NRG star Ardiis defends TenZ and calls VALORANT fans ‘braindead’ for recency bias

After a tough start to their VCT Americas season, NRG appear to be righting the course, avoiding what would have been a disastrous loss to the winless KRÜ roster yesterday, April 25, in the final match of Super Week.

Following the match, NRG’s imported addition in Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks did not mince words when addressing the vocal portion of VALORANT fans with extreme recency bias. When speaking to Goldenboy, ardiis did not hold back toward those who are quick to judge players based on just a couple of matches.

“I mean some fans are absolutely braindead,” ardiis said. “Like TenZ has won events, but TenZ has two bad games and everyone goes ‘fuck TenZ, TenZ is shit.’ I have one bad game on Killjoy, ‘ah this is dogshit.'”

Goldenboy interrupted the answer in a desperate attempt to get ardiis, known for his spicy post-game interviews, to stop swearing. But the former Masters winner with FPX continued to drive his point home, albeit without any cursing.

“The fans, they’ve got a recency bias, so as soon as you have one good game you’re the best player in the world, [but] you have one bad game you’re suddenly the worst player in the world,” ardiis said.

TenZ’s level of play has certainly been a topic of conversation across the internet among VALORANT fans, one that’s become more prevalent following the early success Sentinels have seen from Marved’s return. Head to sites like Reddit or the forums on VLR and you’ll see tons of posts and comments bashing TenZ.

But there’s a case to be made that no player in competitive VALORANT today has had more obstacles to face than TenZ. He’s played through both COVID and a finger injury, he’s providing support as a partner to his fiancé Kyedae as she faces extremely serious health issues, navigated a coaching change, and of course is trying to meet the sky-high expectations he’s set for himself. And if you take away the COVID match against Leviatán, the only bad game he’s had recently was coincidentally against NRG.

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While there’s certainly some truth to ardiis’ statements about VALORANT fans with recency bias, the British/Latvian star did spend some time in the interview acknowledging that NRG are playing below expectations, most notably the ones they’ve set for themselves. “We haven’t shown our best, or even 50 percent of our best in this league,” he said. “We’re 2-3 and we’ve played the worst VALORANT we’ve ever played.”

Past the halfway point of the season, both NRG and Sentinels are right next to each other in the standings at 2-3, but NRG currently own the sixth-place spot with a 6-6 map record compared to Sentinels’ 6-7.