LoL eSports Discussion

[GreyICE]

EU is just the weakest region right now. Both EU and NA have a lot to learn from how the Koreans train, but I think C9 might be able to keep pace with the Korean teams right now. It's actually a little scary how quickly C9 has improved over the past year.

They are easily the equal of NJBS. I've watched enough OGN to know that.

SKT1 and Ozone? I don't think so. C9 has a huge disadvantage in that there's no team that forces them to lose games. It makes it very hard to refine their strategies, because they haven't had the experience of playing 100%, their best, and getting beat.

I think they're easily #3 or #4 in worlds though.

[GreyICE]

I don't pay much attention to the asian scene; is this a case of a fall from grace by the traditional powers, or is there just a lot of parity over there?

You should follow OGN, it's amazing.

Basically, Frost was fairly dominant, but Woong left. While woong was objectively not a great ADC (he was a top laner), Woong was the coach of MiG Frost before Locodoco left, and most people think Frost lost a good part of their versatility without him. Blaze became the foremost CJ Entus team with one remarkably good strategy (they were undefeated until the finals of the Spring season) but they got figured out, and haven't had a second successful strategy. Both CJ teams suffer from being studied too much - objectively they are amazing powerhouses, but they often lose in the pick/ban phase (the key turns out to be targeting Madlife for Frost, and just playing assassins against Blaze).

Instead three utter powerhouses have risen from Korea - KT Rolster Bullets, SG Ozone, and SKT1. They're insanely powerful teams that are immensely hard to beat. Sadly KT Bullets didn't go to worlds because Najin Sword got a bunch of points a long time ago (even though they are now mid-tier in Korea, and much weaker than any of the CJ teams, or the big 3). Korea is explosive though. Tomorrow the Jin Air Falcons/Greenwings or CTU could rise and the powerhouses fall behind.

China... it's just a case of WE falling apart. No one quite knows what happened there, but they went from completely dominant to just shaky. Part of it was targeting. When every team in China is studying you and trying to figure out how to take you down, someone will find a gap. Part of it seems to be a loss of confidence. World Elite was just not used to losing, and when they started losing they couldn't figure out how to stop. They've gradually fallen apart. Part of it is probably stress. Chinese fans are extremly passionate, but like most fans (this is worldwide) extremely assholish. From Weixiao's apology to the way they seem almost desperate to win at times, it seems like they're suffering from a need to prove themselves.

IG has XiaoXiao in the bot lane. That's gonna make your results really extremely random.

[GreyICE]

Wow, I wish I had the confidence in NA that you have. I mean, I'll be rooting really hard for all the American teams, but I honestly think the Chinese and Korean teams are stronger. I think we can be competitive with EU and SEA, however, so you never know. I just hope my Vulcun boys don't disappoint me.

It's not in NA, which is generally weak. It's in C9, which seem to have great team morale, good teamfighting, a fairly unique style of play, and decent adaptability. Everyone talks up China like China is so amazing, and OMG is amazing. Lovelin. Fucking Lovelin. But yeah, I've seen the games, and while China has some unique playstyles (roaming gank squad say what) I honestly don't feel their mechanics and teamfighting surpass C9's to any great degree.

NJ Sword have just been so mediocre for so long. Maybe they stepped it up. Maybe Prey picks Draven.

[GreyICE]

SKT1 are a team. Faker is the best midlaner in the world, but even the best midlaner in the world can't win OGN for his team. Everyone on SKT1 is amazing.

[GreyICE]

It made a fairly large difference, but they definitely had sub par coordination.

Starting down 2 doran's items didn't help anything, no.

[GreyICE]

Is it funny I have no issues with this if it stays small?

Like Locodoco and Woong are such a historic part of the NA scene (Locodoco was on TSM and CLG for pete's sake).

If NA had 5 asian teams, I'd have a problem with it.

[GreyICE]

Well it grows to extremes. Like right now the Starcraft "World Championship" with players from "each region" contains 15 Koreans and NaNiwa. Only one NA player made it into the top 32, despite America having its own league.

That's what people are hoping to avoid. The "North America Top Finalists" being a bunch of Koreans and Scarlett is kinda blah (as awesome as Scarlett is). The NA scene in league has a rich history and some great personalities, and I don't want them edged out by Korean teams with better funding and better organization.

[GreyICE]

I think the problem with stuff like this is you're trying to create competitive communities that can root for "their" teams and feel like they're being represented. So ideally while you want to allow some fluidity between teams, you want some barriers to entry too.

Pretty much exactly this. Otherwise why have a world championship at all? It's part of the fun, the drama, the spectacle. It's the entertainment.

In other news, the proliferation of barcode names prior to worlds is hilarious. It looks like Riot gave them Diamond MMR accounts with everything unlocked, so they can practice in Solo queue. Watching Phantomlord get utterly dunked by barcode Ezreal was hysterical (my bet is BarcodeKiller is probably xPeke, it feels like him)

[GreyICE]

how do you define "NA"?

NA is multicultural and if you exclude any race or nationality, particularly "The Koreans" from the collective that is the north american race then you should feel ashamed of yourself

I'm gonna say that North America is a continent. It's in the North West Hemisphere, and consists of a whole bunch of countries including Canada and the United States.

Korea is excluded from North America by the highly discriminatory Pacific Ocean. I suggest you go lobby congress to pass a law against that.

[GreyICE]

Well that doesn't read as anti-semitic or anything.

Well, that's the point isn't it? Just people are sensitive about jews and not about Koreans.

Who cares where they originate or were born, if they are allowed to work in a country they can play in the countries sports leagues. Anything beyond that is nationalism at its worst. "You aren't a white anglosaxon protestant so you can't work here".

I'm quite appalled that these thoughts are actually normal in a country build by immigrants. It's their fucking history.

...

I'm having trouble deciding if you're trolling us, or just actually this clueless.

Reginald on TSM is Asian. NyJacky is Chinese. Locodoco is Korean. These are all people who are historically part of the NA League of Legends scene. The issue is complete Korean teams with no history deciding "OGN is too hard, lets head over to NA and kick out all the teams there."

I mean take the NBA. The NBA is the best Basketball in the world, by far and away. Lets imagine that Taiwan had a basketball scene that was new and growing. Lots of Taiwanese joining, they are starting to get some recognition. So a bunch of American teams decide "hey, we can't beat the best teams here, lets go take over the Taiwanese scene, kick out all their local heroes, and take over their basketball programs. We'll make it so they can't get sponsors, they lose all the tournaments, and our superior basketball skills will be shown." Pretty dick move, neh? They basically took a perfectly viable basketball scene and made it "all the shitty teams in the NBA." There'd be newspaper articles about how shit those athletes were for doing that, and outrage about them just kicking apart another country's culture with no regard for it. I mean none of them even speak Taiwanese.

[GreyICE]

I mean take the NBA. The NBA is the best Basketball in the world, by far and away. Lets imagine that Taiwan had a basketball scene that was new and growing. Lots of Taiwanese joining, they are starting to get some recognition. So a bunch of American teams decide "hey, we can't beat the best teams here, lets go take over the Taiwanese scene, kick out all their local heroes, and take over their basketball programs. We'll make it so they can't get sponsors, they lose all the tournaments, and our superior basketball skills will be shown." Pretty dick move, neh? They basically took a perfectly viable basketball scene and made it "all the shitty teams in the NBA." There'd be newspaper articles about how shit those athletes were for doing that, and outrage about them just kicking apart another country's culture with no regard for it. I mean none of them even speak Taiwanese.

