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I was going to make a bigger post about why Chinese Dota failed, but I lost motivation about 50% of the way in, similar to the Chinese teams I was writing about, lelz. So instead of that, this is what I have.
There are three levels of analysis, when it comes to why and how Chinese teams failed.
On the surface, the Chinese teams failed because of:
* Poor understanding of the current game, as swindlemelonzz showed. Chinese teams play too slow, aren't rotating for objectives when they ought to be, and don't know the best heroes.
* Failure to diversity their hero choices and strategies. Except for Ehome, which tried to play a different strategy every game, but failed to execute in the end, the other Chinese teams all tried to play "standard" Chinese strategies and, when they did try to insert new heroes into the strategy, they usually failed at it.
* Bad coordination, decision making, and, at times, individual skill/understanding. We see this in all their games.
One could simply stop there and say these are the in game reasons for why Chinese teams failed. But that'd be a poor analysis because it doesn't explain why they had the above issues, and consequently, fails to indicate when/whether they're going to improve. Many analysts, I feel, simply stop at this level, which is why they don't see Chinese fails coming.
Going a level deeper, the reasons why Chinese teams failed can be placed on out of game problems:
* Chinese New Years affected practice. Ehome's manager, 71, said as much going into the tournament, and so did Iceiceice in the interview. The result, they explain, is that Chinese teams only practiced for 5-10 days. This would certainly play into the above in game issues.
* Lack of motivation. Iceiceice said this in his interview. Chinese players and teams, according to him, don't care enough, not even for a three million dollars tournament, and so teams haven't been training very hard. By contrast, for example, the Koreans trained for two months, 15 hours each day, according to their interview. This would also certainly result in the above in game issues.
* Lack of new talent. Many analysts indicate that it's due to a lack of "genius" new talent such as Miracle, W33ha, etc. They observe that old players should retire and that they need the "fire" that new talent brings, and their new ideas. This would affect individual skill, in game understanding, and lack of different strategies/hero choices.
The above is certainly a nice list of causes, and is now becoming the standard explanation with regards to Chinese Dota's issues. But the problem is that it still doesn't go deep enough - it still doesn't answer enough of "why?" Why would Chinese teams not be motivated? Why wouldn't they sacrifice time off to do well on such a big tournament? Why didn't they do what the Koreans, despite having their own server shut down and a holiday around the same time, did? Why don't they have new talent such as Miracle, W33ha, etc.?
To answer why, we need to go down a level even further than that:
* Poor practice culture. This issue has come up time and time again. We hear about Chinese teams not wanting to practice against other Chinese teams because they don't want to show strategies, else because they feel the other side isn't trying hard in practice, and that practice is useless because of it. This problem has been especially talked about in Chinese League of Legends, but I first observed it in Chinese Dota in 2014 - teams in China have not established an effective practice culture which allows them to constantly improve their individual skill and strategic level. They have an attitude problem with regards to practice and a lack of trust between teams, leading to situations where teams would refuse to practice with one another, and situations where teams would use tournaments, instead of practice, to practice, which is ridiculous. The end result of this poor practice culture is that they can't actually develop their own strategies and new heroes, because they don't know what works and what doesn't for lack of an effective environment in which to test them.
* Bad management. Lazy players and players with attitudes are a problem across regions. It's certainly not limited to China. What is limited to China, however, is the failure of team management to address these issues. Coaches, except for a small few, look to have no power over players, and no say in who is on the team. Management isn't actually required to produce results, else they are required to do it but lack the ability to do so because they won't kick lazy/bad players. Management is also pretty damn bad at finding new talent, as veteran players continue to get an easy way into teams even when they are obviously bad and aren't trying. Players are allowed to spend 3-4 months playing other games, and take month long vacations before three million dollar tournaments. Team owners don't give a fuck, else don't know what the fuck they're doing, when it comes to putting together a team.
* Results don't matter enough. This brings us to the final and biggest issue with Chinese Dota, and indeed Chinese eSports: the failure to develop a competitive environment in which motivated, talented players rise to the top, while lazy, not performing players are thrown to the bottom. Famous players, veteran players with "connections," and players who are able to draw in a large audience when they play are taken over players who actually have the motivation and talent to succeed at the highest level. These players are rarely punished for not performing, and even when they are punished - for example in the case of ROTK - they just use their friends to put themselves in another top team. The standard of performance for being on a "professional" teams in Chinese Dota are, as such, low, and even when those already low standards are not met, all it results in is a few players getting moved between teams, instead of addressing basic problems such as practice culture and work attitude. The end result is not only a lack of new talent, not only poor work attitude among professional players, but a bad *environment* in which players, from the bottom to the top, are not motivated to improve themselves because it doesn't matter.
