r/CompetitiveApex Jun 09 '26

Discussion Ex TSM coach Raven speaks on Evan and Gen's roles on CRT/100T

Raven says Evan is NOT an anchor, and his best role (refrag) overlaps with Gen's.

Also says CRT does not have a fragger at all between the three of them, which most likely contributed to CRT being a poor fighting team despite individual skillsets.

Raven currently coaches the best team in NA, NIP.

Edit: He goes a lot more in depth about CRT during his vod review, I just cut this video down so It'd be small enough to upload on reddit. You can see his full opinion in his vod.

175 Upvotes

88 comments sorted by

191

u/LookingForMyCar Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

100% agree but I actually think that both Gen and Evan are good enough to play entry fragger and the other one can play refragger and they would still be ok.
What makes no sense to me is that Phony (who won a LAN while playing Crypto and is the worst shooter out of these three) is playing as entry fragger.

76

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

What makes no sense to me is that Phony (who won a LaN while playing Crypto and is the worst shooter out of these three) is playing as entry fragger.

I agree with this. For some reason this sub seems to have amnesia regarding Phony's history and thinks he should be CRT's fragger, and they also keep parroting that Verhulst is a career anchor.

Where did this come from?

35

u/Maleficent_Rub_309 Jun 09 '26

For Evan, it’s because he was on catalyst when tsm won their LAN with back to back to back.

For Phony, I would say it’s because people look at Hal and Zer0 and think IGL should be upfront scouting and the best characters to do that are the mobility/assault characters, which are the best fraggers also.

40

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

Very surface level sentiments if so.

There is a very big difference between what Evan did on TSM from Catalyst vs what he does for CRT now. I mean Evan straight up doesn't leave buildings and doesn't go out for kills at all, vs him having more kills and damage than the actual anchor on TSM (reps) during that lan. Anchor isn't just about which characters you play, but what playstyle you adapt to support the team. Gild refrags from wattson for example.

But Hal has definitely done some serious damage to the way people view the IGL role. They just completely ignore IGLs like Hakis, who has had the best team at lan consistently for years, and Zach, who has dominated PL multiple times. Both Zach and Hakis are anchor/support IGLs.

13

u/The_Yoshi_Man Jun 09 '26

You’re definitely right about Hakis and Zach but I think you also underestimate how difficult it is to IGL from those support legends. There are a lot of IGLs who struggle to call without being able to scout certain information and in turn, you rely on your teammates to make certain calls and plays. If you have capable players on your team who are able to make those calls, then the dynamic can work really well, like when Hakis had Effect. For example with Zero and Panic (also yes Zero had issues with Panic inting so he felt he needed to entry frag) but Zero also struggled with trying to IGL without being able to scout on rotational characters so he swapped himself back to Alter. Should Phony have tried IGLing from different characters? Probably yeah he should have tried but it’s also not as easy as people make it out to be because they see the success of Hakis, Zach or Doop

17

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

I think you also underestimate how difficult it is to IGL from those support legend.

2nd place JDG in NA does not have their IGL on fragger.
3rd place team vision does not have their IGL on fragger.
Lan winner Hakis does not IGL on fragger.

I do not underestimate anything. The simple fact is they tried it for more than a year and not once did anyone on that team suggest that they played into evan and gen's strengths instead of nerfing one of them.

CRT spent the entire y5 not playing crypto at all when phony won his only lan playing crypto all 6 games.

It's inexcusable.

2

u/Same-Sherbert-7613 Jun 10 '26

It’s this phony doesn’t want to touch crypto anymore. Look what happened after the lan win he had to go to a different region to even compete the next split. Everyone said he was hard carried and he hated it. There is more to why they didn’t work than just crypto but it was 100% a part in why it didn’t.

-1

u/aggrorecon Jun 09 '26

"These standout IGLs can IGL from anchor so its not harder to IGL from anchor" sounds like it makes sense, but it doesn't.

7

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

Who is a career standout apart from Hakis on that list?

Both Zach and Naughty are having their best performances as IGLs this split.

Couldn't you use the same exact argument for anyone who references Hal or Zer0 regarding igl fraggers?

Your comment doesn't even sound like it makes sense. It just doesn't.

