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[MISC] THOR Open Wrap-up

Forum Index > LoL General
Post a Reply
onlywonderboy
Profile Joined August 2012
United States23745 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-18 18:03:33
December 18 2012 18:03 GMT
#1

Table of Contents




Introduction



Results and Standings



Forging Mjölnir



TeamLiquid Editor Awards



Clairvoyance into the Future




Introduction


The THOR Open was touted as the event that would allow newer and less experienced League of Legends teams get a chance at the spotlight. Over the course of several months eight open qualifiers were held, meaning that any group of five could sign up and participate, with no restrictions. This led to a grab bag of several unknown teams mixed in with a few well established teams, including the resurgent FnaticRC. Eight teams were set to compete, but due to scheduling conflicts, three of the teams dropped from the event at the last minute. This left five teams to compete for the 100,000 SEK grand prize.

Since the tournament took place on the live client, this was the first real chance to see the pros playing with the Season 3 changes in place. Fnatic were the clear favorites coming into the event, but they would still have to make it past Team ALTERNATE, featuring Mr. 3000 Elo himself, ForellenLord, as well as the young Copenhagen Wolves who recently took 3rd place at Dreamhack Winter 2012.

Results and Standings


                                          [image loading] 1st - [image loading] - Fnatic RC
                                          [image loading] 2nd - [image loading] - Copenhagen Wolves
                                          [image loading] 3rd - [image loading] - Team ALTERNATE
                                          [image loading] 4th - [image loading] - mouz eSports
                                          5th -
[image loading]
- PlayZ Gaming

Forging Mjölnir

By AsmodeusXI


The THOR Open - the first LAN tournament on the pre-season 3 patch. What initially promised to be an exciting tournament dwindled down due to a few setbacks. One major issue was the teams that participated in the tournament were not big names and, frankly, it was perhaps a little too early into the new patch for anyone to be whipping out exciting builds and strategies (although imagine if they had held it a week earlier: Black Cleavers everywhere). Every game looked more or less like a game from Season 2, with the exception of the occasional Warwick pick and an abundance of Crystalline Flasks. While the games of the tournament were well-played, they were also rather one-sided and not particularly engrossing. The inexperience of the attending teams showed and it didn't help the overall quality of the tournament that some of the games didn't make it to the stream (including Fnatic's semifinal and the third place match).

What was most rewarding about the THOR Open was that it cast a spotlight on the up-and-coming teams in the EU scene. The second place finishers, the Copenhagen Wolves, brought a solid line-up to the Rift, particularly in their top and mid laners, NeeGodBro and Bjergsen. The new team (founded in August and having their first LAN appearance in November) was very solid, enabling them to thoroughly beat down better-known teams like ALTERNATE and mouz. Yet even the third and fourth place winners had moments of glory and one could see how with more practice and tournament-caliber experience might in the future rocket into the top tier. The Copenhagen Wolves were particularly exciting and it will be nice to see if they can make through the Riot Season 3 EU Qualifiers.

And then there was Fnatic. After their IPL5 performance, very few people wouldn't have bet on them to win. They did just this without dropping a single game. It was the Fnatic show all the way through, and none of the other teams could do anything about it. Fnatic was simply on another level; they had the experience and skill to smackdown the other teams almost effortlessly. While Fnatic fans were probably happy to see them unequivocally dominate the competition, it didn't make for the most dynamic of tournaments. Still, congratulations to Fnatic on their victory and to the THOR Open for putting together a successful eSports event. Let's just hope that next year we have the opportunity to see greater challenges and the birth of epic sagas.

TeamLiquid Editor Awards

By AsmodeusXI, onlywonderboy, NeoIllusions, Chiharu Harukaze


Team to Ward Watch: [image loading]Copenhagen Wolves
The Copenhagen Wolves came into THOR with something to prove. Their 3rd place finish at Dreamhack Winter was their first major accomplishment as a team. Not too shabby considering their current line-up only came to be in October. While the competition at THOR wasn't the most fierce, the Wolves still managed to make their way to the finals, displacing the well known Team ALTERNATE along the way. Many people will criticize them for going 0-3 against Fnatic during the whole tournament, but that doesn't mean they didn't show potential. Fnatic have been doing extremely well lately, and the Wolves are still young. In game one of the finals, the Copenhagen Wolves actually managed to establish a decent lead against Fnatic. It was only through rookie mistakes that they managed to throw this lead away and eventually lose the game. With a little more practice, the Wolves have the potential to iron out these newcomer nerves and go toe-to-toe with the more experienced EU teams. In many of their games each lane looked quite strong - they just lacked finesse. It won't be too surprising if the Copenhagen Wolves qualify for the Championship Series but only time can tell.