I have the idea that I'm being called stupid and I don't know why. Sporters have moved for decades now. So, what happens in the countries that import players? For example in soccer, they import Africans, Brazilians. Did Spanish football players become worse because Messi and his predecessors came over? Hell no. They are current world champions for a reason, while Spain spend tons of money on players through history.

If someone comes over to your competition, you learn from them, you improve, you play your best. You bet if basketball teams went over to taiwan now, in 20 years taiwanese would rock at basketball. And in basketball you perhaps could think that it would be a dick move to let Serbians play against Pigmees, but there's no such thing when it comes to computer games.

You don't shut out players just because they aren't your preferred skin color. Talking about dick moves.

Well you think I'm calling you stupid.

Maybe that's a bit wrong. Ignorant is closer. Deliberately thick as fuck is dead on.

Because this practice has been controversial since forever. Most football teams have rules about how many native players you can have versus how many international players. There's a hell of a lot of rules, discussion, and controversy in the Olympics whenever someone tries to country hop, and it's definitely something the IOC cares a lot about.

It has nothing to do with racism (dear god, did you miss reading all the names of asian players in the LCS? You can add on Doublelift, Chauster, fuck there's more still) and everything to do with local teams being local.

I mean honestly I think you're just trolling because no human can be this dense.

[GreyICE]

Mykonian is crusading against something. He knows not what, but he's crusading against it. I think it's time we started ignoring him.

In other news, why are people convinced that picking fizz against Ahri will magically result in a win? Two teams in a row have tried this strategy, and it's not proving a panacea.

[GreyICE]

Grey, results based analysis is generally bad, leads to kneejerks. Teams have at least tens of games of Fizz v Ahri in all of their sparring matches, their conclusions of 'good/bad choice' likely come from that, not the game 1 hour ago by 2 completely different teams.

Well this may or may not be, but I think that so far what's happened is that Fizz has not proved a solution to the Ahri issue.

As far as I can tell Fizz is a counter because he can jump the charm and then go in hard on her, and she has to use the ult to escape, plus he can ult her and bleed her to kill her.

Which is great, but it doesn't stop her roam, and while Fizz takes towers alright once he gets lichbane... I dunno. I just feel like they haven't really factored in roaming and junglers, they've just kind of said "well fizz can beat ahri in lane." Might have just been a desperation pick, since neither team was exactly favored to win. Ironically I kind of feel that if Regi had a champion he's comfortable on and had done decent in the middle lane, TSM could easily have won that.

[GreyICE]

OMG is currently ahead of SKT1. We'll see how long it lasts, but OMG is looking very good.

My team has yet to play. Still think they'll take this.

[GreyICE]

OMG has studied SKT1. I feel like SKT1 hasn't done their homework. Faker remains crazy-good.

[GreyICE]

That's like saying "Faker is a good midlaner."

EDIT: THE LEVEL THIS GAME IS ON OH JESUS. Seriously this is not KTB/SKT1 level, but it's getting close. The fact that neither side knows what the other one is gonna do is making this extremely chaotic.

[GreyICE]

OMG... just... wow.

Up next: 4 crappy games before we see something decent. WTF riot.

[GreyICE]

Vulcun just utterly smashed past my expectations. I'm so used to, as doublelift says, Vulcun Throwbargins, Vulcun not being the best, Vulcun just being second rate.

They just took down the #1 team EU. The #3 team in NA just took down the #1 team EU.

In other news, Corki+Ezreal were the ADCs of Season 2 world championships. Corki+Ezreal are the ADCs of the Season 3 world championships.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

[GreyICE]

To be fair no one is used to playing against Ozone.

Vulcun had a much better early comp, it was just a matter of Ozone not falling far enough behind. If they'd been able to punish the two tear champions more, they could have done something cool, but Ozone completely outpicked the Shen pick in every way.

I feel like shen is finally a dangerous pick, rather than the safest top lane pick ever.

[GreyICE]

RUSSIAN BOOTCAMP OP

[GreyICE]

Meh, we can circle jerk about what Ozone did wrong, but Gambit played brilliantly.

I'd say the two big shockers to come out so far are Vulcun and Gambit. Gambit there was always the possiblity they'd bootcamp, but I don't think teams were taking Vulcun seriously. 8 strong teams in the group stages.

[GreyICE]

Fnatic stomped Mineski. If you saw the interviews with Mineski and Gambit, Minseki was basically asking Gambit to sign autographs. I can't help thinking the Russians, while not "playing to lose" might not have gone 100% that game. There's a point of stomping where it's almost BM.

[GreyICE]

Nobody has said it... but I think Zuna's been crap so far. He has some nice highlights, but his general play has been weak relative to the bot lanes he's faced, which has really hurt Vulcan.

You mean against Imp/Mata, Puszu/Yellowstar, and Genja/Voidle he's looked pretty weak?

Zuna is definitely their weakest lane, and he's way too aggressive, but in terms of how bad he's doing... he's not really.

[GreyICE]

GamingGear putting up a legit fight against SKT. iiiiinteresting.

SKT1 was unsure of GG.EU's exact team comp and strengths, so was waiting for an obvious mistake that they could capitalize on (and maintaining vision). They found their mistake, and capitalized.

TSM trying to argue that they're still in control of their destiny with an excellent win over Lemondogs. At the moment this is true, but a loss against SKT1 puts their destiny out of their control, and historically TSM does not get going unless Regi is winning. 2v1 mids suck now that you can't fast-push mid tower successfully, so I'm not sure what Regi's strategy is going to be. TOO camp mid again, I suppose, but I can't see that going quite as well as it did against Nukeduck.

TSM have had literally dozens of prime-time games footage of SKT1, and weeks to know that SKT1 was the scariest thing in their group for them, so lets see if they've got an ace up their sleeve. And what that ace is (hopefully not another Syndra vs Faker pick, that's been tried like 4 or 5 times so far).

[GreyICE]

The top two of each group go on, so they do control their destiny.

Control of your destiny means that you don't need other teams to win in games you're not playing in. For instance, if you're 1-3 and there's a 4-0 and a 3-1, you're not in control of your own destiny. Even if you 4-0 the remaining 4 games, that's only good enough for a 5-3. So you need the other two teams to lose specific matches to still have a shot.

TSM still has control over their own destiny... but they need a 4-0.

[GreyICE]

Maybe you have the number of wins wrong for TSM, GI? If TSM goes 4-0, they'll be 6-2 at the end, not 5-3. Which is why they controlled their own destiny as of last night, when they were 2-1 and about to face SKT1.

Your reading comprehension here is amazing.

Please read what I wrote again.

That or your math is off... since if TSM go 4-0 they are guaranteed a spot.

[GreyICE]

They came into Worlds Samsung Galaxy Ozone. They leave MVP White.

God that's why being a fan of them is such a rollercoaster.

