f13.net

Anyone looking forward to the big tourney come October. I'm rooting for Moscow 5 personally because there the only team that doesn't make competitive league of legends look dreadfully boring.

The Korean teams are pretty fun to watch as well.  There's a lot of different lvl 1 action and heavy pushing/pressure strategy.

NA Regionals went like I thought.  No NA team is as solid as TSM, but they seem to fall apart when playing heavy aggression teams (like m5).  Dignitas and CLG.NA are unlikely to be factors and the big money team (lol mansion), Curse, didn't even qualify.  However, I don't see TSM strategically or mechanically having the chops to take season 2.  Reggie mechanically is a 2k ELO player, and they don't seem to innovate just react to whatever the current meta is.  The other NA teams are so weak, they don't get pushed as much here.

I like CLG.EU mostly due to personalities on the team and Froggen is a beast. They do play a bit of a boring style.  I just don't care for the team comps you see on m5 and they do get a bit trolly. No doubting though that they possibly have the best jungler, support and mid.  Darien and Genja aren't slouches either.  Just a very strong team in all facets.

I imagine the finals will be M5 v. a grab bag of (TSM, CLG.EU or a Korean team).  M5 with a likely easy finals victory.

Anyway I can watch the Korean teams after the fact?

Korean finals are Sept 21.  I don't know if you can find any VODs of the OGN (Korean) LoL league.  Both CLG teams participated in their last league "season", and CLG.EU is in the finals v. the Azubu Frost team.  The Azubu Blaze team kicked the shit out of TSM in some IPL sponsored LAN thing recently.  Their AD carry (Cpt Jack) is just ridiculous.

You might be able to find some VODs on Twitch or own3d.  I know the stuff from OGN is typically behind a subscription fee.  The stuff they put out for free is pretty low quality to the point of almost being unwatchable.

Southeast asia finals came and went. The Viet Jokers schooled the Sentinels who were running double mid, but badly. Is it me or is support nunu kinda bleh, i mean i know the higher elo's love him because he is a ward machine, but in that push comp it would have been faaaar more efficient to just have an aggressive support with cait or at least an ap nunu (which i never see...).

It depends on who he is going against. Soraka, Janna, or someone who can't ignore him? Really really strong.

Sona plus a long ranged auto attacker or other high harass champion? Really weak.

Nunu w and e are super super strong in a support role, w buffs his allies attack speed, and e deubffs his enemies

I don't see meta support nunu outclassing soraka in the support role in lane. Janna and taric yes, but that's about the short list of champs meta support nunu is effectively better than in lane. I would argue he does fuck all beyond his W, simple because by the mid game even his E is only effective when you have that perfect set piece engagement. Beyond that, like against the Viet jokers, your stuck with one note champion that can't initiate, can't tank, can't threaten, can't do anything once the team fight dips a little south. Very little flexibility or margin of error, and if your not dominating? Not much you can do because its basically 4v5

I think you are vastly underestimating the strength of his w, e, and r. He certainly does not have the power that Janna has in a team fight with all of her CC, but his w allows carries to bypass Phantom Dancer right to Last Whisper and lategame carry status. His e is only surpassed by malphites e and Nasus's w as an anti-carry debuff. But his E also serves as peel against many champions whereas malphites does not, and you can't get Nasus through the laning phase in a competitive game. His e and w also prevent enemies from escaping which is something no other support has nearly to the same extent.


Nunu ruins soraka in lane. Soraka is all about sustain, and loses lanes to combinations which can simply fight your armor buffed champion straight up. If they can't fight your armor buffed champion then they lose the lane and you bully them. But nunu+x where x is almost any other champion can fight your armor buffed champion straight up. [If Roka chooses a strong fighter like Ezreal or Graves then you can pick someone long range like Ashe or Cait and kite them all game until they dash in separating themselves from roka, if Roka chooses someone with a long range then you pick a fighter and just go in on them, if you already have graves/nunu and they have ezreal/roka just wait until the lategame where you have a proper ADC and they do not]

Press e and w when you're level 2, beat Soraka in lane. In team fights there is no question that nunu is stronger, even if you don't get as much use as you can out of your e and r. [unless you absolutely have to have roka's silence to counter a channeled ult]

I don't know much about the competitive scene, but Nunu support is pretty strong. He may not get a lot of kills himself, but I can manage assists in the teens and 20's with him and I'm not that good. His E to initiate and W to buff the ADC with him can just destroy people if the ADC is worth a shit.

Looks like only Riot casters (Phreak, Rivington, Jatt, Jaws (THIS GUY SUCKS)) and Deman for the S2 finals.  Big omission here is Joe Miller and/or any of the European commentators (don't mention Zenon, he's terrible).  This is somewhat of a bummer, because while Phreak and Jatt are really good from the analyst side of things, their play by play guys outside of Deman suck ass. 

