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

Squee9 wrote:

Nothing has yet compared to M5's coming out party at dreamhack. Those guys tore the metagame apart and absolutely decimated kids with strategies that seemed to be based off pure arrogance.

I'd say that TPA's performance this weekend is absolutely comparable to M5's big debut. I plan on going back to watch the replays more carefully, but as I remember it (and during the finals for sure), seemingly by force of will they converted kills and created an advantage in the first five minutes of every game they played. I believe there were only two games across the entire event where they failed snowball that advantage into a win. Unlike M5's debut tactics which were half a counterjungle gimmick with a hard-push top lane (but did include fantastic focus and coordination in team fights), TPA operated with a level of coordination that, from the opening seconds of the game showed every player was locked into a unity that typically only seen while the players are grouped on the map. More often that not, when AF's jungler tried to set up a big play, not only would TPA's jungler be there to counter but their mid or top would also be 3 seconds away and pick up 1 or 2 kills in a 3v2 or 4v3. Coordinated counter-ganking OP.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

When TPA did a coordinated across the map ace at 15 minutes in the second game, they won my heart.

Truth.

TPA was good, no doubts, they just didn't get me as pumped as M5 did. Maybe I'm jaded, Reginald style, and I need to retire from League.

When TPA did a coordinated across the map ace at 15 minutes in the second game against Frost, they won my heart.

Next to Saigon Jokers they were the least recognized team coming into the finals. They came in and showed absolute domination at what were considered to be the top 2 teams in the world.

The finals and whole tournament I think is a showing of the meta being shaken up again. Less focus on lane and jungle specific early game plays and more focus on full team coordination early game into full team coordination mid game into full team coordination late game. Teams that play as individuals or don't practice enough will fall off hard, assuming new teams actually start to show up.

Squee9 wrote:

Maybe I'm jaded, Reginald style, and I need to retire from League.

Just as long as you unretire the next day, Reginald style.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

The finals and whole tournament I think is a showing of the meta being shaken up again. Less focus on lane and jungle specific early game plays and more focus on full team coordination early game into full team coordination mid game into full team coordination late game. Teams that play as individuals or don't practice enough will fall off hard, assuming new teams actually start to show up.

Indeed. It's nice to see the truth we already knew begin to manifest itself: If you're concerned with real competitive play, solo queue means very little once you reach a threshold of knowing how to lane and play any given matchup. It's no longer about you; it's all about the team.

Now that the ranked team system seems to have been vetted, I hope to see Riot de-emphasize solo and put the ranked team ladder up front where it belongs for season 3.

psoplayer wrote:
Squee9 wrote:

Maybe I'm jaded, Reginald style, and I need to retire from League.

Just as long as you unretire the next day, Reginald style.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

The finals and whole tournament I think is a showing of the meta being shaken up again. Less focus on lane and jungle specific early game plays and more focus on full team coordination early game into full team coordination mid game into full team coordination late game. Teams that play as individuals or don't practice enough will fall off hard, assuming new teams actually start to show up.

Indeed. It's nice to see the truth we already knew begin to manifest itself: If you're concerned with real competitive play, solo queue means very little once you reach a threshold of knowing how to lane and play any given matchup. It's no longer about you; it's all about the team.

Now that the ranked team system seems to have been vetted, I hope to see Riot de-emphasize solo and put the ranked team ladder up front where it belongs for season 3.

That's why solo Q is so popular though. It's more accessable because you don't need four friends, and it shows that you can adapt to a new team quickly, work together with new people, and consistently play a variety of roles and lanes better than your opponents. Yes people can grind up to 1500-1600 rating, and yes there's lots of complaining, but I believe that the cream rises to the top. Having a 2000 solo Q rating means you have some serious skills.

However, I've realized that none of that is why I play League, which is why I stopped solo queing. I'd much rather gather my acolytes and blitz some fools. And laugh.

Squee9 wrote:

Having a 2000 solo Q rating means you have some serious skills.

No doubt, but for the first time we're starting to see how little you get from a team of five 2k solo queue players versus the strict practice regimen that the majority of Asian teams have.

Squee wrote:

That's why solo Q is so popular though. It's more accessable because you don't need four friends...

I'd much rather gather my acolytes and blitz some fools. And laugh.

So why not run a ranked team with your acolytes? Provided you have the patience to make it through picks & bans, you might even get a cool Janna skin out of it.

Squee9 wrote:

However, I've realized that none of that is why I play League, which is why I stopped solo queing. I'd much rather gather my acolytes and blitz some fools. And laugh.

