Competitive League of Legends discussion | Season 2016 | The League of Pablo

The synopsis indicates these games were highly one-sided in one direction or the other. Gotta have made for a pretty unexciting final.

Game 1 was good, the other two were very one sided.

I missed most of yesterday and today :-/ Too much family stuff. Just have to watch the VOD's at work, I suppose...

Koz wrote:
sithload wrote:
Jow wrote:

I've only recently started paying attention to the competitive scene but man does it seem like competitive champ diversity is WAY down. Seems like the bans are always chosen from the same pool of 10-15 champs and what's left is chosen from a pool about the same size. There are occasional outliers of course, but in a game with a champion population over 90 it's pretty disappointing seeing the same 20 champs represented every time out.

True. It'd be interesting to go back through the last couple big championships and note champ frequency. If there are five roles on a team, I'm guessing there are about 5 champs per role that are played regularly - but that's a gut feeling. I don't know if it's accurate or not.

Are you familiar with the Tier lists? The pros definitely think some champs have more value than others. I guess I'm not too surprised by that; it'd be pretty tough to balance 90.

The pro scene is partly balance, partly flavor of the month meta, and partly playing champs the players are good at. It's pretty much impossible to be good at every champ with the rate they're released, so players tend to practice a handful of champs that do well in the current meta. So you often get very similar picks and bans.

It's always fun to see someone pick an unplayed champ and do well with them, like when Dan Dinh played Heimer once and just wrecked face with him. Heimer then got banned in all of Epik's remaining games because no one ever plays against Heimer.

Hey, look what I found on Reddit - a link to all the champs picked at IEM Kiev.

Sona is awesome: confirmed.

Since the Kiev matches all start around 6am I probably wont be able to do real time updates like in my other catchalls but here's this anyway:

IEM Kiev Catch all

Schedule: http://iemkiev.leagueoflegends.com/

Streams:
ESL TV- http://www.twitch.tv/Esltv_event
HD French- http://fr.twitch.tv/milleniumtv2

Teams:
Against All Authority
Curse Gaming
Moscow Five
SK Gaming
Sypher
Team Dignitas
Team Solomid
White Lotus

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Group A (January 19th)-

Spoiler:

Team Solomid 3-0
SK Gaming 2-1

Curse Gaming 1-2
White Lotus 0-3
TSM and SK advance

Live updates from RoG: http://rog.clgaming.net/blogs/esport...

Group B (January 20th)-

Spoiler:

Moscow Five 3-0
Team Dignitas 2-1

Against All Authority 1-2
Sypher 0-3
M5 and Dig advance

Love updates from RoG: http://rog.clgaming.net/blogs/esport...

Semifinals (January 21st)-
1:

Spoiler:

[Team Solomid vs Dignitas] TSM wins 2-0

2:

Spoiler:

[Moscow Five vs SK Gaming] M5 wins 2-0

3rd Place (January 22nd)-

Spoiler:

[SK Gaming vs Team Dignitas] Dignitas wins 2-1

Finals (January 22nd)-

Spoiler:

[Team Solomid vs Moscow Five] M5 wins 2-1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VODS (lists may contain spoilers):
GROUP A
SK vs White Lotus
White Lotus vs Curse
TSM vs Curse
TSM vs SK
SK vs Curse
GROUP B
M5 vs Dignitas
aAa vs Sypher
M5 vs Sypher
aAa vs Dignitas
Sypher vs Dignitas
SEMIFINALS

3RD PLACE

Spoiler:

SK vs Dignitas

FINAL

Spoiler:

TSM vs M5

Kinda like I expected - the top 10 picks have nearly as many individual picks (165) as the rest of the field combined (186). Make it the top 11 and they outnumber the rest of the field.

Sivir became AD flavor of the week in a hurry and either no one expected it or no one cared (no bans). Meanwhile, Vayne was only picked 5 times, lost 4 of those, and was only banned twice. I know this is on old patch, before the recent Vayne nerfs, but portent of changing of the guard maybe?