The above is where I'd stop. You could go further and say that it's because of Chinese culture, society, etc., and that it's due to the same basic attitude problems that affected the production quality of this tournament, but it's not necessary, and it's not productive. This is because industries and communities don't necessarily follow the same national standards. For example, the Chinese do very well in the Olympics, and are at the top of the world in international student competitions in math, science, etc. Their immigrants are usually seen as hard working and successful, and many top Western teams in both League of Legends and Dota 2 do have immigrant Chinese players - but not imports. They have also done well in Dota in the past, so it's not though they've never been able to play the game. To this end, I think the third level is the best level from which to understand the problems of Chinese Dota.
Causes that, in my opinion, are not as important as people think:
* Money. A lot of people have brought up the issue of money, saying that Chinese players get a larger amount of money playing public games with/for their fans, than they do practicing for professional tournaments. I'd believe this, but for the fact that Chinese players don't actually play a lot of public games, and only a few of them get large audiences when they play. In fact, the Chinese players who do this best are players not on professional teams, such as YYF, so it doesn't explain why players would choose to be on professional teams in the first place, unless what they were after is a break out, which would require them to actually have results. Further, were they after that, then they'd surely understand the value of being at the top of the MMR list: http://www.dota2.com/leaderboards/#china. Yet we don't see them at the top of this list. Instead we see Koreans and people who don't play on professional teams.
* They're always slow at adapting to game changes. The last big change to the game was over three months ago. You cannot argue that the Chinese are so slow at adapting to the changes that they still don't know how to play the game three months later. The top strategies and heroes changing among top professional teams does not equate to the game itself changing and it's not though the years during which the Chinese were successful saw no changes to the top strategies and heroes. No, it's just that in 2014, the Chinese teams were actually motivated because they weren't full of players who've played the game for so long that they've lost all desire to play, and their management wasn't as bad as it has become today. The details we don't know, but I'm pretty sure that back then, they actually had standards for themselves, and that's why they were able to win.
* Too many people play League of Legends in China. Yes, League of Legends is more popular in China than Dota 2 - as it is every where in the world, except for Russia, and we all know how well Russia did this tournament. That doesn't change the fact that Dota 2 still has a much larger player base in China than regions that have out performed the Chinese this tournament. South Korea doesn't even have their own server, and teams such as Fnatic went to China to practice, instead of Southeast Asia. In no way can player population be the primary cause for China's failures, except as an excuse for Chinese organizations not doing what they ought to be doing.
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Great post.
One thing though, why do you think Ehome managed to snab the MDL tournament then? Ehome playing so bad this major makes no sense to me, CTY seemed unstoppable and finally at a right place. Old chicken played well enough and eleven was making plays always. This tournament it looked like nobody had any synergy and they each played an individual game...
Also if chinese teams don't cooperate as far as practice is concerned I can only facepalm. It's happened before to DK when they dominated and I guess it's happening again..
In SF4 Japanese players would play each other, share strats and just try to improve as a collective while the western world was individualistic and selfish. No wonder who came out on top.
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it's pretty obvious ehome just didn't practice... most of their games they lost on executions, rather than the other Chinese teams who just didn't have a clue.
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Too many people play League of Legends in China
sigh... it's true
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On March 04 2016 09:04 Andre wrote:
Great post.
One thing though, why do you think Ehome managed to snab the MDL tournament then? Ehome playing so bad this major makes no sense to me, CTY seemed unstoppable and finally at a right place. Old chicken played well enough and eleven was making plays always. This tournament it looked like nobody had any synergy and they each played an individual game...
Also if chinese teams don't cooperate as far as practice is concerned I can only facepalm. It's happened before to DK when they dominated and I guess it's happening again..
In SF4 Japanese players would play each other, share strats and just try to improve as a collective while the western world was individualistic and selfish. No wonder who came out on top.
Because MDL was a full month before Shanghai, and many teams, especially Western teams, have not yet stepped up their practice at this time, so they were in a similar situation as the Chinese teams in terms of practice and preparation. Even the Koreans only started to hard practice two months before Shanghai, which is when they started doing 15 hours of Dota a day.
Chinese teams very obviously did not put in the time and effort for Shanghai, and this is the single, biggest, and immediate reason for their fail. It is also the easiest to understand and explains all the different problems with their play.
