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On September 05 2013 20:34 Osmoses wrote:
King of situational teamcomps perhaps.
It's true he's not a jack of all trades, when it comes to teamcomps, but his abyssmal pick rate is not justified. Overall he's the safest and strongest (talking about 1v1) ap mid (crushes ad casters as well, though Zeds gonna Zed, no one can argue about his position in the current meta) out there.
And this is where my main concern lies about the NA scene. I can understand that the godlike Korean pro players rather stick with the fotm champions, instead of theorycrafting teamcomps for a champion like Malzahar, but for the love of god, if you play in the North American LCS, and you are mediocore at best, at least abuse your only advantage over other regions, which is you suck. Yes, Zed is a very good champion, so is Kassadin, but since you can't use these champions to their fullest potential, you might as well bring in "2nd tier" (or call them whatever you want to) champions. I'm pretty sure you play them just as badly as the fotm champs, but at least your opponent will be caught off-guard.
Look at VES. I dont want them to be erased from esport history because they are bad - someones has to be the worst, after all, that's just how it is - but because they are afraid to mix things up. They pick teamcomps that looks strong, but they just can't handle them. Why do you pick Shen, when you are 50 cs behind after 15 minutes? Yes, Shen is a great champion, but he's obviously not for you. You might do better on someone like Wukong, or Pantheon, or whatever, I'm sure there's something you can actually play with!
Or here's Reginald - he's trying so hard to be useful, but it's obvious he's limited as hell in every possible way. It's fine, you are rich Regibro, but why don't you give Brand, Malz or LB a chance? You played them so much in the past, I'm sure you still have what it takes to be not so bad. Why bother with Orianna and managing her stupid ball, when you can just push R with Brand, and laugh like a maniac while you destroy everyone. Sure, with Orianna you could do things Brand will never be able to, but could is not = can.
It's so sad to see every baddie struggle to copy someone, and keep up with the trends, while they could get their own style.
Honorable mentions: bigfatjiji for his Pantheon. Yeah, he confused the Health tab with the Attack Damage one in the shop, but he was still so close being original and succesfull!
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Baa?21248 Posts
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On September 05 2013 21:34 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
^ i like this post haha
I read it because you said you liked it, and I was not disappointed, lol
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Gold.
(The post not my rank T.T)
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Lessons are to be learned from BW B tier players and their strategies in Starleagues. They knew they could never play a fair game with someone like Flash, Bisu, Jaedong or another A+/S tier Progamer. Instead they would prepare snipe strategies to catch them off guard, and hope for a win before their much better mechanics could save them.
The same goes for any sport or game where strategic planning is involved - if your opponant is better than you at the game, you have to win by being creative and outsmarting him/them.
LoL is no exeption, and I feel like we might see some wacky strats on a regular basis at some point from the non-elite teams.
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France45622 Posts
You see that sometimes. For example when you look at the qualifiers for the promotion tournaments, you see many more unusual picks than from the LCS matches, because they're also comfort picks for them, and they're significantly better with it (plus I assume it's hard to train champions like Zed or Zac anyway because they're banned so much, unless you scrim).
However, when they go against the more established teams, they can get these comfort picks banned, and they don't necessarily play the OP as well as their opponents, who aren't too annoyed to let some open because of that. It's like "tear through the challenger championships and qualifiers with Malzahar jungle, get smashed when your opponent bans it and you aren't as good with Elise".
Obviously it also comes from less experience/practice/lower level/whatever.
Also while I see the point of your post (and I like it from a spectator point of view, variety is often pleasing to the eye), wouldn't the professional attitude be that to be relevant you need to be able to play "the OP" well, and thus to strive to master it? Saying "Well this thing is OP but I can't play it as well as this 2nd tier pick, so I won't bother" means you give up in a way, and you also need to ban it everytime because your opponents don't have to worry about it coming from you, but you can't let them have it.
I remember at some point a Korean team being bitten pretty hard in the ass by this because there was one pick they weren't good at (I think it was Elise? Really can't remember the details) so every game, whichever side they were, they had to ban it, effectively giving them only 2 bans even when blue side.
(FWIW I'm more hyped for the group stages than the series at World Finals, because we may have a much wider variety of strategies and comps, despite them not all being viable at the top level which the series should display.)
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On September 05 2013 22:05 Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
Lessons are to be learned from BW B tier players and their strategies in Starleagues. They knew they could never play a fair game with someone like Flash, Bisu, Jaedong or another A+/S tier Progamer. Instead they would prepare snipe strategies to catch them off guard, and hope for a win before their much better mechanics could save them.
