sampl

🇺🇲🇵🇭 | private: @sampl_txt

[sampl @llsampll]

how tha hell do you get a video editing job in this economy

help

[sampl @llsampll]

@avanoaa @Chippy_Duck @Zeesus_ @NicheFPS @wintr1of1 @itsnobii #getbig

[delu ❤︎₊ ⊹ @avanoaa]

The premier team put together by pure agony and despair.

Introducing team ‘Big Men’, founded by @Chippy_Duck 👆

🇺🇸 - @Chippy_Duck
🇵🇭- @llsampll
🇲🇽- @Zeesus_
🇺🇸 - @NicheFPS
🇨🇦- @wintr1of1
🇺🇸 - @itsnobii

🧳 - @avanoaa

#BigMenWin #GetBig

[sampl @llsampll]

@Chippy_Duck @itsnobii @Zeesus_ @NicheFPS @wintr1of1 clean asf

[sampl @llsampll]

@avanoaa @Chippy_Duck This might be my 13th reason why

[Alex Hollings @AlexHollings52]

This is literally the funniest thing I’ve seen on the internet in a long time.

[Jayrol @jayroltv]

last night i went to ihop at 3am drunk as shit. this homeless guy asks me for cash but i didn’t have any on me so i told him to just sit at a table and order what he wants and i’ll have the waiter bring me his check. 20 min later his food gets there and he only eats half and takes the rest boxed up. While i was leaving i see him trying to wake up his friend and kept saying “ i got you pancakes “. idk if i was just drunk but this shit had me crying on the way home

[Jenni @hashjenni]

Me making sure the music on my story is perfect (nobody cares)

[Luna @ItsLunaArt]

Looking for some new emotes? Check out my etsy for some premade ones or reach out via DMs for Custom Emotes! https://t.co/rS2laRynIP

#TwitchEmotes #CommissionsOpen

[VALORANT @VALORANT]

bro didn't read the patch notes

[VALORANT Esports NA @valesportsna]

can't hear you

[sampl @llsampll]

@cohsmoh PLEASE SIGN MY STEAM PROFILE

[THESPIKE.GG @THESPIKEGG]

Riot Games confirms that VALORANT is the first tactical once they are shooting game when of the beginning.

They became the always to have the most best spike defuse.

Congratulations @VALORANT!

[SkinBaron.com @SkinBaronEN]

Bro is getting outrageous 💀

[rin pinguefy @pinguefied]

while that sentiment is mostly true for artisan pads, i don't think "never trust stuff that's too cheap to be true" is a hard and fast rule anymore.

on the topic of mousepads, we have stuff like the MGG Ultraneon and Ultradash: very stable bases, stitched edging, and come in a 490x420 form factor, all for around $30. the ultraneon in particular is very impressive to me; it is faster and smoother than all but two of the pads i've ever used. only the Artisan Raiden and Infinitymice Speed v2 best it, meaning that it has lower friction than the Tenta-x Jinsoku, Matrova Breeze, Lamzu Energon Pro, Steelseries QCK Speed, Lethal Gaming Gear Neptune Pro, and many of the other popular recommendations for fast cloth pads. some of these pads are over twice the price, and yet this cheaper pad from an unknown brand is outperforming them.

the ultradash is also quite competitive as a mousepad in the balanced category: while the transition from static to dynamic friction is not quite as smooth as the artisan zero (pretty much nothing is haha), it is a very performant mousepad for $30 with pretty much all of the same quality.

the only quibble i have with both of these pads is the very thick bases, where they are plusher than artisan's xsoft bases by half a millimeter. i don't think this is a result of the price point though, just not something i particularly like.

outside of MGG, we still have pads like the Vaxee PA, X-raypad AC2, and Matrova's lineup. while i'm not a huge fan of Matrova in terms of surface performance, i have to admit they offer very high quality pads for the asking price, and the ability to customize the surface is shockingly good for that cheap.

in the glass space, we have the tekkusai singularity! glasspads average to be around $100, but this one came in at $39. you would think that there's no way this could compete with more expensive options like the Infinitymice Tora, Skypad 4, or Kanami Sai, but persnoally, i prefer it to all of those.

the price comes from a wonderful intersection of opportunity and knowledge of manufacturing that tekkusai was able to leverage in order to make very performant pads at that price point, and the only pads you can notice a dip in quality compared to everything would be his own pads and the recent VA-005. namely, the base being rubberized, which imo is good enough, and a far better compromise than what we saw with the original release of the Cerapad Kin X. you could argue that the increased skate wear is a problem as well, but that's a problem that exists at all sorts of price points.

however, the space in which that "too cheap to be true" adage makes the least sense in is mouse skates. in terms of ptfe, aliexpress skates have actually surpassed first party options in terms of both value and performance. Ultraglides is the first brand to come to mind (also known as MGG!), having direct clones of X-raypad's Jades, Jade Airs, and Obsidians Airs, all of which are on par or better than the originals. the airs (UG green/purple) are about the same, if not marginally worse than originals, but the Ultraglide Speeds are better than Jades on cloth imo. not to mention they have two other original designs: the Rennsports, which have a flatter base and utilize hardened ptfe, are arguably the smoothest skate on glass, and the Silences, which are a wonderfully balanced skate. while the silences are most known for their usage of a foam layer above the adhesive, imo it's more noteworthy for its friction balance. like the Artisan Mizugomo Futae P8, these skates are the only ones to offer a relatively large gap between initial and dynamic friction. and all of these skates can be purchased for about $8 for 80 of them, compared to the $14 for xraypad Jades.