Azubu Frost lost the drawing for a #1 seed and will have to go through the playoffs. 

What? I actually really like Zenon. He's one of the few official Riot casters who will say, 'yeah x ability, or y champion is OP'.

And yeah, no Joe Miller sucks dick. He's a long sight better than Phreak or (ugh) Rivington.

Well, Zenon's game/meta/item knowledge is usually pretty awful.  He's admitted as much at reddit and doesn't consider himself good enough at the moment.  He is about the nicest person on the scene and does come across as pretty genuine.  

I think Joe works well with a good analyst.  The guy he's been casting with lately is just OK.  He seems pretty butthurt over this whole thing.  

Hopefully we'll get Deman/Jatt for the finals, but I have a horrible feeling in my lower intestines that it'll be Rivington and Phreak.  Phreak would be better if he wasn't such a dork. Rivington should not be a caster.  Guy is awful and misses the action like an NFL replacement ref.

Could be worse, HatPerson and redbaron could be involved.  :awesome_for_real:  But, it would be nice if they did like DOTA2's TI2 and had a big community caster involvement, but that won't happen.  I don't think they want casters that are aligned with certain team/organizations involved and that would immediately rule out a lot of them.

edit: Wombat is fun too.  Just because he sounds like Cave Johnson.

Want to hear something really weird? I actually like Hatperson  :uhrr:. It started because the whole community seemed to loathe him, and I sort of pitied him, but then he grew on me. I recognize that he's not that good of a caster, but there is something in the way that he does it that reminds me of listening to baseball games on the radio as a kid. Personally, I would like to see Dan Dihn or Elementz help casting the final, but am already resigned to the fact that it will be fucking Rivington and Phreak.

Speaking of, any predictions for the tournament? I'm thinking M5 takes it, but that may just be me projecting. I will say I know very little of the Asian teams except their general style. I think I may /uninstall League if TSM wins it.

I've been watching the tsm weeklies (TSM half asses it when not in real tournies apparently)  I've only been watching streams a bit but I really like Digiwombat.  He just goes wherever his warped little mind takes him.

Yah, I watched some VODs of the mme ferus v. TSM from last weekend.  Wombat was hilarious.  Guy's sharp.

And... starts today: info.  (http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/10xf1w/in_6_hours_day_1_of_s2_world_championships_goes)

Delays are finally over, in case anyone was wondering. Now to wait for the announcers to get through their preliminary spiel so the games can actually start.

That endless dubsteb loop was really fucking annoying. Oh wait, it's Phreak and Rivington talking about nothing? Bring back the dubstep  :awesome_for_real:

Trying to find a steam that isn't lagged to fuck.  

edit: lag seems to have sorted itself out.

This iG v. Frost is ridiculously good so far.

HOLY SHIT. That was fun.

No shit. I was holding my breath every team fight right up til the end.

Epic first game. IG was doing so well, but the second their Leona got caught and they were put in a bad position around dragon, it was over.

Edit: Yup, can't take Phreak and Rivington. They cast they game like the people watching have just found League of Legends for the first time in their life.

Goose bumps.  So much tension.  

I don't think you'll see a better game the rest of the tournament.  iG was really surprising, but Frost is just so technically sound.


Yah, there was some really bad calls/positioning from Leona.  The early team fights were characterized by poor positioning from Ezreal and some great Jarvan dunks.  Dunking Alistair, however, was a mistake.

I'm jealous of Asian LoL, it's so much more fun than ours. I wouldn't put it past an EU team to pull out something really fun and crazy, though.

I think m5 can hang with that style.  Someone like clg.eu has to simply stall.  It's not in their DNA.  I'm hoping against it, but I think they might be a surprise early exit.

SK is crap and should get posterized.   But who knows, they played pretty well in the EU regionals.

Ya SK is total fucking shite. Maybe it's a personal bias, but I don't see how the NA teams are going to adapt to the play I have seen from IG and Azubu so far. Can't wait to see what the fuck M5 does  :drillf:

Also: you guys think there is any chance we will see an AD carry other than Graves, Corki, or fucking Ezrael?

CLG.na is bad. I don't see how they get out of this group.  Hotshot is a subpar jungler. 

Somebody's banned Sivir once already. I could see her or even MF being a wtf pick against a team who can't adapt in a push comp.

I think you might see anyone except possibly Varrus.  Cait has a low prob in a poke comp.   Not sure how comfortable any of these AD are with Draven, but he's pretty nasty in the right hands.  And I do expect to see Sivir in some comps.

I haven't seen many tournaments leading up to this, has Ashe totally fallen out of favor?

Never chase Singed.


That didn't even look competitive. Bottom lane didn't factor in at all.

