League of Legends in 500 Words or Less: Brief Introduction to Roles in LoL

In League of Legends the current meta game (‘meta game’ generally refers to the perceived optimal strategy that is widely adopted by players in game) dictates that there are five very distinctive roles that are played on each team. Each one has their own responsibilities and in search of a better word, role in a team. The specific objectives of each role differ depending on a team's composition, enemy composition and sometimes (especially in solo queue) mere circumstance.  The roles are as follows:

Top: Starts the beginning of the game in the top lane. This lane is a solo lane and top players aim to farm as many minions as possible. Often (but not always) top laners will aim to have a high survivability in order to protect the more vulnerable members of a team. Top laners often also build to have reasonably high damage output to aid disabling the enemy carries.

Jungle: Starts the beginning of the game in the jungle. Gets gold and experience from farming jungle camps as well as supporting laners by ganking and helping kill enemy laners. They also play a key role in securing neutral monsters like the buffs, Dragon and Baron. Junglers help to control the overall map,  as they are a constant threat to enemy laners while hidden in the jungle.

Mid:  Starts the beginning of the game in the middle lane. This lane is also a solo lane and players aim to farm as many minions as possible. It is usual to see high damage champions in this lane, usually champions who rely on their spells/abilities to do burst damage. These champions often scale with ability power but it's not uncommon to see attack damage casters in the mid lane. Often mid laner champions scale in damage with levels and this is why they are put in a solo lane so they can get solo experience and be the highest level on a team.

AD Carry/Marksman: Starts the beginning of the game in bottom lane. A marksman's job is to provide the sustained attack damage on the team. A marksman's damage almost always scales with attack damage and often are reliant on auto attacks to dish out tonnes of damage in the late game. Marksman champions tend to be very venerable and rely on their team mates to keep them alive so they can output maximum damage. Marksmen scale with items so getting a high creep score is very important.

Support: Starts the beginning of the game in the bottom lane with the Marksman. A supports job is to keep their Marksman safe in the laning phase so the Marksman can farm. Supports help control vision on the map and provide their team with a lot of utility but usually no damage. The bottom lane is traditionally the duo lane due to being closer to dragon in the early game, so that teams will have more members in order to secure Dragon in the early stages of the game.  

Words: 498

Thanks for reading! This post is part of my League of Legends in 500 Words or Less series, post #4, please read the intro for more information. This is just a quick intro to the roles used in League of Legends. Not very interesting but I might link back to it later in other 500 words or less. Also follow me on twitter @gerarda, I love feedback! =)

League of Legends in 500 Words or Less: All Stars, All Speculation

There has been a lot of talk about All Stars recently in the League community and I thought I would contribute some 500 words to this discussion. As the expected time for the All Stars tournament draws closer (2013 All Stars was held in April) discussions on who should be in the All Stars team for each region have started to crop up. These discussions are usually intended to be fun discussions about which pros everyone thinks are the best in their role and if they'd work well together as a team. 

However these discussions have spurred more serious discussion on how All Stars is essentially a popularity contest and if it is really in a region's best interest to let fans vote to decide who represents a region.  I have seen threads on reddit talking about giving prominent people in the League community more voting power to decide who goes, so that a vote by say a LCS shoutcaster or a popular freelancer would be worth more than from someone who is "just" a fan. The theory behind this is that these more prominent people know more about the game, the players and will provide a less “biased” view. While on the surface this makes sense, it runs into huge problems, most of them revolving around who gets how much more of a say and by how much. There are so many people who could be seen as prominent members of the community. How do we determine who should have more of a say? Can these VIPs vote for other regions, even if they are only involved in one? The amount of augmentation in pursuit of the “best” team in the All Stars voting system could be infinite. Attempting to inject “fairness” into the voting system is probably not going to work. 

In my mind the “best” 5 players to represent a region is probably the top team of that region. To objectively find a combination of pros that would be the best All Star team (team with a maximum of 3 members from one established team) is probably a near impossible task that cannot be achieved by mere voting regardless who gets more of a say or not. I like All Stars as a community event, where the most popular players that everyone voted for compete against each other. I think it’s a cool event for spectators but not a good gauge of a region’s strength or how they might do at Worlds. Inevitably this leads to the question then, is it fair that the prize for winning be an extra slot at Worlds? My internal jury is still out on this although I am inclined to think that it’s not that important in terms of the outcome or representation of regions at Worlds. What is more important is a good tournament structure for Worlds and how many slots regions get initially. See my thoughts on how the Worlds 2013 format was regionally biased. 

Words: 496

Thanks for reading! This post is part of my League of Legends in 500 Words or Less series, post #3, please read the intro for more information. Also follow me on twitter @gerarda, I love feedback! =)

League of Legends in 500 Words or Less: Wait for What? OGN Masters begins!

