LoL eSports Discussion

[Lycanfire]

Stopped watching a little bit into game 2. Wasn't shocked to find out it was a 3-0.

1. I liked the Gangplank into Viktor game 1. I especially liked how Svenskeren smashed the Fnatic bot lane 8 minutes in and made Rekkles uninstall
2. Svenskeren was justified in diving Viktor because Broxah was spotted by the pink ward while Caps went mia. Not getting the xp and dying was worse than 1 for 1.
3. I dreamed an alternate universe where people not named Kiin were allowed to play Gangplank. What the fuck did Ekko do for the team? Also why did Licorice need Daddy Sven in a counterpick lane

4. Why pick blue side if you're going to first pick Viktor
5. Why ''''''''''''''''''flex''''''''''''''''' it and pick Aatrox with Fnatic last pick
6. Where was the on demand displacement for Rakan. Tristana was that role in game 1.
7. Why didn't Broxah get his Lee Sin banned when he was playing it all week in solo q? Meanwhile Sven was spamming Eve and couldn't animation cancel with Graves (the only reason you pick Graves).
8. Not picking Braum Lucian in first rotation. You're picking Graves into his counter matchup (Xin) in first rotation anyway. Why pick Graves first rotation at all if you don't have Braum.

Reapered washed up

[Lycanfire]

gonna cleanse my palate with rox vs skt '16 and m5 vs the azubu teams '13 today

[zoraster]

Reapered washed up? I assume that's joking.

Anyway, C9 had a confusing draft stage to me, but hard to know what they thought their options were. viktor bot kinda sorta worked, but was only possible on Blue. They needed to figure out a way to let akali/irelia through, ban viktor if they couldn't come up with a better response. Ekko was worth a shot, but it seemed clear game 1 wasn't going to work. Lissandra wasn't the reason they lost, but think they may have tried to ride that too far.

Some weird in game decisions too, like letting bot tower stay up and deciding to play around the mid lane instead.

Really though, at least on the day pretty clear that C9 was just outplayed. FNC looks great, but so does IG. Seems a fitting finals.

[SleepyKrew]

c9 banning leblanc game 2 made me sad

[PJ.]

NA suck =(

[BROseidon]

Oh man only 1 team in semis so awful.

[xRECKONERx]

Reapered washed up? I assume that's joking.

Anyway, C9 had a confusing draft stage to me, but hard to know what they thought their options were. viktor bot kinda sorta worked, but was only possible on Blue. They needed to figure out a way to let akali/irelia through, ban viktor if they couldn't come up with a better response. Ekko was worth a shot, but it seemed clear game 1 wasn't going to work. Lissandra wasn't the reason they lost, but think they may have tried to ride that too far.

Some weird in game decisions too, like letting bot tower stay up and deciding to play around the mid lane instead.

Really though, at least on the day pretty clear that C9 was just outplayed. FNC looks great, but so does IG. Seems a fitting finals.

This

C9's draft was pretty baffling.
Also Sven chasing way the fuck under top tower game 1 made no sense to me either

[BROseidon]

Sven was dead to the jungler so might as well deny assist gold + maybe get the kill

[BROseidon]

Also, hot take: ADCs need to be nerfed more. We're still averaging close to 2 a game

[PJ.]

Booo. MAGA.

Make ADCs Great Again.

[BROseidon]

No other role has been mandatory on teams since the beginning of the game. An average of 1.5-1.75 ADCs per game would feel good

[BROseidon]

"You want to be able to take turrets easily from range? You're gonna have to make a tradeoff for that"

[PJ.]

except what they are typically being replace with are ranged ap champions and ap damages turrets on AAs, so it's a false choice. Especially when the ap guy is occasionally a better tower taker (heimer, Ziggs) or a better objective taker(Swain,brand). Changing ads was one of the worst changes they ever made to the game.

(also the trade off is already being made by making ADCs less tanky and less damage in the early phases of the game, which is why the mages were dominating down there when the changes were first made. If you're gonna nerf all of their items at least make them not explode).

[BROseidon]

AP doesn't damage turrets 1-1 (unless that got changed while I wasn't paying attention) and AP champs both don't build AS or have AS steroids. Helmer and Ziggs are weird exceptions, but putting most mages bot (or other types of champs) is going to cause a reduction in turret-sieging ability relative to an ADC pick.

