LoL eSports Discussion

[JDodge]

There's strategy in the other thread?

it is in these trying times we must ask ourselves the harsh philosophical question: do screenshots of game end screens count as strategy?

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dignitas is the best team in the world at throwing

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It's really, really, really sad that nobody seems to be focusing on the most awesome part of this Dig vs Cst match, which is the implications that KiwiKiD on TF and scarra on Zed have on the whole idea of "not top and mid anymore, solo laners" since this is one of the first times we've seen a team go this far with the idea.

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BEWARE THE ALMIGHTY MILESFISH

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on a more serious note, the alternate vs gambit game from earlier today in the EU LCS is very, very much worth watching

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NiPs just basically screwed themselves completely

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SCARRA YI

BECAUSE NOBODY EXPECTS SCARRA TO HAVE AN IMPACT EARLY GAME AND ACTUALLY GO MID

BAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

[JDodge]

VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES
VES

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i find putting mariachi music on softly in the background makes VES games make a lot more sense

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It's weird how of the former "top four" teams, CLG is the only one doing decent.

tsm is doing decent, wildturtle had a couple of bad weeks which lead to them losing a few games but theyre still a very strong team

every team in LCS is strong enough to take games off of any other team with the potential exceptions of VES and maybe Crs (which is a shame because i fucking love VES)

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EVEN IN DETENTION THEY CALL HIM ZIONSPARTAN

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Dem outer turret changes screwing Cloud9 hard?

no, cloud 9 gave up 3 kills at level 1 and lost super hard, not really surprising since any competent team should be able to snowball a 1k gold+xp advantage at level 1

[JDodge]

C9 continues to impress after another early misstep (this time against CLG). Not many teams will come back from a 3/0 Doublelift Trist who is also ahead 30-40 cs.

plenty of teams can and do come back from doublelift getting an early advantage, all he does is farm all day and doesnt use his advantages to actually secure objectives

[JDodge]

C9 continues to impress after another early misstep (this time against CLG). Not many teams will come back from a 3/0 Doublelift Trist who is also ahead 30-40 cs.

plenty of teams can and do come back from doublelift getting an early advantage, all he does is farm all day and doesnt use his advantages to actually secure objectives

A 3/0 and cs advantage (also didn't mention Chauster didn't die for these kills either)? Idk about that. And recently Dlift has been changing that.

yeah like that fight they just fought vs VES where he jumped in and chased directly into eating a shen taunt to the face and getting bursted

SUPERSTAR

MARKSMAN

[JDodge]

vulcun will probably beat c9

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vulcun vs dig will be closer than people expect, theyre actually quite similar teams

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I'm so glad that Quantic got absolutely stomped in the little GGLA tournament. I don't know about you, but I really hope they don't make it into LCS.

I'm so glad they were using level 20 accounts with no rune pages.

I doubt that made much of a difference. Their teamfight mechanics and decision making were simply subpar.

They aced velocity with no death while being down 5k gold. 3 members blinking red; that's a sign of team coordination and superior skill.

also a sign of playing velocity

people whining about quantic seem to somehow be under the impression that koreans have some genetic disposition towards playing video games well, its pretty dumb

if they bring the korean regime to the NA scene, it will only strengthen the NA scene exponentially

[JDodge]

A foreign team potentially representing NA at Worlds is ridiculous. I have no problems with foreign teams competing against NA teams, but I have a serious problem with them being considered NA teams in terms of regional representation. I truly hope they get destroyed in the promotion matches and the NA LCS is actually full of NA teams.

why?

what are your feelings on other major sports in america using foreign players?

[JDodge]

actually, a better question: do you feel edward should be forced to return to the EU scene?

[JDodge]

actually, a better question: do you feel edward should be forced to return to the EU scene?

No. An NA team getting a foreign player is one thing. A foreign team representing NA is completely different. David Beckham moving to LA Galaxy is fine. David Beckham bringing his entire Real Madrid squad with him to play in the MLS is not fine. That's why soccer leagues have rules limiting the number of foreign players on a team.

Please define a "foreign team".

