On October 13 2014 04:55 Redox wrote: My belief is that without LCS western teams would be nowhere near the level they are now. This rigid system they are in now makes it actually more similar to the Korean environment. Wit the liberal system before they were far away from it. The Koreans dont play tournaments here and there or fly around the world to LANs like it was back then. They are steadily practising in a stable environment. With LCS teams it is simlar now, albeit not quite up to that level. The tournament format is not as important for this as the general practise conditions.
Yeah EU teams did somewhat better in S2 compared to Koreans, but everyone's level was a joke compared to now. It is interesting btw that we enjoyed the games despite the lower level.
Because it was highest level of game back in the days, even first seasons of OGN were worse than bunch of foreign circuits like IEM.
On October 13 2014 04:27 AlterKot wrote: Teams in EU time and time again prove that they don't play well unless they care about the match. This applies to Fnatic, Gambit, probably Lemondogs, perhaps Alliance etc. More importantly, the time EU teams could compete with the best was in S2, when there was no LCS and teams prepared for tournaments every now and then, rather than for long, tiring season. And the best region is the only one that has a tournament circuit rather than league. Is it conclusive that regions are complacent because of LCS? No. But I don't think it's out of question either.
GPL had same tournament circuit as OGN with slightly different format, i don't see them being stronger than ever. It's not like regions are complacent because of LCS, when you don't have competition - it's when complacency starts, that's why bunch of players can slump and be sure that they're not going to be swapped just because there are no better players.
On October 13 2014 02:04 Redox wrote: I just dont think it makes players try harder or that LCS leads to complacency.
I agree, any apparent complacency is not the product of LCS.
If the complacency came from anywhere, it's from the streamer culture that grew up with League that makes being popular more lucrative than being good at the game, both for players and for teams. That existed long before LCS.
Would like to challenge this; CN has a streamer culture that is as strong, if not stronger, than NA/EU. Culture plays a part, but CN is showing that it is possible to have a (fairly)strong competitive environment in spite of more lucrative options available to good-to-great players.
The make-do culture just seems endemic to NA/EU(?).
On October 13 2014 04:27 AlterKot wrote: Teams in EU time and time again prove that they don't play well unless they care about the match. This applies to Fnatic, Gambit, probably Lemondogs, perhaps Alliance etc. More importantly, the time EU teams could compete with the best was in S2, when there was no LCS and teams prepared for tournaments every now and then, rather than for long, tiring season. And the best region is the only one that has a tournament circuit rather than league. Is it conclusive that regions are complacent because of LCS? No. But I don't think it's out of question either.
GPL had same tournament circuit as OGN with slightly different format, i don't see them being stronger than ever. It's not like regions are complacent because of LCS, when you don't have competition - it's when complacency starts, that's why bunch of players can slump and be sure that they're not going to be swapped just because there are no better players.
GPL was(still is) hamstrung by a whole lot of complications:
Country representation - look at Bangkok Titans. now look at TPS. look at BKT again. And maybe KLH and MLE while you're at it How on earth could you expect GPL to be competitive when we had the equivalent of 3+ CoLs in the league?! lol. I pick on BKT, KLH and MLE because they've been in GPL for at least 3+ splits when I last stopped watching GPL, and had never posed any sort of threat to the top half of the standings lol.
Patch woes - Depending on which serves they were playing on (TW/SG the most common, occasionally other) the patches matches were played on could vary from being to same to two patches again. It's even worse than LPL in this regard; you know something's not right when on the same day of broadcasting the casters have to remind the audience of patch+patch changes between each and every game.
SEA as a region - Player transfers are a pain because TW, SG, MY, VN, TH, PH are different countries, and have different working languages. (of course multilingualism is a thing, but language barrier is a legit pain) Even if the total population of SEA dwarfs KR, the actual available pool of talent for each team (because country representation) is rather limited. I haven't seen an international SEA transfer work out post-Toyz yet. Jaeyoong flopped, Chawy is as good as invisible so far, hopefully it'll change next season.
TL;DR GPL and SEA is a mess, don't use them as a analog to OGN/KR (I'm really annoyed about about GPL, even though I understand that they're motivated by business reasons and sometimes things are just difficult to resolve)
On October 13 2014 19:26 Fusilero wrote: BKT is so last year. It's all about the pinoys and their legendary 6-34 or something record this year. I think in Spring they went literally 0-20
lmao. was it NFL or some other team? I have a hard time rmbring which team is from which country outside of the ones that make it super obvious >_>
On October 13 2014 19:58 AlterKot wrote: Wait, how can you go 0-20 and claim it's a similar format to OGN where you lose 8 games and you're out of both Champions and NLB : D
The only similarity I can think of is that GPL does a points(?) system similar to OGN whereby the Spring split does count towards a team's chances of being eligible to enter WC? Either that or they follow LPL. Can't rmbr but either way Spring split GPL isn't as meaningless as Spring split LCS. Oh and GPL has a winter split too.
I know people suggested Helios as an idea of someone TSM could pick up, but I didn't realize his contract ends the day TSM set aside to start tryouts for the jungle role. Helios would be a good fit for TSM, due to having Loco/Lustboy and needing someone to share the shotcalling burden. This almost seems too much like a slamdunk. What are the odds that Helios is new TSM jungler? 75%? 95%?
I know people suggested Helios as an idea of someone TSM could pick up, but I didn't realize his contract ends the day TSM set aside to start tryouts for the jungle role. Helios would be a good fit for TSM, due to having Loco/Lustboy and needing someone to share the shotcalling burden. This almost seems too much like a slamdunk. What are the odds that Helios is new TSM jungler? 75%? 95%?