But we have to ask: why didn't they practice? That's the issue I tried to answer, because it's simply stupid, to us, that they'd not practice hard for a three million tournament, success in which leads directly into another three million tournament, and then the international. Shanghai was and is the biggest and most important event for Chinese teams until the international, because it decides how many of them can even show up in the next such tournament in Southeast Asia, and results from that tournament decide how many of them can go to the international. Thus, their shots of going to the international and other big tournaments coming up was on the line, and they still managed to not prepare, not practice, and that requires us to explain beyond "they got lazy."
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I feel like money might be a pretty big contributing factor. But not in that they get paid too much to pub since western players use pubs and practice quite effectively so it's not a bad thing. However money changes people, they can get lazy and complacent. If you're making 'fuck you' money are you really going to care? We've seen its common for teams to win TI, get a windfall of money and then rest on their laurels. You see it in sports where a guy will get a mega contract than they'll just not give a shit, what does he care? He already got paid. Or in contract years suddenly a player that has been so/so suddenly blows up and sets the world on fire. When people are looking for that big payday they'll stop at nothing. Once they get it sometimes they just stop caring.
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Great post. Nice of you to not go into social issues inherent to the C word. However you have to admit that lack of motivation, an exclusive group stifling reform, entrenched bureaucracy not caring about results, and rampant corruption all sound very familiar to this economic policy.
Big reason for MVP's success is due to the structure they trained their players the last couple years. They bring in foreigners like Jerax and Warnutz into two teams with a good mix of veteran players (March, Heen) and younger high skill players (Forev, QO, MP). Give them a solid year to train and develop tools to understand and beat high tier dota then combine the two teams to form a single all Korean speaking domestic team. Chinese team as you pointed out became too entrenched then stagnated, bringing in Black^ was a great idea but the execution was poor it is worth another try.
However, looking at the examples of their past eSports especially Warcraft 3 and LoL. They have repeated similar pattern of losing to Korean players and teams. Is it really surprising that they would eventually lose out to the west?
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i found a compelling alternate theory in the reddit thread about the booth making the admin sick:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XzApK2b.png)
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On March 04 2016 09:04 Andre wrote:
Great post.
One thing though, why do you think Ehome managed to snab the MDL tournament then? Ehome playing so bad this major makes no sense to me, CTY seemed unstoppable and finally at a right place. Old chicken played well enough and eleven was making plays always. This tournament it looked like nobody had any synergy and they each played an individual game...
Also if chinese teams don't cooperate as far as practice is concerned I can only facepalm. It's happened before to DK when they dominated and I guess it's happening again..
In SF4 Japanese players would play each other, share strats and just try to improve as a collective while the western world was individualistic and selfish. No wonder who came out on top.
Ehome at MDL pretty much "got lucky" in the tournament Meta. It took me a little while after the tournament to analyze what it was that they were drafting, but they were 12-1 with First Pick & 1-12 with Second Pick. (I think it's double counting something, and it should be something like 1-8 with Second Pick.) old chicken was the new drafter and he was running a knife-edge with his strategies.
The best way to think about it was "gotcha" drafting. Since Kaka is one of the best player on Earth Spirit and he knew how to draft with it, he would pretty much decide their strategy after they saw the first 2 picks by the other team. This is why the good teams simply drafted far more openly in the first phase. It gives them more room to counter what Ehome wanted to do.
At the same time, at Shanghai, old eleven's illness in the group stage pretty much ensured they didn't have a chance, as he was whiffing practically everything in the later parts of the group. But that doesn't get away with looking horribly unprepared. Which is exactly how they looked. They looked okay against CDEC because they knew how to play against CDEC already. None of the Chinese teams looked prepared for the drafting phases. Individual skill, for a lot of the teams, looked fine. But they didn't have a clue for how to produce any synergy between their laning & mid-game approaches.
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On March 04 2016 10:06 OuchyDathurts wrote:
I feel like money might be a pretty big contributing factor. But not in that they get paid too much to pub since western players use pubs and practice quite effectively so it's not a bad thing. However money changes people, they can get lazy and complacent. If you're making 'fuck you' money are you really going to care? We've seen its common for teams to win TI, get a windfall of money and then rest on their laurels. You see it in sports where a guy will get a mega contract than they'll just not give a shit, what does he care? He already got paid. Or in contract years suddenly a player that has been so/so suddenly blows up and sets the world on fire. When people are looking for that big payday they'll stop at nothing. Once they get it sometimes they just stop caring.
