Since it's inception at the start of season 3 the LCS has required teams to list at minimum two substitute players, and Riot currently requires a sub be brought to the World Championships with teams. Subs have seen play numerous times in the two years of LCS. From GGU's multiple sub attempts before settling on Jintae to replace Shiphtur in the inaugural spring split, to SK being forced to use Gilius to replace Svenskeren for their first three matches of the season 4 World Championships, substitutes see play quite frequently in the LCS. Despite the dozens of substitutions required in only two years of the LCS only one team has brought a sub into their gaming house and trained with them as an actual part of their roster.
Most teams in the LCS have a very careless attitude when it comes to substitute players. They treat subs as a check box on the LCS entry forms at worst, and as RoI (return on investment) streambots for their sponsors at best. TSM listed popular streamer Nightblue3 as a substitute player while he posted their sponsor's ads on his stream, but both parties admit he was never going to play in the LCS for TSM and when TSM made a change in the jungle they imported former Copenhagen Wolves jungler Amazing rather than pull up a listed substitute. Speaking of CW, they were last split forced to forfeit a LCS match when mid laner CowTard became ill and CW failed to get the paperwork for their substitute ready in time. When it came time for CW to make roster changes they again ignored their listed substitute Mazzerin, who unlike most had actually made it in for a game, and brought in a new player SorenXD as their new mid laner. When Gambit had visa issues that prevented most of the roster from attending the LCS road trip in England they scouted 4 new players to use as substitutes instead of pulling up either of their listed subs. Examples like this can be found all over the LCS where listed substitutes being used, much less becoming a starter, are an oddity rather than the norm.
Contrast that to other regions where deep rosters are used quite often. Samsung White's Looper is a well known examples to western players as he made his debut with the team at the Season 3 World Championships. LPL's OMG had trained enough with both their support players Dada777 and Cloud to allow them to switch between the players going from group stage to bracket stage during the World Championship and actually see improvement. There's also Chawy for TPA who played multiple games with the team during the GPL season and was reportedly on hand for the Season 4 Championships though not used.
Despite it being quite a common practice in the other World Championship regions the LCS regions have only had 1 single team really attempt the deep roster. That team was Evil Geniuses (EG) back when it was a European team. They brought in Shacker to train with the team and rotate with Snoopeh. The results were a clear success for the team. Snoopeh was fierce in pursuing his starting position again and played some of the best games seen from him in season 3, while Shacker also drove the team forward. Shacker's addition to the team in the summer split of EU LCS helped EG secure a spot in the 2nd-5th tie breaker matches. EG was able to go 2-1 taking 3rd for the regular season. Though EG did fall in playoffs to Gambit landing 4th place just outside a ticket to worlds the success of the experiment is still plain to see in their results.
Though the western scene has for the most part chosen to ignore deep rosters the benefits are plain to see in examples like OMG, and EG. A deep roster of live in substitutes gives teams insurance against whatever random illness or unfortunate life events might sideline a player, with live in subs a game is not simply a write off just because your mid laner can't show up this week. It gives greater flexibility to a team's play style. Subs with different champion pools can rotate in and out depending on opponents to maximize the team's strength, capitalize on a particular enemy weakness, or simply avoid a slump. More than anything deep rosters give more effective training, having another player there to bounce ideas off of, to train specific match ups, and test builds against is an incredible resource many teams go without.
While LCS teams may have mostly ignored the results of the EG experiment change is coming. The next season of OGN will see them move to single team 10 man rosters, a change that if handled properly could strengthen the Korean scene. Instead of splitting focus between two teams with two play styles they'd be able to assemble a ferocious group of 10 that fit seamlessly together and constantly vie for the starting position. Closer to home Team Fusion has commenced another grand experiment like EG's with a 7 man roster living in the house which so far has net them 5th seed in the expansion tournament and a strong chance to make LCS.
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Showing posts with label roster changes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roster changes. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2014
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Riot's new more aggressive region lock is a mistake
Riot has just announced a new policy where 3/5ths of an LCS team needs to meet "residency requirements" in the region they wish to play. They haven't released the exact residency requirements yet but they make it quite clear it's intended to stop an overflow of foreign players taking over. However foreign players permanently overrunning the LCS is an incredibly unlikely scenario, and this rule to combat that worst case scenario could have negative impacts on potential salaries for the best league players in the world.
The new rule is primarily in place to stop full roster moves, like LMQ and the failed Quantic, as well as stop LCS from becoming what Starcraft 2's WCS has been in recent years with all the regions being filled nearly exclusively with Korean players. That unfortunate scenario for SC2 was caused largely by the fact Blizzard ran the majority of the WCS online. Players could live in Korea, play on the Korean server against other Korean opponents, and simply play the majority of their matches remotely. Because Korea was already established as the strongest region in SC2 the lack of LAN play for the majority of SC2 tournaments meant non-Korean players had to invest significantly more for the same chance to compete. Korean players scrimmed on the Korean servers even when they were participating in the North American region, meaning there was no chance for NA local players to get practice against the caliber of players they'd have to defeat to qualify without moving to Korea. NA players would have to move to Korea and play on the Korean servers just to practice against their potential NA opponents. Because of that disproportionate investment required the scene stagnated and Korea remained on top by virtue of simply having been at the top of the pile from the start.
Back in LCS games are not played over the internet with only a handful of LAN tournaments requiring people to show up, instead they are played live in front of an audience 2-3 days a week for 3 straight months at a time. The fact that the LCS is in its entirety a LAN event means teams and players must move to the LCS region they're participating in. Living locally in the LCS region means they scrim local teams and play on the local soloqueue ladder all against other players who live and play in the LCS region. This means just like how Hai and Froggen elevate their respective regions each time they play soloqueue or scrim another team, foreign players who come to compete in LCS like XiaoWeiXiao do the same for that LCS region. Because the LCS is on LAN when a player is imported to play in the LCS, while they do deny a slot to a local player, they provide more and better practice for local players for the duration of their career in the region.
