Blackheart to toot my own horn here. Not make a statement here either way:
But two SCTA Showmatches-
TAG_Rock vs Boom-
Natas Vs Zlo and Banana
Rock was my understanding considered a high quality player back in GPG and he prepped for the event by practicing the mods and several maps. Now factional balance and my clearly amazing understanding of this game all have an effect on this.
Rock lost 4 of 5 games vs Yeed. Now Rock didn’t do poorly in those games. In all fairness. But its not like he came back a week earlier and did zero prep.
Natas vs Zlo and Banani was also fascinating. Natas did some prepping, but he wasn’t as adaptable. And still put a good name for himself.
Both of these players, Rock espacially was a classic FA GPG/FAF pro. And I don’t honestly see the massive difference of skill level. On some level while by extension.
You could argue both of them being able to take games off Boom and Banana whom are not l33t by average joe standards are definetely high quality/strong players as evidence as old pros raw skills. It to me personally says if those had prepped more or prepped better, or factions were equal. The matches would be closer to an even split. Player quality hasn’t gone up in raw sense player ability to do quality gameplay has gone up. Which I know makes no sense