"Money changes people." - PPD
But not as much as we think, which is why PPD's team remains one of the best teams in the world and are doing very well in Shanghai, while no Chinese team did well. Yes, money can make you lazy, but the will to succeed can over take it, as it did for many of the Western players who have won international, and as it did when Alliance "came back" in the last few months to win several big tournaments.
I'm also sure the Chinese Dota 2 players aren't paid the same amount as their League of Legends players, and certainly not the League of Legends Korean players they bought, so they have every cause to try to win big tournaments to increase their value.
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On March 04 2016 10:07 MaCRo.gg wrote:
Great post. Nice of you to not go into social issues inherent to the C word. However you have to admit that lack of motivation, an exclusive group stifling reform, entrenched bureaucracy not caring about results, and rampant corruption all sound very familiar to this economic policy.
Culture and societal issues certainly play into it but I think there are enough exceptions to not have to bring them in, especially due to the fact that the Chinese were not always this bad. Had they been bad from the start, I think it'd be a lot easier to argue that "it's China."
But they weren't this bad in 2012 and 2014. The main difference between those years and 2013 and 2015, I believe, is amount of practice. In 2013 it was due to the lack of tournaments in China, which they complained about, and wrote articles about showing that Chinese teams played only a third of the games Western teams did. In 2014 they improved that by working with Western organizations to attend international tournaments, and by practicing harder, and they were very successful that year, taking about 70-80% of the tournaments and of course the international itself.
In 2015 and 2016, they had plenty of international tournaments, but it felt as though they were always out of practice, always in lack of preparation, and never as motivated as before. Several of the Chinese players had come out to say this flat out - iceiceice being an early example. It's obvious to me they have not been practicing as hard these last two years than they had been before. It's understandable, in a way, because a lot of these players have a "been there, done that" attitude, but it is also a product of the poor environment which doesn't punish such players.
Big reason for MVP's success is due to the structure they trained their players the last couple years. They bring in foreigners like Jerax and Warnutz into two teams with a good mix of veteran players (March, Heen) and younger high skill players (Forev, QO, MP). Give them a solid year to train and develop tools to understand and beat high tier dota then combine the two teams to form a single all Korean speaking domestic team. Chinese team as you pointed out became too entrenched then stagnated, bringing in Black^ was a great idea but the execution was poor it is worth another try.
However, looking at the examples of their past eSports especially Warcraft 3 and LoL. They have repeated similar pattern of losing to Korean players and teams. Is it really surprising that they would eventually lose out to the west?
You bring in talent from outside to help you catch up. You don't bring them in when you're already equal/ahead. The Chinese didn't bring in Black to teach them Dota - at the time Black went to China, China was still pretty successful in Dota. They brought him in because he was friends with iceiceice and "connections" are how Chinese teams recruit. This actually shows a problem with Chinese Dota, as it was obvious to many of us that Black wasn't the best choice for them at the time. Of course, their current carry player is an even worse choice, and here again I think it's "connections."
As for it being a surprise - it certainly wasn't a surprise to me. But we're not talking about losing to the West. They already did that in 2013. We're talking about a worse than Southeast Asia result. That's never been the case in any game.
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On March 04 2016 10:07 MaCRo.gg wrote:
Great post. Nice of you to not go into social issues inherent to the C word. However you have to admit that lack of motivation, an exclusive group stifling reform, entrenched bureaucracy not caring about results, and rampant corruption all sound very familiar to this economic policy.
Big reason for MVP's success is due to the structure they trained their players the last couple years. They bring in foreigners like Jerax and Warnutz into two teams with a good mix of veteran players (March, Heen) and younger high skill players (Forev, QO, MP). Give them a solid year to train and develop tools to understand and beat high tier dota then combine the two teams to form a single all Korean speaking domestic team. Chinese team as you pointed out became too entrenched then stagnated, bringing in Black^ was a great idea but the execution was poor it is worth another try.
However, looking at the examples of their past eSports especially Warcraft 3 and LoL. They have repeated similar pattern of losing to Korean players and teams. Is it really surprising that they would eventually lose out to the west?
I wonder if MP had any prior experience to playing dota2? If you look at his early games he was 4k at best, and QO was like 4.5-5k ~1year ago as well according to reddit thread. If that's the case you really have to respect these guys. I don't think there's many people who are capable of climbing so far high in such a short time span.
I mean MP played for Birdgang, lol. While they were probably the 2nd or 3rd best team in the early korean leagues they were still like a 4k team or something.