Given the time of try outs, at this point I'd be surprised if he wasn't. Gonna go for 90%.
On October 14 2014 00:06 Numy wrote: Would be disappointed if he does. Felt he was pretty good fit for EG. When EG gets a real top laner they may even become a pretty strong team in NA.
I have hopes for EG (trying so hard not to say 'potential' here) but they have to make some changes if they want to become anything beyond LCS bottom feeders. If nothing happens for EG during the offseason, I'm going to be rather disappointed.
On October 14 2014 00:06 Numy wrote: Would be disappointed if he does. Felt he was pretty good fit for EG. When EG gets a real top laner they may even become a pretty strong team in NA.
Who can they grab to replace Innox? Now that Cali is locked up in T8 I don't really see any better options, and they can't import because they already have Keepo + Helios.
If Helios leaves maybe they would be able to pull in Acorn or someone else who's about to be teamless in Korea? But then who do they grab for Jungle?
On October 14 2014 00:06 Numy wrote: Would be disappointed if he does. Felt he was pretty good fit for EG. When EG gets a real top laner they may even become a pretty strong team in NA.
Who can they grab to replace Innox? Now that Cali is locked up in T8 I don't really see any better options, and they can't import because they already have Keepo + Helios.
If Helios leaves maybe they would be able to pull in Acorn or someone else who's about to be teamless in Korea? But then who do they grab for Jungle?
Nien. EG with Nien and if Helios stays can easily be top-3 with level of dominance Pobelter possesses nowdays.
+ There is always an opportunity to sell Helios, bench Krepo, get Acorn and Spirit, promote Krepo back to starter and you're good to go.
On October 13 2014 19:26 Fusilero wrote: BKT is so last year. It's all about the pinoys and their legendary 6-34 or something record this year. I think in Spring they went literally 0-20
lmao. was it NFL or some other team? I have a hard time rmbring which team is from which country outside of the ones that make it super obvious >_>
On October 13 2014 19:58 AlterKot wrote: Wait, how can you go 0-20 and claim it's a similar format to OGN where you lose 8 games and you're out of both Champions and NLB : D
The only similarity I can think of is that GPL does a points(?) system similar to OGN whereby the Spring split does count towards a team's chances of being eligible to enter WC? Either that or they follow LPL. Can't rmbr but either way Spring split GPL isn't as meaningless as Spring split LCS. Oh and GPL has a winter split too.
I think.
It's been a while since I gave up on GPL.
Okay checked it all up, there were four Pinoy teams throughout the year in the GPL. Mineski, manilla eagles, imperium pro team and wargods. Their respective records were Mineski: 5-8 (5-5 in groups, 0-3 to TPS. Failed to requalify) Manilla eagles: 2-8 (Only qualified for spring) Wargods: 3-7 (Only qualified for Summer) Imperium Pro team: 1-19 (Qualified for Spring and Summer) So the Pinoys total up to a grand record of 11-42 this year
If we move onto Thailand that's even more fun. They had only two teams this year, bangkok titans and team infinite Team infinite: 0-10 (Only qualified in the winter, only team alongside imperium to go 0-10) Bangkok Titans: 7-26 (Qualified for Summer playoffs actually, got giggle face stomped by AHQ but hey they picked yi so that was cool) Thailand rocking 7-36 record
Singapore is also cool SGS: 10-16 (10-10 in regular seasons, ran into AHQ both playoffs) insidious gaming legends: 6-17 (Fun fact, this squad technically had the first female to qualify for a premier league. Their initial support Miss V was on the squad when they qualified. She was benched before GPL started but that was cool) Insidious gaming rebirth: 3-10 (Another fun fact, their top laner was former xenics storm sub Han) So we have Singapore at 19-43 (9-27 if we take out chawy :>)
Basically next year free as fuck for Vietnam
For the sake of comparison Saigon Jokers this year: 31-28 and they actually played series against Taiwanese teams
For what its worth, ex-Millenium / SHC rejects just scrimming with Alex as mid instead of Takefun. Imo good for them because my opinion of Takefun is not that high.
On October 14 2014 00:06 Numy wrote: Would be disappointed if he does. Felt he was pretty good fit for EG. When EG gets a real top laner they may even become a pretty strong team in NA.
Who can they grab to replace Innox? Now that Cali is locked up in T8 I don't really see any better options, and they can't import because they already have Keepo + Helios.
If Helios leaves maybe they would be able to pull in Acorn or someone else who's about to be teamless in Korea? But then who do they grab for Jungle?
Maybe Dexter for jungle then lol, because hes excempt non-resident. Or Santorin if Coast fail in expansion tournament.
On October 14 2014 01:49 Redox wrote: For what its worth, ex-Millenium / SHC rejects just scrimming with Alex as mid instead of Takefun. Imo good for them because my opinion of Takefun is not that high.
Takefun is very bad was surprised they even tried him out.Don't think alex is much of an improvement at the moment but maybe he can reach his glory days once again.
On October 14 2014 00:06 Numy wrote: Would be disappointed if he does. Felt he was pretty good fit for EG. When EG gets a real top laner they may even become a pretty strong team in NA.
I have hopes for EG (trying so hard not to say 'potential' here) but they have to make some changes if they want to become anything beyond LCS bottom feeders. If nothing happens for EG during the offseason, I'm going to be rather disappointed.
Pobelter plz.
I too believe in the power of our boy pobelter. EG seriously just needs a decent top laner, and some infrastructure and they easily have the talent to be top 3 team.
EPT