The pre-existing soft region lock for LCS meant that the influx of foreign talent was a self correcting problem. By virtue of being forced to play against their future competition each foreign player added to an LCS region makes it that much less successful for the next foreign player to move over. In fact we've already hit an early milestone on this progression of the problem fixing itself. So called "C tier" players are no longer viable in NA due to the influx of foreign talent. While super star players like Bjergsen, and Dexter, and "B tier" Chinese players like Vasilii and XiaoWeiXiao have proven NA is not done correcting the problem, other attempts like the failed Quantic team, Amazing, Helios, and Seraph have proven there is verifiable progress towards foreign talents being more expensive than they're worth.
If NA had actually followed the worst case scenario people fear and gotten worse by the early importing of Edward, Bjergsen, and Dexter then subsequent imports Quantic, Amazing, Helios, and Seraph should have been slam dunks to only have to compete against other foreign imports in their lanes. Instead the best of them are middle of the pack NA players. Quantic a team of 5 "C tier" Korean players formed to dominate NA failed to even make the promotion tournament. Helios and Seraph, touted as the conquering Koreans come to dominate NA, shook out to be barely middle of the pack in their respective roles, both outclassed by more than one local NA player. Amazing, TSM's slam dunk don't even need to try him out European jungler import completely collapsed; dragging the entire TSM team down with him for the majority of a split before they could finally train him up to be a reliable asset in time for playoffs.
That leaves Lustboy the newest acquisition for TSM who has certainly out performed former teammate Helios so far in his time in the LCS, and the full Chinese roster LMQ. LMQ actually helps further the point that "C tier" foreign talent is no longer viable as the team contains members from the 6th place LPL team, a member of the S3 Worlds runner up team, and several of the players were rising talents on the verge of breaking out in China. Most of LMQ would likely have found starting positions on teams in China had they stayed. On top of that LMQ while managing to stay near the top in NA has struggled to maintain that position all split long sharing top 2 with no less than 3 other NA teams prior to playoffs, and only barely made worlds as the 3rd seed. LMQ is another strong indication that NA is moving up in overall skill and becoming harder for foreign players to enter and find success. LMQ's move to NA LCS also had the added benefit of directly raising the strength of the challenger scene where most other imports only effected it tangentially through Soloqueue. The split LMQ spent competing in the challenger scene made the teams they faced like up and comers Team 8 that much stronger, and helped forge local rising talent Altec into a top ADCs in the NA LCS.
Recent imports make it readily apparent that high profile expensive moves to nab the best foreign talent will soon be the only way to make importing players more valuable than simply training up a rising star from the local challenger scene. In essence the imports would have to return to what was seen originally, pulling in players widely regarded as the best up and coming talents of their regions like Dexter and Bjergsen where when acquired, or competing away an integral part of one of the strongest teams the region has ever seen like with Edward. These big expensive moves due to the fact they're pulling the top tier highest profile players would be both rarer than the recent rash of imports, and far better for players in all regions. When teams from all over compete to secure a top player of a region like Froggen, not only does Froggen benefit but so do all other players. Froggen gets a huge check to secure him against theoretical offers from the likes of CLG or Curse, and players like Bjergsen get to say "hang on a minute, I'm nearly as good as Froggen and get payed 1/3rd what he does! Pay me more or I'll find someone who will." The expense of securing the best players in the world helps all the players get a better salary, and has the added benefit of further stunting foreign talent imports.
Now this is where the new rule moves from jumping the gun on a pointless rule into a full blown mistake. The drive and desire to secure super stars like Froggen, there by helping to increase theirs and other players salaries world wide, is now severely impeded by this rule. Because no LCS team can have more than 2 non-residents many of the teams with the deepest pockets are taken out of the bidding before it even begins when a must have like Froggen becomes available. Before this rule if Froggen's contract were to expire post worlds and he was still seen as the best in EU he could expect offers from most of the wealthy LCS teams in both regions. However after this rule is in place in the same scenario TSM, CLG, LMQ, and EG would all be incapable of putting forward offers due to their number of non-residents already on the teams. This means competition for a star player's contract is lower, and as a result what he can expect to receive as a final offer is likely to also be lower than it would be if multiple additional teams were allowed to participate in the bidding.
It's understandable that Riot wants to calm people's fears of another SC2 situation arising but they are fighting against a non-problem with a rule that actively hinders the growth of LoLesports. Still Riot has decided to take action and lots of people are calling out for something to be done, so here's s way Riot could solve this problem without damaging the growth of the scene.
Simply make this rule apply to teams who enter LCS from the challenger scene. Rewrite the rule to require that any team participating in the promotion or expansion tournaments must have a minimum of 3 players who will meet the residency requirements by or before the start of the next split. The rule will function much like the age requirement for challenger teams, it halts full rosters trying to make it in with low investment into the scene, and it doesn't remove some of the richest teams in LCS as potential bidders for the biggest superstar players. It's still unnecessarily fixing a non-problem like the newly debuted rule, but it does it in a less damaging way.
The current iteration of Riot's new rule is a mistake that fixes a problem that will mostly self correct, while impeding growth of the scene. I am certain that if LCS continues it's current growth rate that within the next few seasons (not splits) Riot will be forced to significantly alter if not completely do away with this rule as it not only becomes obsolete but a more significant impediment to the growth of League of Legends as an esport.
The new rule is primarily in place to stop full roster moves, like LMQ and the failed Quantic, as well as stop LCS from becoming what Starcraft 2's WCS has been in recent years with all the regions being filled nearly exclusively with Korean players. That unfortunate scenario for SC2 was caused largely by the fact Blizzard ran the majority of the WCS online. Players could live in Korea, play on the Korean server against other Korean opponents, and simply play the majority of their matches remotely. Because Korea was already established as the strongest region in SC2 the lack of LAN play for the majority of SC2 tournaments meant non-Korean players had to invest significantly more for the same chance to compete. Korean players scrimmed on the Korean servers even when they were participating in the North American region, meaning there was no chance for NA local players to get practice against the caliber of players they'd have to defeat to qualify without moving to Korea. NA players would have to move to Korea and play on the Korean servers just to practice against their potential NA opponents. Because of that disproportionate investment required the scene stagnated and Korea remained on top by virtue of simply having been at the top of the pile from the start.
