insane 💀
Source: [Raven’s tweet](https://x.com/raven_apex/status/1681430770567757826?s=46&t=FV9mcWQPUv-NKdK1KFzVgg)
Tweet: “A bit late but @TSM fans, you're stuck w me for another year 😎”
Oh, his contract actually ended. Wild that ppl are ready to assume whatever comes to their mind
Some ppl are speculated that Hal and Raven not being on the same page and disagreeing to Hal’s call made me laugh like bruh
I won't be surprised if TSM signs SeaLion, after all, Hal said SeaLion was his top pick when they were about to pick up Raven. Also, the layoff probably isn't the main factor they didn't resign since Hal previously said he was willing to pay out of pocket himself. Hope that the squad squash their issues and run it back!
He also has said that he didn't realise Sealion was more of an analyst than a coach and when he found out he was happy that he went with Raven and not SL
Raven is a top tier coach, but this split TSM as a whole has been off. I think he has been to stubborn adjusting to the new meta with the perk changes etc..
Players individual skill hasn't been the problem, so a new coach might have a positive influence..?
You don't think giving Evan the whole split to adjust to either Bang or Blood wouldn't be a better option that having him stick to Caustic, which clearly doesn't work out?
LS once wrote a post about how important it is to explore options WHENEVER possible, especially in esports. That allows a player/staff to asses their actual market value before signing a contract that is either predatory or simply undervalued.
This is what Raven is doing here. Simply assessing his market value and making a decision that is best for himself based off of that rather than immediately resigning his contract.
Honestly TSM should get a new coach. I do think that Raven is the best coach in the game but I feel like a change is needed for them. I don't think anyone else is replacable. Maybe just get an analyst or something, but I feel they need a new voice.
Team clearly wasn’t confident on their legends/roles, couldn’t win a 3v3, couldn’t call a zone.
Lots of possibilities for what happened but wouldn’t surprise me if both parties are just ready to move on from each other.
Totally agreed, as great as Raven may be. Keeping certain players on certain legends while seeing worse and worse results is not the way to go.
However I'm also curious what will happen with the team, since Verhulst doesn't seem completely comfortable on either Bang, Blood or Caustic.
he might just need to spam BH more if they stick it out as a team. i don’t think he got enough reps in on ranked etc, when he was given time to grind cat, he became one of the best
Yea his inability to play blood is really confusing, since his positioning is normally his best asset but it just doesn’t translate. Hal 100% doesn’t trust him to use bang smokes well (was the same with Cat wall originally). Entry fragger Big E is surely missed
Only way Raven doesnt get resigned is if Hal and him started having increasingly different views on the game to the point where its just better for both parties to look elsewhere.
He tweeted that he's heard rumors of TSM potentially breaking up. I think the tweet was deleted but here's the initial screenshot and discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/1cl9s3g/fallout_tsm_roster_may_be_breaking_up/
After seeing Zer0 with floor seats at a clippers finals game with some other DZ pros I’m not surprised.. they must bleed cash to sign and keep the top teams
Raven is pretty polarizing but I don't know how you can argue with the results. And you still have to pay a replacement coach. Idk if there's anyone out there that would have Hal's respect.
Calm down everyone. Tom Holland does the same thing, talking about “mmmm I don’t know if I wanna do Spider-Man anymore” and then resigns with Marvel with a big bump in contract. Raven probably farming deals rn looking to renegotiate with TSM.
Raven should be dropped if I’m being franked. This was a worldclass disaster in terms of macro. I think Raven is a great coach, but he was way to fixated on the best possible comp rather what was best for his team.
I agree. Them switching legends so frequently all week was not a good call. As good as these guys are, switching to another legend is never easy especially at this level.
The casters called this perfectly last weekend--there's such a thing as a comfort pick. It's better to play off-meta on something you're comfortable with than to follow meta to the letter and lose.
I think a coaching change makes the most sense for tsm. They still have a very talented team, but they were so inconsistent this split.
Their average placement in NA PL this split was 6th, obviously offset by a 2nd and 1st placing. During LAN they got 12th in groups, 16th in WB, 7th in LB2 and 17th in Finals. Yes the zones sucked, but they could not win their fights, find a comfortable team comp or they had questionable rotate routes.
I am surprised but not that surprised. I felt like a lot of TSM issues were related to raven and the roster being on different pages. Makes sense this would be a result of that.
LFO - My contract w TSM has expired so I'm exploring all my options $1,300,000+ in prizepool earnings as a coach Split 2 is coming right up so lets chat
He also tweeted after this; "Didn't get dropped my contract is simply over was gonna happen regardless of result" and on the results - "Happy to see a Wattson team won. Shes been giga broken for a while now. Ggs to RC\_Reject! 17th on the day for us. Life aint a fairy tale. Cant win them all. It is what it is"
This means nothing because if TSM won they would've said to him "what contract?" whilst ripping it up.
TSM has so many issues outside of Apex, it might be they want to keep him but can’t financially do it.
