Took one for the team today and watched the entire Chet stream. Here's all the insider information that he said (warning: huge wall of text)

• Players didn't want him released from NRG, mainly management decision. Players didn't have a choice in the matter (with regards to dropping Chet), decision was already done. Chet asked if he could get his money back regarding the Demon1/Ethan buyout ("waiting for their response")

• The article from HLTV.org influenced the management decision ("it is what it is" and "they didn't fuck with the CS shit")

• He hadn't thought of moving to CS at the time of the article, but at some point was probably gonna go to a different team

• Players all messaged him after the decision and said "really nice things," he's still cool with all the players (Victor was a nice teammate)

• FNS and s0m are probably on the roster for next season

• Had good vibes with everyone on the team but they (NRG) were behind in putting the roster together and had role issues at the start of the year

• Everyone tried their hardest and worked pretty hard throughout the season

• Esports is ruthless ("there is no loyalty in esports")

• Chet contributed to the Ethan/Demon1 buyout and was not kept in the loop about roster changes at the end of his time on the team ("wasn't a lot of money" - low five figures). Wished they were more upfront about it. Will never pay out of pocket for a buyout again ("in hindsight, probably shouldn't have"), offered the buyout money for Ethan/Demon1 because he really wanted the team to happen. Ethan/Demon1 made sense (top priority) because they just won an event and were in good form. Ethan was also "down to join and IGL"

• Off-season is going to be pretty crazy based on what he's heard

• Would like to stay in Valorant if possible (told NRG management that he was down to stick with them if they wanted to). Doesn't mind travelling for work (if he goes back to CS) and seemed like he was open to CS depending on the offers he received

• Players found out about Chet getting cut same morning as Chet did

• Crashies is probably staying

• Would move regions to coach "if it makes sense"

• No one actually knows what's going to happen with regards to the NRG roster, doesn't know with certainty whether Demon1 is on the starting roster

• Yay was a good teammate and worked hard (back on Optic)

• No bad blood with Demon1 when he left the team

• It was between Saadhak/N4RRATE and Ethan/Demon1 at the end of the day, team decision to get Ethan/Demon1

• Less was not on the market last offseason

• Thought that every team was ahead of them and felt like they were always playing catch-up throughout the year (in terms of team protocols)

• Coach salary was similar to player salary in NRG (but this is not true for every team)

• Biggest problem was that they didn't have playmaking ability in their team ("felt restricted" and "weren't comfortable making plays" especially on defense side)

• aspas was pretty locked into LEV last offseason

• "Sometimes shit changes" with regards to Victor/Crashies being a package deal. Would not speak to why Victor left ("that's for him to say"). It's a possibility that he sticks with Victor (they talked about it but they'll see what offers they get)

• Played with sinatraa for about a week in trials, he did fine, he played mostly Raze & Sova (and sometimes Iso). Chet messaged sinatraa to try out and he had a decent performance in scrims ("he has his aim style, can't complain"). Sinatraa trials fell through because they had Ethan/Demon1 potentially joining ("we're probably gonna go with them if possible"). Riot seems like they're ok with sinatraa in T1 now.

• TSM would've signed sinatraa after they dropped bang but it ended up falling through. Trialed RUSH (CSGO) back when he was on TSM

• Yay was a possibility at the start of the year (with N4RRATE), Yay got Bleed offer and Chet said "You'd be dumb to pass on that." Yay played mostly sentinels in scrims (played a lot of Killjoy) and did well, was a fine teammate and asked a lot of questions. Yay is (physically) in NA but Chet is not sure

• Didn't have a choice to not play in the off-season, EG were delaying the buyouts by a lot (EG kept on saying "next week, next week" then delayed by five months). The late buyouts from EG had an impact ("it was pretty cooked")

• Cliques were still an issue but not as bad as in 2023 (since it was the same team, there would be similar issues)

• Maybe he should've changed roles around (his opinion) - put Demon1 on smokes more and force Victor onto duelist. s0m on duelist was a thought but it didn't make sense with the limited amount of time the team had