Also, i really can't wait to see some new support champs.

Something I think you are omitting is that you need to be able to play not only your champs, but also the champs of your opponents because if you pick before them, you eliminate their option like it's a ban.

I agree, I'd love to see another support champ with the same level as Sona – slows, heals, buffs, and a massive crowd control. Hard to beat that.

Vayne didn't get nerfed because of her competitive strength, she got nerfed because of her soloqueue strength.

On Sona, I think it's less that she is a particularly amazing hero and more that she is more relevant than any other support. She has sustain, damage, CC, auras, and is fairly easy to play. Other supports excel at some of these things more than her; however, having a little of all is stronger in most situations than having a lot of a little.

On top of that look at the strong AD carries right now. Sivir and Graves are pretty much considered to be the top AD picks. A hero like Sona can give extra burst damage in lane as well as giving them damage and movespeed buffs. She caters well to aggressive laning while also being able to be defensive.

She is just a super safe support that you can almost never go wrong with.

Also related to Sona, she has one of the most interesting patch note histories of the heroes:
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wik... (scroll down a bit). Really shows just how difficult it is to balance a hero like her. It certainly can be taken that it can't really be done with numbers.

If you're ever bored, looking at the buff/nerf history for heroes can be really interesting.
Another great one is Jax

On the subject of supports, Morello said somewhere on the forums that getting some supports out this year was a major goal because they knew they were lagging behind. He said something about it NOT being the next champ out, but soon.

Re: sona... balancing these champs out seems kinda like long-distance shelling of warships back in the WW2 days. You straddle the target, missing one side or the other as you gradually home in on it until finally, bam. She got some early nerfs, followed by some tiny buffs and then a huge combination of nerfs/buffs in the same patch. Unfortunately, in a game with this many variables I don't think there ever really is a "bam" moment, but that's the nature of the beast.

Kings of Europe just went live, ogaming.tv. SK vs a team I haven't heard of, exGBT.

Here's another link through Own3d. Against All Authority vs. CLG EU about to go live now.

I've only watched the end of game 2 in the finals but from what I've read game 1 was pretty crazy.
M5 ran jungle Mundo (and went 0-6 with him :D). It seems like their strong counterjungling and map control strategies from Kiev aren't working so well vs CLG.eu

Interestingly there was a Shyvana vs Irelia top lane, which messed TSM up hard with Shyv just controling the lane and counter jungling every double golem and red spawn. This time with Wickd Irelia the lane was controlled far better than Rainman could and Shyv couldn't counter jungle. After Kiev there was so much talk about Shyvana apparently being this genius counter to Irelia which I didn't understand. Looks like it was just bandwagon hype as usual.

Game 3 picks

CLG.eu:
Sivir
Taric
Cassio
Riven
Maokai

M5:
Kennen
Gangplank
Karthus
Lee Sin
Sona

Wow on these picks. HUGE damage on the side of CLG, I honestly have no idea how M5 can even deal with that later on. All I can see is them snowballing it early game to take a win but CLG has shown that they just can't be pushed around like that.

Lane predictions:
TOP
I see this going fairly evenly, just a farm off. If anybody is going to die it will probably be Gangplank if he plays crazy
MIDDLE
The way I see this going is Mao ganking for Cassio over and over and just shutting down Karthus, I don't see how Lee Sin will be able to even scratch Cassio
BOTTOM
Probably a farm off, it's interesting that Taric will probably be a much more effective mid-late game force than in lane (which is what he's usually picked for, strong lane power). Catching Kennen will be near impossible for them but that Sona could be in danger.

Later game I just don't see how M5 can outdamage CLG.eu
They are focused in AoE and then cleanup but with Maokai, Riven, and Taric there's no way they can even touch Cassio and Sivir in fights.

OH MAH GAWWWWWD
ok if you didn't get to watch it live you HAVE to watch the VOD of finals game 3.
SO MUCH BUILD UP to the final fight.