Also, perhaps the majors need to be even more open in terms of qualification. Put some of the big teams up against newcomers in the early rounds.
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On March 04 2016 10:38 Azarkon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2016 10:07 MaCRo.gg wrote:
Great post. Nice of you to not go into social issues inherent to the C word. However you have to admit that lack of motivation, an exclusive group stifling reform, entrenched bureaucracy not caring about results, and rampant corruption all sound very familiar to this economic policy. Culture and societal issues certainly play into it but I think there are enough exceptions to not have to bring them in, especially due to the fact that the Chinese were not always this bad. Had they been bad from the start, I think it'd be a lot easier to argue that "it's China." But they weren't this bad in 2012 and 2014. The main difference between those years and 2013 and 2015, I believe, is amount of practice. In 2013 it was due to the lack of tournaments in China, which they complained about, and wrote articles about showing that Chinese teams played only a third of the games Western teams did. In 2014 they improved that by working with Western organizations to attend international tournaments, and by practicing harder, and they were very successful that year, taking about 70-80% of the tournaments and of course the international itself. In 2015 and 2016, they had plenty of international tournaments, but it felt as though they were always out of practice, always in lack of preparation, and never as motivated as before. Several of the Chinese players had come out to say this flat out - iceiceice being an early example. It's obvious to me they have not been practicing as hard these last two years than they had been before. It's understandable, in a way, because a lot of these players have a "been there, done that" attitude, but it is also a product of the poor environment which doesn't punish such players. Show nested quote +
Big reason for MVP's success is due to the structure they trained their players the last couple years. They bring in foreigners like Jerax and Warnutz into two teams with a good mix of veteran players (March, Heen) and younger high skill players (Forev, QO, MP). Give them a solid year to train and develop tools to understand and beat high tier dota then combine the two teams to form a single all Korean speaking domestic team. Chinese team as you pointed out became too entrenched then stagnated, bringing in Black^ was a great idea but the execution was poor it is worth another try.
However, looking at the examples of their past eSports especially Warcraft 3 and LoL. They have repeated similar pattern of losing to Korean players and teams. Is it really surprising that they would eventually lose out to the west?
You bring in talent from outside to help you catch up. You don't bring them in when you're already equal/ahead. The Chinese didn't bring in Black to teach them Dota - at the time Black went to China, China was still pretty successful in Dota. They brought him in because he was friends with iceiceice and "connections" are how Chinese teams recruit. This actually shows a problem with Chinese Dota, as it was obvious to many of us that Black wasn't the best choice for them at the time. Of course, their current carry player is an even worse choice, and here again I think it's "connections." As for it being a surprise - it certainly wasn't a surprise to me. But we're not talking about losing to the West. They already did that in 2013. We're talking about a worse than Southeast Asia result. That's never been the case in any game.
Tbf I think most of the early dota performance by the Chinese is mostly due to the layover from the popularity of Warcraft 3. Weren't the Dota 1 events quiet bigger in China and SEA regions than the west? I know Korea was too busy with BW, even if they had arguably the best Warcraft 3 player (Moon) I'm pretty positive we played Chaos instead of Dota.
I'm actually pretty confused at this general attitude in dota scene of "been there done that" attitude with the teams and players. Players like Jaedong, Flash and Boxer all had huge winnings and won everything there was to win in BW but they still came over to sc2 with huge ambitions and did a great deal for the scene. Sure there is a trend of sports personalities going "lazy" after a huge payday (JaMarcus Russel) but most champions seem to become champions because of their burning desire to become the best. Especially considering that eSports payday are pretty meager compared to real sports athletes, it is hard to think that players will be set for life on their winnings alone.
If Korea is included in SEA (which in Dota apparently it is), SEA had more than its fair share of wins vs China cross game genres. But I'm assuming in this case it isn't?
EDIT: Actually I'm pretty sure that all the MVP guys played Chaos.
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On March 04 2016 10:57 Andre wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2016 10:07 MaCRo.gg wrote:
Great post. Nice of you to not go into social issues inherent to the C word. However you have to admit that lack of motivation, an exclusive group stifling reform, entrenched bureaucracy not caring about results, and rampant corruption all sound very familiar to this economic policy.
Big reason for MVP's success is due to the structure they trained their players the last couple years. They bring in foreigners like Jerax and Warnutz into two teams with a good mix of veteran players (March, Heen) and younger high skill players (Forev, QO, MP). Give them a solid year to train and develop tools to understand and beat high tier dota then combine the two teams to form a single all Korean speaking domestic team. Chinese team as you pointed out became too entrenched then stagnated, bringing in Black^ was a great idea but the execution was poor it is worth another try.
