f13.net

I figure those of us who follow the scene could use a place to chatter about the latest goings-on, and the IEM Katowice games are motivating me to finally start this thread. They've been pretty good so far, as you might expect from a non-US tournament. I'm not familiar with Meet Your Maker, but they're already after my heart for trouncing Curse (my favorite NA team, but that's not saying much) with jungle Kayle. Curse looks like they're coming back in their game with Gambit as I type this, despite their weak start against Gambit swapping their ADC and support into mid--a strategy I've been thinking about for a long time but have never seen until now.

One thing I could really stand to see less of is MF in bottom lane (or whatever lane they swap to) every tournament game. I thought she was underrated in S2 but really don't consider her to be must-pick material, either. I feel like pretty soon people are going to remember Kog'maw exists and that often it's better to melt a single target rather than trying to debuff and kill the entire enemy team at once.

The Gambit Gaming strat of moving ADC/sup to mid is something I saw WE do when iG put together a Lee Sin/Panth(support) botlane to shut down Weixaio.  Instead WE sent Misaya bot for the 2v1.   It didn't work out in that case either, although Gambit did better with it. 

CRS beats Gambit with Rhux playing for Nyjacky.   :ye_gods:

There's a big part of me that is secretly hoping that Pluto goes on a bender and promotes Rhux to AP permanently so that Nyjacky can get poached by a stable team that actually supports his potential. He's one of the only reasons I have left to care about the US scene at all.

I almost started a thread like this a few weeks back.

If I can say, Go Team Marn!

Regarding Miss Fortune: Her ult is really high quality, and her q is amazing early game harass.  She isn't the best adc late late game, but she is a very strong pick in all phases.   Problem with Kog'maw (and Vayne to an extent) is their early games are weak and given that people are coming up with stronger early game compositions, sometimes relying on hyper-carrying isn't viable.  Still, the meta for season 3 is basically in its infancy, the beginning and end of season 2 were pretty different, so I'll be interested to see where season 3 goes.

I didn't watch the qualifiers too intently last weekend, but I caught the last couple matches with Marn and they really impressed me.  They seem to be able to adapt quickly.  Plus, well, Urgot.  I heart Urgot.

The first time I saw them was in the December tournament in Cologne, and I gotta say, they weren't the most skilled players in that tournament individually, but I love whoever was calling their plays.  Don't know much about them,  but I'll be rooting for them here.

Still pissed that Epik got iced on day one of the qualifiers, tho. 

People take MF because Black Cleaver procs on any physical damage, which means her ult armor shreds the entire enemy team. Same thing with Wukong.

The fuck. I did not know this.  :ye_gods:

Also.  :awesome_for_real:

The ending of SK vs. FN.RC.  :drill: :drill: :drill: :drill: :drill: :drill: :drill:

Oh, holy shit, you're not kidding, lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdN67NuhMW4

S3 introduced a lot of items that not so hot on most champions and kind of broken on a few. (Muramana and Ryze being the best example probably) Black Cleaver procs on any physical damage, so any multi-hit attacks or physical damage-over-time attacks are pretty busted with it. MF and Wukong can both abuse it to hit the entire enemy team and shred all their armor, Garen spinning and winning is also good, etc. I'm more scared of Wu than MF typically. MF ult does big damage and shreds armor but then she is still MF with bad range and no escapes. Wukong can CC your entire team, shred all your armor, then is tanky enough to stick around and do damage afterwards.

Also because she has always been very strong, but the ability to get Clever and LW and have her ult essentially do true damage brought her up from a "very good AoE ADC" to "really amazingly powerful in a team fight"

Don't buy Muramana for Ryze, get Seraphs Embrace (then get the Muramana later, once the muramana/seraphs has been completed you can stack another tear), it does more damage on him and gives him more defense.

Gambit vs AZF game 1 started out slow but wound up incredibly tense, with Gambit's entirely AD team struggling to claw through some of the heaviest defensive builds I've ever seen on Frost. Cringe of the day: Amumu's grab ruining what would have been a perfect Blitzcrank grab. Diamondprox's Xin Zhao saves were damn impressive though.

I was like, WOW! This startup Gambit team I've never heard of is absolutely crushing a Korean powerhouse!


....


and then I realized they are Moscow 5.

Too bad the streams are mostly unwatchable.

(http://i46.tinypic.com/2yypllf.gif)

They all played really, really well.  Their solo lanes didn't even have to do a whole lot (still did).  Bot got wrecked.  Diamond was everywhere. 

Euro S3 qualifiers this weekend. Should be some interesting games.  MYM/Fanatic/etc.

Just picked up on this, but looks like MYM got a bye for game one since Solo Mebdi was disqualified yesterday... disqualified as in, bans for three of it's players for being dicks.
http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=10180118
Ouch.

Mother of Cthulhu, I couldn't manage that if I tried. I wouldn't have the stamina.

That must be a lot of N-bombs....

Honestly, you have got to realize you'll get banned for this.

Well yeah, considering everyone of those guys has had MULTIPLE accounts banned. Hell, one of those guys threatened to DDOS someone in fucking chat. Like somehow that couldn't be used as evidence that he is an antisocial twonk who deserves to be sent to a remote desert island where he can never see people again, much less allowed to shit on people from the Internet.

The worst is readon the riot forums of people trying to defend these guy....ugh.

Well to be honest, most of the people defending these guys have just been flagged for watching.

Watching ?  Is that a Buffy reference ?

This IEM Brazil is a bit underwhelming.  A lot of awful teams.

Still, just watched a pretty entertaining game between LG IM (some Korean team) and KAYD (some Brazilian team).  End was completely spoiled when the camera switched to the Brazilian team celebrating while they were pushing towards the Nexus.  Crowd went nuts.   Game was a huge come back for the Brazilian team as they were down big early.

http://www.twitch.tv/eslasia/b/362814801

Skip to 3:34. Watch the game. Seriously. Do it

What the fuck did I just watch ?  :ye_gods:  :awesome_for_real:  :heart:

Holy crap - speed kill anyone?

The purple team didn't have any wave clear, so blue went for a specific strat which allowed them to utilize a large amount of poke and zone in order to shove turrets and gain a global gold advantage.

The core of this combination is bltizcrank enabling safe buff control, heimerdingers very strong AoE Regen aura and turrets which are able to both prevent side lane ganks and keep waves shoved, and caits ability to shove down turrets made them able to quickly and efficiently take towers.

If you try this and the enemy team can clear waves then 3 go to the wave you're pushing and defend by clearing waves asap, and your other lanes split and shove hard. By the time your 5 or 4 get the single lane the other two unopposed lanes will get a turret and can continue shoving. If you don't get the inhib early then you're underleveled and under gold compared to the single lanes and their raw tower advantage will allow them the global gold to negate your push.

But if you do get the inhib your side lanes auto push hard due to the bonus HP and your main lane must be defended because superminions at 10-15 minutes are very strong. At 10 minutes they will have about 2400 HP, 100 armor and hit for 220 damage. Which is to say that every 30 seconds you have another tank with the damage of an ADC pushing down your lane.

Losing an inhib at 9 minutes is basically game over, every engagement from thereon out will be, at best, 5v4 in their favor because you must have someone to keep the open lane from shoving into your nexus. In addition, any pressure is even more powerful. If you force someone to defend any position as 4 then the lane they're not defending will auto push and generate an even larger tower advantage.

even if you manage to win an engagement you're going to lose because the lanes are shoving and there is almost no way you can get any advantage out of a win if you have to go back and defend your towers.

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

I've never seen that pulled off that well.

Apparently in ranked 5s, CLG.eu (now EG) played a team called "5 minute inhib".  And they did it to them.  CLG.eu still won. 

Are push lineups not common?

Not in my experience.  Pub teams don't use them because they generally require a lot of coordination and if you fuck up, you're underleveled and underfarmed.  Pro teams don't use them because it's kind of a cheese tactic and if the enemy team knows you're going to try it, they can counter it hard.

Most common lineups are

AoE: Everyone has an AoE Ult or combo. Bursts everyone down in an instant then cleans up. Strength: Early to mid game team fights since the AOE burst is insane. Weakness: If the enemy team survives the burst it can turn very fast

Poke: Also known as siege. Mid game sieges towers and pokes down enemies so that they can't ever get a good engage in. Weakness: Wave Clear. If the enemy team can clear waves fast enough the poke doesn't matter since poke teams can't really hard engage under a tower well.

Split Push: Team utilizes Global ults/teleport to push waves with 1 person while the other 5 get objectives. If the enemy team sends one to stop the split push then you can engage the 5v4 with the global ult. Weakness: Teleport on the other team, especially on someone with a stun. If your split pusher doesn't have time to get to a non-stun place so he can teleport in your strat is canceled. If the enemy also has teleport they can turn your 5v4 attempt into a 5v4 in their favor.

Early push comps are not common they require a lot of coordination and a lot of things going right in picks to work.

In the linked game, blitz needed to be unbanned, they needed to be blue side against a blue start jungler, and the enemy team needed to have a small amount of AoE. They needed blitzcrank to be unbanned.

 They needed to be blue side because they invaded red at level 1. If they were purple they would have run into the ADC defending it, ditto for a red side start jungler. They needed a situation there the enemy team was content to know they were invaded and either be unable to defend (because you can't get bottom there in time) or content to let it go.

They needed a small amount of AoE because if the enemies could shove/wave clear effectively then the jig is up as explained earlier. They needed blitz unbanned so they could pull red and ensure there was no level 1 team fight. If there was any kind of level 1 team fight they were probably going to lose. This is because it only takes one or two lanes getting ahead to stop the push. This is true even if they won so long as they had to go back.

Yeah, that sort of play is just really risky in anything but the perfect situation, and even in that perfect situation it was still pretty risky.  In addition to all the things Goumindong said, I think you also get a large boost from it being so far outside the normal meta.  In other words, the other team has no practice against it.  That doesn't mean it is a one off, teams will study that game and learn what to do if someone tries to pull something similar.

The amount of grabs that blitz missed made me sad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JsIo0k2pNw&feature=player_embedded

Here is an example of it failing. Notice how the MF and Jax get big on side lane XP and just come in and ruin while nocturne can't effectively stop them both from pushing

Yikes, Curse v. GG University today was pretty intense.   :ye_gods:

CRS is just fucking smashing this season, it's crazy.  Voyboy is an absolute beast.

Yah, he's gotten pretty ridiculous.  He seems to be the most technically sound top laner right now, and his instincts have been pretty solid.

CaughtShotGG was back in full force in the CRS/CLG game. 

I think the top team out of NA could be any of CRS/CLG/TSM.  The fall off after that seems a bit extreme.  Dignitas looks like poop.  TSM looks like they're still in a funk. CLG looks good, and then it looks like Aphromoo has no idea what's going on. CRS just looks solid.   Teams will likely start camping Voy hard.  At least all of Europe and Asia will. 

Aphro looks pretty clueless as support a lot of the time. As an AD carry on other teams he was prone to extreme swings, converting him to support just seems weird. He may have the mechanical skills but not  the awareness and decision-making.

Will be interesting to see what happens when Voy faces international competition. He got smashed when he was top-laning for CLG. I kind of suspect he'll get smashed again.

The GGU game...they made the classic mistake of trying to bum-rush the Nexus instead of just slowly pushing to get all 3 inhibs. The first time they did it I kind of understood, it looked like they might be able to finish. The second time they did it was flat out super dumb.

In Voy's defense, that CLG team had Hotshot at jungle.  He was worse at jungle than he was at support, if that's possible.  It was a bad fit.    I think he could do OK against Euro tops, but people will scheme to take advantage of his aggressive play.  Asian top laners will wreck him hard.  I don't see him winning top against the likes of Stanley, Shy, Caomei, or even the slightly overrated Maknoon. They play so much better with their junglers.

Yeah, when I said "international" I really meant Asian.  :awesome_for_real:

I'm with Margalis. Every time I watch Voyboy, or that man child Dyrus play, I think: 'yeah you're doing well now, let's see how it goes when you face Stanley, or Maknoon, or even Darien. Enjoy moping up the fragmented and pathetic players that NA can cobble together, cause it falls right the fuck apart when you get a real LAN going on.' And whenever I see Chaox, or even Doublellift do well at the bottom I just laugh. They are so hopelessly outclassed on the international scene it isn't even funny.

As for Curse, yeah they are rocking this tourny, good for them. They always rock at the start of the season, or when shit doesnt really matter. When it does, they (mainly Saintviscious) play like utter shiite.

Oh, and how has no one mentioned TSM now being Team Snapdragon, and (despite the fact that they are a middling team at this point) are getting their own show?

http://www.newsoflegends.com/index.php/interviews-w-reginald-on-new-show-and-more-doublelift-and-hotshotgg-interview-3662/

It doesn't matter how well they play because they have showmanship.  Even Dyrus has his moments of gold.  Chaox and Oddone are like meth riddled adhd freaks, especially when Dyrus does something stupid.  Reginald has a popular aggressive mid and his lips could form their own spin off series.  I don't know much about Xpecial though he seems like the straight man in a comedic group.  I don't even like TSM all that much, but collectively they continue to have a huge amount of twitch viewers.  Out of all the NA teams, they're the one group that makes sense.

TSM isn't the force it used to be, but they're by no means bad. Individually i would say they're weak in lane, but they have an amazing team fight presence.

And LiftLift is probably one of the top two ADC's in the game

Yeah, DLift can stand up to anyone. He has mostly fixed his weakness of giving up Baron in order to kill wraiths. He usually has a good early game and even if he doesn't he still farms like a mad man and has a great late game.

On the CLG from last season Jiji was incredibly inactive in mid, always losing lane and never making plays. Voy sucked top and HS was horrible in the jungle, but CLG's bot lane still did well even in international play. On a team with 3 other great players the DLift/Chauster bot lane would have looked amazing.

DoubleLift is also like an order of magnitude better than Chaox, who just completely vanishes from many games.

I am not sure if they need to replace caughtshotGG. I mean he loses lane a lot and usually ends up with bad scores but he plays a team fight support role that is really unappreciated. The way he plays for his team wins them games even if his score looks bad.  CLG knows that doublift is their carry and centers their team around protecting him. When they could not do that (see game vs curse) then they lose


It's similar to "no one loses lane like dyrus".

What is that? A Nasus pick in a tournament. HSGG <3

Nasus got some love in the last patch, if I recall correctly.  Assuming that the tournaments always play with the latest code as well, he's pretty sweet these days.

