Fadsafs — From plateau to Immortal

The Player

Fadsafs came to us balancing school and the gym, with about two years of Valorant behind him. He'd climbed from Bronze to Diamond on raw talent, but the climb had been stop-and-go: skipping seasons, picking the game back up, hitting a new ceiling, then drifting again.

When he reached out, he was sitting at Diamond 2 — frustrated less with the rank itself than with the feeling of being lost in his own games. He had the mechanics. He had the time. What he didn't have was structure.

He was a Jett main, with a particular gift for finding chaos. The kind of player who throws the book out the window for a clip — and who you forgive immediately because he's smiling the whole time he's doing it.

Diagnosis

Three things showed up in the first VOD review.

Mechanics were promising but corrupted. His aim was naturally clean — but he was running raw mouse acceleration, a setting popularized by a wave of YouTube videos promising it was "what the pros use." It wasn't. It was making his aim inconsistent at exactly the moments precision mattered most. The talent was real; the foundation was sabotaged.

Decision-making was the actual ceiling. Fadsafs felt lost in fight situations. He'd peek when he shouldn't, hold angles for too long, push when he should rotate. Not from stupidity — he's a sharp kid — but because he'd never been taught the frameworks for how to think in those moments. Most coaching focuses on aim because aim is teachable in a death match. Decision-making is harder because there's no death match for it.

Map awareness was thin. He didn't know how to clear properly or peek with discipline. Combined with the inconsistent aim from raw accel, this meant enemies were catching him in weird spots — pre-aimed by players who'd watched him do the same thing three rounds ago.

The diagnosis wasn't subtle. The work was clear. The question was whether he could absorb it.

Used to be stuck Dia for one episode then got the coaching and went to Asc 1 then took a break for a bit and after that hit Immo 2 after getting the coaching another time. Daniel points out things in a 20-sec clip that you never thought of, makes you a routine that fits your weaknesses.

— Fadsafs

The Program

Fadsafs had time — and that mattered. His routine ran 90 minutes most weekdays, with shorter sessions on Tuesday (60 min) and Wednesday (45 min) to fit around real life. Three ranked games a day on average. The time investment was real but not extreme.

The routine was built around two priorities: rebuild the mechanics correctly, and force volume on the map-clearing and peeking technique that ranked alone wouldn't teach.

The drills:

• Sage peek — building disciplined peeking technique, frame-by-frame correct mechanics.

• Silent death match — forcing proper map clearing and positioning. No audio cues means the brain can't shortcut decisions; it has to clear and peek the right way.

• Strafe — rebuilding the shoot-strafe-shoot rhythm corrupted by raw accel.

• Aim training — resetting the aim foundation after disabling raw acceleration.

• Death match — pressure-testing the rebuilt aim in real combat.

• 100 bots — burst focused — installing bursting as a reliable kill pattern. He'd been tapping exclusively, which works if you're an insane aimer but isn't reliable for normal humans.

• Spray control — adding spray as a tool for the moments tapping and bursting weren't right.

The harder fix had no drill. Decision-making got worked through the 1-1 sessions and weekly check-ins — Fadsafs would send us VOD clips of moments he wasn't sure how he should have played, and we'd walk through them together. Not just "here's what you did wrong" but full frameworks: if you're in this kind of position with this kind of info, here are your real options and how to pick between them.

He asked questions. He sent clips. He internalized the frameworks faster than most because he's a fast learner and because he had the volume of ranked games to apply them in.

The cadence:

• One 90-minute 1-1 with Daniel per month — recalibration and structural diagnosis.

• Weekly check-ins on the routine — Daniel reviewing exercise VODs, giving technique feedback.

• Async access on Discord whenever a question or clip came up mid-week.

The Arc

The Outcome

Both retreat seasons sold out within the six-month window. No paid spend. No influencer seeding. No new platforms. Twelve posts and one founder essay restarted in the newsletter. The waitlist for the following year closed at 61 names before a single date had been announced.

What Fadsafs Said

Used to be stuck Diamond for one episode, then got the coaching and went to Ascendant 1, then took a break for a bit and after that hit Immortal 2 after getting the coaching another time. Daniel points out things in a 20 second clip that you never thought of, makes you a routine that fits your weaknesses. While Joni can help a lot with DM reviews (if you aren't like Immortal 3+) + Joni helps a lot with mental stuff or just general mindset, also he can help if you have any questions regarding mice.

All in all these guys give you a TON of stuff even with just the Standard Packet. I'd go as far as to say that it's a guaranteed rank up if you actually put in the hours and implement what these guys tell you.

— Fadsafs

Credits