[GreyICE]

so who thinks coast is obv-8th place in NA this split

*raises hand*

I'll be controversial.

The worst teams in NA right now, at this very moment, are Dignitas and EG.

There, said it. EG sucks balls. No matter how bad they are though, Dignitas is worse.

This split is gonna be the breaking point for Dig, because they are truly far worse than their record has ever suggested, and they aren't gonna be able to cut it.

But seriously, EG is really bad.

[GreyICE]

Explain how EG are really bad, when we've only seen them play one set of games, which they won?

Well that's a little disingenuous, because we've seen 3/5 of their members play a ton of games. Literal tons. We may have more footage of Snoopeh, Krepo, and Yellowpete on a team than we do of any NA team except maybe TSM or CLG. So lessee.

First, CLG.EU were never mechanically skilled. They said it themselves. They were frequently outskilled by their opponents, so their strategy was wait for late game and then win teamfights with superior team coordination and decision making. That was the CLG.EU way. And who wasn't mechanically skilled? It's not Froggen, who is a mechanical genius (having started the entire "Mid Lee Sin" craze and being widely acknowledged as one of the best mechanical midlaners in the world). It's not Wickd, who is a great top laner. It's... err... oh right.

Seriously, take a look around. Who is the worst jungler in the LCS, mechanically? Unless he's stepped up his game, Snoopeh. Who is the worst support, mechanically? Uh, KiWiKid (although he didn't exactly stand out as particularly bad in Dignitas' losses, but that's a different issue). But Krepo never made challenger, even when he was trying, and I don't think you can put him up to LemonNation, XPecial, Godwater, or even Aphromoo. Who is the worst ADC? Zuna. But Yellowpete is only "decent."

So the mechanics aren't there, but they can win through superior decision making? No. This brings us to point number 2 - you can't stall into late game anymore. Period. No one successfully does it. Decision making is just tighter across the board. Sure, you can take some challenger team who has never played at a LAN before, stick them on stage, put them under infinite amounts of pressure, spotlights, etc. and watch them lose to Snoopeh, Krepo, and Yellowpete, because those guys don't panic under pressure. What happens when you stick those three in the LCS? Against people who don't panic under pressure? It's not gonna happen. You're not going to bait them into doing stupid stuff. Meteos will countergank Snoopeh, eat his jungle, duel him 1v1 and murder his face off. Rush hour is going to dumpster Yellowpete and Krepo.

Point three - the new guys. Okay, what can we say about them? Well, they're... um... they're not awful. Yay! Not awful! Yay!

I'm a huge fan of Krepo, Yellowpete, and Snoopeh on a personal level, but this team has 'failtrain' written all over it.

Dignitas - they're just fucking awful. They have no heart anymore. Scarra looks like he's a zombie, QTPie has admitted his least favorite position is AD Carry (he'd rather play any other position), KiWiKid moving to bot lane screams "oh fuck he's the worst top laner in NA and we have no idea what we're doing!" Crumbz and Scarra are both good players, but they're a team without hope or direction.

[GreyICE]

I follow OGN religiously.

Frost is a good team cursed with a huge issue - they only have one playmaker. They used to have two, but CloudTemplar slowly fell off until his retirement, and his replacement has not proved any better. With only Madlife to initiate, they end up looking like a collection of 5 good players without a plan.

You CANNOT win in OGN without a plan. Frost would easily compete with TSM/Cloud 9 in NA (although I think they're weaker) and could probably do well in EU, but there's too many teams who are strong in the fundamentals. And Frost never really brings anything original to the table. Ozone smashing them (when they struggled against NJWS) should be a wake up call for them - they need to do SOMETHING differently. Madlife is no longer a plan - Mata, Mada, and Pooh are all his equal, and you cannot have one superstar make a team. There's a reason Ozone beat SKT1 back when SKT1's plan was "rely on Faker, gee gee"

[GreyICE]

The worst teams in NA right now, at this very moment, are Dignitas and EG.

Hey. I think this was awesome.

Ok, I can see XDG coming in 8th, that's fair. Curse I'll go with "I hope not" and leave it at that?

It will be 100 years before I understand this post though.

[GreyICE]

XDG came in third and went 1-1 against Gambit in worlds. With Zuna as ADC.

Why do people persist in thinking they're some terrible team? Mancloud is a beast, Godwater is Godwater, Benny is pretty damn good. Xmithie got better and better over the season. So even if they'd left Zuna in there, I can't imagine them doing worse than 3rd or 4th in the split (especially with Dig unable to beat CLG when CLG doesn't even have a real team)

Who is the worst support, mechanically? Uh, KiWiKid (although he didn't exactly stand out as particularly bad in Dignitas' losses, but that's a different issue). But Krepo never made challenger, even when he was trying, and I don't think you can put him up to LemonNation, XPecial, Godwater, or even Aphromoo.

Yeah krep was shit today you are on point

There entire team was a flaming pile of poo today. Snoopeh kind of stands out of the shitstorm that was their performance as the nadir, but I don't think there's anything nice you can say about any of it.

[GreyICE]

See, people will hype Snoopeh and crew up despite us having copious footage of his play. Similarly people will mock Godwater despite the fact that they keep winning and having tons of footage of how much of that was him.

You ever noticed how people don't bother to ban out Godwater? Think that no pro team has ever thought "hmmm, Vulcun is only third in the LCS, we really should try to beat them, what happens if we ban out godwater?" (answer: he plays other champions)

[GreyICE]

I would be willing to put a bet on xdg finishing higher than clg.

Probably a safe bet, but we still haven't actually seen CLG. For all that they're performing quite well right now, they're performing quite well with a Jungler who is clearly not pro-level and a midlaner who has... an interesting champion pool.

Dexter is a GREAT jungler. As CLG said, their goal this week is to not go 0-4. The fact they're within 1k gold of C9 at 19 minutes is pretty scary.

Edit: Nevermind, I'm just scared of CLG. If they've actually mastered that elusive concept of "consistency" they're terrifying.

Edit2: Ah, there's the CLG we know and love.

Edit3: I dunno if "give up on dragon" is a review of Link's smiting mechanics or not.

[GreyICE]

so 1 i didn't make a judgement on eg and 2 nice game today!

Also just as a note the fact that bloodwater only has such a linear champion pick and that he isn't banned shows you how much people fear him

Doubling down on stupidity just makes you twice as stupid. Sorry friend, Godwater is still a great support.

[GreyICE]

Hey, Yasuo is getting LCS play. Why?

Incredible counter. Watch him against Gragas, Gragas can't land a single Q (and if the Yasuo player is fast enough, ult). Statikk Shiv makes him a godlike splitpusher, with 40% crit. Think Tryndamere, but with a better dash.

He completely turns every notion of how ranged plays against melee in lane on its head. Also combos well with Vi. IMHO overrated at the moment, but still a hard counter to things like Gragas mid.

(also I'm not going to argue the fact that Godwater is an amazing support. He simply is. There's no counterpoints, it's like someone saying "SKT1 is overrated" or "Sion top is a good pro pick")

Might have to revise my opinion on Dig. They showed signs of actually having some sort of team strategy and real life. I haven't seen that... since season 2, frankly.

