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I think there was a lot more pessimism this year coming into Worlds about NA and EU than last year too. TSM and G2 winning the LCS felt more like fait accompli rather than an actual accomplishment. I don't think anyone was particularly inspired by IMT and MSF getting in on points. C9 definitely was not playing at nearly this level during the LCS play. FNC probably could have had some hype after their summer split if they had done better in play offs, but having to make it through qualifiers and then dropping a game to a wild card team in the play ins wasn't a good look given how the play ins went overall.
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Oct 9, 2017 18:58
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TSM and G2 both seem to get kinda complacent at World's but Cloud9 (usually) out-performs expectations with Europe's "From challenger to World's" team that year.
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Oct 9, 2017 19:08
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Cloud 9 sucks.
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Oct 9, 2017 19:16
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Work Friend Keven posted:Cloud 9 sucks.
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Oct 9, 2017 19:39
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No amount of C9 winning will change the cruel and hurtful things people say about them. But that's okay. I will revel in the silence in this thread when they crush their enemies.
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Oct 9, 2017 19:53
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I dont get the hate G2 are getting this year, they're just up against better teams and should be expected to go 2-4.
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Oct 9, 2017 19:56
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Keven it's not too late to self-toxx again and disappear for a couple weeks since you arent watching anyway
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Oct 9, 2017 20:01
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Crazy Larry posted:I think there was a lot more pessimism this year coming into Worlds about NA and EU than last year too. TSM and G2 winning the LCS felt more like fait accompli rather than an actual accomplishment. I don't think anyone was particularly inspired by IMT and MSF getting in on points. C9 definitely was not playing at nearly this level during the LCS play. FNC probably could have had some hype after their summer split if they had done better in play offs, but having to make it through qualifiers and then dropping a game to a wild card team in the play ins wasn't a good look given how the play ins went overall. Yeah, both regions looked really shaky at the end of the summer split, but they've righted the ship pretty nicely, by all appearances. IMT's managed to slug it out admirably despite their tough group, C9's looking solid (aside from some goofs here and there by Contractz), everyone on TSM looks like world-class talent, and MSF's genuinely outperformed my expectations, especially in their game against TSM. Only G2 feels like they're underperforming, but that's probably a consequence of them getting a ridiculously tough group. FNC looked like rear end coming into groups, so them going 0-3 isn't a massive surprise. iSurrender posted:I dont get the hate G2 are getting this year, they're just up against better teams and should be expected to go 2-4. Their draw's the definition of unlucky. LMS's best team and a vengeful Lord Ambition in the same group is a case where getting third is likely the best you can strive for.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:03
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iSurrender posted:I dont get the hate G2 are getting this year, they're just up against better teams and should be expected to go 2-4. Also it really doesn't matter because if you're a top team at World's you've got to beat the best and can't use who your in groups with as an excuse. TSM might have the softest group and G2 might have the hardest group but if neither of them are going to beat whatever team gets 5-7th at World's it doesn't matter for anything except prize pool
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Oct 9, 2017 20:04
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The main problem with group draws is that winning any non-Korean region is basically not an indicator of power but the groups are drafted as though it is. Like the champion of Europe being a long-shot 3rd place team in a group of 4 teams is the product of that and that's probably people's main dissatisfaction. Not really sure how you rectify that though, if you put literally any Western team into that group they would also be expected to finish 3rd.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:06
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Libertine posted:Not really sure how you rectify that though, if you put literally any Western team into that group they would also be expected to finish 3rd. I don't think there's a way to do it that's satisfactory to everyone involved. At the least, I think getting routinely humiliated on stage by these good Korean teams has pushed some of the Western teams to improve significantly and take Worlds that much more seriously, and while I'm not ready to call the gap closed yet, it's encouraging to see that even a relatively inexperienced team like IMT was able to stand toe-to-toe with LZ, even if they couldn't pull out a win.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:10
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The gap has never closed or even been improved in any year of competitive league.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:15
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Libertine posted:The main problem with group draws is that winning any non-Korean region is basically not an indicator of power but the groups are drafted as though it is. Like the champion of Europe being a long-shot 3rd place team in a group of 4 teams is the product of that and that's probably people's main dissatisfaction. Not really sure how you rectify that though, if you put literally any Western team into that group they would also be expected to finish 3rd. I don't really think that any teams are going to get closer to Korea without competing against them regularly. Even the difference between the top 2 Korean teams and their 4-6 place teams are huge every year. Importing players doesn't help a whole lot because even the best players at World's start to sink when they're taken out of the hardcore and the only thing that ended up helping NA get a bit stronger was when LMQ were briefly around.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:16
