LoL eSports Discussion

[zoraster]

A good start for the joke of a team in the semis.

[KaleiÐoscøpe]

You're blind though if you can't see they look a lot better then last week.

[zoraster]

I'm not blind to that whatsoever -- I called them underdogs in this match, after all. But in fact, that's pretty much central to my point.

Which is that it's an overreaction going straight to OMG THE TEAM NEEDS TO START FIRING PEOPLE NOW. THEY'RE A FUCKING JOKE. Even last week they did well enough to not face SKT in the semis, which led to them facing WE, which led to them being in a position to make it to the finals.

As a team, sometimes you don't play well. If you don't have some time off (as in the 10 games in 5 days), the best you can do sometimes is retreat back to what you can find that works, try to grind out some wins, and hope you can come out crisper the following week.

And this isn't like... an unusual thing, right? In Worlds in particular, the group stages have been broken into two weeks the past few tournaments. In each of worlds, you've had teams underperform in week 1 only to do really well in week 2 (or vice versa, remember C9 going undefeated in 2015 in week 1 only to lose all their games in week 2?)

Mostly I guess I'd boil things down to: try not to overreact or desire for vast, emotional, and poorly considered overcorrections just because it helps you overcome feelings that the teams you support do poorly and you're a glass half-empty kind of guy.

[animorpherv1]

But zoraster how can I go on a massive tirade about how every team but SKT sucks now?.

[zoraster]

I dunno. I feel like that'd be a lot better supported.

[PJ.]

The reason I don't like watching pro league is because there seem to be no prospects. No body new able to reach the top tier.

[SleepyKrew]

Huni

[zoraster]

I don't know. I feel like they have as many or more prospects than normal sports.

[PJ.]

I don't know. I feel like they have as many or more prospects than normal sports.

The drafts are always bursting with dudes that'll at least become role players. I feel the only new player that's been an impact player recently has been Dardoch

[zoraster]

Comtractz this season

[Voidedmafia]

Comtractz this season

Contractz has shown up far more than Dardoch has so far, although I think Dardoch did good this split regardless.

Great job by G2, though, to beat WE. If nothing else, this is a great bit of redemption after last year's abysmal international appearances, considering even optimistic predictions would just be 3-1 against SKT. I'm honestly very curious if anyone thinks G2 could go 2-3 against SKT.

If they can get this far, I think G2 can have at least one strong game against SKT, maybe even win said strong game. Shame I can't watch this finals personally since I have to work, but it'll be interesting to see afterward.

[KaleiÐoscøpe]

I'm not blind to that whatsoever -- I called them underdogs in this match, after all. But in fact, that's pretty much central to my point.

Which is that it's an overreaction going straight to OMG THE TEAM NEEDS TO START FIRING PEOPLE NOW. THEY'RE A FUCKING JOKE. Even last week they did well enough to not face SKT in the semis, which led to them facing WE, which led to them being in a position to make it to the finals.

As a team, sometimes you don't play well. If you don't have some time off (as in the 10 games in 5 days), the best you can do sometimes is retreat back to what you can find that works, try to grind out some wins, and hope you can come out crisper the following week.

And this isn't like... an unusual thing, right? In Worlds in particular, the group stages have been broken into two weeks the past few tournaments. In each of worlds, you've had teams underperform in week 1 only to do really well in week 2 (or vice versa, remember C9 going undefeated in 2015 in week 1 only to lose all their games in week 2?)

Mostly I guess I'd boil things down to: try not to overreact or desire for vast, emotional, and poorly considered overcorrections just because it helps you overcome feelings that the teams you support do poorly and you're a glass half-empty kind of guy.

Fair enough, but even if a team wins doesn't mean they played well. Last week, G2 was one dimensional and the jungler was straight up making them lose games. Yesterday, they actually had an early game where they made stuff work. They were a fucking joke last week. Everything they had showed during the spring split was left at home. I still think if they hadn't come out of groups they deserved it, even though they did beat WE yesterday. We all win games where we think in retrospect, we shouldn't have. It's when both teams make mistakes. That didn't happen yesterday though, they were simply better yesterday.

So do I think I overreacted? No. They deserved the shit they got last week and just because they got out of groups and TSM didn't doesn't make them better then TSM by any means.

[PJ.]

Mmm. One team is in the finals and the other lost in groups, by definition G2 is better than TSM n this tournament. That's how tournaments work, bro.

We call that "scoreboard"

[zoraster]

I'm not blind to that whatsoever -- I called them underdogs in this match, after all. But in fact, that's pretty much central to my point.

Which is that it's an overreaction going straight to OMG THE TEAM NEEDS TO START FIRING PEOPLE NOW. THEY'RE A FUCKING JOKE. Even last week they did well enough to not face SKT in the semis, which led to them facing WE, which led to them being in a position to make it to the finals.

As a team, sometimes you don't play well. If you don't have some time off (as in the 10 games in 5 days), the best you can do sometimes is retreat back to what you can find that works, try to grind out some wins, and hope you can come out crisper the following week.

And this isn't like... an unusual thing, right? In Worlds in particular, the group stages have been broken into two weeks the past few tournaments. In each of worlds, you've had teams underperform in week 1 only to do really well in week 2 (or vice versa, remember C9 going undefeated in 2015 in week 1 only to lose all their games in week 2?)