Yesterday was the first match of the SK Telecom LTE-A LoL Masters 2014, a new tournament run in Korea by OnGamenet. Similar to last year’s OGN Club Masters this tournament has a longer running format and revolves around the idea of the KeSPA organisations battling it out. The organisations in this tournament are SK Telecom T1, Samsung Galaxy Khan, Jin Air Green Wings, CJ Entus, Incredible Miracle, KT Rolster and Najin emFire. 

Unlike in other tournaments where the focus is on single teams, LoL Masters focuses on the organisations that own the teams. Each organisation has two LoL teams that will work together to bring glory to their organisation's name.  Every match day will pit one organisation against another with both teams taking to the rift to battle it out in three games. The first two games utilizes the traditional rosters of an organisation's teams while for the third game an organisation can field a team of any mix of players they decide on the day. For example yesterday the two organisations battling it out were CJ Entus and Jin Air GreenWings. The first game was Jin Air Stealths vs CJ Frost, the second; Jin Air Falcons vs CJ Blaze. In the final game both organisations chose to use their successful teams of the day; the Stealths for Jin Air and Blaze for CJ Entus. Points are earned or lost depending on the outcome of the three games, and presumably the teams with the most points at the end of the round of initial matches will go in to a playoff stage to determine who goes into the final.  

LoL Masters is a chance for the organisations to show off their teams and players in the quest to claim the prestigious title as well as the not insignificant prize money. This tournament is not about trying to be the single best team in Korea or trying to get to the World Championships (results in Masters have no effect on teams getting to Worlds), it's more a vehicle for the KeSPA organisations to show off their teams and get the opportunity to plaster their name and sponsors everywhere. This is obvious right down to the production of the show at Yongsan eSports stadium. The introduction sequence left no one in doubt which organisations were playing in the tournament, the broadcast hamming up the spectacle right down to lifting a curtain to reveal the players for each match.  

While the exclusiveness of this tournament could be seen to have kind of an old boys club vibe where they congratulate themselves on being rich while making more money, it does not mean that these games aren't worth watching.  In Korea, winning is of utmost importance, to fans and sponsors alike, so luckily for viewers the richest teams are usually also the best teams (in Korea and also the world) and their hunger for that first place will mean these matches are exciting matches for spectators. 

Useful links:  Tournament structure/schedule 

                    Leagupedia page 

                    English Stream

Words: 500

Thanks for reading! This post is part of my League of Legends in 500 Words or Less series, it's only the second one but I aim to get better at these over time for more interesting reading, please read the intro for more information. Also follow me on twitter @gerarda, I love feedback! =)

League of Legends in 500 Words or Less: Introduction

I have decided to start a series of posts which I am titling League of Legends in 500 Words or Less. This is mainly trying to establish something for me to do and also so I can put out content more regularly as well as to improve my writing.  I tend to mull on possible topic for way too long and never actually write anything. This short form type of post will force me to do something other than sit around all day.
I am going to pick a topic twice a week (probably Mondays and Thursdays) and write 500 words (maximum) on that topic. It could be about anything, an LCS game that just happened, about a piece of news that just broke, a champion I like, a pro player. Obviously the posts will always be League of Legends focused as this a League blog.
I know not many people (if any) actually read this blog but if there are people who might click on it more than once, there should be something new to read and it wont be a huge commitment. In fact I believe the average reading speed on a screen is ~200 words so it should take most people about two minutes each post. If people who did read these want to reply or do their own they should and then link me the results or you can tweet me @gerarda. Thanks for reading!

Word count: 239

Piglet in a Suit plus a Preview of OGN Champions Winter Finals 2013

I was going to write an in depth preview of the upcoming grand final match between Samsung Ozone and SKT T1 K but then I went on twitter and got distracted by SKT's AD Carry, Piglet, in a suit. Look at him being all cute yet suave in his spare time, but I am sure he's practicing hard for the final with Poohmandu. Oh no wait...Poohmandu is spending the time fixing his car. Well I am sure the others are practicing, right? Faker? Bengi? Impact?

The World Champions

To cut the World Championship team some slack, the final is in over two weeks after the time they last played their 3-0 match against KT Bullets. They have time to relax and deserve a little bit break after clean sweeping their way to the finals without a single loss in their match history. They have not lost a game since the WCG qualifiers, and before that they became $1 million richer after winning the Season 3 World Championships in October last year. And this is from a team that debuted in the professional scene in the OGN Spring 2013 season. Everyone agrees that SKT T1 K is currently the best League of Legends team in the world. If they win on Saturday, they will be securing their second OGN Championship title, the first team in OGN's history to win twice.  It seems there is nothing that can stop them. The only thing standing in their way to securing the title of the being best that ever was is a little team called Samsung Galaxy Ozone.

