OGN Winter 2013/2014 Quarter Finals: Predictions!

While North America and Europe battle it out for the "bronze medal" at the Battle of Atlantic, (which should really be held on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean) the OGN Champions Winter 2013/2014 season in Korea is chugging along nicely having now reached the quarter finals stage of the competition. Sixteen teams have been reduced to eight as the top two teams in each of the four groups advance while the lower eight fall down to compete in the "amateur" NLB tournament. There are really no surprises out of the eight teams that made it out of groups, especially considering the match ups within the group stage, except for perhaps Xenics Storm who have really been the surprise team of the tournament.

This season we see a top quarterfinals bracket stacked full of talent, which will deny any hopes of seeing a rematch of last seasons grand final between KT Bullets and SKT T1 K. The result of this though will be a couple of teams that have never made it out quarterfinals or groups will get to the semifinals. Here are my thoughts and predictions on the quarter final match ups.

SKT T1 K v Samsung Blue:
It is Blue's first time in the quarter finals of an OGN season, they often called the Champions of the Off-season, referring to their good showings in the off season but failure to perform in OGN.  This match is a chance to prove winning 2-0 (in their quarter final match of WCG) against the freshly crowned World Champions SKT T1 K was no fluke. This quarter final is a rematch of the surprising victory, a victory even Blue's midlaner Pawn, did not think possible against Faker's team.
Somehow, despite the obvious improvement and high quality level of play Blue has exhibited in the past few months I am skeptical that there will be repeat of the 2-0 at WCG. SKT T1 K has shown just how skilled they are in game, that they can make plays to counter an early deficit (see their recent game against Blaze) and how every single member of their team can be counted on to perform as individuals and also together as a team. They seem to have a combination of  fierce determination and skill that allows them to be terrifying on Summoners Rift, something no other team seems to possess. Considering the history between these two teams I don't think Faker is going to let Pawn get two kills on him ever again and Blue are definitely the underdogs in this match. We will just have to wait and see if maybe they can pull off a repeat of WCG.
Prediction: SKT T1 K

KT Bullets v CJ Blaze:
This match up is a rematch of last seasons quarterfinals, as last Summer CJ Blaze was booted out of the competition at the quarterfinals by KT Bullets 3-2 who went on to take second place behind SKT T1 K.
These two teams both had pretty difficult groups to contend with during the group stage (although ironically Bullets' group was the only group not to have a tiebreaker). KT Bullets pulled out a 2-0 against a strong looking IM #2 in their last game to secure the #1 spot to move out of groups. only losing one game in the group stages to Samsung Blue. Blaze's group stage record does not look as pretty, losing 0-2 to SKT T1 K and was forced into a tiebreaker with the new SKT T1 S team to get out of groups. The two SKT T1 teams are tough opponents however and Blaze's results don't mean they will be a push over for KT Bullets. Blaze will not want to miss out on the semi-finals again and are bound to want revenge on Ryu and crew for last season's results. However, the KT Bullets are a fantastic team, and I think they are slightly stronger than Blaze at the moment. This match will likely be really close but I think the unique strategies and play style of the KT Bullets will win out crushing Flame and his team's dream of getting the trophy.
Prediction: KT Bullets

CJ Frost v Samsung Ozone:
Ozone's quarter finals opponent is none other than CJ Frost who is suffering from a significant slump in performance. While Frost has not won any major tournament since Summer 2012, they have consistently placed highly in tournaments with solid performances. However with the changes in Season 3, now into pre-Season 4 and the inability for Frost to settle on a reliable midlaner, plus shaky performances from the rest of the team at times, Frost has slipped failing to beat a surprisingly strong Xenics Storm in a tiebreaker for first place out of their group. Even Shy and Madlife, Frost's star players, have not been able to make up for the lack of strength in the midlane. It seems Frost is struggling to find something that works and there is no guarantee Frost will perform like the Frost of days gone by. Ozone has also had problems with consistency, following an unexpectedly dismal performance at Worlds which will have Ozone fans cringing for some time. However unlike Frost they have picked up somewhat, their sub top laner Looper being able to perform well under pressure consistently.  Even their old top laner, Homme, in the match he did play this season performed solidly although it's clear Looper has more of an impact especially with his teleport plays. Looper has yet to be tested against the best Korean top laners such as the likes of Shy, Flame or Impact. However, I think Ozone will most likely beat Frost if they are adequately prepared, as they are team that I believe is rather reliant on having a good strategy. Often they can simply outplay their opponents but when it comes to the more experienced teams Ozone really needs a definitive plan to really play at their full potential. This is how they managed to beat Blaze in a devastating 3-0 when they won OGN Spring in 2013. In saying that though Frost has just as much time to prepare and might be able to patch over their problems to pull off a win. However the lack of a reliable midlaner is unlikely to be fixed in the time given and I think Ozone's mid, dade, outclasses Frost's trio of midlaners (Maknoon, GBM and RapidStar). As much as it will be heartbreaking to see Madlife cry again, they will need more than just God's tears to beat Ozone.
Prediction: Samsung Ozone