Back in LCS games are not played over the internet with only a handful of LAN tournaments requiring people to show up, instead they are played live in front of an audience 2-3 days a week for 3 straight months at a time. The fact that the LCS is in its entirety a LAN event means teams and players must move to the LCS region they're participating in. Living locally in the LCS region means they scrim local teams and play on the local soloqueue ladder all against other players who live and play in the LCS region. This means just like how Hai and Froggen elevate their respective regions each time they play soloqueue or scrim another team, foreign players who come to compete in LCS like XiaoWeiXiao do the same for that LCS region. Because the LCS is on LAN when a player is imported to play in the LCS, while they do deny a slot to a local player, they provide more and better practice for local players for the duration of their career in the region.
The pre-existing soft region lock for LCS meant that the influx of foreign talent was a self correcting problem. By virtue of being forced to play against their future competition each foreign player added to an LCS region makes it that much less successful for the next foreign player to move over. In fact we've already hit an early milestone on this progression of the problem fixing itself. So called "C tier" players are no longer viable in NA due to the influx of foreign talent. While super star players like Bjergsen, and Dexter, and "B tier" Chinese players like Vasilii and XiaoWeiXiao have proven NA is not done correcting the problem, other attempts like the failed Quantic team, Amazing, Helios, and Seraph have proven there is verifiable progress towards foreign talents being more expensive than they're worth.
If NA had actually followed the worst case scenario people fear and gotten worse by the early importing of Edward, Bjergsen, and Dexter then subsequent imports Quantic, Amazing, Helios, and Seraph should have been slam dunks to only have to compete against other foreign imports in their lanes. Instead the best of them are middle of the pack NA players. Quantic a team of 5 "C tier" Korean players formed to dominate NA failed to even make the promotion tournament. Helios and Seraph, touted as the conquering Koreans come to dominate NA, shook out to be barely middle of the pack in their respective roles, both outclassed by more than one local NA player. Amazing, TSM's slam dunk don't even need to try him out European jungler import completely collapsed; dragging the entire TSM team down with him for the majority of a split before they could finally train him up to be a reliable asset in time for playoffs.
That leaves Lustboy the newest acquisition for TSM who has certainly out performed former teammate Helios so far in his time in the LCS, and the full Chinese roster LMQ. LMQ actually helps further the point that "C tier" foreign talent is no longer viable as the team contains members from the 6th place LPL team, a member of the S3 Worlds runner up team, and several of the players were rising talents on the verge of breaking out in China. Most of LMQ would likely have found starting positions on teams in China had they stayed. On top of that LMQ while managing to stay near the top in NA has struggled to maintain that position all split long sharing top 2 with no less than 3 other NA teams prior to playoffs, and only barely made worlds as the 3rd seed. LMQ is another strong indication that NA is moving up in overall skill and becoming harder for foreign players to enter and find success. LMQ's move to NA LCS also had the added benefit of directly raising the strength of the challenger scene where most other imports only effected it tangentially through Soloqueue. The split LMQ spent competing in the challenger scene made the teams they faced like up and comers Team 8 that much stronger, and helped forge local rising talent Altec into a top ADCs in the NA LCS.
Recent imports make it readily apparent that high profile expensive moves to nab the best foreign talent will soon be the only way to make importing players more valuable than simply training up a rising star from the local challenger scene. In essence the imports would have to return to what was seen originally, pulling in players widely regarded as the best up and coming talents of their regions like Dexter and Bjergsen where when acquired, or competing away an integral part of one of the strongest teams the region has ever seen like with Edward. These big expensive moves due to the fact they're pulling the top tier highest profile players would be both rarer than the recent rash of imports, and far better for players in all regions. When teams from all over compete to secure a top player of a region like Froggen, not only does Froggen benefit but so do all other players. Froggen gets a huge check to secure him against theoretical offers from the likes of CLG or Curse, and players like Bjergsen get to say "hang on a minute, I'm nearly as good as Froggen and get payed 1/3rd what he does! Pay me more or I'll find someone who will." The expense of securing the best players in the world helps all the players get a better salary, and has the added benefit of further stunting foreign talent imports.
Now this is where the new rule moves from jumping the gun on a pointless rule into a full blown mistake. The drive and desire to secure super stars like Froggen, there by helping to increase theirs and other players salaries world wide, is now severely impeded by this rule. Because no LCS team can have more than 2 non-residents many of the teams with the deepest pockets are taken out of the bidding before it even begins when a must have like Froggen becomes available. Before this rule if Froggen's contract were to expire post worlds and he was still seen as the best in EU he could expect offers from most of the wealthy LCS teams in both regions. However after this rule is in place in the same scenario TSM, CLG, LMQ, and EG would all be incapable of putting forward offers due to their number of non-residents already on the teams. This means competition for a star player's contract is lower, and as a result what he can expect to receive as a final offer is likely to also be lower than it would be if multiple additional teams were allowed to participate in the bidding.
It's understandable that Riot wants to calm people's fears of another SC2 situation arising but they are fighting against a non-problem with a rule that actively hinders the growth of LoLesports. Still Riot has decided to take action and lots of people are calling out for something to be done, so here's s way Riot could solve this problem without damaging the growth of the scene.
Simply make this rule apply to teams who enter LCS from the challenger scene. Rewrite the rule to require that any team participating in the promotion or expansion tournaments must have a minimum of 3 players who will meet the residency requirements by or before the start of the next split. The rule will function much like the age requirement for challenger teams, it halts full rosters trying to make it in with low investment into the scene, and it doesn't remove some of the richest teams in LCS as potential bidders for the biggest superstar players. It's still unnecessarily fixing a non-problem like the newly debuted rule, but it does it in a less damaging way.
The current iteration of Riot's new rule is a mistake that fixes a problem that will mostly self correct, while impeding growth of the scene. I am certain that if LCS continues it's current growth rate that within the next few seasons (not splits) Riot will be forced to significantly alter if not completely do away with this rule as it not only becomes obsolete but a more significant impediment to the growth of League of Legends as an esport.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Speculation Zone: Lustboy has been headed to TSM for awhile.