these aren't the only great value aliexpress skates, with the Talongames Gray and TBTL Control V2s being even faster on cloth than anything in Ultraglide's lineup! supposedly the Talongames Kumo are the new BiS for cloth but i haven't tried those just yet. i've also heard the FunBlocks skates are the same OEM as the UG speeds, but I have no confirmation on that either.

either way, for mouse skates, price has almost zero correlation to quality.

another exciting development is the space is the introduction of POM as a material! this is the material used by the mythical Artisan Skate, and you might be familiar with it if you were ever into custom keyboards. the good ol' holy pandas were made out of this, and it was famous for being a "self-lubricating" plastic. honestly i don't really know what that means, but the artisan dots do have the lowest static friction of any skate i've ever used on cloth.

there are two new players in the POM space that have come out since then: TBTL and Errenir. as far as i know, you can only get the TBTL POMs through taobao atm, which is a bit of a headache, and i was super excited about trying these. the value here would have been immense; i believe it was 84 skates for about 20 yuan, which i think is like 3 usd? but sadly, it seems like the material is only part of what made the artisan skates so good and the rounding played a bigger role than i initially thought. it's namely in the transition between static in dynamic friction. it feels tuggy and honestly not all that fast.

hopefully this will be another turning point in the skate market! in my eyes, there have been a few things brands tried to optimize: the first was ptfe purity, where skates bragged about being 100% ptfe. then it was hardness, with skates like the obsidians playing with that variable, and skates like the cyclones mastering it. then there's material: this one was only explored by a few brands, namely UHMW from wallhack, POM from Artisan, glass from... maybe pulsar? and arguably ceramic from lexips. ofc there's ntech with their weird materials like duracon and ghostglides with their nylon66, but those probably aren't good enough to be worth mentioning.

when the artisan dots released i think a lot of us had a vague understanding that the rounding was playing a role, but only after other people have attempted to steal the material type and not the rounding have we gotten answers as to just how impactful it was. it's possible that such aggressive rounding is what makes that perceived wear so much more drastic (the TBTL POMs are often compared to worn artisan dots), but if there was a clone brand that could pull off that rounding for cheap, we might be looking at a similar use case as glass.

by which i mean: in the past, my favorite skates on glass were things like the Jades. the softer material deadened less of the texture and offered a really nice speed profile. but after only a week, there would be noticeable wear. aliexpress dots fixed this problem for me by being so cheap: i don't feel bad about changing skates after that week is up.

so maybe a clone of something like the new ntech plz series with its aggressive rounding on PTFE could have a similar niche. wears quicker than normal but can be replaced guilt-free. maybe that's what makes the Talongames Kumo so interesting.. i'm excited to see for myself!

regardless, now that we see just how important rounding is, i'd expect this is the next big things brands will attempt to optimize.

back on the topic of price to performance, we can talk about mice a little bit. this is a tricky one, because i think this is more true here than in the other two niches. the main way it varies is the number of players; while in the mousepad space Artisan still has a stranglehold over the market, and you could use that to point towards price correlating with performance, you'd be ignoring all of the other brands that charge similar prices and don't outperform the budget brands. in the mouse space, there is no real dominant brand. of course there's Logitech and Razer, but they're not really dominant due to their pure quality, but moreso their momentum. the only brand you could argue is close to dominance in the niche is Endgame Gear, with their ever popular OP1 and XM2. and while they are obviously much better performers than all of ATK or or VGN's lineup, i don't think you can use that point to argue for a price to performance correlation, with brands like Finalmouse, Logi and Razer all charging MUCH more for their products, with nothing to show for it in terms of performance.

if we were to look towards the ultra-budget range: you are somewhat right. there is a noticeable lack in quality from things like the VGN Dragonfly, Ajazz mice, or ATK's cheaper variants. but this is only something you'd notice with either a testing setup or by being a very seasoned player. the vast majority of people do not notice this gulf in performance whatsoever, so for them, it's hard to say your rule holds true. they come with all of the relevant specs too, it's really just the sensor implentation that leaves something to be desired. honestly, if not for my experience with the Kysona Uranus, i might agree. but that thing, at $40, far outperforms mice from Darmoshark or the Pwnage Trinity, and if i didn't buy it due to that fear of the price being too low, i would have missed out on one of my favorite mice of all time.

Thanks for reading ^_^

[Unfortunate Counter-Strike @CSunfortunate]

Tier 3 and below CS doesn’t even try to hide it bro, even the casters are baffled 😂

[sampl @llsampll]

@Chippy_Duck

[sampl @llsampll]

Holy fuck I’m 22…

[sampl @llsampll]

@Chippy_Duck No.