I think the LCS games are one patch behind live?  Unless that was just the last two weeks.

edit: kinda hoping to see some Thresh this week, myself.

You will see him... banned every game

Thresh is a walking CC factory.  Combined with the current meta of "tankiness = winning" and that a well farmed Thresh could potentially say "fuck all damage", and yeah, you will never see him.  For additional lulz, go find the Skarner + Thresh kidnapping rape videos on YouTube.

The nice thing about this is that it pushes out some of the more frequently banned champs, so maybe we'll see some more of them in play.

I like thresh for CC but boy you have to have some competent people on your team cause while his CC is very tactical it's not a "save the dumbass" skillset like other supports have.

He definitely has a high "you must be this skilled to play effectively" threshold.  Still, if you can swing that lantern good enough...

I'm referring to your team mates. There's no hard CC lik a sona ult, no heals or stuns, no aoe blitz silence either.  Thresh's ult can be tactical but it's certainly not the life saver of other support ults.

He's strong but much like playing a priest in wow, if they don't click the fucking lightwell then it's still useless.

Most people, and I include myself in this, don't have clue fucking one how to play with or against Thresh. I know to click on the lantern but there have been times where clicking it was just as much of a death trap as not because I had to run back into the rampaging hordes to click it. I'm going to have to buy him and play him in blind before I can be competent with him. He is, however, a goddamn kill machine, both for himself and anyone with him.

It's such a shame we're not likely to see him any time soon. Once he starts making it into pro play I expect to see some absolutely amazing plays involving lanterns.

Marn and GGU just hit 25 minutes without a single kill.  30 seconds later Renekton gets a triple.  :awesome_for_real:

Just noticed that last week had the first real upset of LCS NA, with the previously win-less Vulcun taking a game off of CLG. Was a solid game too, aside from Hotshot deciding that this was the game to try out Nasus in competitive play.

Yeah, Vulcun was actually something like 0-5 going in to the week, and ended it 3-5, which is pretty impressive, and it'll be interesting to see if they can continue to keep their streak going.  Though the whole of Friday was basically the bottom four teams duking it out.  Even compLexity managed to grab a win, finally, so NA doesn't have a team that's doing quite as bad as the Copenhagen Wolves.

ps who the fuck decided it would be a good idea to run LCS for twelve straight hours on wednesday holy shit
I was going to check who Vulcun was playing this week, loaded the page and was like "oh,  I see. Everybody."

Voyboy's about to play AP Trynd in an LCS game.   :uhrr:  God I hate AP Trynd.

Best to do it now before the next patch hits and his AP scaling gets nerfed to hell.

Little risk in this game, anyhow.  Marn is terrible.

edit: this is completely retarded.

Watching it now.  I think Mern is hoping for a late-game turn-around with Trist being able to out-range and out-gun the muffin-top.  So far, that plan is not working.

And it's already over  :why_so_serious:

Ohh, CLG.  :awesome_for_real: :why_so_serious:

Did they win? I was watching their game today but I don't remember if I saw the ending or not.

MRN won.

And Dignitas took the first game off of Curse who are now 8-1 on the season.

DIG looked really strong.  Voy got wrecked by kiwikid, and Scarra farmed out of his mind.  StVicious and Elementz got caught several times.  I expect them to trade wins during the season.

I kept waiting for Marn to throw that game.  Didn't happen.

Man, what the fuck.
They just took town TSM, too.  :ye_gods:

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

The Akali pick really seemed to throw TSM.  They blew a ton of pink wards on ganks and rarely got anything out of it, also Chaox was forced to get the early Banshees which let late game Trist wreck them.

Well, this first game has gone on long enough.  TSM played like absolute ass for the first half+ of this game.

62 minute game.  6 item Kog'maw is terror.  These early game Ezreal builds really turn into liabilities come late.

Yeah, that baron was infuriating, when Vulcun was taking it down and TSM interrupted like three times with one or two guys who got melted... and then someone else would respawn and run in by themselves...  Kind of frustrated that Vulcun couldn't finish it out, tbh, I felt like they were really solid for most of that game.

I think I can safely say that complexity is terrible.

Sub 20 minute Nexus explosion.  14-0  in kills, nearly double the gold.

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/82533/5rNXq50.gif)

Yeah, that game was really brutal.

Just finished watching the VOD of Fnatic v. Copenhagen Wolves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=y_Rd2hByRyc#t=2764s).  :-o :-o :-o :-o  What. a. game.

I was literally bouncing in my chair watching the end of it.  Luckily Deman was casting this game.

IEM going on right now.  GG looked really strong yesterday.  fnatic tanked hard.

EG is currently falling on their sword, furthering their slump.  Not sure they're good enough to beat Koreans, but they shouldn't lose to teams like MYM.

WTF?! Where did this tournament come from? Does anyone have a convenient link to VoDs for this? Their web page is less than helpful.

Edit: Almost forgot, am I to assume that CJ Entus Blaze and Frost are the old Azubus? Cause if not than this thing is barely worth not missing a LCS week for.

Yeah, they either got dropped by Azubu or left, I can't remember which.  

Azubu has recently decided to sponsor Taipei Assassins and Taipei Snipers.

Some other decent teams, but a lot of filler.  The SK Telecom Korean team is Reapered's new team.  I think he was Frost or Blaze's old top.  LG IM is a team that would probably beat most US teams but didn't really do anything here.

Most tournament websites are unnavigable messes. Best thing to do is head to their Twitch page (http://www.twitch.tv/esltv_lol/) and just hunt through the videos there.

Lol, what are they, the Veronica Lodge of game sponsors or something?

Thanks for the twitch link. That, combined with a few youtube searches helped me fill out my viewing. Ya Fnatic and EG (formerly CLG.eu) have really hid the skids right now huh? My only beef is so far I keep seeing the exact same team comps over and over again. I know tournaments have always been like this, but this one seems extra bad for it given how many teams are playing in it.

I actually prefer to watch these things after the fact.  You can watch a game in 1/3 the time or better because you don't have to listen to filler chatter.

Or skip through the 15 minute farm fest.

Well, that was pretty hilarious.

Dignitas (top ranked team sitting on a ten game winning streak) just lost to compLexity (bottom ranked team on a five game losing streak).  It was a pretty close game up until the last few minutes, when it just went  :uhrr:

That was hilarious when Dig was chasing them in the bot lane, and Complexity somehow turned around and destroyed them.

Are there replays for week 5 NA LCS anywhere?  They've had youtube/twich replays for all the other weeks but for some reason no week 5 (yet?).

It wasn't the regular venue, it was some special cross promotional thing with MLG so I think MLG's got them on their Youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialMLGLoL/videos?view=0&flow=grid (http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialMLGLoL/videos?view=0&flow=grid)
There were a ton of really great games on Sunday, too, Vulcun v. Dignitas and GGU v. CLG were amazing.

Awesome, thank you!  I could not hide from the spoilers any longer  :grin:

All NA LCS vods.  Spoiler free.  (http://www.reddit.com/r/LoLeventVoDs/comments/18j7y8/s3_lcs_north_america_spring_season/)

I know I said it just a few posts up, but the recent LCS weeks and MLG Dallas have really started to turn me off the competative scene, because every damn champion roster is looking the same. Jarvan/Volibear/Xin/Vi in the jungle, all rushing Locket. Rene/Rumble/Singed/Shen/Elise in the top. Diana/Kha'zix/Zed/Kayle/ maybe the odd TF, Gragas, or Katarina in the mid. LuLu/Sona/NuNu instalocked as supports, with MF/Caitlin guaranteed picks for ADC.

It's gotten really fucking bad lately. These champions are picked across both fucking teams, with some (but not much) variation. This is as worse as I can remember it. Go back to the Season One finals, it was zaniness how many champions they used. Even the Season Two Champs weren't this bad (although headed there). What worries me, is that it's not just the 'Top' teams doing this, but the 'bottom' ones as well. What happened to teams the old M5? doing crazy ass shit? Or Dignitas having a Maokai or GP support? I can't believe I find myself missing Darius, Jayce, Orianna, and Ezrael.

I'm really glad at my horrible elo this doesn't seem to happen, cause if it did, this game would be unplayable.

Whoops, forgot Nasus and Threash in their respective roles.



**Breathes out**


So, how about that weather in the city that you are living in?

Oh yeah, this site is just plain better:

http://leaguepedia.com/wiki/Riot_League_Championship_Series/North_America/Season_3

http://leaguepedia.com/wiki/Riot_League_Championship_Series/Europe/Season_3

Just noticed this, too: apparently seven LCS players just got hit for Elo boosting.  Two week ban, not sure how that impacts their teams, though.

Nyjacky, Chuuper, Dontmashme, Xmithie, Aphromoo, and some subs (Rhux, Meteos) and coaches (compLexity coach Phranq) all got the hammer.

Apparently the boosting took place in season 2, though, which is kind of a head scratcher.

Edity: forgot link:
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3239350 (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3239350)

Some EU players got busted as well.  scarra commented that he's surprised more didn't get hit.

There's no affect to LCS, except that they can't play solo queue on their mains or known alts. I guess that affects scrims, since if these guys get caught on someone else's account they're facing perma-bans.

Looks like TSM is trying out WildTurtle as AD.   Chaox is "taking a break".  Of course, he may legitimately taking a break and nothing more.  Funny that both of their currents subs aren't ADC players.  Wingsofdeath and Dan Dihn aren't great ADCs.  Dan played some competitively, but he was pretty awful.

I just reported some guys for "elo jobbing" the other day. Two very obnoxious players, blabbed all game about how they were elo jobbing, trash talked everyone on both teams, etc.

Was really stupid in one game I was against them and the next game they were on my team. One of the guys was really good and they also coordinated well, made for two extremely stupid games.

And.. Chaox's replacement gets a penta in his first game for TSM.   :awesome_for_real:

So much drama around this guy.  Compared to other teams who've undergone roster changes, this is a soap opera.  :popcorn:

Also, re: the outcome of CLG v. Vulcun

It came down to this amazingly close Baron fight where Hotshot got chunked to death and Link was just a hair too far away to murder anyone.

Also, Mancloud spears. So many Mancloud spears.

The CLG v. TSM match was hilarious.  Only information you need going in: Hotshot on Karthus.  They actually designed a strategy around how much Hotshot dies. 

That's about how well it went.  TSM went full aggro mode and pounded them.

CLG played like ass against Vulcan.  They were playing scared to death.  Even with baron they lose an inhib with turret.  Hotshot makeing retarded choices in where to recall from and Doublelift trying to hug every fucking Nidalee spear in existence with his face.

I think Nidalee was the Vulcan game.  Maybe TSM.  Fuck it I'm drinking!

No. It did not. It came down to Vulcan's wave clear. Vulcan had a super late game team with Nasus and Tristana. Tristana is top three in terms of late game DPS and top 1 in terms of late game saftey (allowing her to easily buy straight offense) and Nasus is the single best ADC neuterer in the game.

Because CLG "let" the game get late it did not matter that they were ahead 10k gold, tristana still did more DPS than Ezreal and Ezreal was entirely neutered. The fact that Mancloud was amazing at landing those spears was something that helped out a lot too but they don't get to that point without their team comp in Nasus/Trist

CLG tends to pick teams that are strong early/mid, take a few outer towers quickly, then bog down and lose. They play teams with only 2 threats paired with one of them often being Cait, which means their late game is just garbage. I can't count the number of games where a Cait-centric team took a few outer towers, built up a 5k gold lead, then ultimately lost.

Their attempts at expanding their gameplan beyond "protect the Doublelift" aren't going so well.  They have one top flight player and a bunch that just seem lost out there. I can't believe they tried that Karthus top AGAIN.  I can't imagine that crap worked during scrims.

Am I schitzing out here, or what the hell is going on?

I step out for dinner in the middle of the GGU v. Vulcun game.  Vulcun's kicking some asses, like 5-0 or something.  I eat, come back, and spool up the game... and it's GGU v. Vulcun again.  Except they're 0-0 and onlly like three minutes in.  I don't see anyone talking about it on the LoL forums or anything... what's going on?  Is it Groundhog Day or something?

Some kind of technical issue forced them to restart the game.

So the LoL esports (http://na.lolesports.com/allstar) site is running a poll to nominate who gets selected for the NA All Star team.  Basically, you vote on who in the LCS gets nominated for each position, and you get one vote per day (Jintae is listed there, too, I assume because even though he's "just a sub," he's been subbing for more than half the season).

For my picks:
Top: Voyboy, no question.
Jungle: Ugh, no idea.  Saintvicious is awesome half the time and sucks horribly half the time.  The only other jungler I like is Lautemortis, but I'm having trouble remembering a specific reason why..
Support: Xpecial, probably, though Elementz is a close second.
Mid: Scarra, no question.
AD Carry: WildTurtle, he's been really doing well, but I'd feel a lot better about picking him if he had a few more games under his belt.

Lautemortis, I think, is leading the league in deaths.  He gets picked on a lot and it seems to be pretty easy to fuck with his jungle.  He does, however, have a pretty rad beard.

Almost all my picks differ from yours:

Top:  Dyrus.  He's really been the most consistent all LCS and with unknown team chemistry, I'd rather just have someone solid up there.  Voy is also a good choice.  Voy is a bit better if you want to run a more assassin heavy comp.
Jungle:  Saint by far.  He's the only scary jungle presence in NA right now.  Crumbz is also good.  Oddone has been fine, but I think he's third right now as far as junglers go.
Support:  Patoy.  He's probably the only Mistake/Lustboy/Edward quality support in NA.  Xpecial is also good.
Mid: Scarra or Regi.  Scarra kind of gets pooped on by Euro and Asian mids, but he's got a better champ pool than Regi and his overall consistency of play is probably the highest.  Regi does have a lot of big stage experience like the rest of TSM save Turtle.
Bot:  Doublelift or Qtpie. Doublelift is probably the best technical AD and on a team running more threats than CLG, he'd probably beast pretty hard.  Qtpie I think is an underrated AD and if you want to go with synergy bot, might as well pair him up with the best support in NA. 

So, my first choice team has 1 TSM, 1 CRS (I think they're really doing well as a team effort), 2 DIG, and one CLG.

 

Voyboy
Scarra
Saint Vicious
Patoy
Cop

And... CLG now has lost to complexity.  Lost is a generous assessment.  They got pasted.  

NickWu is just a beast of a laner and hotshot right now is.. not good.   CLG probably had the dumbest level 1 fight I've ever seen.