Let me first preface this by reinforcing that like the title states, this is speculation based on available facts. These conclusions are NOT confirmed, nor should we ever expect them to be.
It's no secret that the community at large was skeptical when TSM announced Gleeb as their new support at the start of the summer split. Gleeb was a largely unproven challenger scene support who had to fill the shoes of Xpecial, who was at the time widely regarded as one of if not the best support in the NA LCS. Despite Gleeb making a ton of progress in his 9 weeks of NA LCS play it's painfully obvious to everyone that TSM has not lived up to expectations for this split.
While TSM does sit tied for 2nd in the standings it's almost entirely off the back of being consistent against the worst teams in the league. Against the other 4 top teams TSM has a disheartening 3-9 record this split. Their inability to succeed regularly against the best teams in the league is what had many write them off the World Championship predictions entirely. It was painfully clear that if TSM wanted to have a good shot at defeating at least two of those top teams to even secure the 3rd place ticket to Worlds something had to change.
When some cryptic clues began to surface the fans went to work trying to tell what changes could be in store for TSM. What resulted was the theory that former CJ Entus Blaze support Lustboy could be joining TSM. All parties were quick to downplay the idea and many people cited the fact that it would be a terrible move to make a mid season roster swap if you're hoping to make playoffs and Worlds. After the standard round of denials things went quiet for a bit and everyone assumed it was just a rumor that got out of control, but then the funniest thing happened. This week TSM actually announced Lustboy has joined their starting roster.
Here's where the speculation comes in. It's hard to believe that those who first theorized Lustboy heading to TSM a month in advance of the announcement could have been so spot on with their prediction when it was supposedly unthinkable at the time. A more likely answer is that TSM, well aware of the dangers of a mid season roster swap the critics pointed out, began tentative talks with Lustboy a month ago. Once informed that playoffs would be at PAX again this year, and that there'd be a 2 week break between regular season and playoffs, TSM set about acquiring Lustboy with intent to delay his joining the team until the best possible date for the team.
The TSM roster while not a contender for Worlds was still a decent roster, and importantly it was still incredibly consistent against the bottom 3 teams in NA. Even a month ago it was becoming readily apparent that the TSM roster could secure at minimum the 6th playoff spot simply off the back of their victories over the lower tier teams who were starved for wins this split. So a quite sensible plan ensues, Lustboy is hired by TSM, though not publicly, with intent to delay him until TSM locks up their playoff spot or until the deadline for acquiring new players, July 29th according to the LCS rulebook. With this plan TSM could minimize potential damage of a mid season roster swap, and still have at least 3 weeks to whip the new team into shape for playoffs.
So if TSM planned this for the last month and the deadline isn't until after the next LCS week, why are they breaking out Lustboy now? Because as of their victory over compLexity last Sunday TSM has now officially locked down their playoff spot. TSM sits tied for 2nd in the NA LCS standings at 13-9 and 7th place CoL sits at 7-15. If TSM dropped all 6 remaining games, and compLexity won all 6 of their remaining games CoL could only tie TSM for 6th place. However as TSM holds the head to head record 4-0 over CoL they would automatically win the tie breaker and secure 6th place.
This is the absolute best possible time to make a mid season roster change. At the worst Lustboy cannot drag TSM down out of playoffs, and at best he could help them secure a 1st round bye by securing a top 2 position. By bringing in Lustboy now TSM has in a way gamed the LCS system. They eliminated all of the risk associated with a mid season roster swap while still having the potential for a huge payoff if it goes well.
All the teams are quite vocal about problems in the LCS system that create this kind of loophole, and TSM owner Reginald is often credited for his shrewd roster decisions. It's unlikely that we'd ever receive confirmation that the Lustboy transfer was all planned, but one must admit it's interesting to speculate that TSM could have been planning this move for over a month.
It's no secret that the community at large was skeptical when TSM announced Gleeb as their new support at the start of the summer split. Gleeb was a largely unproven challenger scene support who had to fill the shoes of Xpecial, who was at the time widely regarded as one of if not the best support in the NA LCS. Despite Gleeb making a ton of progress in his 9 weeks of NA LCS play it's painfully obvious to everyone that TSM has not lived up to expectations for this split.
While TSM does sit tied for 2nd in the standings it's almost entirely off the back of being consistent against the worst teams in the league. Against the other 4 top teams TSM has a disheartening 3-9 record this split. Their inability to succeed regularly against the best teams in the league is what had many write them off the World Championship predictions entirely. It was painfully clear that if TSM wanted to have a good shot at defeating at least two of those top teams to even secure the 3rd place ticket to Worlds something had to change.
When some cryptic clues began to surface the fans went to work trying to tell what changes could be in store for TSM. What resulted was the theory that former CJ Entus Blaze support Lustboy could be joining TSM. All parties were quick to downplay the idea and many people cited the fact that it would be a terrible move to make a mid season roster swap if you're hoping to make playoffs and Worlds. After the standard round of denials things went quiet for a bit and everyone assumed it was just a rumor that got out of control, but then the funniest thing happened. This week TSM actually announced Lustboy has joined their starting roster.
Here's where the speculation comes in. It's hard to believe that those who first theorized Lustboy heading to TSM a month in advance of the announcement could have been so spot on with their prediction when it was supposedly unthinkable at the time. A more likely answer is that TSM, well aware of the dangers of a mid season roster swap the critics pointed out, began tentative talks with Lustboy a month ago. Once informed that playoffs would be at PAX again this year, and that there'd be a 2 week break between regular season and playoffs, TSM set about acquiring Lustboy with intent to delay his joining the team until the best possible date for the team.
The TSM roster while not a contender for Worlds was still a decent roster, and importantly it was still incredibly consistent against the bottom 3 teams in NA. Even a month ago it was becoming readily apparent that the TSM roster could secure at minimum the 6th playoff spot simply off the back of their victories over the lower tier teams who were starved for wins this split. So a quite sensible plan ensues, Lustboy is hired by TSM, though not publicly, with intent to delay him until TSM locks up their playoff spot or until the deadline for acquiring new players, July 29th according to the LCS rulebook. With this plan TSM could minimize potential damage of a mid season roster swap, and still have at least 3 weeks to whip the new team into shape for playoffs.
