League of Legends - Road to Worlds Season 5

[osmosisch]

CLG-TSM is pretty amazing so far as well. Good time to be watching League.

[Deadpan]

So the matchup that everyone expected to provide a decisive 3-0 turned into a 3-2 nailbiter, and the matchup where nobody was quite sure how it would go turned into a decisive 3-0 for who most people consider the slightly weaker team.

 

Interesting finals alright.

[osmosisch]

I have to say I believe Fnatic were also experimenting a bit with stuff like the Tahm Kench pick. Good idea to get your oddball strategies fire-tested while the stakes are still relatively low.

[Deadpan]

Yeah, that was interesting to see. I guess they really don't care about their track record as much as everyone else.

[Badfinger]

Well color me disappointed with the NA result. I can't say it was unwarranted or unexpected, though. CLG did what they've done in most of the TSM matchups over the last year and a half - dominate early with superior rotations and map play. They just didn't make the fatal mistake they always do, and it turns out that when you keep building advantages without giving them away you do alright!

 

I totally believe Fnatic was experimenting, but the difference between winning the split and not winning it is pretty important. Winning the split gives you the first seed out of the region at worlds, which gives you the opportunity to do things like not be put in group stages with the #1 seeds from other regions.

 

So the lineup for Worlds is halfway locked in!

 

http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/2015_Season_World_Championship

 

4 seeds from NA & EU are determined. Once Korea has their finals we'll know two seeds as well (SKT & either KT or Koo). Each of those regions has a Regional Final to determine the 3rd seed, similar to the Korean playoffs gauntlet. Seeding is determined by total yearly circuit points. Team Liquid, UOL, and again either KT or Koo will be seeded directly to the finals of the gauntlet and only have to win a best of 5.

 

China's an insane place where there's only one auto qualifier and everyone else has to run the gauntlet. The two finalists both earn seeds, with the winner getting the higher seed. After that there's international wild card qualifiers and we're all set for Worlds!

[Badfinger]

Korea has two teams now qualified for Worlds, as KOO wins the auto-bid on points after SKT dismantled KT in the Summer Champions Final. SKT has won Spring and Summer in convincing fashion, and even with China's tight competition has to be the leading favorite at Worlds at this point. Their only stumble is a narrow loss to EDG at the Mid-Season Invitational.

 

NA and EU Gauntlets have been playing this weekend. The finals for both regions are today to determine the third seed at worlds. In EU it's the totally expected matchup of Unicorns of Love vs Origen, and in NA the pretty surprising Liquid vs C9. C9 looked lost for a lot of Summer, but here they are three wins away from getting back to Worlds. Haven't watched any of the games, can't tell you how they won.

 

The Regional Gauntlet and China Crazytown Finals kick off Wednesday and Thursday for Korea and China respectively. We'll know the entire Worlds lineup by the end of the week!

 

 

I think Liquid will beat C9. I think Origen is a better team than UoL, but UoL gameplans extremely well for long series. I think KT has the inside track from Korea (duh, they're the top seed), but the only team that would surprise me winning is Jin Air. I would be shocked to not see EDG win one of the seeds, but China has been a crazy battle all summer long. That's a big toss up and because of the bracket structure anyone could go.

 

 

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS - CATCH IT.

[Badfinger]

Origen drop the hammer on UOL with a 3-0 stomp to lock in their ticket to Worlds, even with only one split worth of qualification points.

 

NA Finals kick off in an hour (3 EST, 12 PST)

[Deadpan]

Interesting that Origen pulled that off after the shaky series against Roccat. I'm not sure how UOL ended up as the final seed in the regional qualifiers, is this like a championship points situation?

[Badfinger]

Interesting that Origen pulled that off after the shaky series against Roccat. I'm not sure how UOL ended up as the final seed in the regional qualifiers, is this like a championship points situation?

 

Yes. They were 3rd in Championship Points to Fnatic (who auto-qualified based on split win) and H2K (who qualified on highest points; not auto-qualifier). As the highest seed not already guaranteed worlds, they got placed directly into the Win-And-In final of the gauntlet.