Xenics Storm v Najin White Shield
Neither of these teams are big name teams. Najin White Shield has always been in their sister team Black Sword's shadow, despite now having done better than them in two consecutive OGN seasons. I guess Black Sword do have an OGN trophy and a good performance at the recent World Championships to their name but it is Shield that has proven the Najin team to watch. NoFe may not have the same charm as his fellow Najin jungler Watch, but NoFe is probably the player to look out for on this team. Shield got out of groups in the second place spot after losing in a tie breaker to Samsung Ozone. Shield is a team that works really well together spearheaded by NoFe and Save, their toplaner (although he did play midlane in the tiebreaker). However although they are quite solid in their team play, they are not a team to make big plays or come out with any crazy strategies. They were probably in one of the softer groups in the group stage and it will be interesting to see how well they do against other experienced teams if they make it far enough. Xenics Storm also was perhaps in a softer group, but even considering this, they have performed well beyond anyone's expectations. Xenics Storm is a team that last season, was considered to be a team that was only better than their sister team Xenics Blast. They only managed two wins in the group stages last season, and one of these was against Blast. This season however, they are first out of their group, beating CJ Frost convincingly in a tiebreaker. Coco and Arrow, the teams mid and AD carry, are very skilled players and both have posted impressive numbers this season. The rest of the team falls nicely in with these stand out players, allowing them to carry.They have a very kill-centric style, Piccaboo, the support, constantly roams mid to create kill opportunities to help feed Coco. Storm's play has been nothing short of impressive and it's great to see a team that did so poorly last season to come out fighting. Considering this I am going to just go out on a limb and jump straight onto the Xenics Storm hype train and say I think they have a very good chance of making it to the grand final. With a lot of the favourites for this tournament pushed into the top bracket this season I think Xenics Storm has a good chance of surprising everyone and ending up being one of the two teams battling for the trophy this season.
Prediction: Xenics Storm

Who do you think is going to win?

Thanks for reading! You can find me on twitter @gerarda 

The End of the World...Championships S3

So, the third season of professional League of Legends has come to a close, with the Korean team SK Telecom T1 taking the Summoners Cup in a 3-0 victory. The event as the Staples Center in Los Angeles California was a much hyped event, and as I watched the live broadcast that started at 11am in my hometown I felt pretty excited about the whole League eSports scene. I think, overall, the final event and more so the whole World Championship was a raging success and I wish I could have been in LA, for at least some of the matches. I am going to try my best to be wherever Season 4 Worlds is held. Anyway here are some of my thoughts about the two teams and the final match.

SKT T1 are BEAST

OK, so if you didn't know this already, then I am not sure where you have been for the last three weeks. SKT T1 have shown nothing but dominance since the start of OGN Summer. To this day (since the Summer season began), they have only lost a total of 7 games, 1 to Samsung Galaxy Ozone, 3 to KT Bullets, 1 to OMG and 2 to Najin Black Sword. The only best of series they have lost (since their debut in Spring) was in OGN Spring was to Ozone. If this isn't the pedigree of the World Championship team, then I don't know what is. Keeping this in mind, I was really surprised that most people on the broadcast (except the viewers and MonteCristo) thought Royal would win. I don't know if this was people just trying to hype up the match or what, but it seemed strange to see barely anyone picked SKT to win. I know there was a lot of hype around the Korean teams *cough*MonteCristo*cough*Hypetrain*cough* and also because Ozone didn't perform as well as expected, I think all this hype tricked a lot of people in to thinking that Korea wasn't as good they actually are. MonteCristo was the main public advocate of Korea on the English stream and people unfamiliar with his style and personality probably assumed he was just being arrogant or biased a lot of the time. But everyone seems to forget that he is (afterwards) quite often right and despite his large ego and support of Korean teams, he never hesitates to admit being wrong or to call out Korean teams (or any other teams) on their bad play or preparation. SKT T1 allowed Monte, and many others, to ride the hype train all the way to the Summoners Cup, which Impact may or may not get to drink Coke out of.