So if TSM planned this for the last month and the deadline isn't until after the next LCS week, why are they breaking out Lustboy now? Because as of their victory over compLexity last Sunday TSM has now officially locked down their playoff spot. TSM sits tied for 2nd in the NA LCS standings at 13-9 and 7th place CoL sits at 7-15. If TSM dropped all 6 remaining games, and compLexity won all 6 of their remaining games CoL could only tie TSM for 6th place. However as TSM holds the head to head record 4-0 over CoL they would automatically win the tie breaker and secure 6th place.
This is the absolute best possible time to make a mid season roster change. At the worst Lustboy cannot drag TSM down out of playoffs, and at best he could help them secure a 1st round bye by securing a top 2 position. By bringing in Lustboy now TSM has in a way gamed the LCS system. They eliminated all of the risk associated with a mid season roster swap while still having the potential for a huge payoff if it goes well.
All the teams are quite vocal about problems in the LCS system that create this kind of loophole, and TSM owner Reginald is often credited for his shrewd roster decisions. It's unlikely that we'd ever receive confirmation that the Lustboy transfer was all planned, but one must admit it's interesting to speculate that TSM could have been planning this move for over a month.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Altec is a good first step for Evil Geniuses, but they've still got plenty of work to do
After being forced to defend their LCS spot yet again last split Evil Geniuses knew they had to do something to stay competitive. That something turned out to be signing former Cloud 9 Tempest, who EG successfully defeated to retain their LCS spot, AD Carry Altec to replace Yellowpete. Many EG fans were critical of the move, considering the always consistent Yellowpete to be the least of EG's problems. While it's true that Yellowpete's consistent, never feed but never really carry, play was not an active detriment to the team, it's quickly become abundantly clear that Altec is an enormous boon for EG.
After five games in the first two weeks (he had to miss the first day due to delayed paperwork) Altec has put EG's bot lane on the map as one to be reckoned with. Instead of Yellowpete's mostly ignore-able consistent play Altec threatens to run away with games by himself if left unchecked. In such a short time Altec has already posted some impressive scores including 4/2/4 in a loss to TSM, 8/3/2 in a loss to Dignitas, and 3/0/9 in EG's victory over CompLexity. The threat of Altec carrying a game for EG cannot be underestimated, and that threat means teams can't focus as heavily on Pobelter and Innox and still be successful like they could last split.
Adding Altec and creating an additional threat on the team was a great first step for EG, but it was still just a first step. EG went 1-5 in it's their six games and they've got a ton of work to do if they're going to turn things around.
Pobelter and Innox both need to work on their consistency. Both of EG's solo laners have turned in some utterly amazing games to carry the team to victory Most recently including Innox's crushing of Yazuki that carried EG back to the LCS in the relegation tournament. However, both players have turned in some disgustingly poor performances in the previous split. For EG to break out of the bottom of the pack both of their solo laners will have to fix their own mistakes so they can move into the mid game strong instead of playing from behind. So far things are getting better on this front, Innox is turning in more good games than bad ones in the split push top laner meta, and Pobelter is finished with school and moving into the EG house to practice full time.
Snoopeh needs to work on his timing. The EG jungler has taken more than his fair share of flak in the last year, though it's primarily incorrectly focused on his mechanics. While Snoopeh's not exactly on par with world class junglers like SKT T1 K's Bengi, he's far from being the worst jungler to compete in the NA LCS much less bad enough to drag his whole team down with him. No, the real problem for Snoopeh seems to be in his timing. Whether he's wasting time top lane looking for a gank that isn't going to happen, hatching a ward in the river, or arriving too late to the party bottom, Snoopeh never quite seems to be in the right place at the right time. Almost never do we see Snoopeh actually correctly predict the enemy junglers movements enough to setup a counter gank, like the one Brokenshard pulled off against Cloud 9 to create CompLexity's first win of the split. More effective use of his time from Snoopeh would go a long way to developing early leads for EG that they could convert into victories.
Above all else to be competitive EG must fix their shot calling. From engaging a fight before everyone's close enough to participate, to trading Baron for their Nexus. EG has made terrible call after terrible call and it has got to stop. The indecisive nature of EG's calls has been a major pitfall of the team since they first joined the NA LCS and it's not an easy fix, but there is a glimmer of hope. EG's victory over CompLexity had some of the crispest play the team has ever seen. Sadly the team devolved back to their normal selves the next day against Curse, but it's still a glimmer of hope for EG.
If the Evil Geniuses can find and harness whatever magic it was that propelled them through CompLexity with such ease they could, despite their other problems, actually go toe to toe with some of the best in NA and come out on top thanks in large part to now having all three lanes threatening to carry.
After five games in the first two weeks (he had to miss the first day due to delayed paperwork) Altec has put EG's bot lane on the map as one to be reckoned with. Instead of Yellowpete's mostly ignore-able consistent play Altec threatens to run away with games by himself if left unchecked. In such a short time Altec has already posted some impressive scores including 4/2/4 in a loss to TSM, 8/3/2 in a loss to Dignitas, and 3/0/9 in EG's victory over CompLexity. The threat of Altec carrying a game for EG cannot be underestimated, and that threat means teams can't focus as heavily on Pobelter and Innox and still be successful like they could last split.
Adding Altec and creating an additional threat on the team was a great first step for EG, but it was still just a first step. EG went 1-5 in it's their six games and they've got a ton of work to do if they're going to turn things around.
Pobelter and Innox both need to work on their consistency. Both of EG's solo laners have turned in some utterly amazing games to carry the team to victory Most recently including Innox's crushing of Yazuki that carried EG back to the LCS in the relegation tournament. However, both players have turned in some disgustingly poor performances in the previous split. For EG to break out of the bottom of the pack both of their solo laners will have to fix their own mistakes so they can move into the mid game strong instead of playing from behind. So far things are getting better on this front, Innox is turning in more good games than bad ones in the split push top laner meta, and Pobelter is finished with school and moving into the EG house to practice full time.