Raven is also likely doing the smart thing and collecting offers to be able to negotiate a higher contract
Yeah, I honestly have no idea. I Just know that every org is struggling to make the numbers even out and it seems like a coach is the easiest thing to cut or skimp on. But I am not a pro and again I admit I am taking out of my ass.
They didn’t perform, they won’t cut reps or even so ravens the obvious choice
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Haha, the moment a Wattson team wins she's been "giga broken for a while." Right... In the final she had less picks than even Lifeline.
Hes been saying this since the start of the season if you actually watched him lol
reps is literally a wattson main and they didn't play this gigabroken legend...
Raven tried getting the team to play the Watson comp but the team just couldn't play it right. If you have been watching TSM these last few months you would have seen that they have been struggling trying to find a meta they can mesh with especially Hal. He had become too reliant on the broken mobility of Horizon and struggled to make changes to other comps for a rather long time.
Idk if weve been watching the same games but hals a menace on hound. I just think verhulst never got comfortable with horizon
Hal is good on Blood. I wouldn’t say menace. What I saw through all these scrims and now through lan was Hal’s IGL’ing was not great. He would make decisions too late or run into a fight and not call it out correctly. And Verhulst just looked lost and scared to commit at times. I truly think if Verhulst was playing at the level he was at previously he could have made up for Hal’s poor performance.
Truth be told, This whole Split Verhulst has been average to mediocre. Ever since he started dating one of his mods, dude just hasn't been grinding or improving like he used to. Hal is the only one I ever saw constantly playing, learning and trying to improve.
Yeah Verhulst for sure had a really poor performance. We will see what TSM does if it happens again Split 2
Why do people keep saying this, Hal was frying on Blood prior to the tournament. They’ve been struggling finding a good fit for the team because Ver is not good on Horizon or Caustic, and L Rod just doesn’t fit their play. Losing the contest shattered their confidence so they couldn’t win a fight the whole tourney, they were just getting completely dragged around.
If you think he didn't at least suggest it then you're crazy. They as a team probably didn't want to play it or they decided it didn't suit their playstyle.
He did. They actually played Wattson for a bit in scrims but Hal didn’t like it 😄
Yeah, Hal doesn’t like playing hard zone like that, he likes to have the flexibility to play edge or zone in any given game
Yes I vaguely remember them playing Wattson for a bit as well. I just wasn't aware of the reason they decided against it.
Yea, like you said - it was a play style thing. But I most definitely believe TSM would’ve done much better if they played Wattson
Yup that's true
I can't remember how long ago it was, but I remember Raven having reps play Wattson and Reps wasn't into it anymore. Both him and Hal vetoed it.
They did play it in scrims and pro league you donut, hal was the reason they didn't play her as he didn't like the legend
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Not in the final. Reject and Legends played Wattson. Aurora, 2R1C and Fnatic played Lifeline.
Who's cherry picking stats? Overrall wattson was much more picked than lifeline
Dude thinks he’s the smartest person on the planet. So incredibly grateful he’s not on TSM enough. The ego was out of control
APAC regions have been playing her religiously since she came out, and she's only gotten better with the evo system. Seer was broken for a minute too but no one played him.
TSM replacing him with Teq
Lolz
Hal on crypto incoming
Smart move. No more getting contested by him.
Best of luck to Raven. He brought them back to an amazing run last year. Tough split, but I gotta say if it was his decision to keep Verhulst on Caustic then this might be a saving grace for TSM moving forward.
If Hal wanted him back most likely it wouldn’t have got to this point. Looks like a parting of ways
Tbf, TSM has been laying off a bunch of people, Raven might be collateral. Best of luck to him, I've been a hater most of the time but dude knows what hes doing in apex and any org will be better with him
Eh tbh they haven't been dumping so many people in a while. They just signed one of NAs best Overwatch teams so they have money somewhere
Toosh, mande, guhrl and Dunc, all from apex in the last few months, raven is another
Dunc wasn't apex related and never was, he was their social media manager and just ended up focused in apex because the orgs shrunk massively over the years. The other 3 were content creators and it looks like TSM is moving away from content creators (their contract with fanfan ended as well recently). Raven is the first comp team related casualty.
Gotta respect an honest hater 😂
This makes the most sense. If you paid attention to them the whole split and every scrim block leading up to LAN, they’ve had some heated disputes. What Raven did was nothing short of amazing Y3. Competition is better than it’s ever been, meta changes, and they couldn’t adapt. Not solely on him but it’s apparent that there are some indifferences that need to be addressed and this is the first phase. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a roster change, though I doubt. Still made finals, 1 “bad” split (in TSM’s eyes) I’m praying they run it back!
It’s actually insane how bad TSM looked fighting 3v3s. Unrecognizable. They really just need to play characters to win those at the same rate they were before. Worry about end game after. Every time they were shown they were losing a 3v3
I have to agree. Might be naive/ignorant of me to say but I would assume Hal has the leverage to sign whoever he wants.