[GreyICE]

Yasuo has a lot of very strong match ups in midland. Grag isn't the only one.

Also Yasuo+Vi/Malph=free kills

Sure. By the same token, he has a lot of pretty bad ones (he doesn't have the same burst as other melee midlane champions, so it seems like melee fighters/assassins like Akali, Riven, and Kha'zix can take him for a ride). Overall I think he's a great counterpick to certain things, but he's not "ban 100% of the time" level that he seems to have developed in EU (mostly because I think teams aren't sure they can handle him yet).

Nintendude seems to have done a better combo by just using Yasuo+Shyvanna, because then you don't have to be playing Malphite (he's only really usable on support, and imho there are better supports)

[GreyICE]

Well he's got to find something to do in a month or so.

[GreyICE]

SKT K vs Ozone is an AMAZING match. Everyone owes it to themselves to watch.

[GreyICE]

http://www.twitch.tv/ongamenet

Requires a subscription for VODs/HD, but it's totes worth it.

If you want to go chase down illegal Youtube reposts, go ahead, but they're mostly SD. I think these are currently live, but I'm not gonna bother to check, and they'll probably die in a few days/week:

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game4
Game 5

[GreyICE]

I am watching it; on Game 3. I kinda skimmed Game 2 tho cuz to foregone conclusions.

It's so goofy when the camera ZOOMS IN on the acne-scarred players after every DRAMATIC play..

/drunkpost

The LCS fills that time with casters going "oh my god did you see that play?" And some of the reactions are priceless. I remember one midlaner literally facepalming after a particularly bad play (as I recall he'd gone in on someone who was overextended, only for the obvious murderbug to come flying out of the bushes he hadn't warded)

Edit since I pushed it to new page: links on last page.

For an Ozone fan, game 1 is hilarious, but then SKT gets their game face on (especially post 2)

[GreyICE]

i wish I could watch on TV more easily. I'd pay for a convenient way to do it.

I use my laptop and an HDMI cable.

I think the HDMI cable was like $3?

[GreyICE]

Nintendude needs some serious coaching. He makes good plays about 50% of the time, and about 50% of the time they're completely boneheaded.

He's mechanically proficient, but his calls are terrible. It's like the polar opposite of Snoopeh.

[GreyICE]

I can agree with that statement.

I feel like he's probably the worst jungler in the LCS. If Zion and Shiphtur had a better supporting cast, Coast would be a force to be reckoned with.

Skill isn't Coast's issue. Wiz/Daydreamin is a terrible botlane, but neither of them is even particularly bad by LCS standards.

The issue for Coast is 100% shotcalling and strategy. They lose so many games in champ select. So, so many. They have some POS comp that doesn't do anything and the enemy has everything they ever wanted. "They're winning up until they lose" as the quote goes. And once they start losing, NintendudeX starts trying to make plays. The thing is, last season and the season before that even kind of worked! Nintendude could often make plays. But now everyone knows, it's like clockwork. "Coast is down, play safe because Nintendude is going to go for a sketchy play whether or not you extend."

I dunno. I think that Coast and XDG have a ton of potential to be great teams, but they just have lousy coaching. Individually I feel like Curse and Dig both have worse players, but they play better as a team and thus win.

PEdit: Snoopeh is fucking awful. This really can't be overstated how badly EG is in a 4v5 every fucking game.

[GreyICE]

I find Wiz/Daydreamin to be mediocre.

I can totally appreciate that the shotcalling and strategy is a gaping hole for Coast; I think that's a fair assessment.


Who do you think comes out on top in the promotion matches for summer split? I'm guessing Coast-C9T-LMQ.

Hmm, the short answer is 99% Coast, 75% C9T and 80% LMQ/20% Vulcun

The long answer is a tad more in depth but that's the TLDR. Coast is invincible to their opponent, even though they're a struggling tier 2 team. It's impossible for a Tier 2 team to lose a best of 5 to a Tier 3. Even EG was able to handily beat a tier 3 team and their mechanics are beyond sub par.

[GreyICE]

Thought people on Reddit were worth listening to.

By the by, if Coast makes it in next split, Coast Nientonsoh would be pretty hot. Although LLD will probably punch me for that.

[GreyICE]

uhhhh this is weird. Nien has never been a bad player for CLG, so far as I can tell. He's probably the worst guy on the team, but the other players on his team are Really Good, soooooooo IDGI.

TBQH I think this really was Nien's decision. Both Doublelift and Monte seemed very positive towards Nien, and they don't exactly have a replacement lined up. If they wanted to bench Nien I'd think they'd want to have someone at least as good as him ready to join.

Although I could see him potentially rejoining after relegations. He just needs a confidence boost frankly (I love him so I'm biased)

[GreyICE]

Bella wins thread.

Going from watching NiP vs. Millenium to watching Samsung Blue vs. SKT K was... a little bit of a dramatic shift. Game lengths might have been similar, everything else... not so much.

[GreyICE]

Plumbing the depths of XPecial and then discovering it's like wading into the kiddie pool.

[GreyICE]

Good. Snoopeh should have retired a year ago, he needs to be gone. He was bar none the worst jungler last split.

Yellowpete/Krepo isn't a bad lane, but outside of Coast/XDG I can't see any botlane they could potentially beat without a miracle. And guess what two teams are no longer with us? That they have a hope against Robert/Bubbadub or Vasilii? Nah.

[GreyICE]

If you've seen them against other teams in Korea though, only White and Blue can reliably beat them (yes KTA can beat them, but reliably is key, KTA can't reliably beat anyone). NLB they looked unbelievable.

If they hadn't met White in the quarterfinals TWICE, they'd be going to worlds on points, 100%.

This is Samsung White, formerly Ozone, who fell apart for Worlds last year. I think they have something to prove.

Meanwhile, from beneath, the man who swore his goal was to "destroy the SK Telecom organization completely" rises.

[GreyICE]

Well honestly I still can't see a non-Korean team beating SKT.

They have major issues, but the sole reason we're not seeing them at worlds, problems or no, is some INCREDIBLY bad luck and the unbelievable power of Samsung White. I'll write up the saga if they really don't make it and extend the curse, because remember back in OGN Winter not only were they the best team in the World, they looked better than they did in the S3 world finals. Not drop a match? They didn't

drop a game

. They were literally perfect.

[GreyICE]

yes KTA can beat them, but reliably is key, KTA can't reliably beat anyone

Just watched the games, quoting myself for truth. The KTA roulette wheel continues.

[GreyICE]

The thing is that all of the Korean League players know each other personally, since they're in Seoul and hang out in internet cafes. Thus a lot of the "BM" is teasing that is taken out of context, or hype videos (OGN likes making hype videos where the teams trash talk each other, but everyone knows that not much is meant by these and they're hype builders).

I mean that's not to say that manners play doesn't exist, I love Samsung and their manners team vs. IM (or the manners sword). But in general it's nowhere close to the shitshow that is NA.

[GreyICE]

So much for beating SKT T1 reliably or whatever garbage GreyIce was spouting. SKT gets smoked by Shield.

I said KT Arrows cannot beat anyone reliably. This was shown when KT Arrows lost to White Shield directly after winning OGN.