[JDodge]

my main issue isnt the misguided attempts at painting it at racism, its the complete ignorance of the reason

why

the korean teams are successful and the idea that NA teams are completely non-adaptive, which to be honest seems a lot more like pitying NA teams than wanting them to succeed

[JDodge]

vulcun's comp was fking horrible into ozone's

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people should less be blaming tsm for goofing off and more blaming riot for a fucking awful group stage format which lead to 9 out of 11 games on the last day basically not mattering due to either one-sided matchups or clinched positions

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also people whining about "the fans the fans the fans": remember that the vast majority of the NA audience consists of TSM fans, who will likely have enjoyed this sort of thing

please weep for the color caster because trying to remain professional and analyze a game where one or both teams is obviously just fu-screwing with you is torturous - you basically have to capitulate to the way the game is going and mostly let your pbp carry the weight

[JDodge]

The casters didn't mention TRM once, they were terrible considering its TSM and he's the only pro Teemo player.

i could speak for days about the casting for worlds (the things theyve done right and the things theyve done wrong; the main thing i saw on the done wrong front was the complete oversight of how absolutely massive genja's mistake in the 2nd gambit vs ozone game of groups was), but theres actually no reason to mention that except to fill time as its irrelevant information

[JDodge]

Cloud 9 deliver us, you're our only hope...

And yeah, I agree with Jdodge that it's annoying to see TSM fucking around, but I'm honestly not sure how else Riot could have done it.

i never said anything like that? just that its annoying to cast

i dont particularly find it annoying that they were fucking around, i find the format for group stages to be very pointlessly drawn out

Its a way to validly fill colour time without giving everything over to the PbP instead of capitulating.

in that actual situation (speaking from experience), you

absolutely

have to let your PbP do the heavy lifting; about 80% of the reason for your existance is to fill time as a color caster, and usually that is done through analysis (which fills the other 20% of providing context and deeper insight)

a game with people on

either

team just screwing around actually destroys your potential to analyze (there's no real point in analyzing a game like that - a decision is more likely "because we thought it would be funny lol" than something that can be rationalized) - this leaves you as factsbot and to occasionally chirp along to your PbP (who, if they are any good, will be running a fucking carnival on their microphone)

its k though, its just payback for all the times when both teams are off farming instead of actually doing something and your pbp has nothing to say

[JDodge]

GO GO COMMUNISM

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C9 played extremely well though. They should have definitely banned Kass, though, and that facecheck lvl 1 was just unlucky, but I think they proved they are a world class team.

not at all! they proved they cant yet handle the sort of map rotation that the top of the top-level teams have, which is necessary to compete on the world stage

[JDodge]

C9 lost 1-2. The third game was kind of a stomp, but to say C9 played below the world level is taking it a bit far.

did you watch game 2? it came down to fnatic picked TF into fizz extremely greedily and xpeke misplayed early (which was a completely critical mistake)

game 1 was close until a point where fnatic

could

reasonably force something, at which point they took complete control

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some worlds stats on jungle elise:

9 wins, 9 losses overall

if you take out games that involved gg.eu and mineski (which i feel we can all agree were not fair matches), the record sinks like a stone to 5-8

the main strong jungle elise player is gambit's diamond, who sported a 3-0 record on her through worlds (against najin, mineski, and vulcun) - likewise, another of those wins was najin's watch securing a win against gambit, meaning that in games gambit, mineski, and gg.eu were

not

present in, jungle elise had a much-storied 2-8 record overall

RE: meteos and theoddone on elise through worlds, every time TSM picked jungle elise at worlds, they lost (they also lost to a jungle elise being played by lemondogs' dexter); likewise, c9 lost the one game that meteos picked jungle elise and won the one game where cyanide picked jungle elise

im pulling EU LCS stats now (NA LCS stats are not relevant due to the massive disparity in skill level between the teams)

[JDodge]

EU LCS raw elise stats, sorted per-jungler, per-week, and per-opponent for the summer split (was not picked once during playoffs)

EG Snoopeh 0-1
EG Shacker 1-0
Fnatic Cyanide 1-1
LD Dexter 3-1
ALT Araneae 2-3

Week 3 1-1 (First week on patch 3.8, which included Hecarim nerfs, Kha'zix rework, Nautilus nerfs, Sejuani nerfs, machete/spirit stone change, spirit stone upgrade buffs, buff XP changes to prioritize the buff monster itself, and wolf/wraith/golem respawn timer changes))
Week 4 1-1 (Patch 3.8)
Week 6 4-0 (Patch 3.8)
Week 8 1-0 (Patch 3.9, which included more Hecarim nerfs, Nunu nerfs, Shyvana quasi-rework, tear stack change on form-shift ulti champs)
Week 9 0-4 (Patch 3.10, which included Elise nerfs which are touched on later, Zac nerfs, changes to MR items, wraith/wolf/golem spawn time changes, baron damage reduction changes, turret changes, and a reversion to the buff XP change)

vs Fnatic 1-2
vs SK 0-2
vs GMB 3-0
vs NiP 1-0
vs EG 2-2

Overall 7-6

These point to the following possible conclusions:

1. Gambit has a severe problem with Elise, and Diamond picking it up at Worlds and playing it was likely done to pave over this weakness (I believe Gambit has done this in the past)

2. It is run into EG with considerable frequency with mixed results - both times EG lost, it was to Alternate, and both times EG won were in week 9 - once to Lemondogs and once to Alternate. This suggests that the 3.10 balance changes (Spiderling durability/damage change, Volatile Spiderling speed nerf, Rappel bugfix/nerf) severely impacted Elise jungle between week 8 and 9.

3. In the 0-4 week 9, Elise was run twice by ALT's Araneae (who had a 2-1 record on her going in), once by LD's Dexter (3-0 going in), and once by EG's Snoopeh (only time playing Elise in summer split) - this reinforces the conclusion that a balance change was not appropriately adjusted to in the valuation of jungle champs by professional teams.

4. The emphasis on and then subsequent removal of emphasis on the actual buff monster for XP in jungle camps may have significantly hurt Elise's win rate, as did the change to the way Baron's damage debuff works from an AD debuff to a magic/physical damage debuff.

So for the sake of further analysis, let's look at when Alternate's Araneae picked Elise as the most prolific Elise jungler in EU (and also as a quick comparison, lane Elise in EU LCS had a 14-13 win rate).

Araneae was the most prolific jungle Elise player. He played her in a win in week 3 vs EG when EG banned out his Lee Sin and Hecarim. It was picked in Alternate's first round of picks alongside Thresh after EG had first-picked Nunu; as Kerp did not play Elise during the summer split, it can be assumed that they had planned all along to run jungle Elise, but perhaps were willing to feign a possible top Elise pick to allow Kerp to pick a much riskier Kha'zix later on.

In week 4, he played Elise in a loss to Fnatic. Fnatic had once again banned out his Lee Sin and first-picked Nunu - this indicates Alternate possibly using Elise as an attempted counter to Nunu. Unfortunately, I do not feel its entirely possible to use this game as a fair analysis of jungle Elise - it included Alternate using WhiteKnight as a sub for their mid laner ForellenLord (WhiteKnight would later sub for Creaton after his injury) and running mid Quinn into xPeke's Zed - so we'll skip over looking too hard at it.

In week 6, they managed another Elise win vs EG. This time, Alternate had first pick, and first picked Elise after a Lee Sin ban by EG. Their late top lane Malphite pick after forcing out the top lane pick from EG (in this case, Renekton - at this point they had also shown their hand with Xin Zhao jungle) is potentially indicative of a plan to use Elise either top or jungle depending on enemy picks. It is worth noting that this was during Shacker's debut with EG at Tenerife - while I have not watched the game personally, it appears that it was fairly one-sided in the favor of Alternate, including sub WhiteKnight's Varus going 10/3/10 to yellowpete's Twitch going 3/8/8.

In week 9, they lost to SK. This one is important because it was the first time Lee Sin was not banned against them and they first-picked Elise anyways. Lee Sin was then grabbed by SK in their first round of picks alongside Twitch, followed by Alternate picking their own bot lane. Europe has a meta centered around leaving mid picks to last - this ensured that Alternate would see SK's top lane prior to committing once again. SK called Alternate's bluff, and picked Zac in their next round of picks, allowing them their own flexibility. Alternate picked up Renekton for top, and Ahri for mid, turning full control over both solo lanes to SK in the pick/ban phase. Araneae's performance was statistically weak (similarly to Jree's performance on Fiddlesticks).

They then proceeded to run it against EG for the third time. Lee Sin was once again banned by EG, meaning it was only left on the table once vs Alternate. EG first-picked Shen, meaning Alternate already knew the top lane for EG and was able to pick around it. They rather bafflingly proceeded to pick Ahri and Thresh, leading EG to respond with a safe jungler (Nasus) and their own support (Sona). Alternate then proceeded to pick Elise and Varus, once again leaving that level of ambiguity on the table, alongside Varus. This did mean, however, that EG was able to counterpick both the bot lane duo and the mid lane, responding with Caitlyn and Fizz (who is historically picked by EU teams as a counterpick to Ahri when Kassadin isn't on the table), alongside their safe picks in Shen and Nasus. Alternate finished off their lineup with a Singed and EG finished off their regular season with a win. Of particular note here is yellowpete's 9/0/4 performance on Caitlyn.