And, hey, there's Caitlyn! 

Kinda why I like mmeferus with aphromoo and his draven.  Of course I just like seeing different shit.  the aram during the regionals was hilarious.

Edit: My god these announcer twats are horrible.

Hahaha, that was something. Hey, Graves is hitting our towers. Oh well, we'll catch him on the rebound.

Hah, that was awesome.  CLG did good.

Oh Fuck, Azubu Frost is on the ball!

That was brutal.  I'd hate to have to count on SK beating someone.

Heh
Announcer: CLG's only hope is that SK can win their final match against 4 kindergarteners with Down's syndrom and a howler monkey.
CLG: We are so fucked.

It's like there is two tiers of teams in this thing so far. The Asian teams are just Roflstomping their opponents. But hey, this is only the first bracket and the best NA and European teams won't play until tomorrow. From what I've heard of the Koran scene, Naijan Sword (sic) is one of the better teams their, so looking forward to seeing what they pull off.

Yah, I want to see Maknoon play.  He's just a beast.

Out of clg.eu, dignitas, or saigon jokers, it'll likely be clg.eu or dignitas.  Dignitas and clg.eu do have a reputation for under performing and not much is really know about saigon jokers, except that it's somewhat of a shock that they even qualified.  But, Asian LoL is stomping a the moment.  :|

Clearly, howler monkey op.

TSM drew Frost.  Ouch.  iG v. m5.

Crap, I'm probably going to miss most of the group B action.

Thank god I took two holidays for this!

MakNooN's Jayce is hot shit.

Has anyone won with Lulu yet? 

Same win percentage as an ADC that isn't Graves, Corki, or Ezrael I believe.

Maknoon is really fucking good, but I will NEVER compliment anyone for playing well with Jayce. That champion is fucking retarded, but I highly doubt Riot will ever do anything about it because he is an original style design.

Additional Bonus Rant: That last game didn't seem so much of NS winning, so much as CLG.eu shitting the bed completely. I've got a tip that even I can see way down from my elo canyon; just because one member gets caught out in the jungle, doesn't mean you have to trickle all the rest of your team in one by one, wasting their ults. You do no damage running away.

CLG vs SK had Chauster running Lulu for a win.  I think Chauster ran lulu every game.

Jokers just shit all over dignitas.  All over.  I feel embarrassed for Dig.

So far, none of the NA or European teams look like they belong here at all. Dig vrs Sj was a total joke.

Giving Irelia to Wickd is just really, really dumb.

edit: Froggen's farm.  :ye_gods:

SJ just went from rabid opossum to cowering gerbil.  Either they were super intimidated by CLG.eu or I dunno.  That was disappointing.

Interesting game to end the night on. Dig made some great efforts at playing from behind but the Koreans managed to pull some epic plays and shut them down almost every time.

They just got shut down.

So, I caught the first two and last two games but had to sleep through the rest. Any particularly good games I should make it a priority to see?

You saw the best game.  Of the games you missed, SK v. CLG.na was OK.  Had a fantastic finish.

However, I'd watch anything right now with Najin Sword or Azubu Frost.  That's some impressive shit.

Just a heads up, M5 vs IG in less than a minute (not counting announcer bullshit)

My new policy is any time they appear the mute button gets pushed, and I just play the heavy metal songs Mordekaiser's moves are named after  :drillf:

I hope M5 pull out some zany zany meta busting shit.

Wow, iG with 2 target bans against Gosu Pepper.

Very interesting picks by m5.   Not sure how this'll work out.

Oh it worked :) I loved the Xin Zhao Lee Sin combo. Xin charges Ez, and Sin just charges right to Xin. That's one fucked AD carry.

Why the fuck are they still talking?

Wow, M5 really smoked IG with a little rope-a-dope. By mid game, they couldn't seem to lose a team fight.

Ya it was practically a stomp for IG at the beginning, but once those team fights started...

The last fight there at the bottom is exactly what I was saying earlier in the thread about 1 person getting caught by 5 and the rest of the team trickling in to their doom. That Vlad was caught. He was dead. There was no reason at all to Shen ult him, then have rest through good money after bad.

IG was just entirely unable to focus the carries of M5, and M5 was easily able to focus the carries of IG. This is kind of surprising since M5 was an all assassin team and it looked like IG had a front line.

That Vlad was super aggressive in what I saw. Like almost as aggressive as me at my worst.  :awesome_for_real:

EDIT: So when did 2 tops/1 bot become a new meta? Saw that in both of their games and was like "PIKA?"

It's something you do when you think your top lane is ill matched vrs theirs, such as Olaf vrs Vlad. You move your bot top, and have your top go bot, only IG was hip to that scheme and sent their top bot as well.

Edit: Peace out Naijan Sword. So much for Maknoon.