Mostly I guess I'd boil things down to: try not to overreact or desire for vast, emotional, and poorly considered overcorrections just because it helps you overcome feelings that the teams you support do poorly and you're a glass half-empty kind of guy.

Fair enough, but even if a team wins doesn't mean they played well. Last week, G2 was one dimensional and the jungler was straight up making them lose games. Yesterday, they actually had an early game where they made stuff work. They were a fucking joke last week. Everything they had showed during the spring split was left at home. I still think if they hadn't come out of groups they deserved it, even though they did beat WE yesterday. We all win games where we think in retrospect, we shouldn't have. It's when both teams make mistakes. That didn't happen yesterday though, they were simply better yesterday.

So do I think I overreacted? No. They deserved the shit they got last week and just because they got out of groups and TSM didn't doesn't make them better then TSM by any means.

Any team that doesn't win enough to get out of groups deserves it. If they had lost to TSM, which was perfectly plausible, in their last game, it wouldn't have been an outrage. G2 didn't look great last week, but that's a far cry from needing to totally trash their current lineup.

It's kind of like people think all tournaments to be valid need to achieve some platonic ideal of what each individual team is. But in reality, what's great about tournaments is that the same team can perform differently from day to day. If WE and G2 played next week, it's not unthinkable that it'd be 3-1 the other way.

I guess I just reject "fucking joke" language because it's counterproductive. Performing poorly is something a team needs to address, clearly, but that type of abusive language is both wrongheaded and leads you to look absolutely foolish. It's like fans who shout abuse from the stands to their own players for not playing well in a soccer match, baseball game or whatever.

How a team performs and how good a team is are interrelated but not the same thing. How good a team is indicates how likely a team is to perform well. We have few enough high level international tournaments that are spaced far enough apart that there is this tendency to find major trends that aren't really borne out.

[PJ.]

Be reasonable? About sports? No.

[BROseidon]

Wow it's as if "run of form" is a thing that exists in sports

[zoraster]

G2 lost but looked pretty good doing it.

[Voidedmafia]

G2 lost but looked pretty good doing it.

That third game looked like it was so close up until I think the 33-minute mark. Really thought G2 would force it to take 5 games or even win in 4.

Credit where credit is due: I don't think people would argue that the group stages were not the best from G2 by most margins, and their good wins were probably overshadowed by their bad losses. But they beat WE really handily, and didn't go down 0-3 against SKT, which is more than a lot of non-Korean/Chinese teams can say. Maybe there needs to be another run at Worlds for people to think they've truly redeemed themselves internationally, but at the very least this is a good victory after last year.

Although, if TSM had beaten G2, I wonder if G2 could've surprised SKT with Trick's upswing.

[zoraster]

Yeah, I hope they don't have a letdown that sometimes comes after a good performance like that. I suspect CLG's fall from 2nd at MSI had more to do with Riot's elimination of the lane swap meta, but it's not uncommon.

TSM's convincing first place IEM Katowice finish in 2015 (and first place LCS) was followed by 5th at MSI and 5th in the regular season of Summer Split (though they finished second in playoffs) and tied for last place at Worlds.

That said, I think it's very promising for G2 so long as it's motivating.

[SleepyKrew]

can we try to get fantasy going for next split?

[BROseidon]

G2 will probably be fine. I don't think they'll pull a CLG.

Also Perkz is really, really good.

[PJ.]

DARDOCH TO CLG!

[Voidedmafia]

I really like the idea of rift rivals, as a means of promoting international play. Kinda bummed that there aren't any matchups like NA vs. SA, EU vs. CIS-area teams, and so on, but I understand that this is their first shake at trying it so it's probably better to stick to old favorites like NA vs. EU and such.

I hope it's successful enough we could see stuff like NA vs. LMS, for instance, or EU vs. LPL or something like that. That'd be fun to watch.

I feel like the last man standing route for NA vs. EU will be interesting and provide a means for each team to try their best (after all, who wouldn't want to be like C9 and beat all three enemy teams before anyone else?). It does mean that the #2 and #1 teams from either region may not get to play at all, but then it rewards that region as a whole because it potentially means that if the #3 seed could do that, the other two are much better (this probably wouldn't hold up all the time in reality, but hey). I don't quite get why they didn't just do the same for the other rivalries between two regions though.

EDIT: On looking at it again, I do have a couple questions:

1.) I wonder if they'll base the seedings entirely on Spring/1st Split standings or not. Probably will have to since that'll be the only fully played split for most regions.

2.) The time allotted feels a bit short. I don't necessarily think they should, like, cascade each one to a new week (i.e. NA vs. EU during the weekend of july 9th, then the SA rivals next week, and so on), but it does feel a little cramped if you want to watch, say, both the NA/EU one and the LMS/LCK/LPL one as well. I suppose it's more for regional viewing moreso than international viewing, but even outside of that, some of the events feel ridiculously short by shoving what looks like up to 8-10 gmes into one day.

[SleepyKrew]

1.) I wonder if they'll base the seedings entirely on Spring/1st Split standings or not. Probably will have to since that'll be the only fully played split for most regions.

Yes. Teams and seeds are already set.

[zoraster]

Fantasy LCS league: http://fantasy.lolesports.com/share/joi ... lyNdz2uQ9j

Not going to do a whole big thing this time. First come, first serve.