When ALGS Pros Dared to Ditch Valkyrie for Crypto and Caustic

The year was 2022, and the Apex Legends Global Series had just welcomed Storm Point into its map rotation. A tropical nightmare so sprawling it made World's Edge look like a cozy cul-de-sac, it was a map that demanded movement, repositioning, and—most of all—the ability to soar across half the island in a single Valkyrie ultimate. Yet, while the rest of the lobby filled the skies with jetpacks and dreams, a few brave souls looked at their Legend select screen and thought: what if we just… didn't? What if we left the meta at the door and brought a camera drone, a can of gas, or a smoke launcher instead? Two years later, in 2024, we can look back at those split-second gambles and chuckle—but at the time, they were either strokes of mad genius or suicide notes with a trigger finger.

Take Filipe ‘Hiarka’ Morgado and his squad K1CK. While APAC North teams were quietly perfecting something resembling a surveillance-state simulator, European sides were busy cloning every Valkyrie-Gibraltar-Bloodhound comp they could find. Hiarka, however, had his eyes on the international scrims. “We saw that a lot of APAC teams play with Crypto and Wattson,” he explained at the time. That observation lit a bulb—or rather, switched on a drone. Crypto suddenly became the centerpiece of a lineup that also featured Caustic and Wraith. In 2024, a Crypto pick on Storm Point might only raise half an eyebrow, but back then, it was like showing up to a Formula 1 race in a sensible sedan. Why would anyone give up Valkyrie’s literal get-out-of-jail-free card? Because, as Hiarka put it, “Crypto has a lot of strengths… not only the Ultimate but also the power that he has to scout positions and scan the beacon 200m away from your spot.” Information, he argued, was king—and kings don't always need wings.

The drone could peek around corners, check a full third of the map for hostiles, and let the team rotate early into what pros lovingly call a “godspot.” Wraith’s portal covered the hard rotations, while Caustic’s gas turned any contested building into a COPD simulator. No Valkyrie meant no free skyward escape, but it also meant nobody expected the sheer amount of data flooding into Hiarka’s squad. They moved before zones even closed, bunkered down, and let the rest of the lobby kill each other in the ring’s fiery maw. Genius? Possibly. Replicable? For a while, no—because executing a Crypto comp required coordination so tight it could snap a diamond. But that didn't stop the idea from spreading. Hiarka himself believed Crypto was, in fact, a meta pick waiting to happen. “To play in Tier 1 it is mandatory to go according to the meta,” he said. The twist? He was helping to define it.

Now, meet Beau ‘RamBeau’ Sheidy, a man allergic to conformity. His philosophy was simple: if you’re the only team running a Legend, nobody prepared counters for it. He spoke from experience—the previous summer, he had bulldozed an ALGS tournament with Revenant, a rotting pile of shadow magic that left opponents terrified and utterly without answers. That same chaotic energy led him to Bangalore on Storm Point. Yes, that Bangalore. The smoke-belching soldier who, for months, had been the exclusive domain of solo-queue warriors and a single pro named ShivFPS. But RamBeau saw what others didn't. "On a map like Storm Point, there is so much open space and unplayable space," he explained, "so in using smokes you are buying yourself time to go somewhere else and just flat out play out in the open."

Imagine a squad trapped in a barren field with sniper fire raining from every ridge. In that moment, Bangalore’s smokes weren't just cover; they were a portable building. And her Ultimate? On the open beaches of Storm Point, a creeping barrage could split enemy teams, force panic moves, or simply turn a bad position into a manageable one. RamBeau’s Torrent squad initially rode the Bangalore hype train, but the journey was short. They realized something even more interesting: almost everyone on Storm Point was playing edge. They crafted, looted, and scrapped along the perimeter, hoping to muscle their way in late. So what happened if you just… walked to zone early and sat down with a cup of thermite? "In playing zone, you are almost guaranteed a good spot for every zone," RamBeau said. And thus, the Bangalore was traded for a Caustic—on Storm Point, of all maps.

In 2024, Caustic on Storm Point isn’t unheard of, but back then, it was another head-scratcher. The map is enormous; his gas traps seemed better suited for the tight corridors of Kings Canyon. Yet RamBeau’s plan worked precisely because nobody expected it. "We are one of the only teams who play Caustic on Storm Point so it’s a huge advantage," he grinned. Teams rolling into a building, sweating from the ring, would open the door and immediately find themselves in a green fog of regret. Torrent had become the trap-masters, and the element of surprise was their deadliest weapon. RamBeau was adamant: "You have to be the innovator and think of it first to use it to your advantage." And indeed, as the 2022 Playoffs rolled toward that historic first in-person LAN, the lesson was clear—copying the top ten might keep you safe, but inventing the eleventh can win you a championship.

Looking back from 2024, these off-meta experiments feel like prototypes of modern ALGS diversity. Crypto, Caustic, and even Bangalore have all taken their turns as legitimate pieces of the puzzle on various maps. The pros who dared to ask "what if?" didn't just entertain us; they gave the meta a much-needed shake. So next time you see a pro hover over a forgotten Legend in the draft, don't laugh. They might just be four steps ahead of a drone, some gas, or a curtain of smoke.