The Other Team

Did I say little? My mistake, as SKT T1 K is all most people can talk about recently one forgets there are other Korean teams. Yet Samsung Ozone is by no means a stranger to the spotlight. Winners of the OGN Spring 2013 season, third place in the OGN Summer 2013 season, and one of the three teams to represent Korea in the Season 3 World Championship is an impressive list of achievements for a team. The most impressive is of course their victory in OGN Spring 2013. No one thought they could win against CJ Entus Blaze who was on epic winning streak and looked so very strong at the time. It was widely thought that Ozone would need nothing short of a miracle to even win a game in this final.  And then Ozone won. 3-0. Ozone will be the underdogs in this Winter final once again and a lot of people think they will need nothing short of a miracle to even win a game in this final. Can they do it again? If anything, it will be even harder than beating Blaze as SKT T1 K look even stronger than Blaze did in Spring. Blaze was also known to have one single strategy which revolved around carefully farming minions in order to push turrets and also getting Flame fed on empty lane farm. SKT T1 K are not that transparent and will probably be harder to exploit.

Road to the Final
Many people are quick to dismiss this match up as heavily favouring SKT TI K, while this may seem rather obvious due to SKT T1 K dominating streak over League of Legends recently, it is important, I think, to look at how each team got to the final. SKT T1 K found them in a bracket stacked full of the best teams in Korea. CJ Entus Blaze and KT Bullets fought to be their opponent after SKT beat Samsung Blue in their quarter final. KT Bullets is arguably the second best team in Korea and were SKT's opponents in the Summer finals which went to the full 5 games. Blaze, although not as dominating as they were in the Spring season, are still a team to be feared (they went on to win this season's NLB 3-1 against Najin Sword). SKT had formidable opponents on the road to the final, yet all teams they defeated relatively easily.

Ozone found themselves up against teams that were considered weaker than those that SKT T1 faced. Najin White Shield and a struggling CJ Entus Frost were Ozone's opponents. Shield, although a solid team that's improved from season to season has never been a team considered likely to take the Championship. They are, however, the team that has put the only blemishes on Ozone's win record this season, taking two games from them one in group stages and one in the semi final match. This leaves a lot of people arguing that Ozone isn't that strong because they couldn't defeat a weaker team convincingly. This is definitely how it seems on paper and ever since the brackets were announced people were writing off the bracket stage expecting them to be filled with boring games. What actually happened was a semi final series between Ozone and Shield that was anything but boring, both teams playing very well with Shield defying expectations. If you haven't watched those matches I highly recommend you do.

In hindsight, it still could be argued that Ozone had the easiest time leading up to the finals, since all the Champion favourites found themselves in the same side of the bracket. One can lament the structure of the tournament leading to top tier teams like CJ Blaze, KT Bullets being knocked out of the finals brackets so early but that's the nature of the competition and teams have to shape up or go home. If the untouchable status of SKT T1 K is to be believed, they were probably just going to lose eventually anyway.  But then that's a bit of a hype killer.

Head to Head
Moving on, let's see how the teams stack up against each other.
In the TOP LANE:
Impact vs Looper
Samsung Ozone could always pull out Homme for the finals but this seems very unlikely as Looper has really been performing exceptionally well this season. He plays teleport Dr Mundo better than most other top laners, never wasting a teleport and always finding an advantage out of that summoner spell. SKT T1 K will most likely ban Mundo against him unless they can pick it up for themselves. Impact is also an exceptional top laner knowing exactly where he needs to be to protect his carries. He and Looper share a champion pool, both of them playing the current top lane staples Dr Mundo, Shyvana and Renekton. They both also have played Singed, Impact brought Singed back into competitive play in Champion Summer and Looper played Singed (with teleport) in his first ever professional game in the World Championships. Impact also plays a good Jax, a champion that was part of Ozone's only loss to Shield in the semi finals. This should be a pretty close match up with Ozone possibly relying on Looper's teleport plays to get them an advantage.

In the JUNGLE:
Bengi vs DanDy
Elise and Lee Sin  have been the story for both these junglers this season, with Bengi picking up Olaf just as frequently. He and DanDy are excellent junglers often pairing with their supports to create plays for their team, as demonstrated by Bengi and Poohmandu using an Elise/Zyra combo to grab an early dragon to negate KT Bullet's 2v1 advantage in the semi final match. Bengi has also played Nunu pairing it with Caitlyn for the early tower pressure bloodboil provides. Neither these junglers are really "carry" junglers. Bengi has always invested in providing vision control for his team early in game and the season 4 changes to vision have not dampened his enthusiasm, leading to SKT having a superior understanding on how to use pink wards in the new season. DanDy is known as the counter ganking jungler, always knowing where the other jungler is and being there in time to turn a gank around. This match up will be a pretty close one, SKT T1 have looked on fire regarding controlling objectives lately and it will be up to DanDy to predict Bengi's movements and make the right choice on what lane to visit to respond to the unrelenting lane pressure that is bound to come from SKT.