Holy wow, that game was hilarious.  Five kills before minions spawn.  Baron steal.  CLG successfully defending their nexus at 60hp.  I think I actually busted out laughing out loud at like four or five different times, haha.

EDIT: WHAT THE SHIT now it's Curse v. GGU and another 5 kills before minions spawn.   And Nyjacky on Veigar  :grin:

For those who don't want the results, ahem, ruined.

It's kind of crazy how quickly the bottom four teams are becoming serious threats considering how clearly they were in a different division from the big names when the season started.

Big name teams have had fairly stable rosters for a while now.  They've all had some big name departures for various reasons, but outside of TSM, they've had time to adjust.

These lower tier teams were largely created out of whole cloth at the start of LCS.  Sure, some have been in various teams together, but not as rosters existing for as long as the top teams have.   They have a lot of good individual talent, but the overall team synergy and big game experience just isn't there yet.  Also, many are just starting to shed some of their under performing players because, I assume, they've been reluctant to mess with their still forming team synergies.

One of these bottom 4 is going to permanently displace either CLG and in enough time, TSM.

Just for lulz, they should import over one smaller brand Asian team and watch how they do. I had literally never even heard of K T Rolster until they showed up al MLG Dallas, and they spanked the best NA and Europe had to offer.

It'd be a bloodbath.  LG-IM, Naijin Shield, Taipei Snipers: they'd all cream the US teams.  DIG and Curse would win games, but TSM likely couldn't beat an Asian solo queue team.  And we like know nothing about the lesser known Chinese teams, which I assume are all scary as hell. 

Yea, they are on another level over there.

I concur, except about the part about Dig and Curse winning some games at all. As much as I like those teams, they tend to fall right the fuck apart when facing anything unknown to them, Curse especially.

I mean like a game in a series (possibly one out of multiple).  But they still wouldn't take a best of 3 and a best of 5 would likely go 3-1.

TSM beat Curse with a season 2 global comp.   :awesome_for_real:

That's what I mean about Curse. They fell behind a bit, and all of a sudden they were playing like they were in solo queue. At my elo. TSM didn't win that game, Curse just flushed it right down the drain. Oh well. At least I have Fnatic v Mosco- ughhhh - Gambit Gaming to look forward to tomorrow.

WTF was Saint doing that match.  FACE CHECK EVERYTHING.  I had just caught the end before, but watching this game.. good god.

My take on NA teams is that they aren't dynamic and get beaten by new strategies, but over time they adapt very well and are usually able to force the game into being played their way (farmfest until one team gets aced at a neutral objective). They get murdered by Asian teams because they aren't exposed to the playstyle enough to figure out a counter, but if they were regularly competing I don't think it would be all that lopsided. Definitely would still put them behind other regions overall though.

Fuckin' sweet, finally someone does something original. Froggen on Jungle AD Malzahar. Looking to see how it turns out, cuz I'm sure if it fails it will be right back to the same goddamn junglers all the way down.

Edit: Never mind, the rest of EG can't fucking play the game worth shit.

DIG without Crumbz looked like a bad solo queue team.  Got stomped by CLG, who had a completely average performance.  It'll be interesting to see if DIG can beat GGU tomorrow.  They should probably just have Lambo play Nocture, at least then you have your sub jungler on something comfortable.

Nothing interesting now until the last game tomorrow (CRS v. TSM).

edit: this col v. crs game is pretty entertaining.  jungle alistar, ap janna, support kayle.  NickWu just destroyed voyboy in lane.

edit2: col is soooo going to throw this.

And they throw.  Early game team and failed to close.  Just let Voy farm, farm, farm while they failed to get mid inhib turret.  Cop closes it out with a penta.

That Col vs Crs game was so dumb. Early game team, build huge lead, do absolutely nothing with it. You have Janna farming all game on one side while Kha'Zix is farming all game for the other side - hmm. This is a problem you see in silver-level solo queue - teams that do nothing to actively try to win the game and end up losing. Whoever is calling the shots on Complexity screwed up really bad. You could see that loss coming about 20 minutes before it actually happened.

The Dig vs CLG game was well-played by CLG. It was a little hard to tell what happened in some of those engages but it looked to me like Hotshot on Cho silenced Kayle right as Scarra on Zed went in, so Kayle wasn't able to ult Zed and he just insta-died. The skirmishes where Aphro flash ulted and Chauster flag tossed in were very well-coordinated.

Game 2 of Curse Academy vs Summoner is pretty fun. CA making all sorts of clutch plays, for better or worse, with lots of really close team fights. Pobelter, Rhux, and IWDominate are all fun to watch in general.

I also though CLG played well in their game v Dig. They defended each tower like the whole game rested on it, which was cool to see someone do for once. Dig looked like the very team that went 0/3 at the Season 2 finals.

Yah, they executed very well.  I probably didn't give CLG enough credit, but DIG just looked really bad.  Like the team I thought they would be after week 1 LCS.  I don't know why people give Cho'gath to Hotshot.  I imagine a majority of their wins are with him on Cho.  If  you do, I think you have to put the 2v1 lane against him rather than putting it mid, where they didn't really accomplish much other than temporarily zoning Link.

Quantic v Curse Academy was really entertaining.  End of game 3 was absolutely chaotic.

Lots of weirdness today, been really interesting so far.

And about to finally see someone try their hand at Viktor in the coL vs. GGU game...  :popcorn:

I probably would have gone 0-4 picking these games.  However,


 :awesome_for_real:

TSM is looking strong for NA finals. 

Oh man, EG vs Fnatic. The game as a whole wasn't all that entertaining, but it was worth it for the ending.

Sorry guys,  as dodging this thread cuz I didn't have time this weekend to watch the games. Now that I'm caught up on them  :tantrum: Fucking Curse losing to TSM again? They are looking like shit coming into the finals. Stop playing like a bunch of solo queue all stars maybe? Meanwhile, yeah TSM is looking like they are going to come out on top yet again. Queue all the obnoxious 'baylife' bullshit.

There have not been many streamers on the last few nights, everyone must be scrimming hard for the final week.  So many games this week, it should be really interesting.

For me the best part of last weeks games  was support Leblanc.   Support just seems like the best place to get some really interesting champs onto your team.  With all of the lane swapping it feels like the sustain support are not really as crucial anymore.

Also, why is Sona not being banned more?  Crescendo winning so many team fights in LCS.

SK v. GMG game from Sunday was pretty interesting to watch.  Not really in that the quality of the game was anything special, but SK had been 0-11 to them at that point. For all of the hate that Ocelotte gets, he played a flawless game in a lane he should have lost hard.  Darien's Rengar pick was unfortunate.

The AllStar 1v1 best of 5 between Soaz and Wickd got 140k viewers yesterday.  It was pretty entertaining, but it kind of showed that Wickd isn't an intellectual giant in top lane. Wickd used champs in his comfort zone while using killing summoners (exhaust/ignite). Soaz instead played some pretty nasty lane bullies.  For the final game, he played Nunu v. Wickd's Jayce. Infinite sustain and poke ftw.  Wickd probably should have won game 4 as Zed, but Soaz using Draven had put so much damage on his tower, Wickd had to all-in him before he hit 6.

Kinda psyched for this last week.

DIG.   :ye_gods:  They're looking like the worst team in the LCS right now.    Maybe trolling solo queue as hard as they do is having some sort of negative effect.  Doubtful.

Secret CLG counter DIG strat:
1.  Ban out scarra.
2.  Win easy.

Whoever draws them in the playoffs is going to be happy. They've looked absolutely awful- every one of their games recently is like watching a horrible trainwreck as it happens. I'd never actually seen a 'XX has left the game' in a pro game before. Granted, he left about 10 seconds before their nexus blew up, but it still seemed like a 'fuck this, I'm out' kind of reaction.

Other than Dig though I thought the quality of games was great this week for far.  Some really exciting games and nail biter late game matches.

Yep.  The lower tier teams are making for some entertaining games.  The competition over the last 2 spots pretty intense.

COL has become a fun team to watch.  Seems like MARN is fading a bit, however.

edit: Dyrus on Kha'zik.  WTF.  I don't think I've ever seen him play this champ even in solo queue.

Yup, Dig is playing beyond terrible, and Curse's current infighting has put them on tilt. Leaving the only top team to being playing well going into the final being (Ashamanchill's whole world shudders), ughhh, TSM.

TSM's going to likely win season finals.  They just look really strong right now save the odd derp game.  If they pull CLG in the semi finals, that could be their only hiccup since sometimes CLG can manage to look like a tournament team.  But TSM has done well against them this year.    Perhaps Curse if they pull their head of their asses.   I just don't see anyone in NA taking 2 out of 3 unless someone on TSM has stomach flu during the games.

Is World Finals after this and the All-Star game?  Anyone know the date?

I think you hit the nail on the head with your assessment Rasix. Chances are TSM will mow down CLG if they meet them, but there is a small chance their playstyle could win against TSM. As for the rest, lol.

I'm not even sure they are doing an all regional finals until the end of the season, which if I'm not mistaken is in the fall. I know Leaguepedia has a Summer Season of LCS slated anyways.

Curse and CLG  :facepalm: Oh my.

Yah, both embarrassing for completely different reasons.  NA LOL looking strong.  :awesome_for_real:

It's interesting how every top laner seems to get wrecked by NickWu in lane unless the enemy jungler spends the entire first 10 minutes sitting on him.

edit: Man, Regi's TF is hard to watch.  :facepalm:

Not as hard as any Dig game right now.

I just don't get what they're even doing anymore.  It's like they're trying to lose or something.

Curse is running jungle Fizz, AP Nunu, support Elise, and AD Ezreal, with Nyjacky on AD Tristana mid.  I mean, what?  Last game they were running against an all AD team, and the only one with armor was Saint.

That last game meant nothing to Curse. TSM had already locked up #1. I guess they just decided to roll with some weird troll comp instead of trying to win.

I love watching Copenhagen Wolves. Bjergsen is my favorite player right now. That last game versus Fnatic was excellent.

All Star Teams (http://leaguepedia.com/wiki/All-Star_Shanghai_2013)

China and South Korea's teams are scary.  3 WE players and 2 iG..  :ye_gods: Due to some sort of vote normalization, SE Asia's team is a bit messed up.

North America v China  :grin: Yeahhhhhhhh.

Well, either they give ESL the offline client or I think this is the last EU LCS event they host.  Another restarted game for EG and like a 3 hour delay while they unfuck the internet issues.

That game was really fucking shitty to watch.

DIG drops game one.   They really can't team fight for shit.  And yah, don't give Daydreamin' anything with hooks, although it would be weird to ban out 2 support champs from the guy that joined the team like 2 weeks ago.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82533/picard.gif)

wow

I find myself stuck cheering for CLG in this mess, as I see them as the only ones capable of maybe beating TSM.

I dunno, I was kinda rooting for Curse before... but I didn't know they fired Elementz until today, and they are playing... not so well...

 :awesome_for_real:

ZionSpartan is a damned beast. 

Also: hook city. 

Straight up i just do not understand why Curse let Vulcan have Nasus and Kog'Maw/Trist in game three. You know they're going to pick a late game comp if you let them... why let them?

Gambit v Fnatic game 4 was great if you didn't catch it- there was 1 kill a minute nonstop for like, the first 30 minutes, with the game finishing at 50+ minutes and 20+ kills each side. The whole series was entertaining. Going from watching that series to watching Curse vs Vulcan, it feels like the level of play took a sharp dive. NA really isn't very good.

I don't even understand what Vulcan was doing game one. I've seen them swap around all the roles before, but I don't really get why they do it. It seems like any advantage from surprising their opponents is outweighed by them not playing as well on their secondary roles.

Cause Curse lose games in the champ select screen. All the time. They will go out and play well at their roles, but then they fall to teams that have been allowed to produce a better synergy than them.

Could be because they don't practice picks & bans in scrims.   It's mentioned in many interviews that they just troll champ select in their scrims and other teams find it baffling and not particularly great for their scrimming partner.

edit:

Heh, I also remember seeing an interview with a Korean pro, where they said NA loses at champ select every time.

You've really got to wonder why too, it isn't like the information on good counter picks is secret.  Is it just that the NA players have fewer champions on which they feel comfortable so they are too limited?

That game was crazy.  The team fights were insane.  This is normally not a type of game that GG loses, just because they team fight so much better.

Curse v Vulcan.. a sliding team and a team that, quite honestly, sucks.  Vulcan is terrible.  Top teams should not lose to them. 

Weird request: Anyway to download and watch the games offline?  Can't get to Twitch or YouTube at work anymore, but if I could load up the game on a flash drive, would help my day go by quicker and easier.

No. Not that I know of.

Download them from youtube


There isn't really a reason to practice picks and bans. The purpose of not banning in scrims is to allow the other team to play their best composition. I.E. they want to see the best compositions around so that they know how to ban when they see those compositions come)

That is, not banning in scrims should make you better at banning in tournaments. But it doesn't seem to have because instead of looking at the kind of compositions that Vulcan did well at and then banning out those compositions as best they could, they just banned some assassins.

Nobody scrims to help the other team get better, though. Mostly I see teams use it to try out new characters and compositions, which you almost never get to do against organized pro-level opposition (see Crs's last game of super week, which they confirmed (http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1cq7pn/curse_response/) was just experimenting). Picks/bans aren't constructive here because nobody wants to have their pro top-lane Shen banned when all they really wanted was to try some crazy Blitz-Shen bottom lane kill comp, or something.

Do the CJ Entus teams practice together (Frost and Blaze)?  If so it could explain their relative dominance.  One of the things Korean Starcraft teams do so well is give each other really high quality practice partners.  But given the nature of a team game like LoL teams don't get those inherent training partners just by being in a team house.

Blaze was actually formed to be Frost's training partners. Blaze would scrim other high-level teams, then copy their strategies and play them against Frost so that Frost (who never scrimmed anyone but Blaze) could develop counters in secret. As it turned out, super-sekrit training shenanigans turned out to be less effective a team development strategy than actually practicing against other teams (who'd have thought?) making Blaze arguably the better team.

Well, I bring it up because in Starcraft it is understood that just playing lots of games against other good players isn't really a good way to practice.  I wondered if it was similar in LoL, but I guess not.

Well, "lots of games" is relative. Some high-level LoL teams are lucky to get a couple of scrims in a week, and while most pro players spend a lot of time playing it's mostly solo queue, which is barely the same game.

