Tournament Thread

[Hoax]

Couch Athletics is having a captain's night Friday, Feb 12th starting @ 9pm EST 6pm PST.

You just show up in their vent around that time and go to the appropriate channel.  Their vent has no pw and the info is: ventrilo.couchathletics.com 28587

Schild, Thrawn and Corbaine had a team a few weeks ago and their team met the team I was on in the finals.  There are some decent-good players who were there but overall the talent level is fairly low so nobody from f13 should be intimidated in the slightest.  The regulars especially aren't that good.

That said just go to the channel they have set up and set your comment to the champs you want to play by clicking the comment button.  They will pick team captains then the captains all get a room and you get moved in when you are picked.

I won't be around that weekend and most of the next week but I hope you guys go and stomp them and I want to go to these in the future.

***

More importantly and why it was worth a thread:

Solomid 2v2 TT Tournament

Rules:
Map:
- Twisted Treelines

Number of players:
- 2 players on each side
- 1 optional observer (if one team has an observer the other team must have one too to balance tower gold)
- The observer may not picks a champion with a global passive, use a global skill, nor speak in all chat. He is allowed to go to top lane tower to stop the lane from pushing

Game mode:
- Best of 3
- Single bracket (you lose, you're out)
- Draft: 2 bans each team followed by 1-2-1 exclusive picks, team that bans first picks second
Round 1: Home team picks side and whether they want first pick or first ban
Round 2: Swap sides and swap pick order
Round 3: Home team chooses pick order, away team chooses side

Objective:
Either 1) kill enemy inhibitor or 2) first team to score 2 kills (killing the same enemy twice or killing each enemy once)

Prizes:
TBD, probably going to be Riot Points

Other Rules:
- Bottom lane only. "Middle" jungle is also allowed (lizard and 2 surrounding camps), but not "top" jungle (dragon, ghost/wolf buffs, and 2 smaller camps).
- Runes and masteries are allowed
- No champions are auto-banned for now, but this might be subject to change
- Sign-ups will close and rosters will be locked on Feb 22. I might push this back a little in the future if need be
- Unfortunatly no top tier players will be allowed to compete in this. This tournament is really to help non-top-tier players become more competitive

I'm guessing that means MegaZero & Messiah won't have their usual teams in this one.  I'm totally down to practice this some and sign up.  I'm sure Cooltang and Synthetic will field a team, I'm guessing Adam will too.  Anyways I'd be down to do some practice mode scrims and shit for this could be lots of fun.  What champs do people think are best for the format?  I'm thinking Shaco, Trist, Annie, Sivir, Ashe, Nid, etc.

***

Random vent server is hosting Saturday 5-man draft mode tournaments.  Apparently their first event went off well.

[bhodi]

You'll want someone with a stun and/or escape mechanism. I assume that shaco will be banned, so you can probably forget trying that. You probably want a ranged character.

A strong pusher and/or burst would also be preferred. Nasty combos. I wouldn't pick a caster.

[Hoax]

Well that's the thing, 4 bans and exclusive draft means some interesting champs will get played I would think.  I haven't really fucked with the format much but it really does have a meta of its own that is probably really interesting.

I really don't get why first ban gets 2nd pick, I see no advantage in banning first unless the bans go 1-2-2-1 in which case yeah I can see the advantage of having the last ban option.

[schild]

Sivir & Nidalee & Taric & Alister. Pick two. Think I'm gonna call dibs on Thrawn right now.

Also, now that I'm level 30 and my ELO is relatively stable, I see no reason to not just practice most of the time as that map will undoubtedly be eventually official.

[Hoax]

Taric?  Really?  I wasn't even thinking of him as a good pick.  However I played two games against Taric + Clarity lanes and the pressure was crazy annoying yesterday so you may be on to something with that pick.  If the other team has Allistar I would just play very safe and wait out those early levels where if his teammate can score a kill off you getting stunned, at say level6-9 having a teammate who doesn't contribute any damage isn't going to give you a gank in a 2v2 and then you lose.  Just theorycrafting of course, which is why it'd be fun to play some practice games and see what works.

[schild]

Map control will be huge, but honestly, this is one case where I'd probably go AP/Cooldown Nidalee and drop traps and just control everything. Clairvoyance on both is key - replace Teleport. Karthus and Morgana might work.

[Thrawn]

Karthus and Morgana might work.

Karthus maybe (but probably not, no stun, kinda squishy), Morgana no, although black shield is still a great spell she just can't output much DPS compared to other casters right now.

[schild]

Karthus and Morgana might work.

Karthus maybe (but probably not, no stun, kinda squishy), Morgana no, although black shield is still a great spell she just can't output much DPS compared to other casters right now.

