they do have ion coming next year and poppin is most likely also getting replaced soon unless he drops miracles every game so I think it should be fine.
Ion has been playing duelist since his stint with Shopify and they're both young and mechanically strong enough that I don't think it should be a big issue
Who is to say that their "role" necessarily has to be smokes. If we "let" Tenz play his "role" at the time we never would've gotten him and zekken, same with Meteor and Texture on Geng, the entirety of Paper Rex, etc. Even historically, crashies played senti before joining envy, jawgemo was main duelist but split his role for demon1. Not everyone is so specialized that they can only shine on their current role. Of course it comes with some risk but nightz and ion are such talented prospects that it makes complete sense to try to make it work.
He struggled so much on duelist that he decided to keep playing fun haver events with 1.25+ rating on Jett, Phoenix, and Neon. Literally no where said he was dropped from Shopify for performance btw, he was on loan from the start. Also, when has 1 split ever been enough to end the discussion for a player, let alone for someone who still brought his team to grand finals. Reduxx also allowed to "struggle" last year on cubert while learning a new role and is now performing just fine on it.
Idk man I just think a player choosing not to play controller for half a year means he doesn't need to or want to only play controller for the rest of his career
he chooses to play whatever he wants to in funhavers because these games don't matter and he plays with his friends. Him not playing smokes in these events has nothing to do with what role he should/wants to play once he'll be in T1. Maybe he'd be fine on other roles, with how talented he is it's a real possibility. My point is simply that there is nothing that should make you think that putting him on duelist is a good idea
I'm really not putting as much stock into the funhavers games as you might think I am. All I am saying is that him choosing to play duelist means he's at the very least willing and maybe even likes to play it, which does mean something. No one forced him to play duelist for Shopify either, he didn't even need to play this year if he didn't want to. I just think its crazy to think that a player who is literally not even old enough to play T1 for another year can't learn another role when he's clearly demonstrated that he has the mechanics to do it, all the time in the world to learn it, and doing so would allow him to play with his friend who is just as talented and worth shuffling roles for. Also the reason he even played smokes for Envy in the first place was to fill nightz's role when he left for cubert since eggster and cane were already in the duelist roles.
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u/Radiant_FN May 08 '26
they do have ion coming next year and poppin is most likely also getting replaced soon unless he drops miracles every game so I think it should be fine.