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Anyway, Korea is going to keep winning World's probably until Riot kills their own E-Sport from incompetence and most of the great players retire and nobody else wants to take up the game competitively and the top teams will still probably be Korean teams but are a fourth as strong as SKT or Samsung were at their peaks.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:18
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My idea to improve Worlds is to just wholesale copy the format of The International and do that instead. I think 4 groups of four and random seeding into playoff brackets is the lovely part of the LOL Worlds format.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:20
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I think dota sucks and it can suck me.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:27
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I was probated for 6 hours because forum poster "realfoxy" reported me.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:29
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For saying that I would be asleep at 3 am.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:29
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gonna start all my posts in this thread with 'well, actually.....' and only say variations of 'i dont like this draft here' now so i don't bring the thread quality down + incur the wrath of the report button
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Oct 9, 2017 20:41
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Work Friend Keven posted:I was probated for 6 hours because forum poster "realfoxy" reported me. lmao, anyone who reports in this thread is a loving cop
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Oct 9, 2017 20:47
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G2 got a lot of poo poo for dropping games to bad teams in EU this split, TSM actually dropped a massive amount of game ones also. for both teams its because they were focusing heavily on the best of three format and obviously both teams final records were quite good, i just think G2 got more poo poo for it because some of the EU teams were truly dire. TSM got roasted for losing to NV when they had a very bad record tho. based on that a lot of people expected TSM and G2 to struggle in groups what with it being best of one and all, but TSM had a pretty winnable group and have been playing fairly well anyhow. G2 not doing well in groups was kind of expected and predicted because of this and you can definitely say its a flaw in their planning this season since both teams knew groups were still a series of best of ones but i guess they were banking on general talent level to get them through that. next season they can really put their nose to the grindstone and practice them best of ones tho!!!!
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Oct 9, 2017 20:51
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if you three want to make your own topic in the imp zone go for it
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Oct 9, 2017 20:51
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TI's format is really good, and it solves another problem with Worlds where the semifinals ends up being the real finals.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:53
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Hell I wish I could post in this thread without a narc spying to see if I say anything illegal, like that I sleep at night.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:56
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Reality Winner posted:TI's format is really good, and it solves another problem with Worlds where the semifinals ends up being the real finals.
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Oct 9, 2017 20:57
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Work Friend Keven posted:Hell I wish I could post in this thread without a narc spying to see if I say anything illegal, like that I sleep at night. ya but if you can post that what happens when someone starts making personal attacks, and then the rest of us just live with it like normal people
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Oct 9, 2017 20:57
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rabidsquid posted:lmao, anyone who reports in this thread is a loving cop Cop is a very underrated backseat mod
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Oct 9, 2017 21:00
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Libertine posted:My idea to improve Worlds is to just wholesale copy the format of The International and do that instead. Yeah I've wanted this since the clusterfuck of the groups format last year; the new pre-worlds qualifier is really similar to how TI is run but then following it up with an unchanged group stage for the first two weeks of Worlds proper is such poo poo
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Oct 9, 2017 21:00
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its kind of funny that the usual complaint is riot makes these big changes before worlds every season and then the meta is kind of thrown off and several of the teams who make it look like poo poo, either because they don't adapt quickly or because they only got to worlds off the back of something thats no longer relevant. this year the last few patches haven't been super major or anything but ardent censer wasn't properly addressed at all and so you still have a pretty big warping of the meta. granted neither IMT or MSF were gonna be expected to do a lot at worlds but when one of your teams biggest strength is playmaking supports and now you've got to be able to play ardent or your drafts will be super exploitable let alone ignoring like the in game effects of janna versus engage + roam supports. i dunno, it feels like somehow something always fucks this up a lot. i guess you can also blame circuit points and stuff meaning that you might make worlds off a really good spring and mediocre summer. a lot of stuff contributes to making it unbalanced and then the actual format of worlds doesnt help either edit: ardent explicitly enabling long range hyper carry adcs while also being strongest on one of the best disengage champs in the game doesnt exactly help
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Oct 9, 2017 21:02
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henkman posted:Cop is a very underrated backseat mod cop is a world class mod, not even backseat. he'd be the kind of mod this forum needs.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:07