Spoiler:

both teams poking and kiting at each other, unable to engage, every time an ability hits there's just a surge of excitement expecting something big to happen. Then finally a spectacular climactic battle at baron and the game is ended. The anticipation just made it so satisfying

FINALS RESULT

Spoiler:

CLG.eu wins 2-1

damn. I caught part of the stream in midgame but had to leave for a while and when I came back it was all over. How soon does the VOD show up post-game usually?

Jow wrote:

damn. I caught part of the stream in midgame but had to leave for a while and when I came back it was all over. How soon does the VOD show up post-game usually?

Probably will be up on the youtube channels in the catchall tomorrow but there may be a straight Own3d recording earlier.
I'll post them if I see them.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Interestingly there was a Shyvana vs Irelia top lane, which messed TSM up hard with Shyv just controling the lane and counter jungling every double golem and red spawn. This time with Wickd Irelia the lane was controlled far better than Rainman could and Shyv couldn't counter jungle. After Kiev there was so much talk about Shyvana apparently being this genius counter to Irelia which I didn't understand. Looks like it was just bandwagon hype as usual.

They were talking about this on the last episode of State of the League and Wickd basically said there's no excuse for Irelia not stomping Shyvana hard. Guess he was on the money.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

I've only watched the end of game 2 in the finals but from what I've read game 1 was pretty crazy.
M5 ran jungle Mundo (and went 0-6 with him :D). It seems like their strong counterjungling and map control strategies from Kiev aren't working so well vs CLG.eu

Interestingly there was a Shyvana vs Irelia top lane, which messed TSM up hard with Shyv just controling the lane and counter jungling every double golem and red spawn. This time with Wickd Irelia the lane was controlled far better than Rainman could and Shyv couldn't counter jungle. After Kiev there was so much talk about Shyvana apparently being this genius counter to Irelia which I didn't understand. Looks like it was just bandwagon hype as usual.

If TSM had that game to play again, I think they'd ward the sh*t out of their own jungle and make Shyvana pay for each trip in. We knew how many times Shyv was hitting their jungle, but I don't TSM knew it in-game.

Last game of Kings of Europe (third game of three in the finals) was pretty damn good. A good comeback to make it an even game after it looked like it was getting a little lopsided halfway through.

Also, there's a really good Reddit thread for Kings of Europe with all the VOD info too - might save Fedora some work?

EDIT - I'm a filthy skimmer, Fedora already had it linked.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been lazy.

Next big tournament (IEM Hanover will be the biggest event of season 2 thus far) hopefully we can get some real discussion going. That's my fault, I've just been giving info for the latest stuff and not actually talking about the matches. The problem is recently all the tournaments have had an EU setting so the matches are all going on when everybody is sleeping or working. Maybe for the next US tournament we can get some people in vent for live discussion?

I haven't had a chance to watch the recent tourney matches live but I'm going to try to give some analysis on matches in the future to try and get discussion going, could make things more interesting at the least.

Anyway, for now, here's a catchall for the Kings of Europe tourney.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEAMS:
exGBT
SK Gaming
Moscow 5
Mistral eSports
Sypher
CLG.eu
Fnatic
aAa

GROUP STAGE
A)

Spoiler:

Moscow 5
Mistral eSports
exGBT
SK Gaming
M5 and Mistral advance

B)

Spoiler:

CLG.eu
Sypher
Fnatic
aAa
CLG.eu and Sypher advance

SEMI-FINALS
1)

Spoiler:

[Moscow 5 vs Sypher] M5 wins 2-1

2)

Spoiler:

[CLG.eu vs Mistral eSports] CLG.eu wins 2-1

3RD PLACE

Spoiler:

[Sypher vs Mistral eSports] Mistral wins

FINALS

Spoiler:

[Moscow 5 vs CLG.eu] CLG.eu wins 2-1

VODs (video titles may contain spoilers)
http://www.youtube.com/user/4Deman
http://www.youtube.com/user/ChipsEtNoi (French)
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflege... (full listing)

MORE INFO (contains spoilers)
Finals post with content summary for the previous stages

The own3d archives are really poorly organized (they just did a straight record from start to finish instead of for each game).
You can still find all the matches here: http://www.own3d.tv/OGamingTV if you aren't afraid to sift through a bit.
Particularly the most recent video up there is the last 15 minutes of finals game 3. Just fantastic.

edit: and here's a full listing from deman
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflege...