Royal Club may have lost but they actually won
...our hearts. Royal Club are a great team, but not great enough to shut down the power house that is SKT T1. However, they had no lack of support for trying. I am pretty certain that most people at the Staples Center were cheering for Royal, even as they held SKT signs. Royal's fan appeal skyrocketed, thanks pretty much entirely to their support player Tabe and his ability to speak exceptional English. If he had not been so eloquent, yet at the same time candid and honest about himself and his team, their performance and personalities, I think Royal would not have been able to get as many fans in the Staple Center cheering for them as they did. His story was not only one that resonated with viewers (him wanting money to be able to marry his girlfriend, plus his brotherly relationship with Uzi and leadership role in the team) but also filled the void in that story element that so drives the Western eSports scene. This void was created by the fact that no English speaking team managed to get through to the finals, leaving those who do not speak Chinese or Korean having to connect to players via subtitles or translators. Now,  I don't want people to think I think all eSports pros should speak English. No, of course not. A lot of fans care about the players themselves, but this connection only goes so far when the communication element is broken up by a translation. It's just not the same. Also, regardless of this language barrier, no other player in the finals teams had such an interesting story. SKT T1 is full of young ambitious talent, which is a story in itself - the fact they have got so far so quickly is to be admired but, it's not heart string tugging stuff. Faker isn't about to put his successful career aside and retire because he wants to spend more time with his plants. Tabe also introduced everyone to a new type of out spoken player, rather than the trash talking commonly seen, a humble yet opinionated support player emerged from the trash talking herd. It was very refreshing and Riot could not have hoped for a better story/personality than Tabe's to drive Royal's hype to the finals.

It has been thoroughly enjoyable following both NA and the EU LCS, the Korean OGN and the Chinese LPL. I wish I could have seen more of the games I missed, especially in the SEA and Taiwan regions which I really saw nothing of, due to laziness and also to having no idea where to look. Next season I hope to be more vigilant and watch more. I am excited for the WCG games that start in Korea on the 14th, which I think will be the first pro action to happen after Worlds. And on that note, I'll see you in Season 4.

Lol, jk, I will probably write more on this blog about League before then. Thanks for reading, follow me @gerarda on Twitter and leave comments and feedback and fun stuff. 

/r/leagueoflegends DISSECTED! #1 "How long will league as an (e-)sports survive?"

The League of the Legends subreddit, r/leagueoflegends is the most popular League related subreddit and it is extremely active, being the #40 of subreddits in terms of subscribers and #9 for submissions per day. Most people who are active in the League of Legends community, that is, those that participate in League related activity on various social media sites and watch the pro leagues probably have visited the subreddit at some point in time. This popularity means the posts on the front page of reddit varying wildly in content and quality. I often get annoyed at the quality of the posts on the front page and so I have decided to pick a few that I would like to express some of my opinions on this blog.

So introducing the first post for dissection! "How long will league as an (e-)sports survive?"

So this is actually a very good question. League of Legends is a relatively new game and e-sports is a relatively new and widely unknown concept. Not many games have (arguably none in some regions of the world) experienced this type of popularity in terms of the e-sport scene. Riot is putting on events that are on a scale that have not been tried in e-sports scene, viewer numbers are huge and apparently rising. But as always people ask how long will this last? There are a lot of factors that will contribute to this and it's very difficult to know how any one of these factors will play out in the future.
This redditor, however, expresses that they, personally, had realised that watching the games was getting increasingly boring for them. Which is fair enough, not everyone can enjoy every game. However, then they go on to say "Don't get me wrong yesterday's game were really exciting..."

But...you just said they were boring! They can't be both exciting and boring at the same time. I can accept though that perhaps they are allowing for other peoples personal opinions just phrasing it in an awkward way. But then comes the next bit...

"With more and more experience the amount of mistakes and throws will get lower. If this trend stays there will be a point where games are decided with first blood or the first lane losing. Right now games are exciting because the leading team makes mistakes or wrong calls."

Ummm.....what???

The poster is actually suggesting that as pro players get better the game will be less interesting because the only reason why people watch the game is apparently to see if a team will make a mistake and "throw" the game. 

People apparently don't want to see top level plays and strategies being made by top teams and top players. Oh no, they want to see questionable 19 minute Barons (I'm looking at you Vulcan), fail flashes and missed skill shots! I find this really hard to believe, people love players like Uzi and Faker for a reason, people love teams like Fnatic and SKT T1 for a reason. They make the plays and they don't make mistakes. If more people prefer watching sloppy play then I feel there is something wrong with the game of League of Legends itself. 