Snoopeh needs to work on his timing. The EG jungler has taken more than his fair share of flak in the last year, though it's primarily incorrectly focused on his mechanics. While Snoopeh's not exactly on par with world class junglers like SKT T1 K's Bengi, he's far from being the worst jungler to compete in the NA LCS much less bad enough to drag his whole team down with him. No, the real problem for Snoopeh seems to be in his timing. Whether he's wasting time top lane looking for a gank that isn't going to happen, hatching a ward in the river, or arriving too late to the party bottom, Snoopeh never quite seems to be in the right place at the right time. Almost never do we see Snoopeh actually correctly predict the enemy junglers movements enough to setup a counter gank, like the one Brokenshard pulled off against Cloud 9 to create CompLexity's first win of the split. More effective use of his time from Snoopeh would go a long way to developing early leads for EG that they could convert into victories.
Above all else to be competitive EG must fix their shot calling. From engaging a fight before everyone's close enough to participate, to trading Baron for their Nexus. EG has made terrible call after terrible call and it has got to stop. The indecisive nature of EG's calls has been a major pitfall of the team since they first joined the NA LCS and it's not an easy fix, but there is a glimmer of hope. EG's victory over CompLexity had some of the crispest play the team has ever seen. Sadly the team devolved back to their normal selves the next day against Curse, but it's still a glimmer of hope for EG.
If the Evil Geniuses can find and harness whatever magic it was that propelled them through CompLexity with such ease they could, despite their other problems, actually go toe to toe with some of the best in NA and come out on top thanks in large part to now having all three lanes threatening to carry.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
NA's influx of foreign talent is not a death knell, it's a challenge
It seems in the wake of LMQ qualifying for NA LCS and players like Amazing and Seraph being imported by NA teams all the talk is about allowing foreign players into the NA LCS. Complaints about holding down NA talent range from pointing out more than 1/4th of NA LCS will be foreign players to the fact that only 3 of 8 junglers will be from NA in the next split.While NA players predict doom for NA, in truth the importing of foreign talent is completely the opposite.
The only solid argument against foreign players boils down to it having a negative effect because it removes NA competition. Often people cite the StarCraft 2 WCS where a lack of region locking has had a clear deleterious effect. It is certainly true that the WCS lack of region locking has exacerbated a problem in the StarCraft scene. You must live in Korea and play on the Korean SC2 server in order to be competitive and Korean players flock to other regions looking for a sure spot that they otherwise would likely fail to grab in Korea. The lack of region locking and the allowance for players to telecommute means local players never get to play those at the top level, and as a result never get the practice needed to be true competition without moving to Korea.
Unlike the WCS, the LCS requires players to show up and play live, in studio, every week; as well as qualify playing via the local server over an extended period. There is no WCS style show up for a week and otherwise play online via Korean servers from Korea. The LCS requirements are stiff enough that if you so much as don't live in the same state as the studio you're going to have a bad time which Curse, TSM, and Gambit have all attested to. This means even foreign players coming into the NA LCS are forced to play on the NA servers with and against the NA players.
Not only is bringing in foreign players not creating a WCS style scenario, it's also actively improving the global LoL scene as a whole. Players are becoming more valuable, lured over with promises of more money and better amenities. In order to keep all their own talent being bled away foreign organizations have to pay more and treat their players better. The knowledge that teams with big American bank rolls are willing to pick up talent from anywhere gives every player a stronger bargaining position, as a direct result every player is able to earn more and live better as a pro player.
On top of raising potential earnings Foreign players also help native players improve skill wise. It's no doubt that the NA players of season 3 were simply not on par with EU, China, or Korea, no matter how you look at it they were going to have to get better. Foreign competition doesn't just immediately improve the scene with an influx of new talent, they also serve as free personal trainers for every local player who runs across them in solo-queue. The way to beat the best is to compete against the best, and now NA players have access to more pros on an even higher level. The short term is players like Oddone, Elementz, Scarra, and other players who were not world class find themselves out of a job, the long term is they've been challenged to use a free sparring partner and get to the level they always needed to reach to be a world champion.
The truth of the matter is that any player replaced by foreign talent likely had low chances on the world stage anyways. It's hard to have that thrown in your face, but it's not the beginnings of the scene's apocalypse. It is an invitation, a challenge, to finally dig down deep and become the player required by a World Champion team. The NA LCS is going to be much stronger this summer thanks to the influx of new players, and the challenger scene will be better when relegations come about thanks to months of practice against a new set of best in NA players who've raised the bar.
The only solid argument against foreign players boils down to it having a negative effect because it removes NA competition. Often people cite the StarCraft 2 WCS where a lack of region locking has had a clear deleterious effect. It is certainly true that the WCS lack of region locking has exacerbated a problem in the StarCraft scene. You must live in Korea and play on the Korean SC2 server in order to be competitive and Korean players flock to other regions looking for a sure spot that they otherwise would likely fail to grab in Korea. The lack of region locking and the allowance for players to telecommute means local players never get to play those at the top level, and as a result never get the practice needed to be true competition without moving to Korea.
Unlike the WCS, the LCS requires players to show up and play live, in studio, every week; as well as qualify playing via the local server over an extended period. There is no WCS style show up for a week and otherwise play online via Korean servers from Korea. The LCS requirements are stiff enough that if you so much as don't live in the same state as the studio you're going to have a bad time which Curse, TSM, and Gambit have all attested to. This means even foreign players coming into the NA LCS are forced to play on the NA servers with and against the NA players.
Not only is bringing in foreign players not creating a WCS style scenario, it's also actively improving the global LoL scene as a whole. Players are becoming more valuable, lured over with promises of more money and better amenities. In order to keep all their own talent being bled away foreign organizations have to pay more and treat their players better. The knowledge that teams with big American bank rolls are willing to pick up talent from anywhere gives every player a stronger bargaining position, as a direct result every player is able to earn more and live better as a pro player.
On top of raising potential earnings Foreign players also help native players improve skill wise. It's no doubt that the NA players of season 3 were simply not on par with EU, China, or Korea, no matter how you look at it they were going to have to get better. Foreign competition doesn't just immediately improve the scene with an influx of new talent, they also serve as free personal trainers for every local player who runs across them in solo-queue. The way to beat the best is to compete against the best, and now NA players have access to more pros on an even higher level. The short term is players like Oddone, Elementz, Scarra, and other players who were not world class find themselves out of a job, the long term is they've been challenged to use a free sparring partner and get to the level they always needed to reach to be a world champion.