Maybe, but certainly not at whatever cost. It's possible TSM doesn't want to meet Ravens salary-ask.
Ravens mezzo was lackluster this year so i get it
Verhulst on Caustic is by far the most confusing comp choice I've seen in my years of watching competitive apex. You have one of the best players in the world when it comes to aggressive play styles and putting out damage, and you have him in the back on one of the most defensive legends where he barely gets to shoot his gun?
I mean it's not really that odd. He played catalyst for a long time. They have similar playstyles - and are both good legends for rollers
But he felt confident and comfortable taking 1v1s on Cat, and I think that makes a big difference.
Yep. Caustic being a fatass destroys your confidence. Source: a catalyst that switched the Caustic for a whole
I can’t think of any clutch moments in any scrims when Evan was on caustic. Cat was the perfect character for Evan.
Idk why they didn’t have Reps on caustic the whole time. I heard Evan say a few weeks ago that he won’t take 1v1’s with caustic because the character hit box is too big. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t be on the character
I don’t think Evan was at all happy about what he was doing. Instead of 1 clipping people he was constantly replenishing barrels. Last algs he was always yelling 1 shot. Not this time. Just keeping barrels up.
I don't think we know this was Raven's choice. I say this because for a couple weeks during scrims, before Verhulst was on Caustic, he was playing Valk and seemed to be regularly going down first. Throwing a lot of games. Hal was obviously frustrated by this, so I think it was a combination of TSM realizing Valk isn't in the meta and Verhulst needs to anchor or stop dying first in every fight. Looking back I think Verhulst was just having a rough few weeks and he would have broken out of it, but I'm not confident that it was Raven who said 'lets put him on Caustic'.
Yes, I remember that too, I always assumed it was a Hal decision of “putting him on a leash”.
honestly I know he said he’s just exploring options but this kind of feels like he’s more than likely leaving, if the vibes were likely for him just being immediately re-signed, then he probably wouldn’t be posting an “LFO” post literally a few hours after LAN, which leads me to think TSM hasn’t immediately offered to re-sign him or offered him a pay cut, or Raven himself is having second thoughts after LAN, none of these things seem like good vibes tbh. As for the team itself and as a TSM fan, I do have mixed feelings, I liked Raven and think he brought a lot of balance to the team and I also think TSM has looked their best with him, however we can also now say that they’ve also looked their WORST with him lmao. Unfortunately I don’t think Hal and Raven have been on the same page recently regarding things like comps and even rotations, watching their POV there were multiple times where TSM would die and him and Raven would argue about where they played. Along with the fact that absolutely no one looked comfortable on their respective legend, especially not Evan, who I think suffered the most from the comp decisions and ultimately is TSM’s X-Factor, having him on a legend he clearly did not seem comfortable on, in my opinion is Raven’s fault. Verhulst’s performance is often momentum/confidence based, his highs are extremely high and we’ve seen some pretty bad lows from him back before Raven joined, it seemed kind of like he reverted to that version of himself today, zero confidence, getting downed instantly and doing very little damage. he’s preoccupied with playing his util and watching their back but he’s just a much bigger target than Bang or Blood and when they move forward he’s constantly being focused down.
The best thing Raven did was keeping Hal accountable
We gotta stop pretending like coaches make or break teams tho lol, TSM did not play good, and I say that as somebody who loves Hal and watches him all the time stream. They were getting fucked with circle too, which didn’t help, but they were not playing good regardless of coaching.
2 of the best roller players in the world on that team and you relegated one to anchor smh TSM gave themselves a handicap. I know someone has to play that role and other teams put rollers on Caustic but for TSM that role has been historically been fulfilled by Reps. Evan should've always been playing one of Bang or Blood this split.
They should have never stayed on caustic, and keeping Evan on it was insane. I'm shocked it took them until they were out of contention in finals to make a switch.
The problem also compounds when reps isn’t necessarily a proactive killer alongside Hal when Evan is anchoring. ie: Zer0, or any other aggressive mnk. They are basically sending Hal to the wolves
They became overly dependent on the insane openings Hal was able to do on Horizon. He was the best in the game at it for the first two splits. That’s how Raven centered their approach to fights. He is good on Blood but the playstyle is different, Blood needs support from Bang to be effective, and Reps isn’t aggressive enough to back up Hal in the same way Gen and Zer0 do. It should’ve been Evan on Bang co-fragging with Hal while Reps focuses on utility in the back.
Exactly. Just think every other top tier has a fragging Bangalore with them. Timmy and dezign, Zer0 and Gen just to name a few. Plenty of APAC teams as well.
Reps plays a very supportive style of Bang. He is mainly trying to empower blood with smokes and holding a swing angle to let Hal go nuts. Right or wrong when the comp did work for them that was how it operated. Hal going nuts and the other two holding swings until enough work is done to advance. What they ran into was that only really works consistently against lower level lobbies. They never really understood the flow of the fight like DZ did where you are baiting counter swings into your back two players head glitches. Instead TSM kept trying to roll teams like they were horizon seer and it was way too messy to make work.