The redditor points out that the top level teams know how to push objectives and capitalize on a lead. Well of course they do! A pro team should be able to use an advantage properly. This isn't some casual silver solo queue game where the champions run around randomly for 40 minutes.   You don't practice 12+ hours a day and not know when you should take a tower after a good team fight.

One redeeming feature of this post is that they express the concern about how the "snowballing" effect means that games can be decided in the first few minutes depending on what happens, if there's a first blood, who wins lane. This a legitimate concern not just for competitive play but for casual play as well, since if the game becomes too easy to snowball then it's not exactly the most fun to watch or play. However, this post suggests that League is super snowbally, which it isn't (at least at the moment), most of the time teams have a chance to come back - just like a soccer team 3 goals behind (to use the same comparison as in the post) has a chance. But do you think a professional soccer team would let the opposing team get 3 goals to even it out? If they were any good, of course not. Same with League. League is a lot more complicated in terms of format and gameplay then soccer so it's not exactly the same. But that's what I like about it. If I wanted to watch soccer, I'd watch soccer.
I think in terms of pro play, you have to take into account that teams don't just chill out and see what happens. They have a plan. They know what to do if they get first blood or if they don't. They (hopefully) know about the strengths and weaknesses of their team composition as well as the enemies compositions. If both teams are of equal skill level then these strategies will play themselves out which is what is interesting to watch.

MVP Ozone destroyed CJ Entus Blaze in the OGN Champions Spring Final because they were the first to hard counter Blaze's minion push strategy. It was probably the most unexpected victory  in the history of League of Legends. Faker won a 1 v 1 against a 100% health Ryu with less than half health in the Championship Summer final. C9 dominated the NA LCS with an unexpected Ashe/Zyra combo and carry jungler. Fnatic left opponents baffled in S3 Worlds' group stages and EU LCS regionals with their double teleport strategy.  These are plays that should be remembered, not that questionable team fight engage at Baron, that missed flash or level 1 brush face check.

The poster then sums it up saying they think the snowbally nature of League is why people will stop caring about League as an e-Sports very soon. While I think this is a concern and Riot needs to avoid creating a game that can easily snowball, I don't think in any way it is an issue at this time (in terms of people caring about League as an e-Sports, not that changes to the game shouldn't be made as the strategies evolve). Gold leads aren't always snowballed in the first ten minutes of the game, games that have huge gold differences aren't always boring to watch. Mistakes and bad play aren't the only thing that can turn games around. Statistics tell you about win rates and objective securing but do not say ANYTHING about the enjoyment factor. This redditor describes themself as an addict. But I don't think you can assume that others only watch the games to see if one team "throws".

A Brutal TL;DR: Don't complain when you think that "throws" are the most interesting parts of the game and they aren't happening as often because increased skill levels. That's just nuts. You might be watching the game but...you're doing it wrong.

Or at least forgetting there is a whole host of other reasons to watch a pro match. Perhaps you should spend some time on r/bestofbronze.

Thanks for reading =)  You can find me on twitter @gerarda, leave comments! Tweet feedback at me! Also sorry for the length, I am not very good at making short posts it seems but I shall try to shorten future posts. 

The Hot 6ix OGN Champions Summer Finals - Highlights from the Ground

Recently I went to Seoul, South Korea to watch the final matches of the Hot 6ix OGN Champions Summer season. The first match I saw was the 3rd place match between MVP Ozone (now Samsung Galaxy Ozone) and CJ Entus Frost. The second match I saw was the final match of the tournament between SKT T1 and KT Bullets, with SKT taking out the victory. The whole experience of being in Seoul by myself was amazing and I could probably write about it for days but instead I am going to summarise it by some highlights of the events:

1. Lining up for tickets but not for the bathroom:

The two matches I went to were best of five matches all going to the fifth match. This is means there usually is three hours or so between start and finish. This a standard time for a sports event (although unlike in other sports there's no more than 10 minutes between each game - there is not half time or anything like that). What took up most of the time was waiting in line to get tickets. Both events were free but you needed a tickets for both. These tickets were given out on the day of each match and it was a first come first serve basis. There are pros and cons for this system but it mainly means a lot of waiting in line. And not only do you have to wait in line but you have to be sufficiently placed in the line to get a ticket for a good seat. I spent FIVE HOURS in line for the third place match. And I got the last seated seat in the TV studio. But being in line was surprisingly interesting in itself. It's always exciting to observe completely new things and the fact that hardly anyone spoke English makes it more like a puzzle since there's no way of knowing what is actually going on. I wrote a blog about my line experience. For the final tickets were scheduled to be given out at 10am on the day and I arrived at 7am anticipating a large line...I was not disappointed. There was at least 300 people in front of me. The final was not in the usual TV studio which holds about 200 people but at a stadium holding close to 10,000.  I was mostly chilling in line with middle school aged boys which was kind of funny really because I stuck out because of gender, my ethnicity and my age (although I look like I could be anywhere between 16-24). Not that there weren't older people around but the teenagers just happened to make up the majority near me. All this waiting was completely worth it though, 10/10 would line up again.