Honorable Mention: [image loading]Fnatic
Fnatic have been on a roll. They cleaned house recently, winning DreamHack Winter, as well as taking second place at IPL5, beating the reigning Season 2 champions Taipei Assassin's twice in two separate series. The best way to describe their recent dominance is their team has just clicked. Even if xPeke loses mid, sOAZ can carry from top, or if sOAZ loses top, Rekkles and nRated can carry from bot. If a team focuses on shutting down one of their lanes, another just picks up the slack and carries them to victory. Unfortunately for them, Rekkles will not be able to compete in Season 3 due to the age restriction Riot is enforcing. Even so, Fnatic is still an exceptionally strong team. As long as they find a decent AD Carry for Season 3, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with.


RaidBoss Singed Award: [image loading]sOAZ
Many of the players on Fnatic could've taken this award for their impressive performances throughout the LAN weekend. xPeke made great plays both in lane and teamfights, and Rekkles' farming and positioning was as top-notch as ever. But today the award for being an unkillable badass goes to sOAZ. Why? Well, mostly because teams kept giving him his favourite champion. Okay, so maybe your team only likes to ban heroes they feel they don't play well against. Perhaps Lee Sin isn't on that list. But after the number of games sOAZ destroyed with his top lane Monk, one would think that the other teams in the Thor Open would rush to remove him from the pool. This didn't happen, so sOAZ was a monster throughout the tournament. One of the most terrifying demonstrations of his considerable skill with the Blind Monk was in Game 2 of the Finals. sOAZ was aggressive in lane, hopping around in teamfights, dishing out insane damage and keeping himself and his allies alive simultaneously. League of Legends has some incredible Lee Sin players right now, such as Froggen and Diamondprox. At the Thor Open, sOAZ played like he belonged on that list.

Honorable Mention: [image loading]Forellenlord
You don't get to 3k ELO for no reason. Forellenlord played very well throughout the Thor Open and seemed to be what carried ALTERNATE to their bronze medal. Lots of impressive looking kills, and a surprising number of excellent escapes. They just tended to come at the expense of his allies' lives. Oh well, you gotta have priorities. #3kYOLOQueue


“See Champion, Kill Champion” Award: [image loading]xPeke
xPeke’s roaming won Fnatic games. Throughout the entire tournament he favoured champions with heavy roaming potential, including Diana, Katarina, and Ahri. He constantly roamed to other lanes and tipped them in favor of Fnatic where they were previously locked in a stalemate. Even in one-on-one mid match-ups he would dive onto the enemy and get solo kills on unsuspecting opponents. xPeke controlled the tempo of almost all of his matches and did it by killing anything that crossed his path.

Honorable Mention: [image loading]XL Bjergsen
xPeke wasn’t the only mid player with a predilection for assassin/roaming champs. Bjergsen on the Copenhagen Wolves also made an impression with his dominant lane performance and the immense pressure he was able to apply to other lanes. Arguably his most impressive plays came while he was playing Elise, a champion that is seen more often as a top laner than in mid these days. Using her kit to its fullest, he was able to burst down and assassinate champs when they looked like they might get away. While his overall performance may not have been as impressive as xPeke’s, he certainly killed a lot of champions.


Dora the Explorer Award: [image loading]Team ALTERNATE
Team ALTERNATE is a very aggressive team. Perhaps they get this from their star member, Forellenlord, who spent a lot of the Thor Open wandering through jungles, looking for kills (and not on Eve/Diana either, for whom this activity is far more safe). While this occasionally made them look like geniuses, it also resulted in some nasty incidents of face-checking or being outnumbered. Every member of ALTERNATE was caught out of position at one point or another, but the worst offender was Metalx in their group stage game against the Copenhagen Wolves when he attempted to rejoin his team through an unwarded river. Instead of his team, he found an unfriendly Evelynn, Cho'Gath, and Ezreal and was summarily executed. Wolves followed this up by grabbing ALTERNATE's top laner Kerp before destroying their middle inhibitor, extending the lead that would win them them game. Not pretty.