I fell asleep towards the end of the last M5 match.  I guess TPA stomped NaJin?

Not stomped. They were good games, but the inertia was rolling in TA's way, and it didn't stop.

He was getting caught out a lot.  He didn't play that very well at all.

They're doing a segment on Dyrus' pillow. 

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/82533/facepalm01.gif)

They're desperately trying to fill time while they solve the unexpected problem of sun glare.

Edit: Micky Mouse Bullshit.

I'm loving Frost's team comp vs TSM game 1. Well, not Jayce because fuck Jayce, but altogether a fearless push/poke comp that just constantly dared TSM to initiate into a sea of CC and defensive abilities. Possibly more fun than even their game against iG, at least late game.

I loved the "Yeah!  We got Baron!.... well fuck."

TSM threw game two.

It was a genuine disparity of talent. TSM might have done well at the start, but they we so out picked that nothing they could do later would win them the game. It's not like they even made that many mistakes. Teamfights just went one way on that one.

They have a weak bot lane and a legit 1900 elo mid (that being said, Regi can make plays).  You can't make that sort of talent disparity up, especially when you don't really try anything special.  At least iG compensated by having insane aggression.

They were not outpicked. To crib someone from another forum,

"If you fight some dude and punch him in the face, you keep on punching him till he can't fight anymore, you don't wait till he gets up or give him a moment to get his bearings. TSM punched AzuFrost in the first(second) round and thought the fight was over because they staggered a bit. "

TSM had a 30% gold lead, 3000 gold, before 10 minutes. Instead of using that gold advantage to pressure more gold advantages, they did nothing. They easily had the ability, Graves had a massive lead and pushes about 10 times harder than ezreal, but their bottom lane, right after taking top tower, went mid and... cleared a wave, didn't do any tower damage at all, didn't even attempt it. Then went bottom... and froze the lane.

A tower is worth about 2 to 2.5 kills in addition to the map control. They had a harder pushing team[with the exception of Karthus being only slightly slower than vlad due to mana limitations on his e] and a 3k gold advantage. They could have made that 3k lead a 5k lead easily. They did not. Then AF, got back up and turned the entire lead around in one lost fight. A lost fight normally would not be a big deal in this situation. At least, if you're pushing. If you're pushing you have two advantages 1) it lets you respawn before the enemy can get creep waves to your tower 2) it forces the enemy to defend objectives instead of taking objectives.

But TSM wasn't pushing. Because they were not pushing Azubu could take two objectives on top of the fight which entirely removed the gold and map control advantage that TSM had.



If you think that the skill level of Regi is "legit 1900", or that their bot lane is weak, i don't know what to say. They lost entirely because they decided to sit on their lead instead of expanding their lead when they could. Also because Dyrus is dumb and built triforce on Jayce [anyone who tells you to build Triforce on Jayce is dumb: Stack AD, win games]

They were completely outpicked. Azubu's team comp had a synergy that TSM's completely lacked. I agree that TSM didn't do much of anything with their lead (because that's not what's done in the NA scene, and that's all they know), but I think the match would have ended the same even had they pushed aggressively, just taken longer and maybe been less one sided.

Ya Dyrus played really poorly those two games. I mean, i really don't like TSM, but it is still kinda weird for them to only play two games then home. I still think M5 can win it.

And as for Regi, I dunno man. he may not be 1900, but he is so outclassed compared to these other mids, like two or three tiers down. He just has no creativity with it.

Regi is, in fact, legit 2056 elo after 1200 ranked games. Not that solo queue elo is particularly significant but that's pretty low for being on one of the two most highly-regarded teams on the continent.

He's no Nyjacky or Froggen, that's for sure.

TSM had more raw comp synergy than Azubu in the second game. Azubu definitely had more in the first. But in the second, Azubu had a pretty standard tanky front line + ADC / APC comp. TSM had the same except that they also had dislocate, combo synergy [Karthus wall makes blitz pull easy], and AoE synergy.

You're fooling yourself if you think they would have lost if they pressed their advantage.

I don't think Regi really tries to win soloqueue games that much. Its not like he loses his lane in tournaments. [he did in the first game vs AF, though that more to picks] In fact he consistently beats those who are listed as "top mids" by solo elo.

Chaox himself admitted they got out picked.

http://solomid.net/videoplayer.php?v=1917

Ok watching those games live would have drove me crazy. Thank god for replays.