In the line at 7am for finals tickets.

The male toilet line during the finals. The ladies' toilets had no line so no waiting for me!

2. Rain and being #wetforeSports

The finals were held at the Jamsil Sports Complex Subsidiary Stadium which apart from being host to many concert and events including the Olympics, is notable for being an outdoor stadium. So when it started to rain during the first game everyone and everything got fairly wet. The rain triggered a max exodus to the undercover areas at the back of the stadium although many people stayed in their seats embracing being #wetforeSports. I feel most sorry for the casters, since they could hardly slip into a raincoat, put up an umbrella or rush undercover while casting. I would have been thoroughly distracted but the OGN have excellent English and Korean casters and they managed to turn the rain into a positive. After all the number of people who were still there watching in the rain just proves how dedicated and excited the fans were to be watching the finals.

Dedicated fans with raincoats and umbrellas and they eventually erected tents over the casters 

3. Vision Wars! But not for the fans - mini maps and different POV galore

This blog is named after the constant battle for in-game vision that teams these days find themselves, and just so fans didn't miss out of any of this struggle the screen set up consisted of; a main screen with the usual spectator mode with both teams visions on one map, two square screens showing mini maps of each teams vision separately and; two smaller screens showing one teams vision at any given time. I am a big fan of how in the OGN the observer is always switching between full vision and the separate team visions to give the viewers an idea of what each team sees. This screen set up took that to the next level and really gave those spectating at the venue a new perspective on the game. It really can show how great some of the plays pros make when they have limited vision or leads to better understanding of how important vision is at any given time. I hope other eSport event organisers can utilise this idea for future events because it really adds another dimension to viewing eSports live at the venue. 

All of the screens for exciting viewing! The side screens often showed other parts of the game not on the main screen.

4. Quadruple Ninjas!

The blind pick games for both the 3rd place match and the final were explosive. If a match goes to a blind pick game in the finals, you just KNOW it's  probably going to be the most exciting and amazing League of Legends you have ever seen. I am so glad that I got to see two blind pick matches when I was there, especially considering there were absolutely none in the spring season. The 3rd place match had MVP Ozone and CJ Frost both pulling out Zeds for their midlaners, and also double Thresh in the botlane. But it was the finals match between SKT T1 and KT Bullets that gave birth to the Quadruple Ninjas, both top laners Impact and InSec both pulling out the Shen (wtf 2 shens?!), and Faker and Ryu with Zed v Zed in the mid lane. I suggest you watch that game to see how that turned out (hint: see next point).

4. Faker, the play maker and mid lane terror

SKT T1 is known for a play making style of play and this finals was no exception. Faker picked up the MVP of the whole season, and his Ahri and Zed plays destroyed the KT Bullets. Special mention goes to that Zed play in the blind pick game, where he won a duel against Ryu's full health Zed when he was less than a quarter health. The plays. Only a video can really do it justice. 

SKT T1 player banners in all their glory!

These are just a few of the reasons why going to Seoul was worth the 13 hour flight and not insignificant financial loss. I really enjoyed Seoul as a city and a place to be, and I will definitely be going there again (Season 4 Worlds? Riot pls).

You can read more on my trip and League of Legends in this post.

Thanks for reading, don't forget to leave comments below and you can find me @gerarda on Twitter! 

Spectating in Seoul: Watching the 3rd place Match of OGN Champions Summer 2013

Coming out of nearly 17 consecutive years of education leaves a person feeling a bit dazed and confused, and as I found myself in a situation with limitless free time I have been able to watch considerable amounts of professional League of Legends from Korea and other regions. Anyone who has talked to me enough probably knows that I am a big fan of the Korean League of Legends scene, whether or not they know what that means. So, naturally, I decided to use some of the money I had saved up through all of high school and university to go to Seoul, South Korea and watch some pro games live.  It fit nicely into my idea of going on a holiday without having to use up all my spare cash. At the time the OGN Champions Summer 2013 was wrapping up with their final on 31st of August and the 3rd place match between MVP Ozone and CJ Entus Frost being on the Wednesday just before, so being the dedicated eSports fan I am, I planned to go to both events as part of my trip.