The truth of the matter is that any player replaced by foreign talent likely had low chances on the world stage anyways. It's hard to have that thrown in your face, but it's not the beginnings of the scene's apocalypse. It is an invitation, a challenge, to finally dig down deep and become the player required by a World Champion team. The NA LCS is going to be much stronger this summer thanks to the influx of new players, and the challenger scene will be better when relegations come about thanks to months of practice against a new set of best in NA players who've raised the bar.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Nien's departure leaves gaping hole in CLG roster.
By the time HotshotGG stepped down from his position in the top lane of CLG the professional meta had shifted heavily from that of solo queue. 2v1 lane swaps, fast pushes, rotations, and objective control were king and the old guard were forced to adapt or die. Solo queue was no longer good at prepping top laners for what they'd face in the LCS, and incredibly skilled solo queue laners were getting destroyed by a constant wave of 1v2. Even some of the best LCS top lanes of the time such as Dyrus, Megazero, and Soaz were vocal in their dislike and struggles with the 1v2 that top lane had become.
With solo queue failing to teach the necessary skills, and even LCS alum struggling to cope, how would CLG fill the top lane? Thus formed a wild idea. Instead of trying to break through the bad habits and false lessons instilled by solo queue CLG would pull a mechanically gifted former LCS player, such as an ADC or mid laner, who'd never played top before and purpose build them for professional play. Instead of learning how to 1v1 on Riven, they'd teach their new top laner how to hold a tower 1v2 as Shyvana. Instead of learning how to split push as Tryndamere, they'd teach the new top laner how to combine Mundo and TP to generate intense pressure. A purpose built top laner specifically for the unique meta of professional top lane was created, CLG Nien.
The community backlash was strong, spurred on by things like Nien's former team mate and popular top laner Megazero criticizing CLG for passing him over in favor of Nien an at the time AD Carry. These sentiments would sour a vocal section of the community against Nien for the duration of his time on CLG and even color the judgement of some prominent esports personalities. Ultimately this section of the community would be cited by Nien as a contributing factor to his departure from the team after a full year of play and CLG's first ever positive results in the LCS.
Contrary to that wildly popular sentiment though, Nien was not a weak player. The most often lorded examples of Nien's "bad" play were actually the exact opposite. He was often criticized for being caught out farming behind an enemy tower, over staying with a hefty sum of gold built up, or being caught out tower diving an opponent. In all the cases Nien did indeed make mistakes resulting in his death which anti-fans and esports journalists alike would foolishly trumpet as proof that Nien was a bad player. The truth however is the exact opposite, not one of those scenarios is possible when losing. You can't get caught out dirty farming behind an enemy tower if you're behind, the enemy laner would simply kill you 1v1 as you'd have no place to go. You cannot be caught out tower diving an opponent when you're losing the lane, as you'd never have won enough trades to have the health disparity making a dive possible in the first place. And you certainly cannot stay in lane with over 2k gold in your pocket while losing the lane, you'd be crushed under your tower long before you could build to that point. This is not to say Nien was without his flaws, of course he made mistakes. He would occasionally lose lane to stronger duelists Balls or Dyrus on top of the mistakes born of greed listed above that would often result in his death.
Many of Nien's critics, blinded by their own solo queue mentality, have spoken at lengths about how better players would have survived the scenarios where Nien faltered, and they are in a sense correct. If we were to blind ourselves to everything but the top lane and compare Nien to someone like the much vaunted, and often fan requested to be the new CLG top laner, Zorozero it would be no contest. In a pure 1v1 head to head Zoro would smash Nien over and again in most matchups. League of Legends is however not a 1v1, and professional play is a long way removed from the smash your lane and carry by yourself attitude of solo queue.
When we separate away the lane phase and compare the team play impact of both players Zorozero is simply out classed a thousand times over. Nien's 1v2s, rotations, usage of teleport pressure, and willingness to sacrifice his own score to allow his team to win, all those things CLG wanted to purpose build into a top laner, result in Nien having more than double Zorozero's time spent fighting with his team when they needed him and a far greater impact on games. Even in the recent promotion matches with Teleport being so heavily buffed Zorozero's team impact was a shadow of what we've seen from Nien for the entire split.
League of Legends is a team game, and the importance of that team work has never been more apparent in the professional scene than it is today. CLG knew they'd have to build a top laner from the ground up to avoid the pitfalls generated by solo queue top lane play. Now with Nien gone there's a gaping wound in CLG's lineup and too few weeks to heal it. At best CLG finds a stop-gap in the form of an individually strong player like Zorozero or Megazero and fumbles their way around their solo queue bad habits to place in the top 4 again. At worst CLG is forced to start all over again training a new top laner from the ground up. Either way the hope of continued improvement and, a trip to Worlds this year, is low. Caused in part by the community's inability to cope with a player changing positions.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Millenium hopes Kottenx can bring them a last minute miracle.
This Sunday Araneae announced with a lengthy and emotional facebook post that he was stepping down as Millenium's starting jungler. He cited the team's poor performance and his own lack of confidence and motivation as the reasoning behind the decision. Millenium were quick to follow that up with their own announcement that sub and high elo player Kottenx would be taking over the role for the remaining 6 games of the EU LCS spring split. Many fans expressed worry that such a late roster change in a critical role could be sealing Millenium's fate as the last place EU team, but there is still reasonable hope for Millenium's playoff chances or at least a more favorable relegation.
Millenium currently sits in last place at 7-15 they're two games back from the 9-13 SHC and 3 games back from the 6th place playoff spot currently held by 10-12 CW. This means that with a strong showing Millenium does still have a reasonable shot at snatching a last second playoff spot. If Kottenx can solve Millenium's late game decision making issues it's hardly unreasonable for a team in Europe to pull off a 6-0 run for the playoffs. Copenhagen Wolves much win 3 matches, or 2 if one of them is against Millenium, to lock Millenium out of the playoffs. Supa Hot Crew must win 5 games to secure their lead over Millenium.