• Scrim T2 teams pretty often (but they get EG "pretty often" and LEV scrims "once in a while")

• Chet never made unilateral decisions, cutting Marved/Demon1 was a team decision. Doesn't regret dropping Marved/Demon1

• Their Neon/Breach/Cypher comp on Split got leaked before Kickoff and forced them to change their comp last second

• Single elim is "braindead" ("another Riot masterclass")

• Trialed valyn/trent, saadhak/narrate, sinatraa/babybay, poised, tex, yay, corey ("trialed hella"). Didn't go with N4RRATE because they wanted to go with more experienced players (Ethan/Demon1). Closest signing was Saadhak + N4RRATE

• Talked to aspas, kiNgg, Sayf, in 2023 to see who was available in franchising but not many options, which is how they ended up with ardiis. Talks with Sayf "never got that far"

• valyn wasn't a serious option (for 2024), he was "always going to stick with his boys"

• Ethan didn't work out as IGL because "our system was bad" and "the work ethic outside of game was not great either" (not Ethan's work ethic, team as a whole)

• Talked to Boostio but he was pretty set on 100T

• NRG classic "was some ass" and "it was hard to sell" (was designed by Riot, not NRG)

• Best teammate on NRG (current) was s0m (but it's "not a competition"). Ethan was a fine teammate and "everyone could improve on something"

• If Optic made franchising, they were not sticking together (Yay was going to C9, Marved was going to quit, s0m would've been on the team)

• Less is trying to learn English

• "LEV is winning Champs" (super high on LEV, also had them winning Americas finals)

• Don't know what the roster is for next year, but Chet thinks that FNS is on the roster. One of the G2 guys thinks that the roster is just gonna be +JAWGEMO +Potter. Doesn't know who the head coach of NRG will be next season ("Tanizhq? Potter?")

• The team was "down" to play the Deadlock comp on Haven. Sage comp was "good in practice"

If I missed anything let me know. A lot of pro players joined the stream in chat and there was a lot of banter throughout the stream. Chet also watched this one Tiktok of FNS dancing to Indian music like eight times and thought it was the funniest shit ever.

Think about just how strong supports were the last year and how strong tank busting dps were. Even ignoring tank counterswapping, if the enemy tank was rolling all a team had to do was swap to tank busters and a damage heavy backline and suddenly you’ve nuetered the opposing tank for the rest of the game bar a massive fuckup, and there wasn’t anything a tank could really do to respond besides swap to the most survivable tank in the meta at that moment.

You can’t do that this patch. Tanks mitigation means if a tank pushes space you have to respect it more and the playerbase has yet to adapt yet. You can’t just bully them for the smallest mistake or being on a less surviable tank anymore. They will kill you if you challenge them in their domain of influence.

Thats a good thing. Thats how a solo tank should function. If they take space it should warp the battlefield and force an ajustment from squishies to survive. But because players have been able to press H and pick bastion/torb/reaper/cass and Bap/Zen/Kiri the last year and just dumpster the tank they have forgotten that the tank SHOULD be scary. It SHOULD be imposing.

Hi, as a casual esports enjoyer, I want to express my concern about T1 & their well-being... then wanting to end on a good note.

I was a bit concerned about T1 ever since they got so much hate & unnecessary threats maybe in 2022. I can still remember that moment where Faker filed a lawsuit against people who post malicious contents against them. Then the Worlds 2022 came in, they get so much hate & doomposts ever since their loss. I hoped that 2023 will be a better year for them, then Faker's injury thing & Bengi left, I was really worried about them & their well-being getting affect by barely get into Worlds last year. Then they won last year & Ddos issue came in, I was worried about them since streams are affected that they have to cancel it. They went to EWC & won, then the scheduling is horrible on LCK's part & they barely get any rest. Not only that, the wave of hate trains against T1 is concerning.

To end on a good note, I hope & pray that things will get better for them & the Ddos issue gets fixed somehow since they had it rough ever since 2022.