I sort of like the idea of changing power curves of ADCs, but it kind of goes against one of the core philosophies of LoL vs DotA and has been why a lot of champs in the past have been changed (Jax, Olaf, etc). That said, ADCs have been broken since s1 so maybe making their early game weaker while keeping their end game about the same is a correct solution. Would also make Leona/J4 bot more viable, and that is the most fun bot lane to play so...

[BROseidon]

Riot forcibly requiring every team to have an adc so that when they changed it people would be upset was one of the worst structural things Riot put into the game. At least Riot recognized how busted supports were in s1 and systematically nerfed literally all of them

[MTD]

stuff like Viktor Q does also help against turrets, especially with sheen

[BROseidon]

I mean true but like Victor isn't taking down turrets faster than even like Jhin

[BROseidon]

And like have u seen how Tristana deletes turrets?

[Lycanfire]

The problem with ADCs is that tanks suck.

Look at the top tier tanks:
Galio (semi-Global), Ornn, Sion, Shen (support flex+global), Poppy

Gragas is top tier, but pros have gone beyond just the jungle damage item into two damage items, so he isn't a tank as jungle. He doesn't win top lane against carries or as a counter to other top tier tanks, except Shen, which is not only unlikely to happen, but a questionable counterpick too.

Olaf isn't a true tank. He's what I call "aggro tank" or "threat tank". He has to stay ahead to be able to disrupt the enemy team.

All other tanks are in bot lane as support. They don't count because they're buying zeke and 100 control wards. Alistar gets a mention for popping ult and going in first for vision only.

Nocturne shuts down 2 of the top tier tanks with paranoia.

So you have three top tier true tanks remaining. Ornn, who is broken OP because of his braindead ult. Sion, who gets to go glacial and get guaranteed utility out of his zombie form (?????). Poppy is the best scaling tank in the game, but her engage potential is made up of mostly flanking attacks.

This is why I keep bringing up Gangplank+Lissandra. Between their ults and Gangplank's barrels, they're as disruptive as a tank with a lot more firepower.

All of this is as a result of rune damage still being out of whack while tank runes suck. Having 2 seconds of true tanking out of an aftershock support is hilariously bad. Grasp is the only thing keeping any tanks in play at all. In exchange, Ornn needs his horn nerfed. Sion needs to lose all the speed in his zombie form, in exchange for maybe more slow on E. So, Sion has to go grasp, but can still go comet.

Edit: I guess Ning went Zac and full tank Jarvan, but this seems more stylistic than anything concrete. I mean just Gragas being played as damage alone shows that early game damage is worth more than a capable tank later into the game.

[PJ.]

Tanks are definitely not very good in solo, and that is definitely a bummer. Most of them are fairly low tier.

@bro, it's not 1-1 but they get ad and ap damage. And most of the viable bot lane mages all crush turrets by either being exceptions and/or building sheen so outside of the top tier tower smashers like Jinx or Trist, it's pretty similar. Tristan is one of the lowest win rate solo q Champs in the game so that's a trade off, and jinx has no escape.

[BROseidon]

With the exceptions of Heimer and maybe TF on the mage side and Jhin (and Graves lol) on the ADC side, I really don't think any mages take turrets as hard as ADCs. There's still a spectrum among the mages, but attack speed is a thing that mages overwhelmingly don't build. The choice doesn't have to be "sacrifice all ability to take turrets from range"

[BROseidon]

The reality is that, at worlds, we are averaging 1.81 ADCs in the "ADC" role with an additional 4 Graves picks in the jungle bringing the overall ADCs per game up to almost 2 (although idk how fair it is to call Graves an ADC at this point, but he is listed as a "marksman"). ADCs are overtuned as a class still.

[PJ.]

The fact that there aren't 2 or more means they are significantly undertuned. They are a primary part of league of legends. Bruisers are significantly over tuned because there are like 3 or more in every game.

[PJ.]

Playing without an ADC should be akin to playing without a jungler.

As someone that both watched and played league during the "Awesome Dude" meta, it was awful and we're still getting the shorty remnants of that.

The full Awesome Dude meta was literally so bad that a starting member of a world final team sat out for 3 quarters of a split because of it.

[BROseidon]

Playing without an ADC should be akin to playing without a jungler.

No.