Honorable Mention: [image loading]Wolves Bjergsen (Finals v. Fnatic, Game 1)
Bjergsen's mid-lane strength helped carry the Wolves into the Finals, but that success may have gone to his head by the first game of the Finals against the undefeated Fnatic. In the span of two minutes, Bjergsen's Diana jumped on nRated's Zyra twice and got killed for it both times, giving Fnatic kills on a farmed mid-laner while all Bjergsen got was a support. And these suicide trades came at a point where the Wolves had an early lead. It's possible that more conservative play could've allowed the Wolves to keep their lead long enough to take a game off of Fnatic, but instead there was jumping, killing, and dying. Whoops.

Clairvoyance into the Future

By onlywonderboy


The Thor Open can best be described as a learning experience. This was the first time many of these players were playing extensively with the Season 3 changes. As such, it was clear many of them were still adjusting and not playing to their usual level. This, of course, didn't slow down Fnatic. The biggest question for them at the moment isn't whether or not they are going to qualify for the Championship Series, but rather who is going to replace their ADC Rekkles. The other major takeaway from this event is that the Copenhagen Wolves have a lot of potential. Considering the short amount of time they've been together, if they continue to practice and work on the little things, they certainly have the talent to qualify for Season 3. With Season 3 looming on the horizon, this is the perfect time for teams to make these little changes in hopes of earning that coveted Riot salary.

Final Notes:
This write-up was brought to you by AsmodeusXI, onlywonderboy, NeoIllusions, and Chiharu Harukaze.
MLG Anaheim Wrap-up — Dreamhack Summer Wrap-Up — MLG Summer Arena Wrap-up — IEM Gamescom EU Regionals Preview — IPL Face-Off Wrap-Up — IEM Gamescom EU Regionals Review — PAX Prime Preview — PAX Prime Review — S2 Worlds Preview — S2 Worlds Review — MLG Dallas Wrap-up — Dreamhack Winter Wrap-up
RIP Ryan Davis / TL or Die / @onlywonderboy
NeoIllusions
Profile Blog Joined December 2002
United States37500 Posts
December 18 2012 18:03 GMT
#2
Please join me in welcoming Asmo and onlywonderboy as trial writers for TL LoL. While the THOR Open wasn't as highly touted as IEM Cologne, it fielded a number of upcoming EU teams and of course, Fnatic. It was a small EU tournament but interesting nevertheless.

Feel free to give them a healthy dose of constructive criticism where it applies, as this is their first official assignment. Both of them will be recapping the TSM Invitational playoffs next week. I am looking forward to their coverage in the new year!

Cheers.
ModeratorFor the Glory that is TeamLiquid (-9 | 155) | Discord: NeoIllusions#1984
FindMeInKenya
Profile Joined February 2011
United States797 Posts
December 18 2012 18:08 GMT
#3
Decent write up imo, but i always felt that if you guys can include more pictures (picture speak a thousand words) it would be even better.
AsmodeusXI
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United States15536 Posts
December 18 2012 18:11 GMT
#4
On December 19 2012 03:08 FindMeInKenya wrote:
Decent write up imo, but i always felt that if you guys can include more pictures (picture speak a thousand words) it would be even better.


Thanks! And the pictures comment is duly noted. I had a thought or two about this, but they weren't well-defined, so I'm saving them for later (and more experienced) write-ups.
WriterTL > RL. BNet: Asmodeus#1187 - LoL: DJForeclosure - Steam: asmodeusxi | www.n3rddimension.com
onlywonderboy
Profile Joined August 2012
United States23745 Posts
December 19 2012 02:00 GMT
#5
This was definitely a learning experience. We are already hard at work on our next write-up and are going to use everything we learned here to improve in the future.
RIP Ryan Davis / TL or Die / @onlywonderboy
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