What do Starcraft players focus on? Testing out theorycraft? Execution and timing?

Timings matter a lot.  A lot of times you have questions like "What do I need to do with this build to so that I can survive X timing attack" and so you have a team mate just do that timing attack against you 10-15-20 times in a row until you figure it out.  But you can't easily answer those very specific questions when you are mass gaming on ladder.  So in order to really refine a build you need to try it against really specific things to learn all the deviations and sidepaths you might have to take depending on what opponents are doing.  Ladder might be a decent place to identify some of those questions, but a really bad place to answer them, especially not with any kind of efficiency.

I guess the games are just very different and a lot of my intuitions which I have from RTS don't really carry over.

MYM and DB are so god awful.  It's a pity one of these teams gets to win.   At least DB can be entertaining at times.. but they're all just so bad.

If the players are practicing for GSL or Pro-League, they'll know who their opponent is a week+ in advance, so they'll basically do a scouting report on the enemy player and have their own teammates emulate their play style as best they can. This can of course lead to players trying to out-meta each other and changing up their own styles to counter this.

Yeah, this is particularly true for the Korean tournaments.  But the western tournaments almost never follow this format (I guess NASL not withstanding), and the Koreans still dominate them in a large part because of the practice regimen of Korean team houses.

MARN and Complexity gone. Complexity got steam rolled hard.  MARN v. VES (such a photogenic team  :ye_gods:) was a decent series.  Game 2.  Craziness ensues.

Kind of disappointed in the playoffs/requalifiers as a whole.

Looks like none of the big name/talent free agents are going to be picked up either (yet).  We get to see some old stalwarts continue to under perform, while some legitimately bad ass players go home to live with mom and dad.

I think it's still a legit possibility that eventually Cop gets replaced at Curse (he seems to be their newest fall guy). Hotshot; I don't know how you don't replace him immediately with MegaZero or NickWu (even though he played like shit during relegation matches).  I guess he's "learning new champs!" and won't immediately pick Cho'gath, Malphite or Nid if they slip through bans.

I think they need to look at their overall job security and relegation format.  Only top 2 having immunity makes for some very uncomfortable relegation matches.  What if DIG lost despite finishing 3rd during the regular season split?

fake edit: guess I don't need to spoiler what I already spoiled.  :awesome_for_real:

I think more churn is better than less all things considered.  When you think about the health of the pro scene you need to have some realistic chance of getting into the LCS in order to help the scene grow and develop. 

I can't say anything about the situation regarding Cop, but Hotshot will not be replaced, as that team is his. Literally his: he owns it. It would be like crying for the firing of Mark Cuban in Dallas.

I don't know, making half your teams have to fight to keep their spots seems a little much. Especially as it seems like 'LCS or bust' now.

I look at it from a developing talent standpoint.  If you like at the Korean example for Starcraft - once they got over that initial hurdle (which was due to a number of specific factors that I won't go into) they had a legitimate system in place that gave people a pretty clear path to becoming a professional.  One of the most important parts of this system was that you didn't have to be performing at the very highest levels to be able to make a living doing it (not an amazing living, but a living).  This encouraged talented players to actually pursue pro gaming because they had a reasonable expectation of being able to survive doing it.  If you have too little ability for new teams to make a name for themselves, then you are effectively saying to all the new talent "don't waste your time on this, your chances of success are zero."  And that's with an already ultra competitive field of players and teams to begin with.

Starcraft 2 is having this problem right now in fact.  The North American scene in particular is very weak and this is one of the big reasons.  Blizzard's WCS is helping to a degree, but the fact that it isn't region locked isn't great.  I think in the long run Riot is helping the competitive scene mature and grow this way. 

Game 1 of NA v China in the books.

On China vs NA:

Game 2

Missed the games, but...

I'm thinking that was pretty overblown. Watch the game it happens in. It really doesn't have that big of an impact, and I'm pretty sure the end result would have been the same.

They discovered it after the game was in progress. I don't know if they made a judgement on whether or not the game will be replayed.

XSpecial + DoubleLift did really well. Rest of NA team is bad, they don't make plays, they just slowly lose while hoping someone else on the team wins the game for them.

Dyrus constantly ulting 1 person with Malphite, Scarra doing nothing both games.

If you look at Rumble in that first game he had so many ridiculous plays. He was doing his best to win the game by himself. Meanwhile all the solos in NA do zero.

NA vs EU


The games were amazing to watch - the big crowd in the background really helped contribute to the intense atmosphere. The end of game 1 was heart-stopping.

Uhm, wow.

Okay, NA v. EU was insane.  Like, holy shit.

Everyone on the EU team speaks english. They tried to kill doublelift but Dyrus change from killbro to peel so that the harder initiate on SV and Scarra could go and kill the enemy team. I mean look at the last two team fights. Varus can't get to Liftlft because he is ezreal and far away. Ditto Ich has he doesn't have a hard gap closer and is their damage. This leaves only their support/jungler/top and you expect their support to peel.

Every fight Jarvan and Gumby would blow their ults on Liftlift and try to kill him. But Xpecial and Dyrus peeled and liftlift is PENTALIFT

Well, yes, they do speak English, just really poorly. Especially when push comes to shove. That being said, that's all obsolete now, as things unfolded more or less as expected when NA faced Korea.

China vs. NA

So, in yet another example of life proving Ashamanchill so completely wrong: HotshotGG is stepping down from the roster of CLG to focus on running the business side. Fuck. I should have used my power to say, 'no TSM will simply never disband. Won't happen.'

I don't like to rag too much on Hotshot (it's just so easy!) but I could see him being a lot more useful in a coaching role. Hopefully removing him from the actual gameplay while establishing him as an authority figure outside of it will cut down on the bickering the team is known for (though I'm not sure how much that's been an issue lately).

I thought this was going to happen the second that CLG won and two teams with good (for NA) top laners lost.  I didn't expect them to get an AD (and mid) main instead for top.  I can see Nien having a pretty high ceiling, but the same could be said for Mega as he had to top lane for a team with a pretty bad jungler, mid, and their AD situation was shit at the beginning of the season as well.  Megazero on a good team could be quite the terror. But, CLG will be CLG. 

Chauster will be a definite upgrade over Aphro, although he used to get caught a ton. Jiji jungle? Dunno, but he does OK in solo queue  :awesome_for_real: 

They'll maybe be better than last year, but I still see them fighting for relegation at season end.

Chauster will be OK as a support. He isn't a mechanically strong player and so i think they will suffer for it, especially since he is no longer in their initiator spot and can't call dives as easy.

From what I've read, they use the mantra of Korean teams, you pick the best player, not the best player in that role.


And because I didn't really have time to discuss it properly at the time, my thoughts on the All Star Game(s): Still with the same fucking set of champions huh? I was hoping that maybe, having an exposure to a few different regions, and the games not being worth as a game of a given player's team, we might see something, anything different, but nope. It's the same champions all the way down.My favourite part is when the casters will mention 'oh this player has such a deep champion pool', and I'm like, yeah, that means they can play either Jarvan, Voli or Nasus, whoah.

Curse just signed Edward from Gambit Gaming (or Gosu Pepper from Moscow Five if you prefer).   Solid pickup, but if he was frustrated with how Genja played, Cop is going to give him fits.  Back to the bench, Rhux. 

Makes you wonder if the CLG pickup of Nien was possibly to deny Curse the opportunity to replace Cop with him.

NA teams look god awful right now.  I guess they enjoyed their break.

First day of Summer Split was pretty meh. The only game I enjoyed watching was TSM vs Cloud 9, and even that one was full of less than stellar play. Although, Cloud 9 looks like they deserve that LCS spot- I've heard that they really should've been in it last season just going by talent, but didn't make it.

60+ minute game still going on right now between CLG and DIG.

edit: 71 minutes total.  My god. 

That was crazy. Link's Karthus had 1000+ AP at one point, where he just sold his boots to make a Deathcap. Doublelift was buying GA, proc'ing it, selling it, waiting 5 minutes, then buying it AGAIN. There were a lot of awful plays in that game, but it was really tense and suspenseful at the end.

Seems like DIG should have won, but they didn't really make plays. Crumbz's Zac was fucking terrible.  He didn't die a lot, but all he really did was launch himself into a 1v5, take a ton of damage, and run away. When he wasn't doing stupid shit, Chauster's disengages were really strong.

edit: Man, cloud9 aren't bad.  They were getting pummeled early, but game back, won a major team fight at baron and just go win the game. They are really, really socially awkward though. Young too.  Funny watching these teams that didn't have to do the awkward interviews last split.

Curse gaming,  :facepalm: Ho boy.

Everybody in NA not named Cloud 9 looks really bad.

OGN finals were last night - those players are on a wholly different level now.

Oh I know. Going from watching the Asians at the All Star tournament to watching the NA LCS is pretty funny. And thanks to the Korean win at the All Stars their region gets an extra team at the Season 3 finals. Ya, go ahead Phreak, tell me with a straight face how Dignitas, Curse, or CLG has any hope of competing at all.

North America's inability to play video games is legendary.

Or at least thats how it always seemed to be when ever I bother glancing at competitive video game stats.

As it goes Asian > European >>> America....

From way downtown! BANG. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZuJRNRGI7U)

I love the caster's enthusiasm, it's infectious. The 'OH GOD NO' as the bullet is in the air then the explosion of shouting as he kills him. Just great.

CLG has now handed the top team their only loss, and (one of) the bottom teams their only win. They are so inconsistent. One of the pro players tweeted that 'CLG is like the blue shell in Mario Kart.'

I think TSM is going to win the split again.

CLG vs TSM spoiler - the shittiest way to lose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-YbDt3IrW8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-YbDt3IrW8)

TSM just locked in an Annie (support)/Xin Zhao bot lane. Zil mid.   :awesome_for_real:

I have a feeling this is going to go very poorly.  If they get into late game, it's an auto-lose.

edit: Yah, it's over already.  This is kind of sad.

Not really being up on pro strategies, is there any way that is a good idea by any stretch of the imagination?

You know, if they were facing Velocity E Sport, or Coast, or Curse (lol) that might have worked. But against an ascending Vulcan, yeah no.  Fucking A for effort though, that is the first bit of creative champ picking I have seen in a long, long, goddamn long time.

Curse  :uhrr: :awesome_for_real:

Seriously. The old giants of TSM, Dignitas, and especially Curse are just looking like fossils out there right now.

I just heard a few days ago about some Korean team doing well with Annie support (standard ADC though). I'll see if I can dig up the game but I think it's behind an OGN paywall.

Haemish - Annie/Xin bottom isn't a terrible idea for a kill lane. If Annie could get a stun onto Caitlyn, that would guarantee Xin his three-hit popup especially if they could pull it off before Sona hit 6. Their combined burst has the potential to shut down the enemy AD hard early on, which makes sense here because Zuna tends to get really crazy late game. We saw TSM perform some successful tower dives with 3-4 members; if Xin had snowballed like they needed they could have been doing it with just him and Annie, over and over, all game.

I can't fathom the Zilean pick though.

Zuna is breaking my heart right now.

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN. C9 just wins games.

edit: I need to watch all of that.  I just really caught the start and the end.  Was it an epic throw beyond what I saw in the 5-6k overcome?

That shizz was epic.

Jesus. That was painful to watch.

edit: because I like Vulcun, I mean. It was a great game.

It's not like they threw or anything, they just got outplayed, and outpicked. Them, CLG, and obviously C9 are doing what I previously thought impossible, and that is make NA look competitive. The rest, well, I suppose you need sheep to feed wolves right?

Annie / Jarvan gets busted out from time to time in Korea. I like that better than Annie/Xin, since Jarvan can knock up multiple targets and lock people in place in his ring for a tibbers.

Watching this game now TSM is not playing it well. Annie has good auto attacks but she isn't using them at all, she also doesn't have stun primed. Basically you either need to blow people up or threaten to blow them up enough that they get zoned, and they are doing neither. They are also pushing the lane a lot instead of letting it push to them.

Kinda. Vulcan miscalculated. They thought "we have a Tristana and are farming better so we're winning we can wait and get a pick and then push objectives". Which is kinda true. Except that Ashe+Nunu does more DPS than Tristana and Tristana + snowball does way less DPS than Ashe+Nunu. So while they thought they were farming well and getting ahead, it was actually C9 who had the better late game team fight composition and slowly but surely Vulcan was getting behind.

The game turned when C9 caught Eve because without Eve, Vulcan had no assassinate and without that they had no way to stop Ashe's superior DPS (even with fewer items), kite, and utility. At that point they knew that in order to win they had to play safe and farm, if they kept ashe from getting picked they would win. All those TF ults that went nowhere were looking to see if they could catch ashe out.

The thing that really did it though was Ashe's positioning. Take the last fight at baron, notice how trist is in the pit shooting and then Ashe is able to turn onto trist before trist can turn onto Ashe. Its because Ashe had the river bush to hide her moving into that position. (she was actually ducking in and out of the bush between shots before going for trist). Trist needed to be on the other side of the pit or shooting ashe. The fact that Ashe got that first attack off in the trade meant that even if Trist turned to fight it she would have lost.

So this tournament seems its worth watching. Is there a way to watch previous matches or am I shit out of luck?

There are VOD's for all of the LCS matches. Go here:

http://na.lolesports.com/season3/split2/matches

Click "match details". Try not to see who won(its in the middle of the bottom or off your screen, but its AFTER the button that says "watch game" which is right under the "VS"

There's also the event vod subreddit.  Here's the direct link for season 3.   (http://www.reddit.com/r/LoLeventVoDs/comments/1g40w8/s3_lcs_north_america_summer_season/) Gives you more options of where to start and spoiler free.

And.. another Saint smite fail.  FFS.

edit: Ohhh shit.  Well, that was a quite a finish.

At Curse have some life left in them lol.

CLG's team fights were fucking awful.   They didn't look like they knew what to do once those mid/late fights broke out.  Nien kinda wandered around taunting random people.

You're not wrong.

CLG loses a ton of games by getting ahead, taking it to late game, having one player split push, then that player either gets caught and enemy team takes Baron and inhibs or they lose a team fight or inhibs because the split pusher doesn't help team. They have been doing that for years now. Especially when they run Cait.

They don't respect death timers late game and will trade a death for "progress" even if it means the enemy team can make that progress and more right back, and they often go into  tunnel vision mode where one or more people are so focused on getting an enemy inhib they will lose the game trying to do it.

I kind of wish VES hadn't made it in.  They had close games early and a couple upsets, but they've been a free win for a while now.