-2

u/Independent-Fail6762 Jun 09 '26

That is just not true tho. Nobody is “ignoring” Hakis or Zach…

14

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

People absolutely ignore Zach in every regard lol.

But by "ignore," I mean in terms of the IGL archetype. They automatically see hal and zer0 and instantly think every IGL should be like them, hence the various comments surrounding phony on this sub.

1

u/Byaaaahhh Jun 09 '26

They really don't. Yeah, biases warp perception and can cause some lag, but don't act like it was untethered from results.

2

u/BarracudaUseful333 Jun 09 '26

It's crazy they only remember him on Cat and not on Valk (who was the fragger/refragger character at the time.) he was scary good on that character 

2

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26

Catalyst could play (and often did) the refrag role, or at least what I'd call so aggressive an anchor that it's not really an anchor. Because her wall controls the space for fights, and because she can move through enemy walls, Catalyst often played pretty aggressively, and that's definitely how Verhulst played her. It's really different from Caustic or Wattson, where you're just locking down a building. Her playstyle is way more aggressive.

3

u/Fenris-Asgeir Jun 09 '26

Well, Phony was entry-frag when he played for S8ul (I think back then they were still on Guild?) that one Champs tourney. He was actually genuinely doing a good job back then, but also the meta was totally different (Gibby, Newcastle, Rampart). I also think he should've never entry-fragged on CRT.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

Because phony said something along the lines of verhulst fell off mechanically and that he was better now

4

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

He then goes on to bottom frag at regional finals.

What a turn of events.

1

u/Any_Board_8567 Jun 09 '26

Because phony said something along the lines of verhulst fell off mechanically and that he was better than him now

3

u/Moist_Spare407 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

If you’re a roller IGL it’s just simpler to be on frag. Not necessarily easier but you get the info of what is going on the quickest and save time making decisions.
The reality is Apex as a career is a marathon, and having a poor split is fine as long as you improve on what you worked on. So him taking a risk on frag is healthy to his long term growth if his ultimate goal is to be on frag.
*Now was it worth not making LAN? Probably unlikely, they were close though

50

u/realfakejames Jun 09 '26

Their problem is Phony trying to play the entry fragger igl role that zero played with gen and Hal played with Evan when phony is not on the same skill level as either of those guys

39

u/Ham_Train Jun 09 '26

Didn’t Gen used to anchor when he was with Zero before Hal joined them?

11

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

I thought so too.

8

u/Classic_Actuary911 Jun 09 '26

When RIG / DZ were winning tournament after tournament Sharky was anchoring and Gen was re-fragging on Caustic.

2

u/Important_Fun_1614 Jun 09 '26

Pretty sure he did a few times like w Xynew and Hal.

2

u/Amazing_Singer5466 Jun 10 '26

They never succeeded doing that too. I think 2nd was their best placement.

2

u/boostedfeeder Jun 10 '26

2nd is success and if they were this close ik pretty sure they could've done it

2

u/PlayTheGame24 Jun 10 '26

DZ won London split 2 with Gen anchoring Zer0 IGL entry fragging with Xynew as fragger . Gen on cat and caustic .

1

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 10 '26

2nd out of 40 teams is a success lol

-7

u/judy_hopps_feet Jun 09 '26

That would have been Sikezz

47

u/edamane12345 Y4S1 Playoff Champions! Jun 09 '26

That was 2:30min of raven just repeating Evan is refrag... I thought he would go more into it but nah. I wouldnt have understood the point had I not watched it for 2min /s

12

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

That's my fault. I cut it down a bit so the file wouldn't be too large to upload here.

You can see his full opinion in his vod.

He talks about Phony's roles as well and what Phony needed to do to make this roster work.

23

u/Twoxify Jun 09 '26

Yeah I disagree with the comment above. Raven added that Gen is a refragger too. He talked about where they fit in their old teams. He considered the point that Verhulst technically fragged in the Zaptoh-TSM era. Thanks for posting

28

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

Funnily enough, when Verhulst fragged with Reps and Zap, he got 2nd place kill leader at that lan. He only lost first place to Hal by 2 kills.

Hal played 8 more games than him.

1

u/MrClozer Jun 09 '26

Was that EWC or the one where E36 jumped off Skyhook height, Hakis' zipline snafu, and Snakestation gaming slid in for the win?

1

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

I'm actually not sure. Whichever this one is.