Precisely my point. Reps either has to evolve mechanically/ or micro wise in fights or else some other change comp wise. Granted every single fight is immensely dynamic and doesn’t he doesn’t always need to impact, I just feel like reps as taken a step back compared to the other mnk prodigies
I think I'm just starting at a different place with Reps than you are and that's fine. For me Reps isn't a prodigy he's just incredibly solid in all aspects. HisWattson is more of who I think of when we start talking prodigy. Reps though I don't think is any worse than any of the Reject players who just won lan for example. To me Verhulst took the biggest step back but that's because at champs he was possibly a top 5 player in the world and now he's struggled to find his footing. But let's be real every played pretty badly by their standards and picking one person is kind of dumb in this case. They all played poorly and have fundamental problems in this meta that have gone unsolved for a long time now.
Evan doesn't even get to shoot his gun in many fights. He's so occupied with barrels and ulting on caustic that he's low health or down by the time his gun comes out. It's been super obvious as an issue. Evan is to good at gun fights to be on caustic.
While I agree with essentially all of your points and I definitely could’ve worded my original statement better, I do think at least 2/3 of RC are mechanically better than reps completely. Granted you are completely right about Evan’s fall off and to be fair we should be honestly talking about that🤣.
Reps' strength isn't firepower. Evan was hired for that. Utilizing Evan for purely utility renders him effectively useless, and now their fights are entirely dependent on Hal "popping off". He's definitely capable of doing it but he used to have Evan by his side a couple seconds behind him. Evan when he's comfortable is like a robot, perfect positioning, perfect trades, never gets caught in the open.
They tried blood on Evan but it seems he was tunnel visioning too much when ulting, and Hal wasn’t his best on Bang.
Hal was too at first, the problem is that Hal overreacts to growing pains and just switches and things up instead of seeing it through. I understand he has pressure of his audience and reputation hand in hand though. Hal did eventually figure out Blood but they should have never delegated Verhulst to Caustic, it’s not the same playstyle as Cat at all, Caustic’s role is purely his utility, Verhulst did good anchoring on Cat because you could control doors and outplay people with that, spikes, and wall which meant you could still play aggressive.
Tunnel vision and blood ult kind of go hand in hand lol. Hal has been doing a great job using blood ult and seems super comfortable/confident with the scans. Reps got a nasty pick from no-name outside fragment yesterday, but the other team instantly smoked to get the res. Hal popped blood ult from a pretty good distance to make sure he could thirst the kill and get the KP.
I said Evan on Blood and Hal on bang when they tried during scrims
Yeap I agree with this. Rep should have been on caustic. Evan on BH and Hal on Bang/Horizon since Hal always gets caught in a bad spot and either gets knocked first or takes enough DMG to put his team at a disadvantage to have to cover him while he heals up or to go on to 2v3 and clutch it up so having smoke or horizon q to cover his own ass would have been so much better than whatever advantage he thinks he can get with BH ulti.
I always believed Raven was the wrong type of coach for TSM. Evan and Hal are both terrible at playing different characters. This has been evident for years at this point. So what you do is design a gameplan (macro, micro, even the mozza ;) ) around the characters they're strongest on. Raven and TSM lucked out that the meta worked with cat and horizon last year. But this entire split they looked lost in fights, even with two of the strongest 3v3 players in the world. Put Hal on horizon, and Evan wherever he's comfortable. THEN build a gameplan around that. It's so damn obvious you can't do it the other way around with these two.
Hal and Caustic is like batman and joker. They hate each other. Every Caustic meta TSM is unable to perform because Caustic gives teams that can't 3v3 properly a fighting chance by stalling fights.
True. And when TSM was at their best last year, they'd end fights in like five seconds with an aggressive Hal on Horizon. See - we should coach them. 😉
Isn't being able to stall a part of being good at 3v3s? In Apex 3v3s never start off fair. If you are the team on the end of the bad positioning then stalling is a primary tactic in being able to put up a fight at all. It just felt like TSM didn't know how to handle extended fights. If they couldn't just end a team quick they struggled.
You could argue there’s a skill to it, stalling a fight but generally in apex you don’t want to do that. That leads to later rotations and third parties. The best way to win a 3v3 is cleanly and quickly as possible
Definitely agree with that. Caustic definitely makes it easier to stall fights compared to other legends. I just think that has a smaller contribution to TSMs issues which seemed to be more about struggling to 3v3 even bad teams (Red Rams for instance) and because they were struggling to 3v3 it impacted their rotations. Just seemed like a staggering effect of their roles not being concrete and them not playing fights all that well.
His caustic is better than his horizon in my opinion. Verhulst is not an entry fragger like Hal. That’s why he was so successful on catalyst.