I am glad TSM was the best NA had to offer. Typical NA team would have crumbled going 0 - 4 in 13 minutes and the look on their faces when  AZF engaged them after baron? No one engages after baron. But that's culture shock for you. For all intent and purposes its not that TSM couldn't beat AZF after doing so well early, its just that it wouldn't have mattered if they tried because all teams like TSM and CLG know how to do is  turtle, stall, and starve the enemy team regardless of the lead. You get a lead you roam around for more farm, invade the buffs, wait around for enough levels for baron. AZF said "ok you do that, we set up team fights." So TSM ran around not knowing how fucked they were until the game winning baron which would have broken the back of every NA and 90% of EU teams. That moment when they all huddle together for a trip to the fountain to plan their victory lap and got wasted. Completely plastered to the wall like their 1260 try hards. TSM lost because NA is a uninspiring backwater.

Talking bout Game 1. He thinks they countered jayce well(their only outpick in game 2), which i suppose is does support that NA is a terrible backwater[its not, you're dumb], because Dyrus countered himself top. Irelia is not a Jayce counter, building Triforce on Jayce is a Jayce counter.

He thinks they lost the laning phase. No they trounced the laning phase. Laning is over the minute the first tower falls. At which point they were up a tower, a baron, and 4 kills. Its just that, instead of ending the laning phase they kept playing as if they were still laning.

This is something I've noticed even at my low elo games. One of the top or bot towers go down, and the team in that lane just decides to magically fuck off to other areas and forgot that lane entirely. It's such a rare game where the team who takes down that first tower actually tries to push to the second tower, even after a trip back to shop. They try to get ganks mid lane or the other top lane, or mostly just fuck about. When I try to make them push the lane, I usually end up getting 2/3v1's on me and killed because my team is constantly fucking about somewhere else.

Is that what you mean my NA just not being aggressive at all? Because it's really fucking irritating. It's like the only time teams consider pushing a lane is when they've killed 3 or more of the opposition, and mid game tends to devolve into a retard circle jerk mid lane.

Maybe. I am not sure that this is an attribute of NA teams in general or just because i don't play in top ELO and so people are bad. In general, people do not understand how important objectives and map control are.

E.G. something a lot of people will miss. Because WE was able to secure the bottom side of the river in the dragon fight at 25 minutes and CLG did not immediately engage WE was able to zone them away from their mid base turret and take an inhib.

NA is a backwater, TSM just won't admit that their part of that backwater.

TSM lost the game phase. Its like starcraft 2, your considered better than 90% of the population if you master mineral gathering and build order timing. If you can stop most sensible forms of early aggression and scout, congrats your better than 95% of the population. Most NA starcraft players crumble promptly after the first 5 minutes. The rest after 7. Congrats you don't beat yourself in the first 7 minutes of the game, welcome to the next 15  :awesome_for_real: Which is basically the same wall TSM and their ilk face in League of Legends. Congrats you can farm for 15 minutes, now beat a team that can play the next 10  :oh_i_see:

The problem with continuing to push that lane collapsed lane is that its not safe. And the whole goal of TSM and CLG is to play as passive aggressively as possible for 15 minutes. You beat 95% of the LoL player base in your region playing that way so guess what everyone tries to do? The whole point is to wait around and let the enemy team beat itself because of your 1k gold advantage. If there was no dragon or baron those teams wouldn't leave their towers.

Try retyping that without the irrational hostility.  I think you have a point, but it's buried under being an asshole.

I'm really not sure what you're saying now. The idea that Koreans are just "better at games" is retarded. Its not like TSM can't win a tournament against people from other regions [which they most definitely have done before]

5 months ago, everyone was saying "OMG Europe is so amazing at this game" and it was retarded, now they're saying "OMG Korea is so much better at this game"... and its just as retarded.

TSM isn't better than "95% of teams in NA" they're better than every team but maybe 4-7 teams in the World. I mean, CLG.NA went to Korea and played very successfully against Korean teams... then come back and get ruined by TSM.

As someone in that top 5% (in Starcraft 2) this is damned true. I'm nowhere near pro by the way or trying to toot my own horn here, my point is simply to say that just by the pure numbers I am in that top 5% but I consider myself to be absolute shit at the game.  The reality is that you can do a lot of things right and just not have the mechanics and practice time to develop yourself into a truly good player.  The farm for 15 minutes analogy in LoL isn't one I had thought of before, but it is really good.  I think it is conventional knowledge on the NA LoL server that just "Farm until you win" basically - and the reality is that it does as you say, get you a long way just doing that.  But in the same way that NA SC2 generalities of mediocre mechanics and questionable decision making seem to seep into the pro population, it might apply in LoL as well.  Obviously TSM is about the best of the best we have to offer in NA LoL and can beat foreign teams, but the broad point here stands I think.

The question is... why is NA so bad games?  This is a question I've been wondering for a while.  This isn't just against Korean/Chinese teams either, even against EU the NA player bases (casual and pro) seems drastically inferior across almost all games and genres.

NA teams like reliability. We invented the word "cheese" and "gimmicky" after all. If you lose while trying out a different build or composition its more acceptable in other regions than in NA. Try winning that way and we wonder if your hacking or the game needs to be re-balanced. We praise our ability to play standard (whatever we figure that is) until we are forced to change.