The same goes for any sport or game where strategic planning is involved - if your opponant is better than you at the game, you have to win by being creative and outsmarting him/them.
LoL is no exeption, and I feel like we might see some wacky strats on a regular basis at some point from the non-elite teams.
Dunno, honestly, I feel cheese is a lot more powerful in Starcraft than in LoL.
In starcraft the only starting information you have is your opponent's race, and should you fail to scout/react to a proxy 2rax or cannonrush or 6 pool or whatever all-in your opponent can throw at you, it's basically instant gg.
In LoL not only does the champion pick/ban phase + loading screen lets you know something fishy is going to happen even before the game start (weird pick/summoner spells), there is also a lot less to gain from it, you can get a gold advantage or something, but it will rarely outright win you the game.
Sure you may still see something innovative from time to time like the soraka/lulu dignitas thing from a while ago, but it's lot rarer, and the consequences of out-picking your opponent in LoL are a lot less brutal than BO wins in starcraft imo. And I doubt you could see a team cheesing another one out like we have seen happen so many times in starcraft.
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The funny thing was that B tier Progames would occasionally cheese, but more often they would have an entire gameplan tailored to keep their opponent off balance.
Cheese can easily be a coinflip, and the coin is usually rigged in favor of the better player. Unorthodox play on the other hand can be abusive of a certain mindset, and will often rely on the opposition not knowing what to do.
So unusual strategy != cheese.
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I think the DotA pick/ban phase is a lot more conducive to non-standard drafts. Only 3 bans and being forced to ban weird things early if you actually want to cheese makes it very hard to escape the draft without being severely behind.
But on top of that, I think it's largely a matter of the size of the scene and the low number of games played. For example, Darien picked Aatrox a few weeks ago and it sort of surprised a lot of people. Wickd and I think Aranaea have played him since and now he's just considered relatively standard despite only being played by 3 or 4 guys across a handful of games. In the LCS (or OGN, LPL, GPL), if even one or two teams copy a non-standard pick, you're looking at 30%+ of the field already, and it's hardly non-standard anymore. And I think that cross-regional playstyles are often different enough that non-standard picks don't necessarily carry over.
But I actually came here to talk about casting, which I've been thinking about a lot lately. A few things to add to the discussion several pages ago:
Riv3 gets way too much shit. He pretty much does what he needs to do. He's okay at play-by-play. He occasionally makes some amusing noises, and he usually gives enough space for his analysis guy to talk. He actually reminds me a lot of John Madden. Give him a marker.
Kaplan, on the other hand, I find to be by a pretty wide margin the worst LCS caster and am surprised no one calls him out. He often speaks either definitionally or tautologically ("He bought a Zhonya's so he can be invulnerable for two seconds in teamfights!"). When he ventures beyond these realms, he's often just flat wrong. I understand it's a high pressure scenario and it's hard to come up with deep analysis on the spot, but he probably shouldn't be doing analysis casting if he can't do it correctly.
I also find that in general, a good analysis a bad play-by-play is perfectly acceptable, but that I find it very hard to stomach a bad analysis with a good play-by-play. I think this is largely because I am able to parse teamfights at least as well as the average caster can describe them. It might be different for a lower level observer.
But the big point that I've only realized recently is that the LCS casters cast EVERYTHING that the camera shows. I understand that you need to fill dead air, but there are many better ways to fill it than describing Renekton farming wolves for the third time. Doa/Monte and Papa/Pastry all understand this. Everyone at TI3 (admittedly I did not watch Sheever's casts) understood this. I actually find it kind of mind-boggling that not only are the LCS casters the only ones who do this, but they ALL do it. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that it's Riot policy, presumably trying to cater to a low-level audience? Or perhaps to reign in perceived unprofessionalism?
Personally I thought the relaxed casting style at TI3 was refreshing. Aside from the occasional F-bomb, I don't think it was terribly unprofessional; just...relaxed.
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On September 05 2013 22:50 OhTwoMise wrote:
But the big point that I've only realized recently is that the LCS casters cast EVERYTHING that the camera shows. I understand that you need to fill dead air, but there are many better ways to fill it than describing Renekton farming wolves for the third time. Doa/Monte and Papa/Pastry all understand this. Everyone at TI3 (admittedly I did not watch Sheever's casts) understood this. I actually find it kind of mind-boggling that not only are the LCS casters the only ones who do this, but they ALL do it. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that it's Riot policy, presumably trying to cater to a low-level audience? Or perhaps to reign in perceived unprofessionalism?