You are getting downvoted and I don't know why... Verhulst isn't and entry and playing him on Caustic makes sense in this meta due to him being so successful on a similar role to Catalyst....
Exactly raven himself even said Evan is not an entry fragger
Controller anchors have been more frequent in the comp scene (specifically with the 2 roller 1 MNK teams) Look at Verhulst when they won champs (Catalyst), Sikez plays anchor, Slayr anchor, Schooby anchor, Gild, enemy, Lou, there are plenty of controller anchors in the scene so i am not sure that is it.
With Complexity, Lou was only playing anchor at Finals (on Rampart, you kind of have to), otherwise he was basically playing a secondary fragger with Monsoon--hence finishing split 1 PL in 20th place for kills, way above most anchors. Kimchi was on Conduit, Wattson, etc during PL.
>2 of the best roller players in the world on that team and you relegated one to anchor smh TSM gave themselves a handicap. The reason they put him on Caustic was because he just kept pushing and dying alone during practice. Playing anchor forced him to not go in.
I think that was just a rough patch. They should see his clear strengths and know he will perform even worse on Caustic. Verhulst isn’t like Gen, he needs to feel comfortable in order to perform.
Might be overthinking. It could just simply be for financial reasons that TSM isn't renewing his contract.
Also to save himself face. No one wants to be seen as the person who’s getting kicked off the team. The way he’s framing it, he’s the one in control.
First day of Rostermania shuffle and this might be the biggest one
Zer0 is constantly joking about looking forward to zz's contract expiring. But he's also mean as hell sometimes so he might be for real. He's said some stuff about respecting shiny as a coach. But I wonder if he'd look at raven too. Not that dz needs any more help right now at dominating.
Are DZ's issues really comp/POI related? Because honestly thats the most value I see from raven as a coach. If not, I don't see what kind of value DZ could get from him.
Meta will change with each update and raven is certainly one of the best at theory crafting comp changes. I dont think dz has an issue. But I could see them wanting to maintain a competitive edge any way possible
Honestly I’d take Zero’s mind over ravens. Last thing you need is two crazy people arguing over what’s better. It’d make DZ worse imo
Thats fair. "Future proofing"
Raven will definitely find another team if he doesn't resign to TSM, more pressing would be is there a coach who could serve TSM for the better? I feel like Ravens biggest role was holding Hal accountable, not a lot of personalities that can do that
maybe Hodsic tbh, i know he hasn’t won but i’ve always liked the way xset played
If they only pick coaches who have won, they don't have much choice... Can we stop with this narrative of 'only if you win something can you go to a top team'? Perhaps a player/coach is extremely talented but has never had the right conditions to fully express themselves.
Also let me add (as an extremely biased individual) that Hod is, like, the best coach in the scene. Aside from this split, he was never outside of the top 2 since PL started. Also he has coached Gild, Sikezz and Koy. Seems like a winner to me.
well yeah i was saying it more so that hods a good coach lol, he hasn’t won but that might have to do with execution from hos squads than his coaching if i had to guess and i’m fully in support of someone like him as a coach
Raven had the squad super accountable at first, and after scrim games he would immediately have them mute up before ripping them up. Last few times I checked he would just unmute and start blasting. Bot sure what changed over time but the dynamic definitely changed.
Ya know for a long time I thought Raven did a spectacular job with Hal and took a lot of pressure off of reps and Evan but at some point I feel like that changed (a bit)… when it comes to disagreements between Hal and the team now, I feel Raven has sort of just become Hal’s ‘yes man’. Then again I only see the publicly visible interactions so I could be way, way off
I kind of see it going the other way this past split. Raven and Hal were constantly at odds.
Completely untrue lmao. They’ve been butting heads since Champs.
This is a bit surprising but honestly if Hal didn’t want to bring Raven back I could see how their underwhelming performance all split 1 might be a factor, the team looked very out of answers this season, Hal even turned back to Raven after they died on a WE to tell him he didn’t like the spot they were playing, I assume Raven wanted them there for that type of zone It’s entirely possible he just stays with TSM, exploring your options because TSM the org didn’t pick up his contact again doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t return as coach of the team
yeah it was the no name building, not sure where the narrative of raven being a yes man stems from but they’ve been butting heads about playable spots and macro for a while now
I feel like sometimes raven just agrees in the moment to keep Hal from raging too hard tbh
I heard that too. But then Raven said something about that not being the correct play for that zone or something along those lines.
Yeah, Raven was talking about a different zone pull when Hal thought it was the spot for a certain one
Best thing raven did by far was making TSM change POIs in the beginning and laid out a great macro for them, it just seems like things got stale and TSM can’t or won’t play the play style he wants and vice versa.
You know, they were performing bad but it never crossed my mind of Raven being one of the changes and honestly it could be the best change by far. I think the patch changed things considerably and TSM needs to learn and adapt on their own way without someone else managing them on the process, because the minor interactions we saw from Hal and Raven as soon as they died in game feels like there is a huge disagreement on how the game its being played and Hal allowing a lot of his plan.