I know you get off on trying to make me look bad, it's very common way for people with low self esteem to build their ego by tearing down their betters, but at least try and get your facts right. 'cause when you don't, bro, that is a sad, sad thing.

[GreyICE]

Oh right, you're dragging up that quote.

Yes, I stand by it. A different day, SKT would have won. Bengi was tilting, and White Shield was on a tear, but they're still not a team anyone can count out.

The difference in skill between the Samsung teams and White Shield is hard to overstate at the moment. They're just leagues ahead. White Shield has unbelievable map control (somewhere SKT has always stumbled) but the Samsung teams have that and individual skill too. SKT did not win NLB for no reason, and White Shield didn't get crushed flat by Samsung White for no reason.

[GreyICE]

His use of Janna ult is fascinating. He uses it more like a Soraka ult than a Nami/Zyra ult.

He really uses it the pick amazingly with his teams map control. It's just a pick to win the map, not to engage or disengage... it's kind of fascinating. NJWS has found an entirely new way to play league, and with (speaking frankly) less than the top tier mechanical players, has found success.

Also winions.

[GreyICE]

Alternatively, they were fed up with the shit working conditions in China, where Chinese pros are treated in underhanded manners and often paid ridiculously low wages (even by Chinese standards) while team owners rake in hundreds or thousands of time their salaries. You know, like they said.

One of the two. (By the by, Royal Club was not exactly a washed up team)

[GreyICE]

Honestly, any group with a Korean team is 3 teams fighting for one spot. Panzer can quote me on that the next time he's not banned. SK and LMQ are the only teams in Group 3 worth fearing.

You can safely dismiss TPA, AHQ, and OMG unless OMG step up their game. They will not be advancing, barring amazing group shenanigans (aka two of those teams in 1 group with a weak group 3). SK is too weak to advance past groups unless they're in a sad group, LMQ is a wild card.

Outside of Koreans, C9 is the strongest team in Group 2. There, said it, controversial post of the day.

[GreyICE]

I think NJWS could get upset into second in their group. I find it much less likely they could be upset into 3rd TBH. Even with some sort of TSM/Fnatic draw it would be very tough.

[GreyICE]

Believe it or not, SGW is Group 2. Somehow. SGB though will happily run a clinic on why you cannot discount Blue, ever.

[GreyICE]

Try being a fan from back when they were MVP. That was a weird transition, especially with no one understanding why you were confused. MVP White>MVP Ozone>Samsung Ozone>Samsung White

[GreyICE]

Group A: Samsung White and Edward gaming get out 1 and 2 respectively. No questions, this is 99.9%
Group B: I'll say Royal Club and TSM, but SK and TPA could both put up a fight.
Group C: Blue plus 1. This is going to be a murder fight for the last spot. I will tentatively say Fnatic, from veteran power, and OMG hasn't overwhelmed me, but this is ridiculously stacked. Any one of the three could take a spot.
Group D: A 3 way deathmatch to see which team doesn't go on. I say C9 drops.

[GreyICE]

What? They didn't even get one Korean team.

They got fucking lucky. Replace TPA or Royal Club with White, and that group becomes a deathmatch.

[GreyICE]

So, am I the only one who thinks Korean teams are tiny bit overhyped?

Have you watched OGN?

[GreyICE]

Dyrus reminds me of Homme. Everyone likes to discount him, but he's spent ages in the top lane, and simply nothing fazes him anymore. 4 man dive at 2:30? He's been through it. Someone playing Lee Sin top for the cheese? He's seen it. The return of Rumble? Been there, done that, got t-shirt.

No matter what you do, Dyrus will be getting farm, Dyrus is unlikely to die repeatedly without significant Jungler attention, you can leave Dyrus out to dry and he'll come through it alright. When it comes to teamfights he's not the shotcaller, but he listens to calls 100%, and when he's told to engage he engages damn well. It's not a style that wins solo queue and propels you to the top of challenger, but he's spent time in the high ranks, and he should not be discounted. Do I think he's the equal of Save? Perhaps. He's not as far off as people think.

[GreyICE]

By the by, Venmar, despite being solidly on the Korean Hype Train (I've watched every OGN game this season, and the quality difference is real and noticeable. It doesn't mean that other regions are "less fun" but it's quite like watching the challenger scene versus the LCS) I did pick 3 Western teams to go on. This is why I didn't pick the others:

C9

- Cloud 9 has high individual skill from Balls and Hai, Meteos is good (despite the hate), but they make their money on their teamplay. They were, for the two splits in the LCS they were noted for their ability to come back from early game deficits with great teamfighting, and teamfighting has remained their strong point. But they're up against NJWS. NJWS is where they are because they are the best team at minion wave manipulation in the world (yes, the very, very best). They have rigid discipline, and are perfectly able to use map movement and rotations combined with minion wave control to crush down turrets in lanes they're not even in. They're playing Cloud 9's game, but they're better at it. Alliance? They just have a higher level of individual skill in all positions. That's why the team was formed - godlike individual skill in all positions. They've meshed that with good teamfighting. C9 teamfights better, but I don't see Alliance falling behind early, which means that teamfights will be an item war.

LMQ

- They're green, it shows. Their group is simply too strong for them to rise above. There's an outside chance, but they're against Fnatic, OMG, and SSB. They can't beat blue, meaning they need to get both OMG and Fnatic, and I just don't see that happening.

SK

- TSM, Royal Club, TPA. Are they the equal of any of these teams? I can't really say they are. They're just flat the weakest team in their group.

[GreyICE]

We regularly see Twitch, Tristana, Kog'maw, Lucian in the bot lane. Caitlyn, Jinx, Ezreal and Vayne all show up on occasion.

They really just need to buff Sivir again (or just undo the fucking nerfs entirely, they were unwarranted), put in some item that really makes Varus and MF playable with their pathetic mobility, and... take a long look at Draven, Graves, and Ashe. Draven I feel like they've just over fucked with at this point (similar to his brother), the other two... just need a mini rework tbqh.

[GreyICE]

In contrast, Draven was seeing plenty competitive play in both the LCS OGN (seriously dude, there was quite a bit, they were discussing how Draven would farm up and then cash in, and use that gold to snowball hard)... until they nerfed Bloodthirster. Since his entire kit is built around AD, that's 50+ damage off each spinning axe with the new bloodthirster. That's just fucking a non-starter.

Ashe... no, sorry Ashe needs a rework. Her passive is inexplicable, her E is inexplicable, her frost arrows need to go to an active instead of a toggle so they can actually have a real impact against champions with gap closers (aka most of the good ones), going from 18 to 4 seconds on a cooldown as you rank it is inexplicable... She needs the Cassiopia treatment. Her kit isn't bad, it just makes no sense

[GreyICE]

I actually think MF is one of those sleeper champions who is truly quite good, and who no one has figured out how to build around yet.

[GreyICE]

Speaking of which, after the enormous AS burst which was barely compensated in any way, I really think Malphite is underpowered. Not really sleeper underpowered. Just UP

[GreyICE]

I guess we'll never know, since Complexity is doing the smart thing. Kat is a truly dire 2v1 laner.

[GreyICE]

What are the odds that 3 of the 6 games would go 2-0 then end 2-3?