In the MID:
Faker vs Dade
Both MVPs of their respective winning seasons these mid laners have differing stories. Faker has been labeled "Best Player of 2013" on pretty much any LoL eSports website that bothered to put out a list. Dade on the other hand, despite his amazing performance on Zed during the final of OGN Spring 2013, is notoriously known for is absolutely terrible Gragas play at the Season 3 World Championship.  This Winter season  has shown  Dade can expand his previously limited champion pool by playing a lot of Kha'Zix, Nidalee and Gragas along with Zed, even pulling out a niche Ghost/Flash Ziggs against Shield. Faker has been playing a lot of Leblanc, Nidalee, Riven and Gragas. I expect at least one Gragas ban against Faker and Nidalee and Kassadin are likely to be banned by either team. Also as Yasuo is now available this adds another champion into the mix, and Faker has been playing him in solo queue. Dade is facing a huge hurdle in the midlane that is Faker, and Dade will have to play at his absolute best to show if he can match up.

In the DUO LANE:
Piglet/Poohmandu vs Imp/Mata
Both these botlanes have had a huge impact on the games that their teams have played this season.  Piglet is commonly referred to as the second superstar on SKT T1 (second to Faker, of course). Both Imp and Piglet are famous for their Vayne and Caitlyn picks in the past. Piglet has played both Caitlyn and Vayne this season whereas Imp as not played his famed Vayne yet. This may have something to do with him thinking he is not a top tier AD carry at the moment which he stated in an interview after their semi final win a few weeks a go. Piglet has not shown any such doubts, with his Vayne mechanics proving to be almost flawless in recent games. Despite Imp's own admissions he has been playing extremely well, his mechanics don't seem to be lacking displaying impressive flash mechanics and escapes against Shield and Frost. Imp has also been playing Sivir, Ezreal and Lucian. His safest pick aside from Caitlyn is probably Ezreal and it will not be surprising if he plays it in the final. Imp will need to regain some confidence if he wants to compete against Piglet. Neither of these players will be alone in the lanes (most likely) as they have arguably the best two supports in Korea at the moment to keep them out of trouble. These supports are likely to draw a lot of bans. The choice of support can have a major effect on games currently and Mata and Poohmandu play them all. Both are deadly on Annie and Thresh. Mata has exhibited amazing Leona play recently and Poohmandu always has his pocket Nami, a champion that he is so good on it's a bit ridiculous. It will be very exciting to see which bot lane comes out on top, while I think Piglet and Poohmandu are slightly stronger as a duo, Mata and Imp will be no push over.

The SKT T1 K Factor vs the Samsung Ozone Factor
No matter who wins on Saturday OGN will be crowning a second time Champions winner. SKT T1 are the heavy favourites, generous fans out there are predicting 3-1 in their favour. Why are they so heavily favoured? What do they possess that no other team in Korea has? The simple answer is that they are just so darn good. It is like they have taken apart Summoner's Rift and then put it back together again and know exactly how it works, like they have reached a state of enlightenment about the game that other teams are yet to find. They have excellent mechanical skills, superior game knowledge which allows them a strong pick and ban phase and the winning edge in the strategic game. They work as a team almost seamlessly and they know all the plays and the counter plays their opposing team will do. They don't have any obvious weaknesses. SKT T1 K also has this killer instinct and ruthless vibe about their play, they don't let their opponents relax and they always seem like they are in control. If an opposing team starts to think they are in control SKT T1 will suddenly be there getting an inhibitor at 12 minutes. It's this along with their imposing win rate that gives them a substantial mental edge over their opponent. Samsung Ozone boasts some top players and excellent team work but they have relied on research and carefully planned strategy to overcome their most formidable opponents (which is why their performance at Worlds is so baffling). They will need every bit of their assets to present a challenge to the unstoppable SKT T1 K. I don't think SKT T1 K are unbeatable and as I am an Ozone fan I am highly optimistic about their chances. And I am hoping for that game 5 blind pick. Because who doesn't want to see a blind pick?

OGN Champions Winter 2013 Final is on the Saturday 25th of Jan. at 4pm KST on twitch.tv/ongamenet

Thanks for reading! Congratulations for making it through this very long post. I think you are awesome. Follow me on twitter @gerarda and feel free to tweet me feedback or similar.

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.