Don't go out there and give me grief for this article - just look deep inside yourself and recognise that I'm right.
"You can't compare them!" I hear you squeal. Or type, more accurately. Loud-ass mechanical keyboard botherer. "Astralis were on LAN, and they won some Majors too!".
Ha, fool.
Online doesn't make it less impressive
Before the LANdemic, we were all told how impossible it is to be consistent online, and that anything can happen.
No bad words allowed. Yet.
Gambit have blown all of that out of the window - they win every damn game. If they're this consistent online, imagine how much better than everyone else they have to be.
They're so far ahead of the second placed team in the world that nobody knows who it is. It's... probably NaVi? Well, it's definitely NaVi, but are we really saying they're close to as good as Team Liquid were back when Astralis were winning everything? I'm certainly not.
At the time of writing, they've dropped four maps in the last two tournaments. Four. Maps.
They've smacked every other good team around, gone 5-0 in maps in the Grand Finals of the two tournaments, and only lost to Vitality. Who hasn't lost a game to ZywOo here and there, though?
And they're doing it all online, which you guys told me made it even harder.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"Win against Natus Vincere, we have just won BLAST Premier Spring Final 2021. I am very happy to play in such a great team. Thank you to everyone who supported us."
Astralis were basically only good because they were ahead of the curve with using grenades - in terms of skill, they were never really that dominant. device looks pretty rubbish on NiP, and now everyone else has figured out how to pull out HE grenades and press mouse one, they look awful.
Even DEVICE said Astralis were just lucky.
Gambit on the other hand, wow. They outclass everyone without even using utility. Respect.
Craziest stat regarding Gambit, they had the WORST T-side Flash Assist rate at #BLASTPremier. At IEM Summer, they were 3rd worst. At the EPIC RMR, they were in the bottom third of teams.
Do they know something no one else does about util? pic.twitter.com/joFuWcoyTm— Mauisnake (@Mauisnake) June 20, 2021
They outskill, outsmart and outmanoeuvre their opponents at every corner. 2v4's are always winnable if sh1ro and Ax1le are alive. They have three genuine superstar players (compared to Astralis' five good players - boring and bad) with an IGL who combines gla1ve's brain and arT's fearlessness.
They are a swaggering, swashbuckling version of Astralis that swaps knowing a few more grenades for an incredible amount of skill and youthful exuberance. Much better.
There's absolutely no way they don't win the first LAN, and they'll almost certainly blast everyone at the Stockholm Major too.