CLG vs C9?

Yea, they played an all physical damage team and didn't have a single character with Black Cleaver. As they did not have stacking armor pen they consequently did no deeps.

So, just as a show of hands, am I the only one in here that also follows the European scene?

If not, then just a few points to share:

1. The Rise, And Fall of Team Alternate. They started out really fucking well, mirroring C9 in fact. It looked like ForellenLord could do no wrong. Then came one little burp, losing to GG (which in my mind, is significant. I say this to my friends who only watch Esports, and not the regular kind; I don't care that you can beat up on shitster teams, it's what you do vs the big teams that counts.). Now, the wheels are falling off.

2. Lemondogs and Ninjas in Pajamas. They both started the season of doing their best VES impressions. But in their play, I saw glimmers of hope. And now, they are rising through the packs. I know, it's only 5 weeks in the books, but good for them.

3. EG and SK, the basement dwellers. To be perfectly honest, I never fucking liked SK. They don't team fight well, their top hasn't been a force since the Irelia days, and their bot lane is cringe worthy. EG, however, being this low, is a surprise to me. I mean, they beat World Elite at the last worlds, which was as good as any non Asian team managed to accomplish. Now, they remind me of the Team Curse of Europe (as a comparison, not the team defunct team of the same name), as old relics who just have not adjusted properly to the current meta. Save for Froggen, who should be poached by a better team.


Seriously. They play about as good as they look. Now I know, this sport isn't exactly swimming in handsome extroverts, but come on guys. try a little.

I watch the EU LCS a little, but I don't follow it as much.  Their games are mostly during the weekend and that's when I pretty much can't watch.  I was sick this weekend so, I had a bit more time to tune in.  Game's weren't bad.

EG suffers from a few things.  Wickd isn't one, he's solid (doesn't exactly crush his lane, however). Yellowpete, while not great, isn't the problem either.  Froggen's talent isn't in question, but he hasn't really adjusted well to current meta and his champ pool is S2 levels of stale.  Their team comps seem to make no sense, they can't seem to make them work even if they draft something coherent.  The difficult thing to say is that, while a being a really pleasant person, Snoopeh is fucking terrible.  EG has realized this and they've brought in an analyst (also sub support) and a replacement tryout for Snoopeh.

NIP did great in bringing in Freeze.  They also took a while to get going last split as well.

Lemondogs are fun to watch.   Tabzz is one of my favorite players.  Too bad he can't play Fizz bot.  

Overall, outside of C9, there really hasn't been an outstanding team on either side of the pond.  It's all been just a bit above average or a bit below average.  Except dumpster VES, who in a stroke of pure madness, replaced their ugly mid with a small champ pool with a mid that looks like he's at death's door and has an even worse champ pool that he plays half as well.  

EG plays average-at-best at every position. Wickd and Froggen are probably not average players but they play like it, maybe because the rest of their team is ignorable and they get focused, or because they feel the need to press too hard.

Their bot lane has never been a threat at all, nor has their jungle, and now that their general approach to the game doesn't really work it makes that more obvious. A winning strategy can paper over individual play issues, but a losing strategy only accentuates them.

I would say both your assessments on EG are pretty damn spot on.

After the spring season I vowed to be done following NA and just watch EU games. It hasn't worked out great because goddamn does EU produce some boring games, while seeing Vulcun and C9 shit on the NA old guard has a lovely schadenfreude to it. I'll try to stick with it though.

EU doesn't do a lot strategically and EU bot lanes are weak across the board. Mid lane is the only position where EU is really notable. I find EU games almost unwatchable these days.

I mostly watch OGN now. Korean teams are strong at every position and employ a lot of different strategies, team comps and picks. Korean top lane play is insanely ahead of other regions.

I tried watching OGN consistently, I really did. The format you have to watch it it just turned me off, coupled with the fact that, well, I just kind of expected them to be using different champions frequently, not just occasionally. I understand that the champions currently being used are because of them, but there it is.

It took SK 43 minute to snag a single kill.   :awesome_for_real:

edit:  What the hell is Gambit's drafting strategy?  Let's give them everything they'd possibly want! Interested to see how this goes.

Gambit playing like good Gambit today.

TSM are in bad shape.  Completely outclassed so far.

Why does Dyrus ever pick Yorick?  He doesn't even do well with this champ in solo queue.  Never has.

edit:

Kind of predictable results. 

Curse is playing better and Coast really isn't that good.

DIG got dumpstered. They play like a solo queue team.  Vulcan just lane really well.

Is VES Cris gone for good or was he just subbed out for today?

IMO he was the worst player on any team. He had that one game where twice in row as Vlad he pooled as Karthus died and then Karthus' ult killed him, instead of just waiting for the ult to start then pooling. You don't have to guess, you can pool on reaction every time. He did stuff like that a lot, just seemed like he constantly cracked under the pressure.

No idea.  VES is obviously having problems with their roster.  Cris played well to get them into the LCS and his early Elise work was decent.  He's mostly just known for being a solo queue Riven player and someone that apparently used to ghost. I'm surprised they haven't reached out (perhaps they have) to some of the better known, unemployed top laners.  Vileroze may not lane for shit, but he's probably better for the team as Cris can't team fight (like a true Riven main) and isn't a big part of their decision making process.

And.. Holy shit, VES won that?  HOW?  I turned it off when I left work.

edit:  Watched it.  I turned it off like 10 seconds before the game completely turned around.  Hah.

TSM v C9; Yup, TSM is just not in the same weight class as the top teams anymore. That being said, they have been written of before and come out swinging when it counts.

Curse v Coast: Yawn.

Dig v Vulcan: Dig is a fucking joke. They have been for the longest time, and even before that, what the fuck have they ever done? Have they won anything. They just aren't good. Love seeing this current Vulcan team play, every game is fun.

CLG v VES:  :facepalm: Hahaha. Okay, go ahead, pick a team with no hard cc save Sona. Yeah, see how well that fares.

That Irelia pick was just really, really dumb given the rest of their team comp.

The LCS system really seems to be working for allowing "young" talent to prove themselves.  Part of the reason the old guard (Dignitas et al) were able to stand apart for so long is that the highest hurdle was just securing some kind of funding for your team.  Now there is at least some attainable goal for legitimately good players to become professionals.  This is why Korea has become so good - they've just had this infrastructure for pro-gaming for a decade already always providing motivation and a clear path to the highest quality players. 

Why do teams keep giving Rumble to C9? Seems like their one "must ban" that every team thinks they can somehow deal with.  

I haven't the faintest, but it makes me happy! Maybe they think that Runic Bulwark will negate him somehow?

And.. out comes Regi's TF.   :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real:

edit: Good thing Dig sucks.

I actually hope they drop right out of the LCS this split.

If anyone wants to see something a bit different, Diamond from Gambit ran jungle Karma in both EU LCS games this past weekend.

I'm at the point where I can watch these pro games and understand what they are saying. I'm surprised they play these games in the middle of the day though. I would think they would spread them out during prime time.

????? They do. The North American ones anyways.

Hmm I thought i saw 1pm pst start times.

EU looks really bad.  I don't think we'll be seeing any EU or NA teams in the semis this year. Well, unless they get some really lucky draws and only have to face each other or other crap geos.

Of course, given my track record of predictions, Vulcan will win worlds.  :awesome_for_real:

CST and VES in heated competition to prove who sucks the most.  I really hate watching these two teams.  VES doesn't even look like they're trying anymore.  CST just has everyone playing awful at the same time, which doesn't usually produce good results.

I don't understand why VES brought Chris (Cris?) back. The guy just can't play at this level. They would be better off with any number of diamond / challenger top laners.

I guess they can't find anyone that will move in with them?  Vileroze has quit/retired and doesn't want to be a top laner.  Not that lane assignment really means that much with top/mid anymore.  I guess the decent top laners are on teams hoping to take VES's spot.

Cris's Riven game against DIG was really cringeworthy.  It was hard to watch.  It was like a bad solo queue performance. He bought 2 red pots before items and got nothing out of it.

Fnatic, Lemondogs, and Gambit in for EU.  EG lost 2-1 to Gambit for the last spot.  Sad, because they're nice guys, but 4th sounds about right for them.  At least they have job security for now.

Two other unknown teams qualified for Worlds: Mineski from EU and Gaming Gear EU from the international wildcard. Expect a NA team to lose a game to these teams.  :awesome_for_real:

The sad part was, EG roflstomped Gambit in their first game. Like 25-3 or something, and it took Gambit about 20 mins to get that first kill. The second game they were clearly dicking around and not putting in everything, and yeah, no worlds for them.

Good on Fnatic for being champs again. I want to see how they fare up against the Koreans. My prediction for NA; Vulcan top, C9 second, TSM third.

That's possible.  I though I think there's a better than average chance that TSM stays home.  Regi/Dyrus had some sort of major blow up and they're weak as they've ever been.  That said, they're still the only real big game team in NA and they won't shrink when it comes to win or go home.  But yah, C9 and Vulcan are really playing much better than anyone else.  Barring illness or injury, they go to Worlds.

Fnatic at worlds is interesting. They actually have a top laner that won't get totally shit on by the Korean/Chinese tops. Xpeke can actually make plays.  Cyanide is good.  I'm just unsure about their botlane. Yellowstar is just OK as support and the Puzuu/Reckles situation is weird.   However, we've just seen them get randomly shit on this split.

Holy shit, that ending.

CLG is a very dumb team.

Malphite had TP and there were times when he had a whole side of the map to himself and instead of pushing would just recall for no reason instead of forcing someone to come try to stop him. And that final TP after the tower had gone down was so bad.

People liked to blame "caughtshotGG" for their problems but they still have the same problems. They lose so many game because of their incompetent split-pushing. Either someone pushes without vision and dies then off the long death timer the enemy team takes a bunch of stuff, or they push slowly while the enemy team takes multiple objectives and give up 3 towers for 1 as 4 people die to a dive  (this is DL's specialty)...this time they had Malph with TP and not only did he not really split push at all but he TP'd back at the worst time. He either should have TP'd back much sooner or just kept on going while they conceded that tower.

And that second game...

At one point Chauster and JiJi were sitting in the enemy top jungle, recalling, then cancelling recall, then recalling again...it seemed like they had no idea WTF they were doing and were basically just waiting to get caught and die. Then one of them does die and TSM gets Baron.

Edit: These are some of the worst-played games I've seen. I don't know if these guys are just nervous or what, this first Dig vs Crs game is also retarded.

Yeah.. I have no idea what is going on. These are awful, awful games. I really really hope C9 redeems these playoffs into something watchable.

DIG is just fucking awful.

It's funny.  You can just tell how horribly disappointed the analysts are with the current level of play.  Phreak is trying to play it up, but Kobe and Jatt are basically just facepalming through this entire thing.

(http://i.imgur.com/pi5ZW42.gif)

Ohh Curse, forever 4th.

He did that last year at Pax too. Missed all of his creshendo's

Also, i thought this was funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yo8ohQuO48

Cleansed the disappointment of LCS playoffs with the OGN Final of SKT1 vs KTBullets. That Faker vs Ryu 1v1 Zed mirror match in game 5 was the best duel I have ever seen in LoL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YvuTh9DRQQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YvuTh9DRQQ)

TSM TSM.... just kidding. At least tsm looked like an original team against vulcan...well at least untill vulcan bans karthus ^_^.

Well, not much of a doubt who the best team in NA is.  Yeesh.

If you remove the the names it'll look like TSM is being manhandled by koreans again. :oh_i_see:

........ Why did he flash?

My guess is that he meant to flash to the right and aim his ult back left, so that he would hit 2 or even 3 people, but fucked up and moved his mouse back to where he wanted to aim before actually doing the flash.

Body block the exit route after the stun? Fuck who am i kidding, its Chauster at PAX there aint no reason for anything he does

Hey gang, I'm really sorry I've been out for this event, but I had a camping trip and I've only caught up now.

As much as I don't like them, I feel I have to give props to TSM. They are the defending NA champs, and they didn't go down without a fight. It's not like they played like shit versus C9, it's just that C9 played way better than them. And I'm glad they did, because is it just me, or do they look like they might even win a set or two against some Koreans?

CLG getting knocked off right away made me howl with glee, cause Doublelift can suck a cock, Dig are lucky they got to face Curse, because they other wise look like the trash that they are. And Curse, forever 4th indeed. Enjoy relegation SaintVicious.

TSM? No. C9? Probably

TSM plays like a soloqueue team, they don't understand why certain picks are good in certain positions. The games against c9 were a really good example of this because TSM continued to pick sona into safe/kite ADC's that had AoE engage comps behind them. They picked karthus into a team that did not care about karthus's engage. Had they picked a tanky top and disengage support they might have actually won a game (because mechanically,  besides Regi, TSM are really amazingly competent).

But they let C9 dictate the game from champ select each game. They did not select a composition that could beat C9 let alone play the composition in a way that could.

Oh my bad. Yeah I meant C9 exclusively there. No TSM is not going to beat any Koreans. I would be shocked to see them crawl out of the group stages.

Fixed  :grin:

Regi is going ot have to lane against this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_23_XxaHQ).  :ye_gods:

Welp, the worlds have started, and TSM is roflstomping that one fucking team that shouldn't be in the worlds.  :why_so_serious:

A win's a win.  Baylife.  :awesome_for_real:

Yup, Koreans just playing around with Lemondogs. Can we just get to the SK v OMG match already?

I don't think Baylife works against the Chinese  :oh_i_see:

So, Vi and Corki.  Welcome back.

How is Zuna going to manage to throw this?  Because Mancloud is shitting all over fnatic.

Yeah Corki is awfully good right now. So good that Zuna didn't even throw on him  :why_so_serious:

It's funny listening to Doublelift the commentator. "This is what I would do right now." Well, you have a whole team revolve around you, and they came in 5th in NA, so lets maybe get a second opinion.

Edit: Also, is it just me, or does Aatrox just look fucking broken this tourny?

Doublelift is hard to listen to. 

Holy shit, Gambit.  This I would not have predicted.  Montecristo's head is going to explode.

Haha, yeah, that was a cool win.

Also, I really wish that GGeu, and Mineski were not in the tournament. They don't belong at all, and they are just a free win for the teams playing them. Their games are embarassing to watch. Meanwhile, KT Rolster B, Invictus Gaming, and to a lesser extent, EG are watching from the sidelines.