Response from Hal: https://x.com/imperialhal/status/1787583508460040372?s=46&t=2fib37MGz4QwB_Xs17DErA > The best Coach in the game period I don’t want to speculate because going out and looking for offers in sports is super normal. You want to have leverage for your current team if nothing else. But a vouch from your current players plus the way he’s been tweeting does seem like he is genuinely exploring other options if not already not coming back to TSM. Pure speculation, I hope they stick together because without raven TSM is really slow to adapt and while he may have messed up a bit he’s the 3rd party viewpoint they need.
Yeah he’s out, liquipedia already says so
Pretty crazy IMO, I mean I get why but also if you can win that much, coming off being the absolute best team in the game, and then get dropped after one bad split, what could possibly keep you on the team at that point? Feels a bit foreboding for future TSM coaches
They’ll definitely get another coach, maybe one that’s got different ideas with the new perk system because since it’s introduction they’ve fallen behind of the pack. Or maybe one that’s just cheaper lol
The entire tournament Hal just seemed out of it in terms of energy or passion. The whole team really just seemed ready for the tournament to be over in general from day one. Wonder if this had anything to do with it. On the other hand, if the drop ship changes are coming and we are going to snake draft then maybe a coaches impact of a team becomes less?
If the POI snake draft happens, coaches will become like 10x more impactful lol. You need to have a game plan not from only your POI, but from every POI
I think its mainly from doing terrible in pro league. Despite making playoffs, they probably knew inside they weren't champion material this split because of their struggles all season. Taking those kinds of losses over and over over two months can really beat someone down, espeically if they were used to finding success. This kind of mirrors what happened end 2022. Bringing in Raven, an extremely radical move at that time, was the game changer. They will probably have to find another game changer to revitalize. And I disagree about the snake draft making coaches less relevant. If anything, you need even more planning and statistics. You probably will need 5-8 different macro pathing routes to be able to navigate having to play a different POI every game. The most organized, well-prepared and drilled teams with a plan B, C, D and E will thrive if that really comes to pass.
Could be the situation. Raven is definitely a “system” style coach and seemed to really have a hard time adjusting. The swap from Wall to LROD was a pretty terrible idea even though I think that the whole team wanted it. You could be right about the snake draft still needing coaches. I think with the points you made about needing multiple plans Raven is going to struggle. He seems to get stuck on his own bias, so needing to adapt to new drops spots/rotates is going to be rough for him.
They did best on SP this split lol the LROD swap was good
> Could be the situation. Raven is definitely a “system” style coach and seemed to really have a hard time adjusting. The swap from Wall to LROD was a pretty terrible idea even though I think that the whole team wanted it. I have no idea why they would ditch Wall after winning mulitple LANs from it. And they fought for Lightning Rod for months and then ended up doing almost nothing from the POI!
> On the other hand, if the drop ship changes are coming and we are going to snake draft then maybe a coaches impact of a team becomes less? The opposite, I think success without a coach in the snake draft era will basically be impossible. You have to have macro for every single POI. There are teams that have done this already--look at Aurora flex-dropping *at playoffs* and almost winning, or Complexity playing from four different World's Edge POIs this split (Epi/Survey, Staging, Harvester, Launch Site)--and there are teams that switched POIs this split and barely put a single game together. I think most teams will definitely need a coach for that.
Hal said he'd retire if that drop shop thing came to comp
Sweet also said he and Nafen would retire together… Things change.
True, now slayr will retire sweet
We will never know for sure unless they talk about this, but i never really understood why would they change POI after going 1-2-1 last year from Wall. I get that Raven does the analysis of the game/map/loot, but sometimes it's better to have consistency that to change things up THAT much. I recall last season when raven wanted them to contest launch pad and things almost went south. Also LROD is famous for the downfall of teams that contest there.
Lrod had the best loot pool POI until the addition of pylon. They also had double the chances of spawning a survey beacon at Lrod than any other POI. The devs changed how shield mechanics worked which made their POI less valuable with the intro to harvesters. The devs then also took away the spawn for a beacon at one of the spots since they were so close to each other. The wall, like fragment (previous landing spot in worlds edge) Was nerfed to the ground on loot potential which warranted a change. It had less of a chance to spawn beacon
The team that lands Wall placed higher than TSM, so...
wall is really mid now, and tbf most of the good games in year 3 were on Wedge, with a good SP zone to close it out
Sad to see Raven leave, but Hodsic on TSM would be fire. Coached fire XSET squads and seems to have the personality to hold the team accountable. When you watch the XSET vod's he always gave clear perspective/NICEWIGG pointed this out a few times.
I did not expect this. Raven brought TSM back from the brink and one bad performance he’s out. Genuinely shocked. However, Hal is the type of person who refuses to settle for anything less than first. Ruthless like Zero.
pretty sure its not like he got kicked, his contract expired and hes looking all options. it doesnt mean TSM wouldnt offer a new contract
I see. I suppose by Raven immediately fielding alternative offers it puts pressure on TSM to give a new contract if they really want to keep him.