Ive had alot more fun playing with with the gwj people to the point where I dont really solo anymore.

Though the 5 man games can be frustrating trying to play characters/positions im not as comfortable with so people can play what they want. But I think most of that is I like wierd characters.

psoplayer wrote:
Squee9 wrote:

Having a 2000 solo Q rating means you have some serious skills.

No doubt, but for the first time we're starting to see how little you get from a team of five 2k solo queue players versus the strict practice regimen that the majority of Asian teams have.

My main point is that solo Q is not going to lose popularity anytime soon. It's easy to get in to, it's quite popular for streaming, and 99% of people don't have to worry about playing against a team as coordinated as TPA.

psoplayer wrote:
Squee wrote:

That's why solo Q is so popular though. It's more accessable because you don't need four friends...

I'd much rather gather my acolytes and blitz some fools. And laugh.

So why not run a ranked team with your acolytes? Provided you have the patience to make it through picks & bans, you might even get a cool Janna skin out of it.

A successful ranked team requires the same five people to play the same roles with the same champions many times. If any of that sounds unappealing (it does to me), there is no reason not to just do a 5-man normal queue. At my elo bracket, the competition is good and the trolling that can't be solved by muting is rare.

We've experimented with ranked 5s and ranked 3s. Our ranked 5s team won three games in a row, and then we never did it again. I'd rather just normal queue.

CLG NA releases Voyboy, picks up Locodoco, moves Chauster to Jungle and HotshotGG back to top lane.
http://clgaming.net/news/406-clg-na-...

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

CLG NA releases Voyboy, picks up Locodoco, moves Chauster to Jungle and HotshotGG back to top lane.
http://clgaming.net/news/406-clg-na-...

Yeah, I saw that on Twitter this morning. Not sure what to think - I wonder how CLG would have done for the last six months if they just left Saint Vicious in the jungle and Hotshot up top.

CLG NA is one of my least favorite teams. Hopefully they continue to be ineffective in competitive play.

In their defense, now is the time to do player switching. That does not make how they rearrange constantly any more effective. Seems like HSGG wants top back.

*In a stirring Beyonce* Finally, hot shot on top!

Everything Doak said is true, now is the time to retire and come out of retirement. Teams better be gearing up for season three, especially after NA got laughed out of the world finals.

Squee9 wrote:

especially after NA got laughed out of the world finals.

Welcome to e-sports! (see Starcraft, DotA, etc.)

I fail to see how this helps CLG. Hotshot is not a top tier player anymore, Chauster is good, but he's never jungled competitively and has a toxic personality in general. Jiji used to be good but he's fallen off quite a bit. Doublelift is probably their best player if he can conquer his own ego. No idea what Locodoco brings as support, but he's a funny guy so maybe they'll be more entertaining.

The NA scene as a whole is pretty poor. TSM is still a legit top-tier team IMO, but that's it. Dignitas is scarra and a bunch of decent players, Curse has the potential to be good but they entirely revolve around Saint who is inconsistent. The "new" teams like oRb and MME have done alright, but still get beaten pretty routinely by TSM and others. I love Aphromoo and wish he could find a better team.

Europe is a little bit better. They have two high caliber teams: Moscow 5 and CLG.EU. But after that there's a serious drop-off.

Asia has a lot of really good teams, which is surprising to pretty much nobody now that LoL has gotten popular over there. I expect them to dominate Season 3.

Yeah... pretty much everything Koz said.

Hypothetical for ya'lls. As the champion roster for LoL continues to grow, what would you think about implementing a draft system similar to Dota 2?

There are 5 hero bans in draft mode. 3 at the beginning and 2 after the first 3 hero picks. The exact order is: ban 3 heroes, pick 1-2-2-1, ban 2 more heroes, pick 1-1-1-1.

This kind of system makes the initial draft picks even more important than they are now, which could be viewed as a positive or negative.

Here is a game for reference. Skip to 10 minutes:

At our level the difficulty I run into with the draft system is that you can't choose sh*t in the order you want, because everyone has incomplete champion rosters. So while you'd like to be picking jungles and supports first to deny information to your opponent, you don't always have that option.

They need to change it to a pool pick system, in which the team captain is shown clear information on who owns what, and you can pick stuff and assign it to a player in any order. This isn't trivial, hence I don't see them doing it any time soon. I need to be able to filter on meta tags, so I can just type "support" up top and see all those guys and who owns them, etc.