Because at the moment it's looking a hell of a lot more likely than anyone on earth would have guessed.

[GreyICE]

Nah, 3-0s are expected. When one team outskills the other so greatly, the chances of them dropping a game are virtually nil. Coast looked like amateurs with their two new members (who clearly were NOT integrated well with the team). Copenhagen Wolves and neo-Gambit were just simply superior to the teams sent against them.

[GreyICE]

Actually I was pretty impressed by Neo-Gambit. Old Gambit was playing like poop, but Kubon was a great salvage from MYM, and Niq has been playing out of his mind all split (Seriously, I swear every Gambit win was Niq just fucking going HAM everywhere... yes, all 8 of them or whatever). I think they correctly identified the issues with their team was Darien and Genja (reportedly Genja never spoke or coordinated even when they were one of the best teams in the world) and replaced them.

The Genja replacement was the biggest wild card, but clearly they used their scrim times very well.

[GreyICE]

The entire highlight reel being Prolly killing Calitrollz... well played, Riot. Well played.

[GreyICE]

how neo are we talking? Im talking post alex pre kubon

Neo-gambit played yesterday. That was like... bizarro gambit.

[GreyICE]

You missed the rainbros.

It was gloriously fabulous.

[GreyICE]

I'm not going to deal with any more TSM drama. They're fucking idiots, I just want them gone, I'm going to ignore them. It's a toxic cesspit which makes everyone in it toxic and awful. It's basically MafiaScum, but in ESports form.

I love watching Samsung White. That DP stomp was methodical and painful. DP clearly watched the AHQ game and made a list of "what not to do" and then midway through the game realized they had no actual plan besides 'wait for a mistake.' It never occurred. White has to be forced to make mistakes, unforced mistakes don't happen.

EDG impresses me, but Group 2 is such a shitshow. I can't help feeling it's a race to see which two teams get the honor of losing in the semifinals.

[GreyICE]

Always knew OMG was out. They looked like crap in the group stages, and only one non-SSB team can progress. Surprised it might be LMQ, but LMQ can be a surprising team.

I think with how good LMQ looks, NA>China is a real possibility. Of course we barely know how good EDG is, getting beaten by SSW 2-0 means nothing, and AHQ is a surprising team at times. It's sad they ended up in group A.

Dyrus tweet doesn't mean TSM giving up, means they're treating the games like finals of Worlds. Which it is for them, because everything is on the line versus arguably the best team in worlds. My opinion? I've watched the President and his Secret Service crush face before, they're gonna do it again.

Watching Blue games remains one of the weirdest things ever. You never quite understand what's happening, then Blue has 4 kills and an objective or something.

[GreyICE]

If we're ranking based on performance, then EU has gotten stomped. That TSM loss was a total fluke (they were literally on the inhib turrets when they got aced, just horrid discipline in the 11th hour) and Fnatic and Alliance were thoroughly beaten.

Does Fnatic show up? If the best Fnatic that ever did Fnatic comes out to play, they still have to beat SSB. It's been ages since you were allowed to even consider dismissing Blue.

[GreyICE]

I really dislike the seeding here for everyone. We're likely to have our real "finals" match in the semifinals and then the finals will be a wild stomp with SSW crushing whatever poor team ends up against them in the finals.

It was like that at S3 worlds too.
SKT T1 vs Najin Black Sword was the "real finals match."
SKT T1 vs Royal Club was just SKT plowing through Royal.

But then again the seeding make sense because SSB v SSW finals would be hard for people to get fired up about.

Are you kidding me.

That would be the greatest finals of all time. I would be pumped as fuck. Both teams would be out there, both of them knowing both nothing and everything was on the line, just playing their hearts out, the two best teams in the world... yeah, I want to see that.

[GreyICE]

Two teams from the same country making finals is impossible to be hyped about.

You don't watch worlds for watching the top level of play, you watch for the nationalism. Go back to OGN.

Brother, I ain't never left OGN. I been watching OGN since Blaze was a top team.

I watch for the games and the moments. OGN delivers both in style.

P.S. "Get out of my lane, bitch!" is hilarious and a perfectly reasonable thing for a pro to shout. There's a different between "heat of the moment" and something you had to sit down and think about, like a tweet or summoner name.

[GreyICE]

Thank you White Shield. You looked mediocre and inconsistent for all of OGN, you looked brilliant for the qualifiers, then you looked mediocre and inconsistent for all of the last series. How you won your groups we will never know.

Also, the replacement of Dada7 was something I didn't even know they were allowed to do. Would have picked them to win if I knew that was happening, but I figured Dada7 was such a toaster they would lose with him on the team no matter what WS did.

[GreyICE]

I dunno, I would have guessed they'd start their strongest player. I wouldn't think they'd spend the entire group stages doing Rock Lee weights.

[GreyICE]

In the world of AD Hyper carries, one man is king. That man's name is... Zilean.

[GreyICE]

Pawn built Manamune + Essense Reaver. ^^

That legitimately confused me.

The Essence Reaver part. Not the Manamune part.

Essence Reaver + Manamune on Jayce is a late game power build. It switches the power from Q+E to W. Manamune+W is awesome, but it eats through your mana like a school of piranhas. Essence reaver procs on each shot too, leaving your mana more-or-less intact (or at least not as badly shredded). With 40% CDR, W is up every 3.6 seconds.

Oh and it's not like AD, CDR and Lifesteal are bad on Jayce or something.

[GreyICE]

You don't need the CDR from it (you get plenty elsewhere). Lifesteal is meh. AD's good, but there's other places where you can get it with other stuff.

Boots 15%, Brute 10%, Masteries 5%. Anywhere else to get that final 10% is probably worse (Zephyr? Upgrade Brute to a Ghostblade and get another? Sacrifice rune slots?).

It's a late game W powerhouse build when snowballing.

Also SSW forever. I'll be sad to see Blue go, because Blue was a great team, but first and last I was a fan of President Imp and the Secret Service. They're just such a wonderful team to watch, and it's almost like they're in the same shoes as SKT last season - no team is capable of testing them at the moment (seriously, I'm 90% certain they were saving pocket picks and strategies for the SSB game, they just turned the gas up there because they knew there was no competition).

[GreyICE]

In this thread, experts explain why Pawn is a bad player.

[GreyICE]

ER is 100% a late game item, but IMHO it's between that and Maw for your final item.

Blue buff is nice, but it runs out, and Jayce likes to siege forever. It's been really heavily nerfed.

[GreyICE]

Why is it at worlds that the semi finals are usually a lot more interesting then the finals. :[

Brackets lend themselves to that. See also American Football and the Superbowl.

[GreyICE]

Monte and Imp are hotter. Come to the dark side, root for Samsung White

[GreyICE]

Are you kidding? He's cute as hell. Def on the list of people I'd go gay for.

[GreyICE]

I'd say that its more correct to say there's no openly gay pros.

The odds of every pro being straight are pretty low.

[GreyICE]

do you pick a team to cheer for only because they're the most skilled team? You cheered for SKT1 last year, SSW this year, etc.?

Like... we're already assuming that a woman who is playing in the LCS would be there with at least some base line of skill that would put her in the top 0.02% of LoL players.