So long as Millenium can pick up wins their hopes to at least improve their relegation chances will remain alive right to the very end. If Millenium drops the game againts CW their playoffs could be dashed immediately as CW would only need 1 more win to lock Millenium out of the top 6. Millenium is no doubt hoping the roster change keeps their playoff dreams alive but we wont find out how well it's worked until Thursday.
Friday, January 3, 2014
CLG left without a starting Jungler after Dexter turned away at US border.
Today Marcel "Dexter" Feldkamp tweeted that he'd been denied entry to the united states including a night in jail.
#1: Brian "Trickz" Ahn. Many will remember Trickz playing for CLG during IEM Cologne 2013 back in November. While Trickz did occasionally seem shaky, likely due to his inexperience at LAN events, during IEM Cologne, his play was a large part in the success of CLG at the event. Gank pressure provided by Trickz helped CLG mid laner Link run rampant over superstar Fnatic Xpeke in two of CLG's three games. Champion picks during IEM also showed Trickz can play the current top tier junglers like Vi and Shyvana. Even as just a temporary fill in Trickz could go a long way to helping CLG start the LCS off strong.
#2. Michael "Bigfatlp" Tang. Bigfatlp has been an off and on staple of the CLG lineup for years, and served as CLG's jungler in the season 3 summer split of the LCS. The level one strategies that all members of CLG credited to Bigfatlp were an enormous factor in several CLG victories including both of those picked against Cloud 9. His immense game knowledge and dedication to research clearly outshine whatever problems the highly underrated Bigfatlp may have. The biggest problem with bringing back Bigfatlp yet again would be the tendency CLG has to fall into bad habits, and they simply do not need a repeat of the underwhelming summer split.
#3. George "HotshotGG" Geogallidis. Team owner and long time fan favorite HotshotGG stepped back from the team at the start of the Season 3 LCS summer split making way for Nientonsoh to take over in the top lane. Despite that HotshotGG has continued to play and stream League of Legends at a high level. HotshotGG has previous played jungle for CLG during season 2 and is well known for his fondness for the tanky farm heavy champions similar to the current strong jungle picks. The farm heavy tanky jungle meta is quite similar to the season 2 jungle HotshotGG was a part of. The return of HotshotGG to jungle could work as a short term stop gap while CLG waits for Dexter's visa to be cleared, and the fan buzz from the move could certainly help drive interest in the early weeks of the LCS.
Obviously these are not CLG's only options, there is the possibility of pulling up someone from the Challenger scene. One of these three options seems the most likely fill in for Dexter however, largely due to a mix of HotshotGG's sentiments on available NA talent and the fact that many players are tied up fighting for a place in the Coke Zero Challenger league. Whatever move CLG makes we'll certainly know soon as they've got to field a team for the first day of LCS on January 17th.
Embedded tweets property of the respective twitter accounts.
Visa got cancelled. On my way Home again for nothing
— Marcel Feldkamp (@MarcelFeldkamp) January 3, 2014
I also had the pleasure to spend a night in a cell. Fuck my LifeCLG was quick to issue a few tweets to verify the situation.
— Marcel Feldkamp (@MarcelFeldkamp) January 3, 2014
To confirm, @MarcelFeldkamp got denied entry to the US, unsure at this point what our options are
— Counter Logic Gaming (@clgaming) January 3, 2014
We don't know why he got denied or how long till he can come back yet. His athlete visa needs to be approved before he comes back howeverThis unfortunately means that as of this writing CLG has no starting jungler for the LCS season which starts in only 14 days. With any luck CLG, Riot, and Dexter will be able to work things out with US immigration and get Dexter in the states in time for the LCS, but in case they don't I'm going to go over a few of the likely jungler options for CLG in the meantime.
— Counter Logic Gaming (@clgaming) January 3, 2014
#1: Brian "Trickz" Ahn. Many will remember Trickz playing for CLG during IEM Cologne 2013 back in November. While Trickz did occasionally seem shaky, likely due to his inexperience at LAN events, during IEM Cologne, his play was a large part in the success of CLG at the event. Gank pressure provided by Trickz helped CLG mid laner Link run rampant over superstar Fnatic Xpeke in two of CLG's three games. Champion picks during IEM also showed Trickz can play the current top tier junglers like Vi and Shyvana. Even as just a temporary fill in Trickz could go a long way to helping CLG start the LCS off strong.
#2. Michael "Bigfatlp" Tang. Bigfatlp has been an off and on staple of the CLG lineup for years, and served as CLG's jungler in the season 3 summer split of the LCS. The level one strategies that all members of CLG credited to Bigfatlp were an enormous factor in several CLG victories including both of those picked against Cloud 9. His immense game knowledge and dedication to research clearly outshine whatever problems the highly underrated Bigfatlp may have. The biggest problem with bringing back Bigfatlp yet again would be the tendency CLG has to fall into bad habits, and they simply do not need a repeat of the underwhelming summer split.
#3. George "HotshotGG" Geogallidis. Team owner and long time fan favorite HotshotGG stepped back from the team at the start of the Season 3 LCS summer split making way for Nientonsoh to take over in the top lane. Despite that HotshotGG has continued to play and stream League of Legends at a high level. HotshotGG has previous played jungle for CLG during season 2 and is well known for his fondness for the tanky farm heavy champions similar to the current strong jungle picks. The farm heavy tanky jungle meta is quite similar to the season 2 jungle HotshotGG was a part of. The return of HotshotGG to jungle could work as a short term stop gap while CLG waits for Dexter's visa to be cleared, and the fan buzz from the move could certainly help drive interest in the early weeks of the LCS.
Obviously these are not CLG's only options, there is the possibility of pulling up someone from the Challenger scene. One of these three options seems the most likely fill in for Dexter however, largely due to a mix of HotshotGG's sentiments on available NA talent and the fact that many players are tied up fighting for a place in the Coke Zero Challenger league. Whatever move CLG makes we'll certainly know soon as they've got to field a team for the first day of LCS on January 17th.
Embedded tweets property of the respective twitter accounts.
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