Personally I thought the relaxed casting style at TI3 was refreshing. Aside from the occasional F-bomb, I don't think it was terribly unprofessional; just...relaxed.
I think some of it at least can be attributed to DotA having a longer history, thus allowing more time for casters to develop.
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On September 05 2013 22:27 BobMcJohnson wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 22:05 Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
Lessons are to be learned from BW B tier players and their strategies in Starleagues. They knew they could never play a fair game with someone like Flash, Bisu, Jaedong or another A+/S tier Progamer. Instead they would prepare snipe strategies to catch them off guard, and hope for a win before their much better mechanics could save them.
The same goes for any sport or game where strategic planning is involved - if your opponant is better than you at the game, you have to win by being creative and outsmarting him/them.
LoL is no exeption, and I feel like we might see some wacky strats on a regular basis at some point from the non-elite teams. Dunno, honestly, I feel cheese is a lot more powerful in Starcraft than in LoL. In starcraft the only starting information you have is your opponent's race, and should you fail to scout/react to a proxy 2rax or cannonrush or 6 pool or whatever all-in your opponent can throw at you, it's basically instant gg. In LoL not only does the champion pick/ban phase + loading screen lets you know something fishy is going to happen even before the game start (weird pick/summoner spells), there is also a lot less to gain from it, you can get a gold advantage or something, but it will rarely outright win you the game. Sure you may still see something innovative from time to time like the soraka/lulu dignitas thing from a while ago, but it's lot rarer, and the consequences of out-picking your opponent in LoL are a lot less brutal than BO wins in starcraft imo. And I doubt you could see a team cheesing another one out like we have seen happen so many times in starcraft.
"Cheese" in the sense of LoL doesn't necessarily have to be something like "all TP comp" or some weird, fishy summoners, etc.
Playing against different champions requires different nuances. Now, I'm sure most of the asian teams wouldn't get caught off guard by a champ they aren't used to playing against. But it's obvious that most NA teams are at a lower level of mechanics, and thus could get thrown off playing against a champion they never see.
This is ESPECIALLY relevant if a player has a particular mastery/experience with a certain champ and knows all of the ins and outs of all/most matchups. They could have the upper hand because that particular champ just doesn't play the same as champs that the opponent might be most used to/practiced against.
Now, this idea is consistent through certainly the lower levels of play. However, I think it still has merit in an NA LCS setting, albeit with less potential to be overwhelmingly (or even whelmingly) advantageous.
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On September 05 2013 22:50 OhTwoMise wrote:
I think the DotA pick/ban phase is a lot more conducive to non-standard drafts. Only 3 bans and being forced to ban weird things early if you actually want to cheese makes it very hard to escape the draft without being severely behind.
But on top of that, I think it's largely a matter of the size of the scene and the low number of games played. For example, Darien picked Aatrox a few weeks ago and it sort of surprised a lot of people. Wickd and I think Aranaea have played him since and now he's just considered relatively standard despite only being played by 3 or 4 guys across a handful of games. In the LCS (or OGN, LPL, GPL), if even one or two teams copy a non-standard pick, you're looking at 30%+ of the field already, and it's hardly non-standard anymore. And I think that cross-regional playstyles are often different enough that non-standard picks don't necessarily carry over.
But I actually came here to talk about casting, which I've been thinking about a lot lately. A few things to add to the discussion several pages ago:
Riv3 gets way too much shit. He pretty much does what he needs to do. He's okay at play-by-play. He occasionally makes some amusing noises, and he usually gives enough space for his analysis guy to talk. He actually reminds me a lot of John Madden. Give him a marker.
Kaplan, on the other hand, I find to be by a pretty wide margin the worst LCS caster and am surprised no one calls him out. He often speaks either definitionally or tautologically ("He bought a Zhonya's so he can be invulnerable for two seconds in teamfights!"). When he ventures beyond these realms, he's often just flat wrong. I understand it's a high pressure scenario and it's hard to come up with deep analysis on the spot, but he probably shouldn't be doing analysis casting if he can't do it correctly.
I also find that in general, a good analysis a bad play-by-play is perfectly acceptable, but that I find it very hard to stomach a bad analysis with a good play-by-play. I think this is largely because I am able to parse teamfights at least as well as the average caster can describe them. It might be different for a lower level observer.