The League of Legend matches are held at the I'Park Mall e-Sports Stadium in Yongsan

I arrived in Seoul, South Korea, late Tuesday afternoon after a 13 hour journey from my hometown Perth, in Western Australia and the next day, my first point of business was to check out the third place match. I knew there would be a line that would need to be waited in for tickets, as it is frequently mentioned by MonteCristo and DoA, the shoutcasters of the English OGN stream, that fans line up hours in advanced on the day of the match to grab a free ticket to watch the games in the OGN studio. The line is particularly long, apparently, when big teams like the CJ Entus teams and MVP Ozone are playing. Seeing as this was a CJ Frost and MVP Ozone (now Samsung Galaxy Ozone) match and for third place - the last match held in the studio for the summer season, I anticipated a large line. However I had no idea how large so I went extra early just in case. I also was expecting to get lost because I assumed the I'Park Mall in Yongsan was going to be huge, far beyond my native city of less than 2 million people experience. After travelling up what seemed like endless escalators and then being surprised to find myself on the 8th floor, I found myself taking the escalators up to the 9th floor to the my target destination with no idea what to expect.  I arrived at 10:30am and already there was about 20 people sitting in front of the doors. As twenty was not a huge number and people weren't flooding into the line (although 20 to come so early does well to indicate how dedicated the Korean fans can be) so I decided to come back later and in the meantime do some further exploring of the mall.

Line at about 11am, tickets were handed out at 5:30pm

At 12:30pm I went back up to the 9th floor, where the e-Sports stadium is (note: less of an eSports "stadium" more of a TV studio space - still impressive nonetheless). There was only a spattering of new people but I decided I couldn't be bothered wandering around anymore and sat down to wait with my Kindle and phone to read and work out my international roaming data package. People slowly trickled up the escalators to sit down in the ever growing line. To set the scene a little bit, the eSports Stadium is one of the only things on the ninth floor of the I'Park Mall. The other things that exist there are what I can only assume were some offices and then an outside area complete with some exercise equipment and a smoking area for people during their office breaks. The escalators were the only way to get to the ninth floor apart from some obscurely placed elevators and this resulted in all these Korean office workers walking back and forth past everyone sitting in line. I wondered if the people who walked past were perplexed by the bunch of mostly Korean teenage/twenty-somethings sitting around the ninth floor on Wednesdays but having absolutely no Korean I didn't ask. The line eventually went out the door into the outside area, with people having to wait outside at least two hours before they handed out the tickets. The long and short of this experience was yes, I did wait about 5 hours to get in but it was completely worth it.

MVP Ozone's booth from where I was sitting in the audience

The fans dedication to their favourite teams and the game is clearly evident in how many people were lining up from 10:30am but it can also be seen from what the fans themselves did in the line. Five or more hours sitting in a line, is a long time for anyone to do nothing so my fellow fans amused themselves with making signs for their favourite players. A few girls made an excellent Cloud Templar (jungler of CJ Frost) poster with the cutest purple elephant on it (Cloud Templar's nickname is elephant) and then also went on to make a really awesome Blitzcrank sign for none other than Madlife (CJ Frost's support player). A bunch of people behind me in line were watching a LoL Summer Lesson and  the girl in front of me had a picture of Shy as her phone background.

The highlight of the lining up had to be when the teams themselves went up the escalators and past everyone in the line to go into the studio. This was made even more exciting by the fans reaction to the teams walking past - the girl who had Shy as her phone background let out a little shriek and exclaimed excitedly to her friends, while everyone stood up and started talking excitedly. It was pretty adorable really. I am not really a typical "fangirly" person about anything, at least outwardly, but it's impossible not to get excited about CJ Frost walking past a mere metre from you especially when the people around you are so genuinely and outwardly excited about it. The players themselves look fairly ordinary, most of them are quite young looking and with their team polo shirts and matching pants at first glance look more like a well disciplined school group then highly focused and trained athletes. There was even the part of the late, dawdling students played by RapidStar and Ganked By Mom (Frost's midlaners), RapidStar appearing to drag the bowtied hipster GBM past all his adoring fans into the studio a few minutes after the rest of Frost had entered. I have always wondered whether the fact that eSports professionals just don't look like traditional athletes will make eSports harder to accept as a mainstream sport/activity that can attract crowds with numbers competitive to that of football or basketball (progamers tend to look rather young and "nerdy" whereas a traditional sports professional may be the same age but due to the need to be at their physical peak look a lot older and more obvious in their role).