Oh yeah, you cats have to have a real League of Legends conversation when I'm at my fiance's for (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

@Gounindong: I dunno, I thought they got out picked both games (shrug). Maybe I'm wrong. It's true that they should have pushed though. NA isn't a backwater in that they don't know how to play the game, it's that they don't know how to strategize, or (in my opinion), think creatively.) The NA teams are always responding to things, never creating the situation, if that makes any sense.

See that I can get behind.  I have no experience with other regional metas but anything out of the norm on NA and you're a troll, time to queue dodge.  Nothing is considered viable until some e-famous guy did it successfully in a tournament.  There probably is a cultural element to that, "I'm always right, If you don't do it my way you're a newb/troll, if you beat me with X nerf X!"  This isn't all encompassing, but it is prevalent.

This is definitely an issue.  I mean, I guess in a team game with strangers an accepted metagame is trickier because it isn't just about what works, it is about what all 5 people know.  One person trying something "different" in LoL can hose a team, even if it is hypothetically good in a scenario in which the team understands how to use that strategy. So to a certain extent I can understand at the casual even low level ranked type stuff expecting people to adhere to a standard metagame.  On the other hand, this doesn't explain why it seems to extend into the pro ranks.  EGIdra is sort of the prototypical version of this - standard play to a fault. (Although to be fair he was one of the exceedingly few NA players ever to go live and play Brood War in Korea successfully).   No doubt this has hurt him in tournament play before, even though over the long term he has probably been the best NA player.

I'm a bit out of my depth with the current LoL pro scene though, I haven't watched any in a long time and just tuned in this weekend because it was very big tourny.  So, I'm not sure how well the concept applies to the TSM players (if they talk about cheese, "Cheap" tactics, etc). 

Taric is such a bad support, he does fuck all if you're not in your victory march.

That was neat.  Late game clg.eu is fun to see. 

Are the other teams playing simultaneously?  Cause otherwise the next two matches won't be over until Monday.

I blame that on taric being worthless, Sona won that game.

lol. Taric is really amazingly strong, his power just isn't as obvious as a sona ult.

Edit: Taric gives everyone on your team 30 armor and baron buff[Taric's ultimate is about the same AP/AD as Baron], everyone on the enemy team -15 armor [so a 45 armor total difference], and has a low cooldown stun. He is really strong, both in team fights and in lane. WE did not lose because of taric, they lost because of Jayce.

You mean menial compared to sonas R

Janna pick may win or lose them the game, meta janna is onlg a few steps better than meta taric compared sona.


Sona R and E prevented them from sticking in their engage. Yes the Jayce poke was nice but only because the threat of that R. WE couldn't engage that's why they lost. Taric can't wade in their deep enough for his -15 armor to count, he is a squishy shit that has to hug Ez and isn't even good at peeling people off the carries. Taric does fuck all. If they had a naut, an alistar, or blitz wasn't banned that would have been a gg.

How can you keep being so wrong about everything? Janna is stupidly strong in team fights[which is why they took her] regardless of how she does in lane, but she is weak in lane to certain harass based lane combinations[though she is definitely the safest of supports and her team fight is incomparable]

Also note that taric is a hard counter to Sona in lane.

We shall see. Laning phase is ending very soon.

I don't think that the early game loss that CLG keeps up on is a test of whether or not Janna has a strong team fight.

CLG knows whats up. Win one turret? Go win the next two

No seeing janna herp derp around wondering why her CC is being ignored is hilarious. Coming from a janna player, this is sad to watch.

Are we watching the same game?

CLG farming wards this game: Each one is 75 gold difference that the scoreboard doesn't show

This game is why I play and watch DOTA 2 instead of LoL these days  :ye_gods:

And I lose the stream when finally something happens.

Died for me too.  In fact, changing streams they all seem down....  


Edit: This happened earlier and it was the venue that went down as a whole.   Does anyone know tournament policy?  Is it an automatic regame or can they call it for CLG?

Best. Online. Technical.

If they have to replay this game there's going to be a riot

I see what you did there.  It's funny they haven't managed to finish the last quarterfinal match in 5 fucking hours.

I would post a link here but I'm on my phone and I suck at the things.

Just you tube Meanwhile at Riot

Whic video are you referencing?  Yip's, southpark, or wow cauldron?

And the stream died again, right after announcing a rematch.  It's like a tragedy of clowns.  Or a comedy of something tragic.  Shut up!

They are supposedly using [when they were up] 5% of the bandwidth in NA

That game was the absolute dumbest of the entire season and people were already starting to cheer ward kills.