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It's not even always about the timing of a patch messing with World's format, it's how often the game is patched with really huge changes. It makes solo queue more fun but it makes competitive less competitive because during a regular season it's about who can adapt to patches faster and at World's it's about which team could ride the wave of the latest patch furthest. Samsung Blue was the strongest team going into World's in Season 4 but Samsung White happened to be stronger in the patch/meta that World's was played on.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:08
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I'm of two minds about the eternal argument about gap-closing because on one hand, no one's going to match Korea ever in terms of the actual esports infrasturcture because those systems were build from ground up since like, what, Starcraft 1 days and thus Korea actually has a history of taking esports pretty drat seriously, there's just no way to get the same amount of effort in infrastructure in the west even though people have tried so obviously when Korean players show up here there's a bit of a decay as they taken out of a serious coaching regiment and serious competition. On the other, I don't think any team this year has looked invincible except LZ, and even then I don't think RNG are too far behind them based on what we've seen. Sure, SKT has a 3-0 record but they've looked plenty mortal and there's actually been a lot of macro related fuckups that have very nearly cost them games but only haven't because of very good and clutch outplays, combined with the Censer-Buffed Hypercarry meta strongly favoring late game to the exclusion of all other factors of play. I think this year we've seen more mortality from the Korean teams so far than we ever did in the past, and either way I wouldn't bet on SKT being four-time champs this go around.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:11
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rabidsquid posted:i guess you can also blame circuit points and stuff meaning that you might make worlds off a really good spring and mediocre summer. That would be a really odd position to take considering that all of the circuit point qualifiers (IMT, MSF, RNG, SKT, AHQ) finished second in their region in summer and are all equaling or besting the performance of their region's top placed team. I mean theoretically it's a possibility but if you're taking something away from the first week of worlds it's more that the important thing is just to make it to worlds and that how you match up with the meta and your specific group is way more important than how you qualified.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:31
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Korea is better because the korean server is a mad-max esque apocalyptic hellscape where only robots (faker) and straight up insane killers (khan) can prosper.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:33
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Last year is also the year NA did well and then like 1-9 the following week so analyzing team strength is probably going to feel silly. China and Korea are also notorious for trying to hide strategies until deep in the tournament and playing as meta as possible during groups so LZ and RNG could be even stronger than they look right now.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:34
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Crazy Larry posted:That would be a really odd position to take considering that all of the circuit point qualifiers (IMT, MSF, RNG, SKT, AHQ) finished second in their region in summer and are all equaling or besting the performance of their region's top placed team. I mean theoretically it's a possibility but if you're taking something away from the first week of worlds it's more that the important thing is just to make it to worlds and that how you match up with the meta and your specific group is way more important than how you qualified. no, my "circuit points teams get from a time period where any guides written about the game are 100% out of date and useless" take has nothing to do with the performance of any teams from worlds this week
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Oct 9, 2017 21:36
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RealFoxy posted:Last year is also the year NA did well and then like 1-9 the following week so analyzing team strength is probably going to feel silly. China and Korea are also notorious for trying to hide strategies until deep in the tournament and playing as meta as possible during groups so LZ and RNG could be even stronger than they look right now. If EDG is "hiding strats" then congratulations to Aaron and NoFe for destroying their own team out of a misguided belief that they could reap greater rewards later.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:44
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the one chinese team at worlds is doing bad
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Oct 9, 2017 21:44
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RealFoxy posted:Last year is also the year NA did well and then like 1-9 the following week so analyzing team strength is probably going to feel silly. China and Korea are also notorious for trying to hide strategies until deep in the tournament and playing as meta as possible during groups so LZ and RNG could be even stronger than they look right now. I feel like this meta in particular is a double edged sword in that regard. There *are* counter-strategies for the Ardent Hypercarry Deathball Strategem, but I think the fact that everyone knows how to play that and play to it well basically means we're not gonna see MASSIVE meta shifts, we've definitely seen some just during the first week of groups, like Trundle coming back out specifically as a Cho counter/splitpush threat.,but I don't think anyone wants to stray too far from hypercarry botlane because if one team has a hypercarry and the other doesn't and the game goes longer than like 30 minutes the team without a hypercarry loses. The meta favors the Korean teams because one good late-game teamfight is all you need to swing a game back in your favor so you're never really out but it also means there's probably an upper ceiling to how far you can deviate from censer meta and still expect to 'win' on the Worlds Patch that keeps the NA/EU teams from being constantly seen as 3 steps behind like they have been in years past.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:45
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the legitimate knock on two of the korean teams at worlds is that they have bad early game either laning, macro, or both, and it turns out when your only weakness isnt meaningfully exploitable its very good. since they're korean teams its going to be suggested that this was some kind of seventh degree chess but its the happiest accident they could have had.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:48
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