 

However, Cloud 9 qualifies for Worlds coming from the lowest seed in the gauntlet! If they had gone 0-2 against Team 8 instead of splitting 1-1 they would have been playing to stave off relegation rather than fighting for Worlds. They pulled out a really protracted, well called game to pull ahead in the series and then game 4 was a slow suffocation punctuated by IWillDominate trying to hard carry from the jungle and not being able to do so.

 

Liquid can't reverse the Curse, finish in 4th as always.

[Ninety-Three]

How does one watch pro League? Or more specifically, how does one enjoy watching pro League? I've played maybe a couple dozen hours (which is to say that I'm no good at it but at least understand how the game works), but when I watch others play I have little ability to recognize a good play, and less ability to appreciate it.

Am I just a baby who needs to get good, or is there some particular way you're supposed to watch League?

[Badfinger]

Do you enjoy following other things that are competitive? If so, what do you like about doing it? What keeps your interest?

 

I don't generally subscribe to the idea that there's a "correct" way to enjoy something. If you explain what you like, maybe we can give you some info that would spark some interest?

 

Have you ever seen the Riot-culled highlight reels? Does the excitement seep through?

 

[Deadpan]

but when I watch others play I have little ability to recognize a good play, and less ability to appreciate it.

 

I figure that if you watch it for big plays, you're probably not going to find much in it, because those tend to be pretty rare. At that level all players are generally skillful enough that they rarely straight up get outplayed by their opponents or manage to outplay them. Kills, objectives and map control are instead usually gained through a slow process of positioning, vision games, strategic rotations around the map, et cetera, until everything is set up so that a successful move on the enemy doesn't depend on fancy tricks but on everything continuing the way it was going.

 

Like, one thing that confused me initially when I watched high-level matches is how quickly people back off when they their engage doesn't instantly work out, because in my own sucky attempts at League I'd then feel like I can still turn this around and keep going even if that opens me up to some counterplay. But those players all know exactly how much room they need to work with and when their window of opportunity has closed. So sometimes you see something like an isolated player flashing away from some people trying to group up on them, but then actually turn around and keep farming, and even though they only moved this seemingly tiny distance and even though all the enemy players are still right there they won't bother with it anymore because they know it's not worth it anymore because their odds of success decreased significantly.

 

That kind of macro-level strategizing can be hard to appreciate since it's hard to take into account everything that these teams take into account to succeed. One part of the game you can try to feel out if you enjoy this stuff on its own (which you might not, it's a matter of taste) is in watching how teams set up and position for teamfights, like how they test and bait each other out in fights around the Dragon or Baron pit.

[Badfinger]

Worlds teams set! Here is a link that will explain all the things about Worlds.

 

http://worlds.lolesports.com/en_US/worlds/about

[Ninety-Three]

I figure that if you watch it for big plays, you're probably not going to find much in it, because those tend to be pretty rare.

 

Poor phrasing, I meant that I didn't have much ability to recognize skill in general. That IT Crowd bit is perfect "Maybe he will- he has, and apparently that's worthy of the commentators going crazy". Upon reflection I think it is that I'm a baby: I don't know the abilities of each of LoL's 126 champions (I was going to use hyperbole but Jesus Christ there are literally one hundred twenty-six of them), and that changes it from a strategic contest to a spectacle of light and colour where anything can happen at any moment, so nothing means anything. It'd be like watching Starcraft without knowing how any units attacked or what their specials were (and also all the units have a lot less visual distinction than in SC).

So now that I know what question to ask: Do you actually remember each champion's abilities? Is there some trick to understanding what's going on when you don't know everyone's abilities?

[Deadpan]

I figured you might not have meant that aspect, but it's hard to tell with these games what skill even means because of all the high-level strategizing that's going on.