And then it goes down in the middle of the first real teamfight.

god i sure love watching these clowns spend 394058730925 hours mewling around each other trying to earn the privilege of getting destroyed by azubu

Sorry gang.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8h9HyoZAa4
 
That video was made at last year's championchips lol.  Guess it still applies

LoL indeed.  We're getting trolled by Riot.

After 3d DC it stopped being funny

I dont want see either of those teams again. CLG.EU are known for turtling(and I hate em for that) but WE turtling back  was just pathetic. Neither of those deserves to be in quarter finals.let alone semis

You're stupid and should stop posting.

Shit like this is the biggest problem with eSports right now.  Way too many internet connection related bullshit.  It is just always going to come off as bush league when shit like this can happen. 

"We're going to cross our fingers, and hope that .."

down again

Apparently using 5% of NA bandwidth all in one place isn't a good plan.

In their defense, that's only 56kb/s

It's my fault.  I haven't played for 6 months and tried to patch.  Sorry.

http://www.own3d.tv/RiotHD

This stream is up, but so far it's just the nutbags talking still.

Yeah call me tomorrow league of ward kills is not my cup of tea  :oh_i_see:

CLG I hope you lose miserably.

Cruel world where this happens with the least entertaining team (who I still like).

What are they going to realistically do here?  Hold the semis at another venue tomorrow when they eventually have to call it a day?

It seems like this is pretty much exactly what they are doing, but they jut said "sometime during the week."

clg.eu and WE is a new BO3 on Wednesday.  Bring yer pillows.  :why_so_serious:

TSM v. AF game is apparently "under investigation" due to an AF player getting caught on camera looking at the minimap during a pause.  After it was unpaused, he magically pinged exactly where they were invading.  I doubt they replay anything.  I don't think we want another war with Korea.

Semi-final and finals setups will apparently make this temptation to cheat impossible. Should have just done the thing indoors with booths to begin with.

edit: There were many observed instances of players craning their neck.  Whether to cheat or not, who knows?  Magical pings could also just be good game sense.  The AF instance seems a bit egregious, however.

Are the semi finals being played following the CLG.eu/WE match on Wednesday? I can't seem to find anything on it anywhere.

Regarding the TSM/AF 'incident' (and those quotation marks are fucking huge ones), I don't even see how it matters. TSM got first blood and then some in the second game: it didn't mean shit.

How do they set the stage up so that the players can cheat?! This has been figured out since, oh god, I don't know, Quake 3? Just, wow.

Well, sportsmanship is sportsmanship regardless of who would have won. I doubt they'll take any action against Frost, though; the whole situation is too ambiguous and they've got their hands too full already to deal with another potential shitstorm. Heck, even Regi admitted they should probably be given benefit of the doubt.

Riot has a lot more money than sense. A LOT.

As for the cheating, I don't think they can do anything.  I don't think they should either.  Stern lecture, maybe.

Yea, this is really bad.   I didn't see any booths, which I think would solve the problem immediately.  MLG does that for its LoL tournaments and it totally sidesteps this problem. (Of course it doesn't solve the problem of match fixing and ARAM :why_so_serious:)

This is resuming in about 15 minutes (8pm EST), in case anyone still cares.

And the clg.eu and WE is just going to be the last game. 

AZF was fined $30,000 for their violation in the game against TSM.

Thanks for the heads up.  And holy, actual results with that.  interesting.

Annnd TPA got fucked up. 

Think people will actually start banning out Alex's Eve? I would.

They're just a lot of fun to watch.  Xin, Eve, Vayne in the same game.  Their team fighting was near perfect.

edit: And they ban Eve.   :awesome_for_real:

Can someone do me a solid and phone in a bomb threat to riot so they delay the game about 45 mins til I get home?

Lol, 15 min first blood

Goddamn. Every time I start to like a team something goes wrong.

Man, someone dope M5?  That was sad after game 1.

I got home in time to see the last game. M5 looked like they were playing solo queue, not a tourney match. Kog wasn't even in the last team fight ffs, he was farming bot (the approaches to which he had no vision). The players of M5 got caught time and time again in ones or twos, while TPA was, aside from Nid split pushing, never not as a team.

I'd like to pin that one someone playing bad, but they all pretty much got outplayed. Everyone but Diamond was caught out of position frequently. 

So, is this the Asian team spotting the Euros game 1 again?

It's looking like it.

Grand Finals for this are starting right now: http://www.twitch.tv/riotgames

Twitch went down during the allstar game, but onw3d kept up with it, just fyi in case twitch shits the bed again.

I understand that they want to put on a big show here, but 2 hours of intro is a bit much here.  I mean, I understand I'm not quite the perfect demographic anymore, but a best of five LoL match STARTING at 10pm is not something I have any hope of watching the entirety of. :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, it's a bit excessive, but pulling out the orchestra and choir is pretty fucking awesome.