I've been cheering for SSW since back when they were MVP White.

But anyway, yeah, I'd cheer for a non-TSM team with a female player on it. Although if we want to talk pro women, Scarlett in starcraft is a fucking genius zerg player. Some of the only fun games of SC2 I've watched, she uses like every single zerg unit (fucking patch zerg)

[GreyICE]

LLD of course.

[GreyICE]

Here's a reddit post

do not read this thread if you value your sanity

You were so right.

That fucking shithole.

[GreyICE]

Hey guys.

I'm a writer for esportsexpress, a satire site for starcraft2/dota2/league. Some of you might have read our articles before. Us writers put in a pretty hefty amount of time into our articles, but not as much as we'd like because it's all volunteer work.

We're putting together a kickstarter that will launch in 2 weeks / whenever I defrost from Chicago winter. In the leadup to that kickstarter we'll be increasing our quantity of articles to give you a taste of what it would be like if we were full-time. That begins today with our 2014 league of legends awards.

Keep an eye out for us!

'kay, how come Richard Lewis' version was funnier and more informative?

You want me to pay you money? Look at this paragraph:

With Riot unable to find a rule worded vaguely enough to issue a penalty, CLG returned from boot camp to face a Curse team—who weren't without their own problems. With David “Cop” Robertson taking a break from his second job as the visual representation for the word “average” in the dictionary, as well as a faded, and jaded, star in the form of Joedat "Voyboy" Esfahani, this was meant to be a game that CLG could win comfortably. Instead, they didn’t show up. And an uninspired performance on the first map was as good as it got, spiraling into a nightmare of shame and ridicule.

Write something half that good and I'll consider it. Richard Lewis may be a prick, but he's one whose got more talent than all of E-Sex's writing team combined. And you're not going to get there by doing shit like giving the Koreans an award for "best Koreans in StarCraft". That's not even unfunny. If it were even attempting to be humor it might be bad enough to rise to the level of unfunny.

[GreyICE]

Wow. Even for you, that's low GI.

Da fuq? You taking stupid pills again, Zor? Write for free on a website or a forum or whatever, and I'm not going to criticize. Free is free, good on you. Ask me for money, and that's a different story.

Are you one of those people who flips out when someone offers an Amazon review that's under 4 stars? Some things are good, some things are less good. If someone is looking to make a living off writing, they need to know the difference. It's far meaner to pat them on the head and say "that's nice" rather than taking the time to give an honest review. Making a reward for "Best Koreans in Korea" is just terrible. There's no two ways about that.

[GreyICE]

Baiting me? I'd say "even for you, that's low" Ani.

But to be honest, there's no circumstances where someone could accurately make that statement.

[GreyICE]

What should I do, Quadz? He specifically said the article was supposed to be a sample of the quality we should expect if they went full time. It was... uninspiring. If I were him, I would not launch a kickstarter with that as the sample article. Am I saying that his writing is the rhetorical equivalent of colon cancer? No. I'm saying that jokes

need to be jokes

. You can't just reference a bunch of memes and call it a day. I guess I could just kind of ignore it, which would be the polite thing, but I don't think that would explain exactly why I have no intention of donating on Kickstarter based on the quality of the article posted. Given the amount of money I've spent on Kicks (probably around $1,000 at this point), feedback from me is extremely relevant feedback. I'm the target audience. I like esports, spend money on kickstarters, and back things I want to see continue. The pitch was poor. Period.

PEdit: Actually Zor, I said that you need jokes to have a punchline. You can't just say "Remember when Riot promised a replay system and didn't release it?"

cue laughtrack

. Humor needs to have zing to it. It needs to have a bite of some kind, it needs incongruity, it needs to be more than just a collection of references (DAE know Koreans are good at E-Sports?). I linked to an article that did what his article wanted to do - and did it extremely well. That is exactly the definition of constructive criticism.

Also, I didn't call him a jackass, and I truly resent the statement (not even implication - it's just a straight statement) that I did. Even if I considered someone a miserable writer incapable of stringing three words together (and if I really thought someone that, I'd offer no feedback at all), that wouldn't make them a jackass. Someone who invents imaginary motives to attack other people and sticks words in their mouth because of a personal grudge, that might be a jackass.

[GreyICE]

By the by, since I'm being fucking fair: http://esportsexpress.com/2015/01/elemental-origins/

This is how you do parody. Balls to the wall, no prisoners taken, don't explain the jokes (well except the byline, but that's fine).

[GreyICE]

I don't know how much bizarro-world tournament counts for anything. World Elite is currently the

Worst Team

in the LPL. Bar

none

.

I would love to see EDG, OMG, Snake, or LGD here. Any one of them. And we got fucking World "VES" Elite. I mean imagine if Coast represented NA, that's what's happened here.

[GreyICE]

I do really feel this is the death knell of "Best of one".

Also I maintain China is the best region at the moment. The raw talent levels of the teams with the Samsung 10 injected into them is unbelievable, and they're starting to ditch their very individualistic mentality (this is China and this is how

we

do things) and starting to understand that you can trade kills for turrets and come out ahead. Meanwhile, well, GE Tigers are amazing, but after that the power rankings in Korea are a bunch of VERY inconsistent teams. GE is C9-ing Korea for a reason.

[GreyICE]

Does this idiotic nationalism extend to everything in your life?

[GreyICE]

Good god, now I have to root for WE?

This is actually the biggest upset in league history.

[GreyICE]

You mean sometimes you get outplayed?

As someone who watched Pawn dunk Faker two games in a row in lane, literally solo killing the "best midlaner on earth" multiple times, there's a lot more to it than that.

[GreyICE]

The random teamfighting meta isn't actually very good. Korea has always had the right idea - teamfight only when you can get an advantage from winning and not give up too much from losing. China has actually been scaling back recently with the Samsung imports - a lot of the higher tier Chinese teams will play tight games until they get a large advantage (then the GO GO DO DIVE comes out)

[GreyICE]

It's hard to handle when you're not experienced, but it's a significant weakness as well. The best Chinese teams just do not do those random engages.

It wouldn't particularly surprise me if at the next tournament a Chinese team was dominant, AND they didn't play "LPL style league". The bad team comps and picks because "we have our own style" are effectively dead in the top half, and the random ass "lets teamfight over the wolf camp" shit is dying out too.

[GreyICE]

Can we please never post a link to Breitbart? It's one step above linking to Stornfront. One small step.

[GreyICE]

Lewis may be a shit human being, I'm not debating that at all. I had a fair share of run-ins with him online several years ago, both as an organizer and as another journalist.

But as far as eSports journalists go, the guy has been doing it profitably for well over 8 years now, and very well at that. Most of the time, his information is on point. Now, one owner can completely mislead on a situation, which is what appears to have happened with the shirts deal, but when an esports journalist can get a quote from a team owner on an actual development, that's newsworthy considering that all of these team owners have a general belief that their sites should be the only sites putting out content and are extremely hard to pull any form of relevant information from.

Regardless, the tone-deaf response to the Bo2/Bo3 format as well as the whole OGN/KeSPA thing are some pretty ugly things. But it appears that Valve and Blizzard are trying to out fuckup Riot this week, so I have a feeling Riot is actually pretty ok with how the week went.