 

I guess I actually do know most abilities in the game. That's something you pick on relatively quickly from playing these champions yourself, but also from playing against them. This is one of the parts that makes the game kind of unapproachable if you haven't played it a lot, but the good news is that commentary usually helps with the confusion a little bit even if they aren't focused on explaining stuff (but what they're saying can still help you connect specific abilities that happened to specific players and champions for instance), plus it's not super important to know every ablity by heart. Although players obviously use all abilities to get the most out of their champions, champions usually still have one or two notable skills that stand out for how impactful they are. Usually these are the ones that can stun or otherwise disable enemy players, or that can set up some kind of map play.

 

Like, the fact that Shen can shield himself from damage and throw knives at enemies isn't as noticeable or relevant in matches as his ability to dash into the enemy team and taunt any player he hits, or to shield an ally anywhere on the map and teleport to them.

[seamus2389]

So now that I know what question to ask: Do you actually remember each champion's abilities? Is there some trick to understanding what's going on when you don't know everyone's abilities?

 

 

I  look up the champions and items when I didn't know their abilities after the pick and ban stage for League and Dota. After watching enough matches you just learn and while there is 126 champions in total the amount played regularly are alot less.

[Badfinger]

I  look up the champions and items when I didn't know their abilities after the pick and ban stage for League and Dota. After watching enough matches you just learn and while there is 126 champions in total the amount played regularly are alot less.

 

I definitely did this when I was watching the International. I also looked up items when I only had a vague idea.

 

Re: Do you know all the lords' abilities? Yeah, pretty much. I've been playing for a long-ass time. I own over 100 lords. There are some from time to time I need to look up to see granular interactions, but I have a pretty basic idea of how all the kits work and the signature abilities.

 

At the same time, I looked at the North America LCS pick and ban statistics. There are only 33 that got picked more than 10 times this split. I used 10 as my arbitrary cutoff because that'd average once a week. So there are only 33 lords across 90+ games that were seen more than once a week. Occasionally, there are picks so rare that even the casters have to refresh themselves on what the whole kit is, but if you have general knowledge on the 35-45 across every region you're pretty much set. There are just some lords that don't work or are never picked in professional play.

[Deadpan]

When's the right moment to start making bets about Worlds?

[Deadpan]

Rooting for Fnatic feels like a really mixed bag right now: totally crushed IG, struggled and then ultimately lost against AHQ. I really hope that they'll give Huni a comfort pick today against C9. The guy plays a lot of champions really well, but it feels like if you focus your drafting on getting him one of the meta powerpicks, he's prone to getting nervous, feeling like he should be doing more with it than he is and that leads to mistakes and weird plays, especially if he gets pressured.

 

Probably better to focus on Reignover, Yellowstar and Rekkles first.

[seamus2389]

Groups B and D predictions have gone up in flames half way through with C9 going 3-0 in group B and Origen going 3-0 in D. LGD really have gone to shit this week as a team seen as being number 3 team to looking like they won't make it out of groups. This is some real exciting shit between groups B and D and more matches to come out of them next week. 

 

Best game I have seen would be the Origen v KT games today cause it was two teams playing to the near best of their ability.

[Deadpan]

Why the Yasuo guys?

[osmosisch]

This Worlds is the most interesting since Season 2. I'm loving it, though sad to see my boys Fnatic struggling so.

SKT T1 may just run away with the whole thing just on the strength of not acting loopy or sandbagging.

[Badfinger]

So, Flash Wolves win Group A. An unexpected result! CLG falls flat in the "easy" group. Not that surprised, Koo has weaknesses but is still a good team, and Flash Wolves have shown a lot.

 

I think it's kind of insane to play all the group games in one 6 hour block. I don't know if the schedule was fiddled with this way or it's just serendipity, but Group B will be the last group to be decided. Cloud 9 and a wide open field, should be a crazy ride.

 

e: Pain could finish with the same record as CLG by beating them here. They're ahead and trending towards victory as I type.

[osmosisch]

CLGeeeeee hahaha

They really are the absolute chokelords. I feel bad for Aphro. At least they're actually improving as a team though, if they get a better jungler especially they might turn into a force to reckon with.

[Badfinger]

SKT goes 6-0 in group to the surprise of literally no one. Interesting to see if Origen and C9 can go 2-1 or 3-0 in their second half of the group.