Yeah, the live orchestra/performance was a really nice touch.  I just wish it would have been an hour ago  :grin:

Edit: I like these intros as well, stats is a scary thing in terms of getting me to care.  I love the idae of tracking things like assists per game.

That first game was pretty damn good.  These last two have been more of what you'd expect from a game with so much on the line. 

TPA just has an absurd amount of individual skill in their lanes.

TPA just dominated Frost.  Hell, even in the first game they were outplaying them until teamfights, then they went to shit.  Even the slower matches were impressive overall.  I'm glad I stayed up for this (and sat through 2 hours of announcer jabberwocky).

They just seemed to have a response to absolutely everything.  While Toyz and Bebe were beasts, the rest of the team played solidly and made so few mistakes.

First game they just team fought badly and AZF had a better late game team.

AD carry from AZF didn't do himself getting caught out late in those games.  Guy is going to be even more of a pariah in Korea (he was the screen looker).

I'm glad the pre-game BS went on so long; I got to watch the entire thing.  :awesome_for_real:

For anyone who missed the orchestra/choir intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5zMBPzeroU

Apparently Dyrus leaked Dig's strategy against CLG.eu to Wickd 2 hours before the start of their match. OOOPS.

IPL5 going on right now.  Most of the top teams are there.

TPA's Bebe just got a penta and then a quadra back to back against some scrub team from Thailand.

Curse.NA v. M5 right now. This will be bloody.

edit:

God, TSM getting curb stomped by CRS.eu.  Have they not been playing at all or something? Yikes.

Some other things.

TSM ruins SGS who played a Karma mid(Good pick, bad game for them though). That is right, Karma in a tournament.

Alex Ich plays AP YI.. It goes about as well as you would have expected

So I didn't get to see any of that today :( The current bracket says World Elite beat Moscow 5, how did that game go? Also, TPA vrs what remains of Fnatic....yeah that's a fair fight.

WE kind of whupped them.  In game 1, M5 left Twisted Fate open and Misaya did his thing.  Did a good job early, but they snowballed late.  Second game was, IMO, a bad draft from M5.  Alex needs to stop picking Zilean.  I don't think it's worked yet against an Asian team.  M5 basically had no damage.  WE's botlane is fucking scary.  WeiXiao is a beeeeast.

And yah, TPA is still looking every bit as scary as the did at the S2 finals.  Toyz, maybe not as dominant so far, but Bebe and Stanley are still really, really solid.


SGS was running heavy shield teams every game.  TSM just ruined them, even though SGS's mid had a huge farm lead early.  

The CLG.eu game.. yah.  Why would you ever pick Kat into a team that already had two hard disables on the board. Ended up with 4.  WRECKED.  They got issues, no lane looked solid out of perhaps, Dyrus.  But they can just camp him.

That AP Yi was awesome.  You could see that coming.

edit: This tournament has me pretty pessimistic about NA LoL.  At least we're winning some games, but there's a lot of doormat teams here.

I really have to try an AP Yi one of these days. Every time I've seen someone pick it, it's been pretty damn successful.

Its a lot of fun when it works although you feel like a dick waiting for everyone to half health before you enter.

TakashiX is playing for Diynamic...

I've played against him before!

Fnatic just beat TPA in game 1.  :-o They turned a 4 man lvl 3 dive top into 3 kills.  Peke and sOAZ played really well.

Cool. Did M5 or TSM play today ? I'm stuck at work, so your my play by play man Rasix  :drill:

Missed the games after that. Had to go out to eat with my family.  

Apparently Fnatic 2-0'd TPA and Curse.eu came back on CLG.NA.   :grin:

TSM's in a close game against Blaze right now and M5 lucked out and gets to play stomp Meat Playground.  Alex's rolling AP Yi again.  

edit: Actually, it's not that close. They're getting outfarmed by miles.  Regi is getting doubled at the 37 min mark (his K/D is fine, though).

Froggen's Lux is a bit crazy.  I'm not sure if there's anyone that's better with skill shot champs.  TPA is one game from being gone.  

edit: CLG's team comp in game 3 was so goddamn awful.  Holy crap.  You'd hope they'd at least select something with a chance of winning.  Wickd's Rumble is not tourney worthy and Froggen all of the sudden busts out Vlad.  

Game 2 was a bit hilarious as well.  Bebe was up 125 cs on Pete (425 to 300) and out csing both mids.  CLG.eu was up most of the game but he just melted them.  It was an Anivia v. Oriana battle with Froggen and Toyz.  Froggen dominated early, but Toyz caught up.

I don't know if any of you caught the last game of WE vrs CLG.eu, but that was one of the best games of LoL I have yet seen played. WE is looking like the beast of this one, they just group and destroy, group and destroy.