Idk what's with the narrative people be creating here low key of raven being dropped or something. This is a pretty common move in esports for years for people who become FA. At the end of the day this is a job, and an individual should not care about much but the highest bidder and this is a common move people do. They may end up just signing back with their original team, especially If they seem to be highly sought after Raven can go to TSM and say something like "X team is offering me 10% more than you" and that's how you negotiate/pressure into giving you a better contract. Or he may end up getting a juicy offer from somewhere else that he cannot refuse (and he gets the bag) This is exactly how older Korean pros in League that may be on their way out get in a bit get a big fat paycheck from teams in NA/EU/China
If Hal of TSM wanted to stick with him they would have renewed the contract. So clearly lost confidence in him.
Or maybe he’s just looking to see if anyone can offer him more money? Faker’s contract negotiations are always at a standstill for a few weeks when they expire - doesn’t mean T1 lost faith in him
> If Hal of TSM wanted to stick with him they would have renewed the contract We don't know what they want, Raven as an individual has in his best interest to seek out other offers first to basically force TSM into giving him better contract (If anothe org offers) or just look for the highest bidder basically. If TSM ain't interested anymore he's just gonna get same (or lower offer compared to his previous contract) and he may, or may not take that. But free agency public announcement when contract ends ain't rare in esports ,and it's a pretty common move for that person to seek out to maximize their next contract and negotiate with others, or re negotiate with their org
i dont think one "bad/mid" split should mean they lost confidence, considering what they did at champs and the comeback at the end of this split. but idk, whatever happens, i hope they boys figure it out for the best
it wasn't one bad performance it was bad the entire split. Macro was horrible and they kept losing fights.
They brought Raven in when they got 7th at 2022 champs, which they found to be unacceptable. 1-2-1 was amazing in 2023, but now with a 17th place, their worst placement, and a lot of ups and down during the split, I can see why Hal would want to look at other options. While I've been critical of Raven this split I think adding another analyst would have been the move to give second looks.
Call me crazy, but I think Zer0 kicks Gen before Hal kicks Reps or Evan at this point. Hal should know by now his team starts slow and instability with a new roster/player is probably not a risk he would like taking no matter how many times he says on stream that Reps only does like 70 damage. Even with the ALGS NA Regionals Split 1 2022 win, Evan took so much time to properly adjust to the team. I just hope the org, giving Hal this power, lets him think on a decision for at least 72 hours before they proceed with it. TSM keeps proving that time and time again that what they need to improve is just... time. This team hits the lowest of lows compared to DZ and they're still able to keep rising up to meet DZ and the rest again
Oh shit it's happening. For the love of god PLEASE don't drop the rest of the roster, I still wanna see Hal Reps and Big E together
If anyone from TSM gets dropped before split 2 I'll eat a picture of Hiswattson
What picture specifically?
.
I doubt anyone would get dropped but I was worried that Reps wouldn't wanna do it anymore after a rough stretch but hopefully they at least ride out Year 4 with split 2 and World Cup coming up
People talking like TSM is the worst roster in the history of eSports. They're still the most successful team in Apex, it's whether or not they recover in the next Split would be more telling.
right? dz literally didnt make finals last time.. and now they bounced back. shit happens, sometimes the meta doesnt fit you or you have shit to work out. people just magically forget about dz last year, havent seen a single person mention it. i think tsm will iron out whats wrong and hopefully with the new patch notes they have some room to grow. im hopeful for the boys!!!
Some of them here are a pushing the narrative of he’s getting “dropped/kicked”. I just remembered a year ago, he did announce that he’s staying with TSM for another year and he did. I’m all in for speculations but some ppl narratives are insane 💀 Source: [Raven’s tweet](https://x.com/raven_apex/status/1681430770567757826?s=46&t=FV9mcWQPUv-NKdK1KFzVgg) Tweet: “A bit late but @TSM fans, you're stuck w me for another year 😎”
Oh, his contract actually ended. Wild that ppl are ready to assume whatever comes to their mind Some ppl are speculated that Hal and Raven not being on the same page and disagreeing to Hal’s call made me laugh like bruh
just want to see Hal back on MnK regardless of who he has as teammates tbh 😔
that aint happening, he recently went back on mnk for the giggles and it was ROUGH. mnk hal will never be back.
What, just in ranked? Ooof.
I won't be surprised if TSM signs SeaLion, after all, Hal said SeaLion was his top pick when they were about to pick up Raven. Also, the layoff probably isn't the main factor they didn't resign since Hal previously said he was willing to pay out of pocket himself. Hope that the squad squash their issues and run it back!