A few other foreign fans in the line spoke to me because being one of the only Caucasian people there they assumed I could speak English and probably looked like I knew what was going on because I was sitting among all the Koreans (in reality I was just copying what everyone else was doing and hoping no one would give any important/complicated instructions in Korean because otherwise I would have been completely lost). In trying to work out what exact time they gave out tickets the girl with the Shy phone background helped us out with what time it started which then led to a conversation about our favourite players/teams. Her favourite player was Shy (hence the phone wallpaper) and she asked me if I was a fan of Frost. I am more of a fan of MVP Ozone but seeing as she had a limited English I just mentioned Frost and that my favourite player was Madlife (Madlife is my favourite player on Frost). To which she exclaimed "God!" and I think part of me died inside of happiness (Madlife is known as "God" due to his godlike plays in game).

It was like a crazy collision between my experience of watching endless OGN Champion matches on the English stream at home in Australia and then being in Seoul waiting to see the actual game, in the flesh, far away from what I am used too. Already I knew that Koreans call Madlife God because MonteCristo and DoA mention it and there are always fans signs at the events. But to hear it from an ordinary Korean fan just affirmed that what I've heard sitting at home was all true and it was amazing.

The Korean casters on the left and the English casters on the right. Korean casters are heard in the studio & on Korean stream/TV channel. English casters can be heard on the live OGN global internet stream.

That is probably a little bit of an exaggeration but I've always felt that the language barrier always created a separation between the Korean scene and the foreign/non-Korean fans (despite the English commentators being live on set). It's very difficult to completely understand a scene in which you don't speak the language or understand much of the culture. South Korea was a place I scarcely even thought of before getting interested in eSports. It doesn't feature much in the mainstream news for any reason other than the on-going tensions between it and North Korea and from a tourist's point of view it's not really a popular destination for Australians compared to places like Indonesia or Japan. For this summer's OGN season more translations of players interviews have been available thanks mainly to Chobra's efforts for OGN's global audience and the English commentators do their best to translate the general feeling of the scene on to the stream. However, as a foreign fan, the language barrier only allows you to view the scene through limited avenues (no matter how talented and brilliant these avenues are), rarely hearing things from the Korean players or fans themselves. The Korean fans dedication and excitement for the game, teams and players is always mentioned and you can hear about it endlessly.  But knowing what it's like is almost impossible until you are actually there. And I was there, at the live event, and it made me so happy and excited to be able to experience it, despite the language difference, because I too, love the game, teams and players.

Thanks for reading! You can find me on twitter @gerarda or leave a comment below! =)

Hot 6ix OGN Champions Summer Statistics Spreadsheet

For the group stages in the Hot 6ix OGN Summer Statistics I made a spreadsheet with some statistics for the Ro16 group stage (not including the tie breaker) as something to do and to use as a reference if I am ever watching a game and want to see what a team has previously picked etc. I know they have it on leaguepedia and there's those infographics various people come out with but I like using Excel (using the COUNTIF function to count words was my favourite past time at my rather dull work experience job for my degree).

View the spreadsheet here! It's colour coded! There may be errors, feel free to point them out.

My favourite statistic is the Jayce's win rate being 17%, only winning one game in the entire group stages despite being picked or banned 83% of the time.

I was thinking of doing some pretty graphs to show some trends of picks because who doesn't like pretty graphs. I do. As for now though, feast your eyeballs on some Excel goodness. I really would like to contrast the main regions picks/bans as well but that's a lot of work and I might wait until closer to the World Championships because of the new patches being rolled out which may change some picks/bans.

Season 3 World Championships: Regionally Biased or Not?

With the Season 3 World Championships for League of Legends rapidly approaching, details about how the possibly most hyped event on the eSport's calendar with be structured are beginning to emerge. Just a few days a go a USA today article announced that the final for the World Championships would be held at the well renowned Staples Center in LA. This was then followed up by the announcement on lolesports.com by Riot of how many teams per region could secure a place in the World Championship.  The format is to be as follows:

"North America - 3 entries
Europe - 3 entries
Southeast Asia - 2 entries
China - 2 entries
Korea - 3 entries
International Wildcard - 1 entry"

These numbers certainly seemed to have surprised a lot of people and this led to a lot of questions mainly based around why the EU and NA regions has one more entry than any other region (Korea had gained it's 3rd slot after a win at the All-Star tournament earlier in April). Indeed, it was generally assumed that each region (NA, EU, SEA, China and KR) has guaranteed two entries into the World Championships, and then the winner of the All-Star tournament would win a third sport and be able to field more teams in the Championships than any other regions. This not being the case generated a lot of confusion and outcry, many people stating that this tournament structure was regionally biased, giving NA and EU an extra chance to get to the final without doing anything for it. Riot's reasoning for this, as stated in the lolesports.com article, was that it followed a similar structure to the World Championships for Season 2. For Season 2 both EU and NA got 3 slots, Korea, China and Southeast Asia got 2 slots. Save for the Wildcard slot and the extra slot that was up for grabs at All-Stars the format is exactly the same.

