Apex Legends aim assist debate reignited as ImperialHal wins ALGS on controller

Apex Legends players have, once again, ignited calls for a nerf to aim assist after TSM’s Phillip ‘ImperialHal’ Dosen claimed MVP honors at the 2023 ALGS Split 1 playoffs. 

The war between controller and mouse and keyboard players has been raging for quite some time, but it’s gotten incredibly heated when it comes to Apex Legends. 

Both sides believe the other has an advantage, and for some anti-controller players, that was only cemented back in November, when controller became the dominant peripheral in competitive play. At the time, the top 14 for kills was dominated by controller players, as only two mouse and keyboard users forced their way onto the leaderboard for overall kills in North America. 

ImperialHal, who made the switch to controller a few months back, and kept dominating in Apex, managed to climb the mountain with his TSM squad at the 2023 ALGS Split 1 playoffs, as they claimed top spot and a $300k payday. 

Apex Legends players want aim assist nerf after ALGS finals

Hal, himself, took home the MVP award, and even gave a shout-out to his controller in his post-event interview. Though, his success has only hammered home the calls for a tweak to aim assist. 

“Literally the best players in the world get an advantage from controller aim assist. This tells you all you need to know about how broken it is at lower levels of play,” said one Redditor off the back of Hal’s success. “The “Just use roller if it’s so OP” argument can be retired now,” added another.

“As much as players want to deny that controller is superior to M&K due to AA, this proves the opposite. Can we please nerf AA for God’s sake,” another commented. 

While Hal claimed the MVP, controller wasn’t the totally dominant peripheral at the $1 million tournament. 

Seven of the top 10 kill leaders were using keyboard and mouse, with Hal being the top-ranked controller player at fourth overall. 

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The kill leaderboard for the ALGS finals was domianted by mouse and keyboard.

Hal said in the past that he was “single-handedly” trying to get aim assist nerfed by proving how strong controllers can be. 

He might have finally achieved that goal with his MVP win as Respawn will be under immense pressure to make a change.