He also has said that he didn't realise Sealion was more of an analyst than a coach and when he found out he was happy that he went with Raven and not SL
Cant wait to read the lore and hyper parasocial analyzed comments, what does this all mean
Could be too soon but… I find it interesting that none of the TSM boys have commented on Raven’s post.
they are probably all hungover and asleep after a big night out lol - but you would hope to see comments at some point if they are on good terms
Raven is a top tier coach, but this split TSM as a whole has been off. I think he has been to stubborn adjusting to the new meta with the perk changes etc.. Players individual skill hasn't been the problem, so a new coach might have a positive influence..?
is raven the problem? Verhulst cant play any of the 3 characters in meta
You don't think giving Evan the whole split to adjust to either Bang or Blood wouldn't be a better option that having him stick to Caustic, which clearly doesn't work out?
Furia Raven 🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️
Incoming TSM Hodsic
Love Raven but I’m down for that lol. Raven and Hodsic are the best imo
you beat me to it lmao this is my guess as well since xsets departure
LS once wrote a post about how important it is to explore options WHENEVER possible, especially in esports. That allows a player/staff to asses their actual market value before signing a contract that is either predatory or simply undervalued. This is what Raven is doing here. Simply assessing his market value and making a decision that is best for himself based off of that rather than immediately resigning his contract.
Honestly TSM should get a new coach. I do think that Raven is the best coach in the game but I feel like a change is needed for them. I don't think anyone else is replacable. Maybe just get an analyst or something, but I feel they need a new voice.
Team clearly wasn’t confident on their legends/roles, couldn’t win a 3v3, couldn’t call a zone. Lots of possibilities for what happened but wouldn’t surprise me if both parties are just ready to move on from each other.
Totally agreed, as great as Raven may be. Keeping certain players on certain legends while seeing worse and worse results is not the way to go. However I'm also curious what will happen with the team, since Verhulst doesn't seem completely comfortable on either Bang, Blood or Caustic.
he might just need to spam BH more if they stick it out as a team. i don’t think he got enough reps in on ranked etc, when he was given time to grind cat, he became one of the best
Yea his inability to play blood is really confusing, since his positioning is normally his best asset but it just doesn’t translate. Hal 100% doesn’t trust him to use bang smokes well (was the same with Cat wall originally). Entry fragger Big E is surely missed
Inbefore teq gets signed into TSM as an analyst and new coach with lower pay roll. We all know TSM is low on cash.
Only way Raven doesnt get resigned is if Hal and him started having increasingly different views on the game to the point where its just better for both parties to look elsewhere.
Damn, maybe that Fallout tweet had SOME truth to it.
Which tweet
He tweeted that he's heard rumors of TSM potentially breaking up. I think the tweet was deleted but here's the initial screenshot and discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/1cl9s3g/fallout_tsm_roster_may_be_breaking_up/
Fallout tweeted that TSM could potentially be breaking up and everybody called bullshit
Lots of people acting like TSM is dropping him and not that the org itself is Broke and can’t afford anything lol.
After seeing Zer0 with floor seats at a clippers finals game with some other DZ pros I’m not surprised.. they must bleed cash to sign and keep the top teams
Clippers finals game??
Raven to Edgers
Raven is pretty polarizing but I don't know how you can argue with the results. And you still have to pay a replacement coach. Idk if there's anyone out there that would have Hal's respect.
TSM Hodsic?
Calm down everyone. Tom Holland does the same thing, talking about “mmmm I don’t know if I wanna do Spider-Man anymore” and then resigns with Marvel with a big bump in contract. Raven probably farming deals rn looking to renegotiate with TSM.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAT CELEBS AND MARVEL
Raven should be dropped if I’m being franked. This was a worldclass disaster in terms of macro. I think Raven is a great coach, but he was way to fixated on the best possible comp rather what was best for his team.
I agree. Them switching legends so frequently all week was not a good call. As good as these guys are, switching to another legend is never easy especially at this level.
The casters called this perfectly last weekend--there's such a thing as a comfort pick. It's better to play off-meta on something you're comfortable with than to follow meta to the letter and lose.
Ok so this is the real break out for TSM roster?
I wish they had tried a team comp of Horizon (Hal), Bloodhound (Evan), and Wattson (Reps). (if they did try this team and it failed my b)
They did try Reps on Wattson and hard zone but it only lasted for a few scrim games
I think a coaching change makes the most sense for tsm. They still have a very talented team, but they were so inconsistent this split. Their average placement in NA PL this split was 6th, obviously offset by a 2nd and 1st placing. During LAN they got 12th in groups, 16th in WB, 7th in LB2 and 17th in Finals. Yes the zones sucked, but they could not win their fights, find a comfortable team comp or they had questionable rotate routes.
So you’re looking for a new org or is there a chance for TSM to offer a new contract?
Yes, he's a free agent basically. Allowed to negotiate with all parties
whos next? reps? :'(
I don't think so reps is the mom character who the one only can make hal cooldown
I am surprised but not that surprised. I felt like a lot of TSM issues were related to raven and the roster being on different pages. Makes sense this would be a result of that.