DOTA 2 has different types of drafts. I would like a more comprehensive one for tournament play, but I think the current one is fine for normal queue. The only thing I don't like about the DOTA style draft is that it can take for-ev-er. Some drafts take almost 10 minutes to complete. I definitely like it otherwise, though. I like having more bans and I like some picks happening after initial bans.

New CLG (Nhat Nguyen subbing for Locodoco) playing Ferus right now for ESL Singapore seeding;

Just one data point, but

Spoiler:

They're smoking Ferus. 19-3 at the moment, inhibs going down. If they don't do well with Locodoco as support, they should bring Nhat back.

Spoiler:

They're smoking Ferus. 19-3 at the moment, inhibs going down. If they don't do well with Locodoco as support, they should bring Nhat back.

Ferus is only as good as Aphromoo. He is a tremendous player, but the talent on that team falls off quite hard after him. So most teams just focus on keeping Aphro in check and will usually win.

Koz wrote:
Spoiler:

They're smoking Ferus. 19-3 at the moment, inhibs going down. If they don't do well with Locodoco as support, they should bring Nhat back.

Ferus is only as good as Aphromoo. He is a tremendous player, but the talent on that team falls off quite hard after him. So most teams just focus on keeping Aphro in check and will usually win.

I watched Ferus win the TSM Tournament a couple weeks in a row, playing pretty well, so maybe my opinion of them was too high. And it's just one game, wasn't a best of 3, so anything can happen and snowball.

Keep in mind that's just my opinion, but I don't think they're as good as CLG post-change, so I wasn't too surprised they got beaten.

Mr Crinkle wrote:

At our level the difficulty I run into with the draft system is that you can't choose sh*t in the order you want, because everyone has incomplete champion rosters. So while you'd like to be picking jungles and supports first to deny information to your opponent, you don't always have that option.

They need to change it to a pool pick system, in which the team captain is shown clear information on who owns what, and you can pick stuff and assign it to a player in any order. This isn't trivial, hence I don't see them doing it any time soon. I need to be able to filter on meta tags, so I can just type "support" up top and see all those guys and who owns them, etc.

The micropurchasing of champions does not go well with competitive draft modes.

I'd rather see some stuff like the -rd and -sd modes from DotA. It allows for teams that work well, unlike all random, but still mixes up the champions that you'll see in a game.

Squee9 wrote:

The micropurchasing of champions does not go well with competitive draft modes.

I'd rather see some stuff like the -rd and -sd modes from DotA. It allows for teams that work well, unlike all random, but still mixes up the champions that you'll see in a game.

Yup. League's current options were adequate for a <1 yr old game finding its footing as season 1 was starting, but as things on the competitive scene and the wider MOBA market have matured it's time for that to get reexamined. DotA2 has a really well implemented set of pick/ban/draft options which I would love to see inform changes for LoL's next season.

Squee9 wrote:
Mr Crinkle wrote:

At our level the difficulty I run into with the draft system is that you can't choose sh*t in the order you want, because everyone has incomplete champion rosters. So while you'd like to be picking jungles and supports first to deny information to your opponent, you don't always have that option.

They need to change it to a pool pick system, in which the team captain is shown clear information on who owns what, and you can pick stuff and assign it to a player in any order. This isn't trivial, hence I don't see them doing it any time soon. I need to be able to filter on meta tags, so I can just type "support" up top and see all those guys and who owns them, etc.

The micropurchasing of champions does not go well with competitive draft modes.

I'd rather see some stuff like the -rd and -sd modes from DotA. It allows for teams that work well, unlike all random, but still mixes up the champions that you'll see in a game.

Oh man, I'd love to see a mode equivalent to -SD implemented, but like you said, I don't even know if that's possible with riot's pay-to-play champion selection.

My hypothetical was directed entirely at the pro scene, where micro purchasing is not an issue. I wasn't even thinking about using it for ourselves precisely because of the roster selection issues.

MLG Dallas is on this weekend: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/live

First game was perhaps the most lopsided competitive match I've seen in quite some time. CLG got absolutely stomped by Najin Sword, 15-1, surrender at 22.

psoplayer wrote:

Now that the ranked team system seems to have been vetted, I hope to see Riot de-emphasize solo and put the ranked team ladder up front where it belongs for season 3.

Here we go: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/...

The top 32 teams on the 5v5 ladder Dec 27 will be invited by Riot to participate in an online event where the top 6 will go on to play at a live event against the existing pro teams from NA to earn their place in one of the five remaining spots in the Season 3 Championship Series.

Azubu 2 - 0 Dignitas but both games were incredibly close. Dig got unlucky on timers a couple times and just couldn't burst through the GA wall at the end.