However, looking at the examples of their past eSports especially Warcraft 3 and LoL. They have repeated similar pattern of losing to Korean players and teams. Is it really surprising that they would eventually lose out to the west? I wonder if MP had any prior experience to playing dota2? If you look at his early games he was 4k at best, and QO was like 4.5-5k ~1year ago as well according to reddit thread. If that's the case you really have to respect these guys. I don't think there's many people who are capable of climbing so far high in such a short time span. I mean MP played for Birdgang, lol. While they were probably the 2nd or 3rd best team in the early korean leagues they were still like a 4k team or something. Also, perhaps the majors need to be even more open in terms of qualification. Put some of the big teams up against newcomers in the early rounds.
I don't think MMR is really much to go by, lol
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i think i'm beginning to understand akzakron now.
he's like that person who constantly says he hate something, but in fact is deeply in love with it and cannot exist w/o it.
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On March 04 2016 23:04 evanthebouncy! wrote:
i think i'm beginning to understand akzakron now.
he's like that person who constantly says he hate something, but in fact is deeply in love with it and cannot exist w/o it.
So he is the Joker and China is Batman?
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Icex3 said the same things in last major as well. It's on par with any other team West and East trying to excuse their performances. An excuse that is older than time itself, and got started in Dota 2 by Na'vi.
You started off saying that western teams didn't practice for MDL, is that laziness? Or was that just an excuse that had no bearing, considering only OG had a vacation after their long road trip?
Let me guess, was the laziness in China about Chuan practicing alone, when his team mates played other games? How do you explain them being pos 2-5 at TI, if they are lazy in back in 2014, which btw was the year they had 2 teams in finals?
All I see are a bunch of excuses, tunnel visioned bias, a lot of fluff that can't decide what it wants to say, as it goes in all directions, with some truths.
What Western team other than EG has been stable, who btw couldn't dictate meta, or be ahead of the curve themselves, much due to not playing very often.
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On March 05 2016 02:57 Dracolich70 wrote:
Icex3 said the same things in last major as well. It's on par with any other team West and East trying to excuse their performances. An excuse that is older than time itself, and got started in Dota 2 by Na'vi.
You started off saying that western teams didn't practice for MDL, is that laziness? Or was that just an excuse that had no bearing, considering only OG had a vacation after their long road trip?
Let me guess, was the laziness in China about Chuan practicing alone, when his team mates played other games? How do you explain them being pos 2-5 at TI, if they are lazy in back in 2014, which btw was the year they had 2 teams in finals?
All I see are a bunch of excuses, tunnel visioned bias, a lot of fluff that can't decide what it wants to say, as it goes in all directions, with some truths.
im pretty sure that he wrote the same piece a few years back. probably after alliance won ti3. he just had to change a few names in the lack of talent thing. after ti3 bulldog and egm were a thing now you have miracle and w33
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On March 05 2016 03:10 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2016 02:57 Dracolich70 wrote:
Icex3 said the same things in last major as well. It's on par with any other team West and East trying to excuse their performances. An excuse that is older than time itself, and got started in Dota 2 by Na'vi.
You started off saying that western teams didn't practice for MDL, is that laziness? Or was that just an excuse that had no bearing, considering only OG had a vacation after their long road trip?
Let me guess, was the laziness in China about Chuan practicing alone, when his team mates played other games? How do you explain them being pos 2-5 at TI, if they are lazy in back in 2014, which btw was the year they had 2 teams in finals?
All I see are a bunch of excuses, tunnel visioned bias, a lot of fluff that can't decide what it wants to say, as it goes in all directions, with some truths. im pretty sure that he wrote the same piece a few years back. probably after alliance won ti3. he just wrote w33, miracle instead of egm,bulldog He has had the same narrative, since I read it first in late 2012. Back then it was a response to the arrogance of Chinese fans. It is selective picking, overemphasizing things, and generally just painting a picture which is an hyperbole of reality. Now he uses the worst performance of China to state, that he said this all along.
He can't seem to make up his mind whether it is situational, a general theme, or it has been coming since long, even though China took steps to fix their deficits making more tournaments, making more teams. There are some half truths in it, but next time he is just gonna say, "Well, I was wrong this time, but 70% of the time I am right", even though it pretty much resets his whole premise.
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EPT