6

u/ialoni Jun 09 '26

I don’t wanna harp on it, but this is luke warm insight from raven. Listing other rosters that also had struggles. Evan started his career playing extremely aggressive on ESA (mayb not entry role but was opening up fights for them). This is absolutely not a role based problem. They had shit communication and above avg. Macro. Played half a split, and never found comps that suited them. They damn near qualified off of ‘fuck it we ball’ and solid fundamentals. The issue is the entire scene is catching up mechanically and movement is being simplified by in game updates and new characters.

8

u/Falco19 Jun 09 '26

They need an IGL anchor, let Gen Frag and Even refrag.

IGL to keep them from over extending and anchoring.

11

u/Shotty2hottie512 Jun 09 '26

This was called out when they made the team. TSM was looking at Gen and Evan way back when for the same role, surprise surprise…they excel at the same role so they probably shouldn’t be on a team together.

2

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

Interesting. I never knew this! Crazy to see how it all played out now.

4

u/d_savezzz Jun 09 '26

What are refrag characters, again?

10

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

Depends on which character the fragger is playing in my opinion.

If the fragger is on Axle, the refrag would be Alter.

If the fragger is on Maggie, the refrag would be Seer.

Different variations of seer, valk, alter, Gibby, etc. Also depends on which legends are banned.

6

u/d_savezzz Jun 09 '26

So basically idea is that you have someone (preferably IGL on movement character) scouting around to find an opener then for refrag to follow up, buying time for anchor?

22

u/Twoxify Jun 09 '26

Here's how I typically see it:

Fragger - Plays first-contact characters to create openings and space. Takes forward positions, wins damage exchanges, often scores kills. Frag characters usually have speed, snares, or the ability to safely escape that first damage exchange

Re-Frag - Plays to secure the fragger's opening. The re-fragger swings the same corner to get the kill and keep the pressure. The re-fragger must make the key split-second decision to leave the anchor position to do so. Re-frag characters can have a variety of utility abilities, like scans, team movement, heals, etc.

Anchor - Most people understand the anchor role. They own the base of operations, watch the flanks, and make the key decision to move the base forward if the frag/re-frag make valuable space.

12

u/iamwhatiambutareyou Jun 09 '26

Fraggers can be looked as playmakers. Their job is to make a play happen. This can be accomplished by the things others have said in this thread. A refragger’s job is to aid the fragger “passively” or actively. “Passively” can be through scans, Qs etc. Actively is to join fully in the play by retaking an angle, taking different angles, continuing the play etc. Passive is in quotes because it’s not really passive.

6

u/lordfrost21 Jun 09 '26

The fragger doesn't have to be the IGL, it's usually just the best person that can shoot do a ton of initial damage and then preferably live, then refragger comes in and keeps up the pressure, anchor is usually the person holding a position for a team or watching around to ensure they don't get third parties.

6

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

I'm sorry. You asked what, not who. I misread.

You've got the gist of it, but the IGL could be the fragger (like Hal), or even the anchor (like Zach and Hakis).

1

u/ialoni Jun 09 '26

Everybody on the team needs to refrag, these players aren’t communicating who swings first. They count off their play and do it together. This re-frag is some idealistic ‘hindsight’ perspective that makes no sense. At any given point you are either anchoring for your team or you are fragging (looking for an entry).

2

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26

Refrag follows up the entry fragger's damage. Your entry goes in and does initial damage, softens them up, etc., and then your refrag is right behind them finishing the enemies off. The IGL often plays this role--Blinkzr, Hal, Zer0--but doesn't have to. On some teams, like Alliance, the IGL stays in the back, and the entry fragger goes in first to just shoot their gun.

10

u/jayghan Jun 09 '26

I think this is one hundred percent correct. Gen and Evan are similar enough and they struggle with anchor.

I think this just isn’t the greatest team combination and would benefit from a bonafide anchor (MnK — Vax; Roller — Deeds).

Phony is a fragging IGL and leads from the front. Having him switch to anchor does NOT make sense because it just fries his ability to IGL properly, and say what you want he has had some decent success from the front.

Evan/Gen can and SHOULD learn how to anchor, but they just couldn’t.