OMG has impressed me the most so far. That aggression  :drill:

I agree OMG looks really strong right now.  I don't think I'm ready to count out SKT1 though.   Also props to Vulcan for taking down Fnatic, xPeke is really strong on Lissandra and they put a pretty solid win on them.

I would have also rather seen KT Bullets than gaming gear or Mineski, I can understand wanting the regions represented but it feels like some regions just don't have a strong enough competitive scene to even warrant a worlds spot.

Anyone seen Gama Bears play?  I don't know what to expect out of them.

Never. I have no idea if Taiwan geo has kept up this season.  But the Taiwan area isn't like SEA or the wildcard.  These guys beat the Taipei Snipers, who were supposedly better than TPA (who fell apart this year).  Apparently, they're not very well liked in their own geo, and their win was met with stunned silence and a smattering of boos.

Solo queue is going to be really annoying during and after this tourny. It's going to be filled with wanna be Corkis, Ahris, and (ughhh) Singed.

I find I actually really like Montecristo(?) and his analysis. He sounds, looks, and acts professionally, a trait which degrades the further one moves right down that desk.

This group is a bit weird.  Also, Dade's Gragas was not ready for professional LoL against anyone.  Fuck, that was awful.

Ya Dade just seems to suck.

Fnatic are starting to steam roll though. They made Gambit look like Mineski.

Ozone is making picks they don't normally pick and playing with a new player. It's like the lost all confidence and just decided to wing it. That Gragas was fucking awful. He missed like 3 ults in a row and then the next two hit only the tank.

For some reason Fnatic consistently owns Gambit. They just have them figured out, it's weird. It seems like they didn't do anything terribly special or make huge plays, they just slowly and consistently won the game.

Dade plays a mean Zed, they will probably ban him out of it all tournament though so we probably wont get to see it.

Almost every mid laner there is plays a mean Zed.

Edit: Ya Zed even manages to make Reginald look good. It's the champion, not the player. That champ is just flat out broken at the pro level.

Today's games should be interesting.  Can the Europeans complete their derailment of the Korean hype train?  I have my doubts, as the Euro performances all season have been somewhat schizo, but we shall see.

Large image:

That was the most boring pro League game ever. Pure PvE FTW?

Dade: First time Lissandra, no flame, ok?

Damn, that was a stomp, even after that awful start.


Gambit/SSO match? Yeah.  I'm not sure why pro teams are unable to deal with double AD push comps.  I mean, it really only worked once the entire NA split and was tried like 5 times.   Granted, NA teams don't execute like Koreans.  The itemization, rotations, and lane freezing were all just dumb as hell.  Gambit can really toss in stinkers like this out of nowhere.   I think playing SSO, you just ban/pick out Dade, because he knows like 4 champs.  Take the a gamble with the rest of the team and hope Imp doesn't go HAM on you.

Faker on Riven.  This should be interesting.  Bold strategy, let's see if it pays off.

AAANND, gives up first blood before I even finish this post.

Not that it mattered one lick.  :facepalm:

That was just a stomp from the get go, minus the first blood.

Edit: And now an OMG vs GGeu game. Grrrrrrrrreat. I swear almost all the games of this group stage are total stomps. I don't think one game has gone to the really late stage.

That was beyond a stomp, that felt as if a Diamond 1 squad was facing a Bronze 5 squad. At least they made it quick.

Dyrus is just getting shit on every game.  Their inability to adjust to this is baffling.

It's pretty pathetic. Buy a ward or don't extend. I Know it sucks a little, but it's better than the alternative.  That, or TSM should try rotating the OddOne up to counter gank, since they everyone and their dog seems to see this weakness in TSM now.

I have a bad feeling that C9 is just going to get demolished.  Hope I'm wrong, but Fnatic is just on a roll right now.

C9 picked poorly the first game. if they can correct that they should be OK

Too many mid bans.  Hai has a rather small champ pool.  He has to be protected somewhat.

edit.  Start of game 3.  gg C9.  Nice showing.  For such a good team, C9 often has dreadful lvl1s.

That being said, I liked their chances going into this game.  Still may work in their favor, they can out scale Fnatic here, once again.

edit 2:  Yep, NA is the shit geo yet again.  How many times can Lemonnation get caught in one game? Gah.

I think they need to work on a better format.  It's kind of dumb for a team to only get one series and then be done.  I believe TI3 at least had a loser's bracket for teams that got a bye.

Yeah, the format is pretty lame. Watch a totally irrelevant team like GG play a lot, watch a team like C9 play 3 games.

They need to just dump everyone into 4 groups.  Best of 2s with everyone in group.  Winners bracket/losers bracket.  Play out it.  There's nothing wrong with ripping off someone's format if it puts a better product forward.

And yeah, that group phase was fucking brutal.  One group wasn't even competitive. And the group that was competitive basically had one team that was a throw machine and the other that was easily the worst team that has ever been in the LCS.   At least watching SKT1 and OMG play was entertaining, and group B had the Euros beating up on the worst Korean mid we've ever seen.  There was just too much of it, too spread out.

You know what? C9 only deserved three games after that one.  :facepalm:  Holy shit that was embarrassing. The best part was the announcers cheering them when they got one kill like 20 mins in.

I just don't understand that thought process. 'Hey guys, my notebook says it's okay to leave Kassadin open.'

'I Dunno man, Xpeke is kind of good with him. He shat all over us the first game with Kassadin.'

'Hey, hey, hey! Who's the one with the notebook here!?!'

I can understand why people want to go with what they've practiced and prepared for when it comes to Bans.  But when someone is on a roll like that, I just think you have to understand the moment.  Peke has always been good with Kassadin, and maybe you think you can get away with a counter pick anyway.  But I think you need to be able to see what is happening and ban him out. 

The other issue is that Cloud9 has no real competition in NA and they looked like they weren't really prepared to go against another world class team.  I don't know what they can really do about it, but they need to find a way to get in more games with teams that can push them.

Gamma Bears were either really bad or SKT1 is just hitting ridiculous levels.  Still, again, would have liked to see if this was Gamma Bears not having their feet under them yet.

Royal Club v OMG was kind of fun. Royal Club team fought so well.  Feel bad for OMG, but RC just made more plays and executed a lot better.

Holy shit Royal Club looked like beasts in that last game. As for SKT vs the Bears, I watched like 15 minutes of that and deduced how that series was going to go.

I know nothing about League of Legends and I am getting excited about the semifinals (watched last night's between SK and Najin and now pumped up about tonight's Royal Club vs. Fnatic). Damn, eSport can be so fuckin exciting. As an old fart I dreamt this when I was a kid but I never really thought it was going to happen.

So, anyone else watching Fnatic v. Royal Club right now?

I am. Too bad I hardly understand what is going on. I understand Fnatic got their arses handed in what seems to be a mildly upsetting first game.

Game 2 was very exciting!

Smelling a come back... an amazing one if it happens.

that last game was the best game I have seen at this tourney so far. It was the only game that went long, and was truly back and forth.

It's just over-thinking - believing you lost the game for reasons too complex to parse, believing you have some counter when you don't etc. They got fooled by the same thing twice, which is a little embarrassing.

As far as Fnatic vs RC, to me I can isolate why Fnatic lost to one moment - Fnatic wins a team fight and all the enemy team is dead for at least 30 seconds. Both the remaining members on Fnatic immediately start to recall. One cancels the recall and goes to push bottom, the other one does recall. Off the push they take the inhib tower but not the inihb.

Why recall there? Why even start a recall? The enemy is dead, it doesn't matter how much health you have, you cannot die. If both members made a beeline for the inhib they probably could have gotten it.

After winning fights RC would go for the jugular, whereas Fnatic had no killer instinct. They would win a teamfight, be up 4 members to 2, then lamely recall. Against RC the first time you make a major mistake late-game you lose, against Fnatic you get 3 or 4 chances.

It seems like the European teams in general don't like to take any risks.  Instead they prefer to recall, spend their money and head back out at full hp and with a bit more item advantage.  Royal was constantly ahead on towers the whole series, even when behind on kills because they simply seemed willing to play aggressively.

You guys are right. The only thing I can add to that is that after the laning phase, Royal Elite was almost never not as five (save a dedicated split pusher), while a few times where the Chinese got baron, they had caught a member of Fnatic off in bot lane alone.

Final match tonight. 8pm PDT, 5am GMT.

http://twitch.tv/riotgames

I kind of want to watch, but starting at 11pm for me is rough.  Maybe I'll watch match 1 and then watch the rest of the vods in the morning.

Wow these finals are really becoming boring as fuck to watch. 'Oh hey, a team got a lead 10 minutes in? Cool, I'll just take off for an hour and hope the next game is started by then.'

This is one of the main reasons that I prefer DOTA to LoL.   But I'm much more annoyed with the hour long intro than the game itself.  It already starts late enough at night, let alone an hour of some band playing.

Top teams need to learn that against other top teams if you get behind you have to make something happen early, because at this level the enemy is unlikely to throw. Especially SKT, which gets ahead and plays a slow starvation game. You can't just farm it out and wait for a mistake.

Vision is also a culprit. IMO there really needs to be something like a 3-ward limit over the map. It's really hard to make something happen if the stronger team has wards everywhere in your own jungle.

Kass is totally wasting his teleport this game. (Game 2) He didn't TP in to fight at Baron the first time, then did TP after SKT already took Baron the next time when he couldn't do anything to help and could have taken a turret if he kept pushing.

I'm actually really considering dropping LoL in favour of watching Dota 2 over this (and the stale ass champion selection) after the worlds.

Haven't watched any DOTA 2 before?  Join Dota has a pretty good VOD archive if you want to watch some.

Eh, it was a disappointing finals for sure.  The semis were a lot higher quality.  SKT1 seems to be the wrong team to try to dive comp against and that's what Royal plays. NJS did better in this regard.

This Words was a return of the snowball meta, not surprisingly considering how big of a comeback Triforce made.  Why? I didn't follow the changes to the item, but Triforce construction helps you stay ahead and really reduced the overall champ pool (especially for top lane).

The event, in totality, was just too long. They need to really shorten up the prelims and condense the format.  Two stages would be nice.   I'd give my thoughts on the Dota2 scene, which I like, but I have to take my son to swim class  :awesome_for_real:

One of the big issues with these sorts of games is that the viewing experience is so variable because the games are so variable (and because of how snowballing works).  This is essentially the Super Bowl of League of Legends, but you can get...


In the Super Bowl, even if the game isn't too close you get a timed game, some good football, and if the game stays within a couple of scores it can be exciting all the way to the end because football doesn't snowball.  It isn't just league that suffers with this, but different games suffer with it to different degrees.

I remember watching the Raiders vs Tampa Bay...

The format is bad in a number of ways though. It's too long, you see too many irrelevant games between irrelevant teams, and teams with byes can play 2 games and be out, even though those are the teams you want to see play more.

I think double elimination would be a lot better. In double elim every game is meaningful, you get to see good teams play a lot, bad teams get eliminated quickly, and the format lends itself to a lot of storylines and drama.

In case you missed it, and are curious, here's the Grand Final from last August DOTA 2 World Championship. It went to game 5 and this is a pretty amazing match. Totally worth watching. Side note: winners got 1.4M.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8HBr1EGX1I

I burnt out on spectating halfway through this season. I like being able to keep abreast of what's going on in the competitive scene, but 12 games per week during the split is way too much to take in, let alone paying attention to other regions. Then regionals is just more of the same teams, and then worlds is none of the same teams after the first couple rounds unless you've been watching OGN all season.

It's better than when we would go 2-4 months between serious competitions, but I think they should ease up on the scheduling during the split. Have half the teams stay home each week to give them some breathing room and practice new strats, keep things fresh.

Incoming  severely vitriolic rant:

This has been building up in me since midway though the 'Spring Split' of the LCS.  You know what, FUCK the way professional LoL has been going these days, with the worlds being the latest, and most execrable example. The way LoL is played now at that level is boring as shit.

First of all, IT'S ALL THE SAME MOTHER FUCKING CHAMPIONS!!! Maybe those of you new to the scene don't know, but the game used to be played without the same handful of boring ass OP champions on BOTH teams every damn game. For those that remember, first there used to be summoners that were really good on certain champions. Not champions that were OP under the current meta, just plain they were good at a champion. Like, HotshotGG had to have Nidalee, or later Cho'gath or even Galio banned away from him, or Reginald, with Alistar Mid (don't laugh, it was a thing), or Leblanc. Teams would have totally different compositions of the opposing one, and you could fucking tell them apart. 'Oh shit, there is Sivir bot' you'd say, that must be Chaox. 'Oh look, it's Shaco jungle (lolololol good luck seeing that in a fucking regular game now, let alone a pro one), that's got to be SaintViscious'.

And I'm not saying there wasn't established metas, back in the day, cause there sure as shit was, even if they weren't nearly as hidebound and frustrating as they are today, but there was also teams willing to BREAK that meta. Remember old school Moscow 5 (currently [ugh, sigh] Gambit Gaming)? Remember all the crazy innovative shit that they would do? Shyvana super counter jungle? Or when they ran Solo lane blue buff Urgot at the bot, with roaming Taric and Alistar jungle vs Dignitas? Or Heck, even when TSM ran a Teemo top (on TheRainMan) in the Season One worlds? and it wasn't feeding or a troll pick, it actually was a thing. You aren't going to see anything like that in a game on the line anymore.

But no, flash forward to today, and it's the same motherfucking OP champions over and over and over. To the point where, even without knowing what teams are playing, I can guess what champs are banned or picked. Is it Shen, Elise, Jarvan, Zac, Zed, Lulu, Sona, Threash, Ahri, Orianna, Fizz, or Renekton? It's a fucking sad day when I'm watching a game with, what, 116 champions?, and only a lame ass handful of them are ever picked. It's fucking boring!!! And you know what the worst part is. The goddamn announcers that go along with this shit, casue they are so desperate for this to be respected as a real sport. They will go on about how, 'Oh, So and so at mid has such a deep champion selection pool'. Why?!? Cause he can play Ahri, Fizz, Zed, Orianna, Gragas, Ryze, Jayce, and hell, lets throw in Kassadin and Lissandra. Fucking wow. And guess what, those that aren't banned, or mid A doesn't pick, mid B will, and be praised for his depth as well. And when someone hovers over, for one fleeting second, a pick like Teemo, or Akali, or (guffaw guffaw) Soraka, they say 'Well I know he's not really picking THAT champion'. Fuck you!!! God forbid a team pick something not on the approved list. Then when a team does pick something slightly different, and doesn't ban out one of the approved champions, they rant on and on about this team doesn't RESPECT the Ahri pick. Shit the fuck up you losers!!! Stop projecting your own fears and inadequacies of this sport onto a goddamn champion selection. Remember when you didn't know with 100 per cent accuracy based on what was banned, what a mid would pick??? Yeah, I know, it was scary.