So, then, is there even an issue? Should all regions get the same number of slots? Personally, being from none of the regions that are guaranteed to be represented I think following the same format is a fairly conservative choice in a host of other options that are available. Riot is simply going for last years option because it seemed to work well and none of the regions seemed to be disadvantaged. After all the final of Season 2 consisted of a Southeast Asian team and a Korean team (Azubu Frost). Furthermore the Korean teams also had the slight disadvantage of not getting a regional bye due to the structure of the tournament yet they got a team into the final and did not seemed to be hampered by it at all.  However does this justify the decision and therefore is this the best decision? There is no clear cut answer to this question, especially since the way to tell will only be to see how the tournament itself goes as anything can happen at the Word Championships. I will attempt to discuss some of the issues I have with the format below.

The main thing I have an issue with is that the point of the All Star tournament is somewhat lessened because of this choice and (although only in hindsight because of the lateness of the announcement) it became a lot more important for Korea/China/Southeast Asia to win than NA or EU. Perhaps this perception is somewhat impacted by the fact that I assumed (like many others) that each of the five main regions would be only guaranteed 2 spots in the Championships and then the All Star winner would get an extra slot, making for a total of 12 slots including the wildcard. Thereby making the top two spots for each region much more competitive to get, especially in a league structured like the LCS for NA and EU. Since this is not the case however, I think it makes the NA and EU scenes a lot less competitive in at least getting to the World Championships.
If all five regions had 2 slots each it would validate the point of All Stars and the region to win All Stars would actually have an advantage above the regions they did defeat. Not to mention I think if either NA or EU were to win All Stars and got a fourth spot (which they would have with the current format) this would have been just ridiculous. A World Championship with double the amount of representation of one region compared to that of three of the "major" regions in the game? That is ridiculous, no matter how good the winning region is.  It's just kind of convenient that Korea dominated All Stars and won that third spot instead of NA or EU.  I want a World Championship to be just that, a tournament that represents the best of the world, to give each region an equal chance to show their strength in determining who is best.

So is this format regionally biased? Well yes. It is. NA and EU are simply getting an extra slot because of last years World Championship format, giving them a representation advantage over the others simply because of what happened last year. Considering the rapidly evolving nature of eSports especially in League of Legends, I feel that the choice to make it all equal (excluding the All Stars earned slot) for the five main regions would not be that crazy or at all unexpected (as I said earlier a lot of people already assumed this format anyway).  Last year, the regions of Korea, China and Southeast Asia were more or less unknown to pretty much every English speaking League of Legends spectator. Riot, being an English speaking and North American/European based company may have used this an reason to put in less spots for the unknown regions.  This year however there has been a lot more exposure with All Stars and with many of the other regions leagues being talked about a lot more, as well as the general popularity of LoL growing enormously. The lack of international tournaments this season may have hurt regional exposure slightly but I feel it's a lot better than last year regardless. Last year I barely knew Korea even played League of Legends, now Korea is my favourite scene to watch, due to their high level strategies and exceptional teamwork (aspects of the game that really appeal to me). Maybe this is just me and English speakers are still as ignorant about Asian regions as they were before, however I somewhat doubt this due to All Stars. But even if they aren't known I feel allowing them to be equal in slots with NA and EU would allow for more exposure and bring all of the main regions onto the same footing. Furthermore the development of the scenes inside the different regions is enormous, for example League of Legends is much more wide spread in Korea than it is in North America. The World Championships is not just going to be watched by those who watch NA and EU scenes, it's going to be watched by the entire world's League of Legends community.
By having even slots, it would be (one of) Riot's ways of letting the audience know, these are your top teams of the main regions, this is an international game that covers all the globe and all languages, everyone has a the same chance to win.

There is a lot more that can probably be said on this issue, and the above is just my opinion. In the end, it's not likely that Riot will change the format for this season, but discussion is important in order for eSports and League of Legends to continue to grow and be a fantastic game to play and watch.  I hope you have enjoyed reading this and hope it hasn't been a complete failure of an article.