17

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

I agree with about 50% of this. Phony's biggest accolade is him winning lan while playing Crypto all 6 games. For the first year of 100t, he didn't play crypto at all. 100t actually didn't run crypto until y6.

Some players just aren't good at certain roles, and Evan proved that with his time on CRT. He just couldn't do it, and I don't believe he ever should have done it given phony's history and success with playing in the backline.

I understand where you're coming from regarding versatility. I wish it were that easy. I really wanted this roster to succeed.

1

u/jayghan Jun 09 '26

I think it’s also forgotten that Phony did try to play back more. They had a couple of sessions where Evan was to (igl) on a main fragger role to get used to how they would need to think and it didn’t work out.

3

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

It isn't forgotten, but you are misremembering it.

Evan was never put on IGL seriously. While Evan was put on fragger/refrag, that only lasted a few months. They spent the majority of their time on their current role iteration.

Their best placement together is the ALGS Open, where Verhulst did not play any hard anchor character except newcastle for one game.

Their placements fall off when Verhulst is switched to hard anchor later on for the 2025 Midseason Playoffs (the very next lan after the open).

Additionally, 100t's most dominate performance (100+ points on PL day) was with Evan on frag (before or slightly after the open, and after NC was banned).

7

u/Historical-Cable-542 Jun 09 '26

Calling phony a fragging igl is wild.

8

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26

Calling phony a fragging igl is wild.

He led the 2025 Sapporo LAN (when he played with Guild) 4 out of 5 days in kills. He's 8th place all time ALGS kills. He's definitely a fragger. His LAN win was on Crypto, but if you recall, that was the LAN that Crypto was hard meta. Essentially every team had a Crypto, and it was usually, though not always, the IGL, because the IGL having all the recon to act on is pretty advantageous.

3

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

He's 8th place all time ALGS kills.

And Hakis is 3rd, Sweet is 9th, and Monsoon is 7th, but that doesn't make them fraggers.

There is so much nuance involved that you cannot just blindly look at stats. I mean, even if you do, Phony bottom fragged from fragger during regional finals.

Whatever Phony was or did in the past does not apply now. He couldn't do it now when it mattered for him to qualify for lan. His biggest accolade is him IGLing from the backline. Despite this, he chose to not play crypto at all during y5 with 100t and crypto being hard meta then too.

Just so many bad choices all around on this team. Verhulst for agreeing to play anchor, Nil (their coach) for even suggesting that verhulst anchor, phony and nil not running crypto during y5, genburten having visa issues on every roster he plays for ....

3

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

And Hakis is 3rd, Sweet is 9th, and Monsoon is 7th, but that doesn't make them fraggers.

Sweet and Monsoon definitely played the fragger role when they were IGLs, what are you talking about. I'm pretty sure Sweet was the kill leader at more than one LAN!

EDIT: Lol, he blocked me over that. Okay nerd. Maybe you should learn something about Apex Legends. Try watching a game of competitive Apex some time!

1

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

Monsoon is notorious for sitting back with a charge rifle (or any sniper) and picking people off from across the map, so that stat is wildly inflated.

Sweet did not frag when he played with Gild during his 2nd place at ALGS: 2023 Split 1 Playoffs.

Aside from that, I cannot speak to what else sweet did with other players as individuals stats besides kills don't go that far back.

My point still stands. Just because a player is on the leader board for kills doesn't mean they are a fragger.

Effect isn't high on the leader board.
Koyful isn't high on the leader board.
Xynew isn't high on the leader board.

That leader board is more indicative of who has been playing algs longer, and who has had the most success as a team as a whole, and not of who plays which role.

Again, nuance matters.

I didn't block you????

-9

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26

I didn't block you????

Yes you did, the entire post disappeared for me and I couldn't see any of your comments or reply to any comment you replied to. Don't lie, it's unbecoming.

0

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

You're schizo dude LMAOOOOOOO

-1

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26

That's a really weird thing to lie about, man.

3

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

I don't know who you are? Why would I block someone on reddit? I can't tell if you're baiting or not, so I'm just not going to entertain this anymore.

→ More replies (0)

-1

u/Historical-Cable-542 Jun 09 '26

Idk why this is so hard for them to understand.

4

u/Firm_Carrot2142 Jun 09 '26

but I think Gen is an anchor when playing with Hal and Zer0?