But even all that shit, was tolerable (if grating), til' this worlds brought something that I truly hate to the forefront. Something so un-fun and boring as shit to watch. The SUPER snowball meta. These whole worlds (and I've watched every single game of them live, save a handful of Mineski or GamingGear games), have been this way, with the exception, of, what, 3, 4 (and I'm being generous here) games? One team (that isn't Vulcan lol) gets out ahead a few turrets, pushed up their vision a bit, and that's it, the game is done. Close the lights, get out early to beat the traffic folks, these games are done by the fifteen minute mark, if not by the bans and select stage.  Snoooooooze. I feel sorry for the announcers that have to try to call these one sided affairs, and no I don't want to see it brought to Doublelift at the analysts desk to discuss how one team got Lee Sin, and the other didn't, so GG.

Please Riot, bring back the 1000 gold kill bounty. Crank up the cost of pink wards, or oracles, or something. Bring back some form of fortify, cause seeing a turret go down just cause the jungler cycled to that lane is BORING!!!! This is the lamest meta ever. I don't want to have to alt tab and go farm a dungeon in WoW, or tackle that chemistry homework I've been procrastinating, or finally get to doing my laundry just cause one team got a tower AND dragon, and I know the game is a foregone conclusion now. I miss having a meta in which, hey, maybe this team can turtle, and hey, maybe farm up and try for a lategame win. Otherwise, just fucking call the game after one team has two unanswered towers and save us all some gorram time.

I do understand. Riot has a cruddy tightrope to walk. They can't nerf shit wantonly to effect the pros cause it will trickle down to the rest of us shlubs. I mean, it's not they they can tweak certain champions locally on each ma- oh wait. Seriously, if they want to tweak shit to hit only the official touney builds, they can do that no problem. It's got to be better than the current problem.

T.L.D.R. Old League: A cool, if uncontrolled, acid trip. Could be bad, could be the best time of your life. New League: A frustrating trip to the Dentist. You know what's going to happen, he knows what's going to happen, so just get this shit over with.

I agree. The whole regular season / playoffs thing just doesn't work that well. Most of the games don't matter and you have to watch like 4 different leagues (US, EU, KR and other) to stay up on the action.

The lack of international competition hurts as well. You have no idea where teams stand relative to teams in other leagues and no chance to see the international teams.

IMO having a major tournament once or month or so was better. If you need teams to play more to get more practice maybe you can have entry into those tournaments determined by regularly scheduled games - so maybe you play for a month, the top teams go to a tournament, then do it again.


I think watching DOTA 2 is quite boring. This was good to watch because it was so close, but had it not been close it would have been pretty awful. DOTA games often have a lot of lulls where neither team is really doing anything (especially after the outer towers fall). It's also hard to spectate due to things like the minimap indicators, hard to read fonts, graphics and camera distance, etc.

Often times when a hero is successfully ganked they get no chance to run or juke and just insta-die, which makes the lead-up to the gank as important as the gank itself. But it can be hard to follow that, maybe in part due to the camera operation...a lot of time it's just "welp a guy's dead!"

I think this mostly comes down to vision.

I main support, over the course of the last couple seasons support has gone from ending the game with two major items to one to now often zero. You just buy vision.

When one team gets ahead they ward the enemy jungle, then at that point they control 70% of the map.  There's almost no chance to be ambushed, you get all your buffs and dragon for free, you get a lot of enemy jungle. SKT's main strategy is to get some map control, ward a ton, then kill the enemy team when they try to clear wards or re-establish vision. SKT sitting in Baron pit with a ward on the other side then jumping over when someone comes to check happens in like 80% of their games.

I like the DTOA system where there is a limit on how many wards the shop can sell. (I think that's how it works) It makes ward placement really matter a lot. Now that permanent stealth is not really a thing in LoL any more I don't know that pink wards or oracles are even needed as they are used almost exclusively to clear green wards.

The LoL meta has always been pretty stale, focusing on defense and stacking against risk than actually winning the game. We've never had a sub 20 minute game. A team gets ahead and its a slow crawl to victory from there. The better the teams the longer the crawl. And there isn't a nerf or buff to push teams out of the "reliable" meta that has ruled LoL since hotshotgg was considered the best player in LoL. You'll need a cap on player's ability to gain vision. And actual incentives to taking risk vs staking against risk. For now nerfing vision is a start but I don't think it'll change much in the way player's play. Safe reliable victories over daring strategies will "win" the day because the team that play's more cautiously will win easier than the aggressive types. The goal of any change is to make the game a balance between players who play aggressive and players who play defensive. Kinda like starcraft 2 right now, where neither play styles generally win out too much over the other.

What I'd like to see, global cap on the amount of wards in the game. Make the total amount be linked to the purchase of sightstone and its upgrade but not stacking. So at most players can only place 2 wards at once and possess 4-5 wards on the map in total. Bring back the level 1 dragon.

In DOTA 2 the way it works is that wards have a cooldown on purchasing them.  I think you can buy 4 at a time before the cooldown starts.   You can buy as many "pink" wards as you want but in DOTA 2 they only see stealth, they don't have a large vision radius.  In other words, if you are standing near one, you can see stealthed units, but the ward itself doesn't reveal the map.

I don't see how that helps when you can rotate the wards between the jungler and the support. How long the cooldown?

The cooldown is for the stock available in the shop, not for a player buying the wards. It is 6 minutes per set (each set comes with 2 wards).  The game starts with 1 set available in the shop, and at 6 minutes the second set becomes available.  After that the stock doesn't increase past 2 sets maximum.  The cooldown for replenishment of the stock starts when it is purchased. (My purchase 4 before the cooldown starts comment in the previous post was wrong, each set of 2 has their own cooldown)

The wards themselves last for the same 6 minutes once placed on the map.

http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Observer_Ward

That'll work. Now to brain storm how to encourage less passive aggressive play.

There are a lot of fundamental issues with LoL that encourage it.  Probably most notably that abilities scale with AP/AD, so that there is little reason to play aggressively earlier rather than later.  In DOTA 2, where abilties DO NOT scale it means that there is a window for aggression in the early game by characters with strong abilities. 

Combine that with tower aggro mechanics that don't change aggro on spell casts and you can play very aggressively pretty early on and the towers only offer a certain measure of protection.  Now LoL players have learned to gank under towers these days anyway, but it's still risky, and it is almost exclusively when a jungler comes to play.

Add in Portal scrolls to allow people to come in to gank/counter gank from anywhere on the map and now the early game is a hell of a lot more dynamic.

More champions and more different laning compositions were picked in this Championship than in any other prior. The LCS matches have similarly seen such varying play. This is even excepting the troll games.


It is also hilarious seeing you complain about how games are too fast and the other posters complain they take too long.


I have consistently more items as a support in Season 3 as compared to Season 2.


I am not sure you're playing the same game as me because

1) Early game is super aggressive. The fact that abilities scale of AD/AP has nothing to do with aggression because early/late aggression depends entirely on the relative strength of team compositions.

2) tower aggro does not change aggro on spell casts (unless it was hitting a minion) [though being able to use abilities in order to juggle tower aggro would be a huge increase in dives, but then again you all would just complain that towers go down to fast and everyone tower dives]

3) Making ganks/counter ganks more available from anywhere will tend to decrease aggression. Since its harder to ensure a lop sided fight you're going to tend to be more passive.

Except that all those things are in DOTA and it has a far more aggressive, dynamic early game than LoL does. It also has far more comebacks than LoL does, and generally more interesting games as far as I'm concerned.

In any event, I don't really have any stake in this.  I stopped playing LoL ages ago and am less interested than ever in watching it.  If you enjoy it, great.  Millions of people seem to agree with you.

People keep saying this, but as far as i can tell it keeps not being true. 

E.G. Game 2 world finals:

SKT T1 takes a commanding lead with a fast, strong dynamic early game punishing the weak early game picks of Royal Club [plus the terrible Sona pick. Stop playing Sona she is terrible]. They group to end the game and the game is turned around at 16 minutes in. Royal Club then dominates until 29 minutes where Godlike gets picked off and SKT cleans up.

While I'd like to see some changes, its hard to pinpoint "where" it needs to be placed for the games to have an equal mix of offensive and defensive play styles. Or maybe moba's don't lend themselves to a truly interesting competitive scene. DOTA2 doesn't play any faster than lol, in fact your snowball mechanics can be worse in some regard. The one thing I'd like to see is riot experiment with gold gain. I think that matters a lot in the back and forth nature of a game like league. Normally games are about denying your opponent gold once you gain the gold advantage. The enemy team is forced to farm whatever meager amount of creep that the snowballing team allows, which can dry up to none depending on how deep the advantage or how good the team is with wards and positioning. Teams play defensive when they lose the gold advantage because they hope to catch up, its easier to pve than to swing the advantage in your favor with more aggressive pvp. Reason why? Because eventually the snowball levels off, so if you just hold out long enough and pve the gold advantages gained before starts to shrink. Everyone knows the snowball has a cap...the problem is great teams don't let you reach the cap or end the game before the cap hits. Stuff like vision and dragon control increases the snowball yes, but the issue is players waiting out the snowball, not the snowball occurring. Though we can nerf what greatly assist snowballing, the more I think about it the less it (nerfing wards) solves the underlining problems with the players play styles and the way the mechanics benefit them.  

Any changes riot wants to make needs to make pvp as viable as pve as a way to get back into the game.

[/quote]

You can personally buy 6 long swords if you want, but at high levels it's very common for supports to buy nothing but vision and boots. I sometimes buy real items just to have fun, but I know that's sub-optimal.

Supports get more gold than before so if you choose to buy real items you can get as many or more than before, but that's typically not a good choice.

Major Curse reshuffle.  Not sure it'll really pan out.  Afromoo and Zekent are the new botlane.  Pobelter, who is actually really quite good, is the new solo laner.  IWD is back as a jungler (he's meh).  Only remaining member is Voyboy.  Saint moves to coaching.  Nyjacky and Cop go to the new LoLPro team.  Edward goes back to Europe.

Afromoo and Zekent, while talented, have always kind of played like shit when money is on the line.  It's not like they can do much worse, unless, of course, they fail relegation.

I am a platinum support at the moment. If i perma-oracles from 15 minutes the only time i will end up with less than 1 completed item plus sightstone is if the game ends very quickly. Though to be fair, i don't usually buy boots [but also don't run GP/10 quints/yellows either] but that is more because i play so much Janna.

At very very high levels you will tend to see more vision purchased, but this is generally because laning ends earlier and so people need wards to contest objectives (but that is, again, largely fixed by a RSS rush)

Re: Curse

IWD is an ass.

I don't expect good things out of this Curse lineup at all.

Aphro is the kind of player who will get two kills in lane early and get way ahead, then trade them back 2 minutes later for no real reason. I think Voyboy is highly overrated, he makes a lot of poor decisions and he only makes a large impact when he plays carry champions.

That said IWD can't be worse than Saint and Pobelter can't be worse than Jacky. With Jacky when you get down do a pivotal game in a series you know he's going to pick a comfort champion like Morgana and lose the game for free.

I wonder how this will affect their pick/ban phase, which has been pretty horrible. I don't know much about Zekent, maybe he's smart and won't routinely lose the game before it's started. So yeah, I don't expect much, but at the same time it probably can't be much worse than before.

Edit: US teams appear to be just treading water in regards to roster changes. I think a big problem is that there isn't a good source for new talent - high elo solo queue play is largely about being dumb and fucking around, so people plateau at a level well below where they need to be.

Zekent probably has the most raw game knowledge of anyone in NA. He is also quite possibly the best Janna in the world (and best Poppy but Poppy isn't strong enough for competitive games). If he can keep Aphromoo in line post laning then they will be a force to be reckoned with. He might not be as good as Xpecial, but he won't be held back by Regi forcing him to pick Sona.

IWD is just a shitty person.

So apparently Pobelter was kicked out of Curse then Aphromoo either quit or was kicked out. Looks like Cop may come back and play AD...the end result is a whole lot of nothing other than bad feelings.

Day before LCS teams have to finalize their rosters too.  If I'm TSM, I throw some money at Pobelter.   

I'm kind of hoping Curse just gets relegated at this point. Although if any of their teams make it through, I'm sure they'll just cannibalize the other rosters.

Day before or of, i am not sure. I am pretty sure that the releases were done with the intent to keep them off other teams though.

This kind of shit used to happen in baseball/football before the players unionized too.

Not necessarily about pro play, but the time has come where those who qualify into Challenger are granted immunity (can't drop out of Challenger) until the end of the season. It wasn't exactly a secret that there were tons of people sitting on their Challenger promo series with super high inflated MMR, waiting for this moment. Now that it's here, there are 23/50 slots (and potentially more as times goes on) in Challenger filled with people who got in just this week.

Not only that, because the player pool is so limited, queues so long, and lots of the top players know each other, there's definitely been at least a few people giving away wins in promo series to guarantee a promotion for their friend.

 :popcorn:

Shitty system. I like some of the changes they are doing for S4.

There seems to be a tournament going on, we get to see the season 4 meta in action, looks a lot like the season 3 meta  :oh_i_see:

http://www.twitch.tv/riotgames

Arguably, S3 at the Pro level has simply trickled down to everyone else in the form of the sight trinkets, support and jungle changes.  The Pros were already doing what is easier for the non-Pros to do now.  I think once the Rune changes and whatever else they've got in stock for the true S4 launch go live you'll see the Pros start to change tactics.

Season 4 LCS is kicking off now. EU to start. 

Froggen's new team seems pretty awful.  For all of the love he gets, he's got a really sad champion pool, and Wickd isn't doing much better.  It looks like Fnatic and Gambit will run away with the Euro titles again. 

NA LCS starts now.  C9 picks a Teemo.   :drill:

edit:

Ohh god, EG is terrible.