Anyone rooting for M5 because of their "unorthodox" plays?

Finally watched Deman's cast of game 3. Crazy!

[spoiler]Two straight hellacious comebacks, the second one from nearly 7k gold down... Pretty incredible. I watched that last Karthus ult incoming and expected total carnage, but knew it was game over when it took out absolutely nobody. Gotta wonder what might have happened if Darien hadn't gotten spanked so hard up top early-game.

For anybody looking for something to watch on lazy Sunday
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflege...

This should be awesome. TSM in the same group as M5... can't wait!

Groups for the Intel Extreme Masters championship at Hanover have been announced:

Group A

  • CLG
  • fnatic
  • World Elite
  • Team Dignitas
  • Millenium
  • Invictus Gaming

Group B

  • Team SoloMid
  • SK Gaming
  • Moscow 5
  • Sypher
  • Curse
  • EHOME

Two Groups of SiX (Bo3)
Top3 qualify for Playoffs
Groups' 1st Place to Semi Finals (Bo5)
Groups' 2nd/3rd to Quarter Finals

It starts March 6th

My thoughts... (note, it is implied that all these teams are strong for just being at the event)

Group A:
CLG- Always been solid and have tons of LAN experience. They've actually been practicing seriously lately and I think it could be the edge they need to go far. You wouldn't think it from their arguing and bickering but they have really strong team cohesion and it seems to only get stronger at LANs.
They like either going with strong initiation team fight comps and also have their tried and true splitpush/poke comp.

fnatic- They've been... quiet lately but that doesn't mean they should be ignored. They are still sporting their strong lineup from Dreamhack, I believe. They like running double AP comps but also have a really strong top lane AP/Anti-AP assassin mid (like Talon).

World Elite- Winners of IEM China. That's about all I can give you for info, sorry.

Dignitas- They kinda exploded onto the scene a little while ago. They were stronger than everybody else on the US scene simply because they actually scrimmed and practiced consistently and were sort of "ahead of the meta". Ironically enough, now that all the other teams have started actually practicing Dig seems to have burned out a bit. Still, they have a good deal of LAN experience and all of their lanes are very strong.

Millenium- They have a new line up (save 1) from when they actually earned the points for this event. This being the case there isn't too much to say about their past. Honestly not expecting much but they could shake things up.

iG- Similar to WE, not a lot of info about them.

Expected placements:
1st- CLG
2nd- Dignitas
3rd- fnatic

Group B:
TSM- Probably more serious than any other team. They practicing nearly non-stop and have been scrimming EU teams a lot in order to get a good understanding of both sides. Like CLG they have very strong LAN presence and a lot of experience with playing many teams. They got torn up by M5 at Kiev but I don't expect they will let that happen again.

SK Gaming- They've had so many roster changes in the past few months it's hard to say what will happen. I believe they will be using the same lineup as they had for Kiev where they lost to both TSM and M5.

M5- Have had a big burst into the scene similar to how Dignitas did it a little while ago. They seem to have really good communication between their players with an aggressive early game and a coordinated late game. I don't expect the early game moves to be so effective at this event but that doesn't mean they aren't still a force to be reckoned with.

Sypher- Not to be written off for sure but they also haven't really done anything noteworthy other than beating CLG for 3rd place back at IEM NY and taking 1 game off M5 in Kings of Europe.

Curse- I think they will be a potential surprise team. They've always preformed well and have been around for a while. Like Sypher they haven't really made any accomplishments.

EHOME- They were the favorites to win IEM China a while ago. Then they got 4th place and I haven't heard about them since.

Expected placements:
1st- TSM
2nd- M5
3rd- SK