Those lanes are small and there's thin enough woods right next to them that she can wander next to the lane, still get creep exp, and throw shields through the terrain that karthus can then wreck whoever they're on. I imagine most people will take Flash and Cleanse though.

[Thrawn]

Since it's one lane first to push down an inhib, could always just go Allistar/Sivir or something similarly good at pushing a lane and not dying.

[schild]

Since it's one lane first to push down an inhib, could always just go Allistar/Sivir or something similarly good at pushing a lane and not dying.

Yarp. Guess I might have to start playing Sivir, though I've outpaced some good Sivir's I've played against as Nidalee. i assume everyone will field a Sivir though and double heals will be ridiculous. Though, I'd wager CM and Nidalee will be the first ones banned.

[Thrawn]

I dunno, CM could be pretty neutered on a small map stuck in one lane.  His mobility is the main reason he's op, if you know where he is you can play around gold card.  I'd probably ban Shaco/Nid/Kayle off the top of my head.  Maybe even Zilean would be a decent choice, his ult would be insane in a 2v2.

Since it's first to two kills also no one is going to be fed or insane so the character selection and stuns/ults/disables are going to be huge I think.

[schild]

Mmmmmm, I didn't notice the two kills part. Alister or Malphite and Nunu. If you make it to level 6, you win!

Seriously though, this is going to be one of the most limited tourneys I've seen for any game in terms of character usage. They should just really make it "Win the game."

[Hoax]

There is now a poll asking if Nid should be auto-banned from the solomid 2v2.

[schild]

So not shocked.

[Krushchev]

Ima win me that 2v2 :D

[Thrawn]

I see we have a couple F13 teams signed up.  Hmm, guess I'll have to take my theorycrafting to pms as to not help out the opposition. :)  I think Gragas/Soraka would be an unbeatable 2v2 combo.  Someone should run it.

[schild]

So, looks like Nidalee might not be getting any nerfs. Devs are ignoring the issue whereas normally they're vocal.

[Thrawn]

A lot of the tournament is just going to be on the fly decisions.  You can theory craft a great team but then game 2 they ban both those characters and you get crushed if you weren't prepared to do something else.  I think the only thing likely to stay steady is in most cases you will want 2 characters with dps and disables, or very very strong dps/utility if they don't have a good disable.

[Thrawn]

Hmm, won't let me edit posts from my phone I guess.  I do wonder how rules are being enforced though, if someone wanders into top lane briefly or a steath character kills some top jungle creeps it's just your word against the other team.  I predict more than one occurance of shenannigens, can't ever have competative play without people trying to cheat unfortunately.

[schild]

Really, the map is so small they shouldn't have made rules about the jungle creeps, but whatever.

[Thrawn]

Agreed, I think the overdone rules are just going to make thing worse.  Having a spectator, limited to one lane, so many things to be discreetly abused by creative players.

[Thrawn]

Just a friendly bump to remind people today is Friday, I'm going to try and remember to make the Couch-Athletics thing tonight.

[schild]

I guess I could.

[Hoax]

Just a friendly bump to remind people today is Friday, I'm going to try and remember to make the Couch-Athletics thing tonight.

I really expect and intend to.

[Thrawn]

Hoax, Schild and I showed up, we cruised to 3-0 victory in the tournament.

[schild]

Team Bat Country, whatup.

[Slayerik]

Nice guys

[schild]

Finals of another tournament we're in, being streamed: http://www.livestream.com/epistemic

[Thrawn]

Finals of another tournament we're in, being streamed: http://www.livestream.com/epistemic

Game over, we win another tournament.  

Video of final game from opponents Kayle - http://www.livestream.com/epistemic/video?clipId=pla_8df931b5-ec44-4b85-aafd-d3b4175ed3c3

Not terribly interesting really, 16:30 ish is when the game really turns when we take them doing dragon.  Really wish you could here the vent chatter better.

[schild]

So true.

[bhodi]

Nice work guys!

[Hoax]

Did you ever find out why so many people took Singed?

Also grats guys, wish I could have stuck around for it.

[Thrawn]

Did you ever find out why so many people took Singed?

Also grats guys, wish I could have stuck around for it.

No.


If you came along and replaced one of our team members it would of been boring, we would of crushed so much harder.

[Prospero]

Gratz on the wins.

[Thrawn]

Still haven't been able to get our 2v2 match rolling, the tournament seems a bit sloppy for various reasons Hoax pointed out well on vent last night.  Whatever, I think I like the larger games anyways.

I feel like we've gotten better on some of our issues like communication, staying together, warding stuff.  But one thing we are still TERRIBLE at is focus fire in team fights and were getting losses because of it. :(