EG picked really poorly. Yasuo is not a good top laner. He gets beaten by bruiser/strong melee. EG picks him top and gets destroyed. Lets XDG camp mid to totally shut down the second assassin with a weak laning phase you picked. Then to top it all off you have jungler which isn't tanky. In team fights XDG just washes over you like a wave. GG

Innox built Blade of the Ruined King first on Yasuo - a champion who benefits from crit and move speed. (His passive doubles crit chance and the more he moves around the more his shield refreshes)

Maybe he did it because he needed the sustain or something but when that's the first item you buy you probably should have just played a different champion.

Dignitas looks just awful. If they don't come in dead last I will be surprised.

edit: And now they crush Coast. So I guess there is a team that is worse.

This is beyond awful. This is just a joke.

When Coast was playing in the amateur scene to try to get into LCS their strat was pretty much always to send ZionSpartan to split push and they would just win the game for free because the enemy team didn't have any response. I don't think that strategy is going to work in LCS.

If by work, you mean win even once, then no. No it's not.

So this week has been rather interesting. Between Warwick bans, Teemo bans, and Curse's assassin heavy comp vs XDG, it's been kind of cool. Bonus points for a Galio support as well. Represent.

That's retarded. Yasuo hits a major power spike with a Shiv. You should always be building a Shiv > IE no matter what. At that point it doesn't matter what you build.

Hydra is also acceptable as a first or second item. The attack reset and high base damage combining with Yasuo's high base scaling is very strong.

On the surface it seems like BotRK would work. Yasuo should like attack speed since his CDR scales on it. He also likes damage since his ult and Q scale on it. The problem is that Yasuo doesn't actually like attack speed all that much because his CDR scales based on his base scaling as well as item scaling. Yasuo works with Shiv not because of shivs attack speed but because of the movement speed and the power of the shiv proc in the early game.

No. Do not build anything but a shiv first. You are wasting everyone's time if you don't. With Yasuo's base AS scaling along with Shiv's attack speed you will have maximum cooldown reduction on his Q.

Your build path is: Shiv IE Boots BT/Hydra/LW then GA.

I am having an incredible amount of fun watching Kaceytrons  (http://www.twitch.tv/kaceytron)stream. Might be NSFW.

I can't imagine why.  :oh_i_see:

Heh. Boobs.

In other news: LCS is mildly entertaining this year.  Everyone still looks like fodder for the Koreans.  Gambit will be the only team that takes games off them because they can actually team fight worth a damn.  

At least TSM won't lose games this year because their midlaner is severely outclassed (Bjergson is actually pretty damn impressive).  Of course, Bjerg is having visa issues currently, so we get Regi during super week. Yay.  :uhrr:

edit: How the fuck did Gambit lose that.

Mainly because that woman is hillarious. Her schtik is that she is  a profesional female gamer (not a GirlGamer) and she is trolling the bottom feeders of the LoL community so hard it is a true joy to watch. I think yesterday her stream had 10000 viewers and every few minutes she got donations ranging from 1-20$. People donate real money to her to get her to read out their retarded messages live on stream.

Yesterday the theme was to get her placement matches behind her so she can start playing ranked this season.
So she needed a few games to get her account from level 28 to level 30.  :awesome_for_real:
She had round about 50 "boost XP gain on a win" booster to her account to achieve that goal.

She was a "professional WoW" gamer before she "found LoL". I love watching her and seeing the retards in chat freak out about her bad plays.

As much as I am loathe to say it, TSM with Bjergson might actually fare somewhat okay vs international teams. Provided of course they don't just go for the TSM kryptonite, camp Dyrus up top.

Next week is going to be the first international play since worlds, at IEM Katowice. TSM won't be there, but C9 will. The only Korean team there (KTB, my personal favourite team) is looking a little past it though.

The TSM kryptonite of "camp Dyrus" doesn't work anymore for three reasons

1) Bottom lane is infinitely more important now and easier to gank. Bottom lane is more important because assist streaks mean that successful ganks bottom lane are more productive. Additionally there is an extra member to snowball (who now snowballs really hard on assist streak gold)

2) Its too easy for tanky top laners to turn a kill around on their turret which loses you kills and gives the other team dragon

3) "Camp Dyrus" always depended on Regi being weak because you knew Oddone was going to camp mid for him and you knew roughly that nothing was going to come out of it. This doesn't work anymore because Bjergson and oddone will take advantage of your top camp and snowball the game.

Shit it doesn't even work anymore with Regi since Regi has stopped trying to carry his team and as a result is playing a lot better.

2 of their 3 losses came from Dyrus being either camped, or just outplayed. I'm not saying it'd the only factor, but when he is put up against the wall, it does a lot better than when the opposing bot is focused.


That is so incredibly rare now in the LCS, and quite frankly I can't remember Dyrus doing it at all this split.

3 losses what an amazing sample size!

The way to beat TSM has always been "Get Regi on tilt" but that isn't working anymore, Regi isn't playing and when he is he isn't being as dumb aggressive as he had been. Yes Dyrus got camped at worlds, but again that was because

1) Camping top was pretty standard meta, since getting that snowballing was super important due to the lane mechanics of the day

2) you didn't have to worry at all about mid

Exactly, I have a huge sample size of Dyrus being ignored and having TSM win.

Look I'm not saying that just focusing Dyrus is a magic panacea for success. I understand that the game focus is heavily based around mid currently. But the problem is that unless your mid can take advantage of it over Bjergson (hint, they probably can't), I'm just saying that I've noticed it's been a factor in the few recent losses that TSM has suffered. The thing about Dyrus is, he has great map awareness and roaming, and when he is not ahead and forced to farm by his turret (or further back) it opens up the map big time for the opposing team.

Gambit is getting squashed by TPA.

And then C9 steamrolls both Asian teams.  OK, didn't see that coming.  Of course, TPA and WE weren't really relevant last season, so maybe that matters.

Korean All-Star game. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfGofAeXjHA)  It's really trolly and hilarious.  Faker on the donger, Insec on Shaco, Impact on Gangplank, Madlife on support Lux. 

Relegations finished up. 

Coast and XDG will thankfully not be allowed to stink up the NA LCS anymore.  There are some individually talented players on these teams, so shuffles will be incoming especially with Nien stepping down, scarra sucking, and Xpecial getting benched.  Shiphtur and Zionspartan from Coast will get looks. Xsmithie from XDG may get a look, but I don't know of any teams needing a jungler. The rest of XDG was shit this year, especially Mancloud, who regressed heavily under all the nonsense with Zuna and his brother.

The new wards have pretty much seperated the men from the boys this go around. Teams with no mid and late game strategy get curbed stomped with very little consideration or pause. If Cloud9 was the only team worth watching last year their definitely miles away from the rabble this year. Not to mention fnatic who are reigning as kings of europe fight now.

I'm excited to watch LMQ play, and I think that it will be a good narrative following them getting used to US play and learning the language.

Curious who will fill Xpecial's shoes. Seemed like he never made mistakes, which is more than can be said for a lot of the supports.

Yah, he hasn't really been the gameplay problem with TSM this season, although apparently his attitude is garbage. He doesn't like playing league and doesn't practice outside of scrims.    His (Xpecial's) vlogs are hilarious as well, the guy tries to sound really smart and comes off as quite the opposite.  They're doing tryouts, but the support from C9 Tempest (gleegarbu (sp)) has been duoing with Turtle.  TSM's more pressing problems long term will be OddOne and Dyrus.  OddOne is great at pub stomping and beating the crappy teams, but he's a weak jungler in a weak scene for junglers.  Dyrus hasn't improved since season 2. 

LMQ will be fun to watch.  They won't be beating TSM, C9 or CLG much in the beginning of the season, but by the end they could be in the run to go to worlds.

I think that Dyrus hasn't really evolved, at least in the limited time I've been paying attention. The tank meta suited him really well but things are shifting away from that...especially getting 1v2d and not being able to farm up.

Dyrus also goes on tilt very easily. If he dies early he'll often go right ahead and die 2 or 3 more times, which is exactly what you don't want.

Unless he's playing Mundo and it doesn't matter at all

Jesus LoL offseason is more excited than the international soccer transfer window.

And it just keeps going.

Oddone retires.  Amazing to come in as new TSM jungler.  This had to happen.
Alex Ich leaves Gambit.  Unless anyone knows of another good Russian speaking mid, they're done. They were probably done anyways, but it's Gambit.. who knows.
Zionspartan and Shiphtur to Dignitas.  Mechanical/champion pool improvements.  May not translate into actual results.  In game decisions were their weak points just as much as lack of player skill and weak champion pools. Plus, qtpie can still throw a game like no one's business.

Likely more to come.

seeing OddOne cry on stream ;_;

Xpecial to Curse, Gleebglarbu to TSM. Why would Curse take him? thought he was dropped because he was toxic and hated LoL

aaaaaaand gleeb is gone.

also chaox out as coach of Coast to focus on playing.

I'm sure he'll find a challenger team worthy of his talents (Chaox). 

Not sure this ends up working out for TSM.  Gleeb does miss a lot of skill shots, but replacing a member a month before the playoffs with some guy that doesn't speak great English isn't a sure fire plan for improvement.  They had a good chance at going to worlds as their only real kryptonite is DIG. The other teams they can and do beat on occasion.

TSM's problems go far beyond Gleeb. I don't think changing out Odd One for Amazing was a net positive and Bjerg is invisible in many games.

Ok what the actual fuck: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2c0woj/editorial_from_lmq_manager_alex_gu_regarding/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2c0woj/editorial_from_lmq_manager_alex_gu_regarding/)

The whole LMQ shit pile is going to make bringing more foreign teams over to the US a bit problematic.  Feel bad for the players caught in the middle of this.  For the most part, they seem like decent kids and a good addition (if a bit over hyped) to the LCS. 

Unrelated, but this current meta and viable champ pool suck. EU and NA LCS are really boring at the moment. If they carry this into worlds (which they are pretty much stuck doing), it's going to be a complete snoozefest with the Koreans just crushing everyone. You aren't going to out PVE the Koreans or out pick them when the available pool is so small.  

case in point: americans and europeans literally cannot win with Rengar and the Koreans can crush with him.

Watching the 3rd place OGN game right now.. I think we're getting a Korean repeat this year in Worlds.  Nothing I've seen in either LCS comes close to this.  China is always a wild card, but I don't think they can be as consistent as these Korean teams.

Usual suspects make up the EU contingent going to worlds.  Only surprise being perhaps how strong SK looked overall (ALL still miles better) and how badly Millennium shit the bed.  But ALL, FN, and SK are what anyone would rightly guess beforehand.

NA playoff just finished their first matches.  TSM stomped DIG (who was slumping, but had owned TSM during the season).  Not much to take away from this other than DIG play terribly as a team and may get relegated if they don't stop throwing games.  Kiwikid won't survive the reddit pitchforks. In the other quarter, CLG got destroyed by Curse.  They looked so bad. Guess all that bootcamping in Korea just taught them how to lose, which is all they reportedly did there.  Seraph has been a bust, Dexter is average, and Link is invisible.  Doublelift can't position worth shit in team fights and dies instantly.  Doublelift's making post-stomp noises about retiring again, but who knows.  

Barring some real awful shenanigans in the group compositions, the western world won't sniff the semis.

And CLG got shit on by DIG.  Constantly Losing Games.  I will die of laughter if they get relegated.

Considering the imminent expansion I think they'll have a spot. They have looked absolutely garbage though.

Some great games during the playoffs. Holy crap.

I really did not expect that TSM win.  After game 1 it just looked like TSM's poor drafting and Turtle's awful positioning would cause the series to snowball. I even texted a "FREESM" to my nephew.  :facepalm:

Bjerg looks really good right now, and despite his awful shockwaves, doesn't look to have an exploitable champion pool.  If anyone, Amazing and Lustboy can be a bit exploited in that fashion, but rest of the team looks solid in that regard.

Koreans will still maul us, but the rest of the games should be interesting.

World's draw going on right now.  TSM draws Royal Club, TPA, and SK.  Uhh, not the worst draw, but I don't see them leaving groups.

Group A: EDG, Samsung White, AHQ, Dark Passage

Free pass for EDG and White.  

Group B: TSM, Royal Club, TPA, SK  

Who knows. TSM can't beat foreigners, so, that's an issue.

Group C: LMQ, OMG, FNC, Samsung Blue

Brutal group. This will be a fight for #2.

Group D:  KABUM, Najin W Shield, C9, ALL

Well, at least one EU or NA team will make past group.

Games are going to be at 12am and 1am PST.   RIP NA viewership.

In light of all the NFL player stupidity, I'll leave this here: http://na.lolesports.com/articles/league-legends-competition-ruling-dennis-%E2%80%9Csvenskeren%E2%80%9D-johnsen

 :facepalm:

 :why_so_serious:

Alliance lost to the wildcard from Brazil.  And it cost them a chance at advancing.  :awesome_for_real:  :ye_gods: :oh_i_see: :awesome_for_real:  I doubt Wickd gets dumped, but his champion pool always seems to disappear at worlds.  Ban Irelia and pick away Ryze and he's fucked.  Guy can't play a champ that actually has to make important in game decisions or requires any sort of mechanical skill.

Europe got wrecked.  NA did better or as expected (will get 6-0'd in the quarters).  China got all 3 past group, but looked shitty.  OMG nearly didn't make it past LMQ.  Korea looked like Korea.  Turkey is bad at LoL.

I'm still baffled as to how Alliance went from destroying Najin White Shield to losing to Kabum. I think that's probably the most major upset in LoL's (short) competitive history. The only reason I can come up with that makes any sense is just arrogance. NWS didn't properly prepare to face Alliance and got burned, same with Alliance and Kabum. You're not so much better than them that you can just play whatever and still win.

At the very least I'm happy NA took a game off the Koreans. That's better than I expected them to do. I think it's proof that the other regions aren't miles behind like they used to be.

Of course, in a best of 5, I'm still putting all my money on the Koreans, but now there's a real chance we lose 3-1 instead of 3-0.

Outside of Samsung White, the Koreans looked vulnerable.  Not necessarily in a 5 game series, but you can take games of them.  For Samsung Blue, Dade still looks shakey at times.  Najin White Shield looked good, but they're definitely the third best Korean team and got completely shit-on by Alliance. However, they got a favorable draw in that the 3 Chinese teams are in their bracket instead of another Korean team.  I think it's still possible Royal Club or EDG beats them, but White Shield are still the favorites there.

On paper it looks like a Samsung White v. Najin White Shield final.  I'm starting to lean to EDG possibly going through, but that's if they can right the ship v. Royal Club.  Royal Club will, IMO, get destroyed by any Korean team.  They do too much risky shit, and the Koreans will kill you for that.