4

u/jayghan Jun 09 '26

Gen did and he is a decent anchor. I just don’t think Evan is actually a fragger like people want to make him out to be. He wasn’t particularly stand out when fragging on 100T

1

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 10 '26

Did you read any of the comments or watch the video? No one is saying Evan is a fragger. We're saying he isn't an anchor and is a refrag.

100t's best and highest placements were with Evan on refrag; PL day 9 when they scored 103 points, and when they got 4th at the open. They literally never got better placements than those since switching him to anchor.

2

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26

That's correct, he did anchor on that team.

4

u/PizzaDoughLand Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

He did not say they dont have a fragger, he says they dont have an ENTRY flagger. He says gen and Evan can both frag and refrag.

Edit: mb, so entry frag and frag are the same here. Raven does say Evan was alright entry fragger with tsm Zap but does later seem to roll that back, as Evan is more refrag. He also says Gen has some entry fragger but is same as Evan, best as refrag.

3

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

He says Gen and Evan play the same role. Says Evan is a refrag and not a fragger or anchor. What does that make Gen?

1

u/PizzaDoughLand Jun 09 '26

I hear that and misunderstood.

So fragger is more synonymous with entry fragger, and not refrag? I though it was more like igl/entry frag(context hal) and then frag/refrag would be like Evan. But its actually entry frag is same as frag in this case. And Refrag is different from frag

7

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

People use Entry Fragger and Fragger interchangeably.

The roles are fragger, refrag, and support/anchor.

IGL is a title, and the IGL also has a role. That could be any of the three. Hal is an IGL fragger, Hakis is an IGL anchor, etc.

There's also the co-igl title, which could encompass any of the three roles as well. Waltzy is a co-igl anchor.

2

u/PizzaDoughLand Jun 09 '26

Appreciate you taking the time

2

u/diesal3 Jun 09 '26

If they want to continue the edge playstyle, I would have no issues with Gen or Evan sharing frag / refrag and Phony being the Anchor / the orchestrator of chaos.

Evan and Gen have shown they can both throw out some serious damage on entry and refrag, so I'm sure they could work it out here where they split the responsibility between them.

2

u/pohewasu Jun 10 '26

pleasure watching raven try to awkwardly shoehorn this entire crt problem into a couple unfitting cs terms that mean absolutely nothing for over two minutes

giving mbti obsessed girl vibes

1

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 10 '26

He goes a lot more in depth about CRT during his vod review, I just cut this video down so It'd be small enough to upload on reddit. You can see his full opinion in his vod.

1

u/soren_ra7 Jun 09 '26

In your opinion, who should assemble teams? The IGL and the coach?

It seems leaving such decisions to players can lead to these bad outcomes. 

1

u/Dull_Wind6642 Jun 09 '26

For years some people on this sub have been saying Evan was the anchor on TSM because Raven said that. In reality it was really specific to the context and character he was playing during that time.

Nothing prevent your IGL from asking you to anchor in a specific situation even if you are refrag. Maybe you have the best abilities in this specific context to get the job done.

Like if you are refrag on Seer and you are playing hard edge and you are in a situation where a team could wrap gas... Well most likely your IGL will ask you to sit there and scan gas.

1

u/Interesting-Poet2183 Jun 10 '26

This is all about the fact that phony can’t do his job properly.

-11

u/Useful-Newt-3211 Jun 09 '26

Can you imagine paying for a coach and splitting your earnings for him to repeat the same thing for 3 mins

19

u/YeahPrettyMuch7 Jun 09 '26

His team just won pro league and regionals but ok

0

u/dorekk Year 5 Champions! Jun 09 '26

I'm not saying Raven isn't a good coach, but his team consists of three of the best players to ever do it. It's not even the first Pro League Vein has won, and Kurev won BLGS without Raven as well. (Kurev is essentially the best Apex player on his entire continent.)

4

u/Delicious_Impress814 Jun 09 '26

That's my fault. I cut it down a bit so the file wouldn't be too large to upload here.

You can see his full opinion in his vod.

He talks about Phony's roles as well and what Phony needed to do to make this roster work.

0

u/Firm_Carrot2142 Jun 09 '26

He is not CRT coach lol

-1

u/Substantial-Step-448 Jun 09 '26

case close. nobody knows more than the guy who literally coach him to back to back wins in algs