But he chose to write for Breitbart. That means when you view his articles, you are rewarding Breitbart.

There are a lot of things more important than fucking esports.

[GreyICE]

I bet PoE is sure regretting going to Origen.

Given I'm pretty sure he went for the money, doubt it.

[GreyICE]

Is Origen that wealthy of an org?

Compared to "Unicorns of Love"? Yes. I honestly doubt Unicorns does much better than Riot salary.

What Unicorns need is like a gay pride event to sponsor them.

[GreyICE]

Doesn't phpBB start to do stupid things at a certain post count anyway?

[GreyICE]

Doesn't phpBB start to do stupid things at a certain post count anyway?

What things does it do?

It likes to arbitrarily load the entire thread from the database when you do certain things as I recall. Don't remember if they fixed that, but it used to create a HUGE server load. A lot of forums would cap threads at like 50-100 pages.

[GreyICE]

Well its now official. Albus Nox Luna has more wins than the entire EU for the first week of worlds.

[GreyICE]

G2 did surprise people, no doubt.

[GreyICE]

CLG has switched every single player out at this point, multiple times over for most. And yet they still do the same things. Perhaps the answer is structural weaknesses in the organization? Because that's what it is. People criticized Monte when CLG rose to the top of the league for 8 weeks and then tumbled to meaningless trash that nearly got relegated by the end. People blamed Doublelift when they got so close and then fell apart. They replaced him and won for two splits... then fell apart completely at Worlds.

Competitive activities at the highest possible levels put immense stresses on a team. You either train the team to handle them or you don't, and CLG simply doesn't train properly. Albus Nox Luna has the same issue but it's a thousand times more explicable there - watch them play well for two games then fall apart in the next two, ending with Rox just making joke plays against them in the tiebreaker (what you'd expect for a wildcard team). Any question how they're going to perform in a best of 5? They better win in 3 because they don't have the mental fortitude for 4 and 5 unless there's something more they haven't shown us. But this is a team that prepped themselves to go 0-6 and play the best they could, to see them fall apart after the stress of that 70 minute near-heartbreaker vs. Rox was understandable. To watch CLG repeatedly crumple under stress is just annoying.

G2 just has a major problem where they fucking don't have any team strategies or coordination and its nearly inexplicable. The literal only thing I can think of is they're a 1 shotcaller team and their shotcaller has that throat infection everyone's talking about at worlds, because they seriously look like a team that has no direction. Bad calls, bad midgame item choices, lack of coordination, lack of followup... they went up big against Rox and then just threw it all away in a series of totally inexplicable unforced errors.

[GreyICE]

I mean to be fair ANX had no chance in the group stages either.

H2K is the more storied, has the stronger players, has acres of BO5 experience, has better scrims, has better coaching and picks, understands the meta better and generally is everyone's smart pick.

On the other hand I'd absolutely love to see ANX win.

[GreyICE]

At any rate, H2K is easily the weakest first seed out of groups so I'm happy that albus gets this chance.

Well duh. The other three first seeds are Korean.

And you think I'm being biased, but it's where esports is at. It's like playing a top NBA team as a basketball team from any other country on the planet.

[GreyICE]

Honestly? The infrastructure isn't even close to there. Streaming is still the primary revenue sources for teams, and streaming directly interferes with scrim schedules.

If League ever drops a sandbox mode then the gap is going to become unbelievable. I am convinced that's the primary reason we haven't seen one, it's not like they're particularly hard to code.

[GreyICE]

Sandbox mode will widen the gap to impossible to cross. And it would be a mode that's basically similar to URF, in that you can set custom cooldown reduction on skills, add an arbitrary amount of gold to inventory, use commands like /spawn baron or /spawn cloud_drake, set the minion health to 20 minutes, 60 minutes, whatever, and generally play with the game settings.

And what that lets you do? Practice. You can't run at a wall from different angles and flash it for 15 minutes. You can't practice every flash on every wall in the game regularly. You can't drill smites, you can't drill teamfights, you have to just play. Imagine setting up a game at 30 minutes where one team was down 6k gold and seeing if a particular composition could come back. Imagine every Korean pro having 3 hours of drilling each day - flash drills, smite drills, laning drills (they already do this), etc. Imagine them just setting up and teamfighting 5, 10, 20 times with 40 minute comps. Imagine them having a baron fight, and another, and another, and another, and another, just to see different approaches.

This will turn teams with poor infrastructure into, well, what we currently see, and teams with good planning and good coaching will just simply always make their flashes, always coordinate their attacks, always land things exactly the way they drilled. Right now League is hobbled by the fact that everyone is drilling in the same asinine way (outside of Korean lane drills) - play game. Play game. Play game. Play game. You can't just try a particular flash 20 different times to see how you can make it work. When sandbox is added then the players on good teams will have simply superior mechanics. That's what held foreigners back for so long in SC2, and it's only in the twilight of StarCraft that a foreigner managed to get the skill to best the Koreans, as the Korean teams fall apart.

[GreyICE]

Wow. That would basically force teams to grow the infrastructure to accommodate the required time to practice or everyone else is utterly fucked, possibly even at a regional level.

I mean, I can imagine TSM adapting to this enough so that, say, Echo Fox literally can't keep up (or even a more competitive team like Apex or Immortals) they'd literally rule the roost, and then get shunted when teams from other regions show up with even more training. That's not good at all.

Bad? Well, it depends. Right now any league player is "practicing" by playing pickup games. That's like if basketball players practiced by playing pickup ball and other pro teams. Obviously they have shooting drills, passing drills, dozens of ways to improve people's game.

What that means is all league play right now is essentially gifted and practiced amateurs. Good, sure, but it's all amateur because they can't ever perfect each aspect of their team.

So it's bad if you want the narrative of competition. But hell, you can spectate Bronze league and either team can win, anything can happen.

It's good if you want a game to be played at its highest level. Imagine a fighting game without a practice mode. It would be a bad joke. That's league.

[GreyICE]

Au contraire, if it's hard to practice compositions in team fights you can only play them how you practiced. If you have turned practice into a science then you can play them many more ways as you unlock new potential, rather than just "do it like we did in scrims." I mean imagine European teams had another late game strategy that wasn't "muddle about at Baron" or NA teams had like more than two strategies?

Knowing the fundamentals unlocks new plays. I mean for example imagine if every player on the team could flash the trickiest wall 100%. That unlocks something new.

[GreyICE]

Really? 'Cause I remember an old anecdote about SC2. Someone was watching a pro Protoss about 30 minutes before his match. The Korean loaded up a custom map and started laying down forcefields, and the NA pro realized it was a custom forcefield drill map - unlimited energy, prebuilt custom choke points. Just wave after wave of perfect forcefields. WOL/HOTS were shit (LOTV is good but too little too late) but watch some of the games from that era, and Korean toss fields are immaculate. Do you think they had a custom map for every skill they wanted to practice? I do. Do I think they made a single one of them, or did their team's coaching staff prepare them? I doubt half of them ever even opened the custom map editor a single time.

[GreyICE]

Well then. This changes everything.

Also after the group stage wildness, this tournament is starting to take a familiar flavor. Your tournament run ends when you meet a Korean team.