This fits in line with a pattern of early Elise picks, indicating Elise is not picked for her value in the jungle but for her versatility as both a top laner and a jungler. It is possible that she is strongly overvalued by teams at the moment, or that her still high ban rate is indicative of teams knowing how to play against her when necessary to do so.

[JDodge]

omg dominates group stage that includes skt > royal club beats OMG 2-0 and 3-1s an extremely strong-looking fnatic while SKT coasts through a relatively easy side of the bracket, inc. going 3-2 against najin black sword (a team that historically splits series with top korean teams) > SKT will probably win??

i feel like more people needed to dickride C9 and SKT these worlds

all outcomes are equally likely except SKT 3-0; historically when SKT wins they drop 1-2 games at the start and then win a number in a row - the unprovenness of the korean teams vs the chinese teams (remember that the all-stars china team was comprised entirely of players from IG and WE, neither of whom made worlds) makes finals impossible to predict from an outside standpoint

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royal seems to have forgotten how to play pick/ban phase over the past week

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royal seems to have forgotten how to play

pick/ban phase over the past week

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rip in peace esports

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royal club's losses had less to do with getting stomped in lane and more to do with the following:

game 1, they picked an incredibly all-in AoE combo comp (which relied on them properly using every skill in perfect rhythm to win fights, and relied on SKT falling into the right position for the combo); they then proceeded to horribly overcommit to a few dives and use malphite's teleport extraordinarily poorly, in addition to continually blowing all their major teamfight cd's into single targets, which eventually lead to them being unable to take

any

fight that wasn't the god fight their comp was built around (which SKT intelligently avoided like the plague)

game 2, for pretty much no reason they decided to pick kassadin into zed and proceeded to give up early advantages to a push comp (which you can't do if you value your buildings); SKT actually pushed their advantage fairly ineffectively (including the one fight they lost due to poor ez positioning at mid inner turret) and won that game significantly slower than they probably should have (royal club's comp was a bit of a ticking time bomb)

game 3, kennen facechecked a bush at level 1

while having shuriken leveled, meaning he had a free check

and immediately got dumpstered in the 2v1 (my main wonder with that, by the way, was why if the SKT plan was to wait in that bush, zyra started Q instead of E; i understand the reasoning for that as a general lane bullying tactic starting at 2, but it's obvious they planned the bush gank fairly early) - the rest of the game was best described as a cavalcade of mediocrity

this was the biggest chance for league and esports in general to showcase itself on the big stage; multinational corporate sponsorship has begun to emerge in the form of samsung and coke, minor associations are springing up with the NFL, etc.

instead what we got was a completely irrelevant and incomprehensible opening something because OOH LOOK CRYSTAL METHOD, probably the worst bo3 series of the tournament, and a completely lifeless and hypeless closing and award presentation

all of this followed a bracket format that lead to two of the least-impressive looking teams getting first round byes (gama bears and C9, who i maintain were potentially the

weakest

looking NA team there - TSM held fairly solid in the group of death and Vulcun would have advanced past groups if they could fix their terminal case of the throws caused by mancloud being greedy and zuna's godawful overaggro positioning) and an unacceptable number of completely pointless matches in the group stages, and poor pacing of the schedule leading to a fairly hype start tapering off into a complete loss of momentum

at the end of the day, i feel that an objective comparison of riot's work with S3 worlds and valve's work with dota 2's TI3 tilts heavily, heavily, heavily in the favor of valve, but the money/popularity sits in riot's court - for the benefit of esports worldwide, riot needed to learn from the successes of others, and instead disappeared up their own asses and put on a show significantly worse than it should have been (thus significantly letting down esports as a whole - league is the big game on the scene at the moment, and riot needs to be setting the standard high or meeting the high standards of others)

[JDodge]

nope, but it's the same reason people dislike Manchester City.

I guess. But literally every team buys and sells players. TSM engaging in that seems to be progress, not regression. Don't try and push esports as a professional venture and then cry about the loss of amateurism.

im kind of curious as to how you feel this makes esports less legitimate as a professional venture when one of if not the single greatest rivalries in american sports (red sox/yankees) is based

heavily

on the boston perception of the yankees trying to buy a better team (also known as the exact same argument here) going back to when harry frazee sold babe ruth to the yankees to finance a

fucking musical

the fact that fans can hold the opinion of "pah, they're just trying to buy a better team" and whatnot shows loyalties to teams/players, which is absolutely crucial in the establishment of esports as a "professional venture" as you put it