But the big point that I've only realized recently is that the LCS casters cast EVERYTHING that the camera shows. I understand that you need to fill dead air, but there are many better ways to fill it than describing Renekton farming wolves for the third time. Doa/Monte and Papa/Pastry all understand this. Everyone at TI3 (admittedly I did not watch Sheever's casts) understood this. I actually find it kind of mind-boggling that not only are the LCS casters the only ones who do this, but they ALL do it. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that it's Riot policy, presumably trying to cater to a low-level audience? Or perhaps to reign in perceived unprofessionalism?
Personally I thought the relaxed casting style at TI3 was refreshing. Aside from the occasional F-bomb, I don't think it was terribly unprofessional; just...relaxed.
casting everything is kinda nice when I'm just kinda listening in and not really watching the game (at work with headphones for example) - it's like sports radio.
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On September 05 2013 22:55 BrownBear wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 05 2013 22:50 OhTwoMise wrote:
But the big point that I've only realized recently is that the LCS casters cast EVERYTHING that the camera shows. I understand that you need to fill dead air, but there are many better ways to fill it than describing Renekton farming wolves for the third time. Doa/Monte and Papa/Pastry all understand this. Everyone at TI3 (admittedly I did not watch Sheever's casts) understood this. I actually find it kind of mind-boggling that not only are the LCS casters the only ones who do this, but they ALL do it. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that it's Riot policy, presumably trying to cater to a low-level audience? Or perhaps to reign in perceived unprofessionalism?
Personally I thought the relaxed casting style at TI3 was refreshing. Aside from the occasional F-bomb, I don't think it was terribly unprofessional; just...relaxed. I think some of it at least can be attributed to DotA having a longer history, thus allowing more time for casters to develop.
Don't realy think casting is different enough between dota/dota2/lol to have dota2 benefit from dota1's history and LoL casting somehow not.
Edit: It's probably more a case of desired style from riot (maybe to be closer to sports commentating like mentionned above)
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France45622 Posts
Jason Kaplan is in EU LCS so he gets a lot less exposure (I think there are more EUs watching NA than the reverse), he def' hit me as pretty "weak", but I'm biased because I don't like listening to him in general, he doesn't really have a "casting voice" not does he put much excitement in what he says.
Rivington has his moments too but he's gotten way better at hyping up the games and the big fights/plays.
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What I hate about the LCS casting is:
- Cop became so agressive!
- Reginald is so agressive!
- Did you know that Doublelift, is Doublelift?
- That's Reginald for you!
- It's CLG, long game jokes incoming!
- C9 is so good, right?
- Oh look, Coast doing their pregame ritual for the 20th time; let's talk about it and Elementz again.
- Thats so Regi!
- Trist is a late game carry. She needs farm. So she becomes strong later. She's a late game carry named Tristana.
- Scarra likes Gragas.
- Chauster has really improved with Thresh [ROFL, HE COULDN'T POSSIBLY BECOME WORSE THAN THAT]
- ... aand here comes Regi with the agressive Flash! That Flash was agressive I almost pee-peed my pants.
Can't think of more right off the bat, but you get what Im saying. Makes me sick sometimes.
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United States15536 Posts
On September 05 2013 23:24 Volband wrote:
What I hate about the LCS casting is:
- Cop became so agressive!
- Reginald is so agressive!
- Did you know that Doublelift, is Doublelift?
- That's Reginald for you!
- It's CLG, long game jokes incoming!
- C9 is so good, right?
- Oh look, Coast doing their pregame ritual for the 20th time; let's talk about it and Elementz again.
- Thats so Regi!
- Trist is a late game carry. She needs farm. So she becomes strong later. She's a late game carry named Tristana.
- Scarra likes Gragas.
- Chauster has really improved with Thresh [ROFL, HE COULDN'T POSSIBLY BECOME WORSE THAN THAT]
- ... aand here comes Regi with the agressive Flash! That Flash was agressive I almost pee-peed my pants.
Can't think of more right off the bat, but you get what Im saying. Makes me sick sometimes.
Have you heard the good word? The word of the Mute Button?
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United States23745 Posts
LCS casters aren't really for us. I love Monte and Doa, but their casting style just wouldn't fly for what Riot wants from commentators (which is to explain what's going on to the more casual audience).
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Baa?21248 Posts
i don't really like monte and doa and am kinda confused by their reputation, their analysis is super weak idk why they get praised as the best "analytical" casters...
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I would really like to see stuff like double bruiser bot and run a cayt or ez mid. Go for the all mid push. AP + soraka bot. etc.
Maybe they aren't optimal but you will sure get some team off guard with that.
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How's the state of Jayce right now? is the consensus to still rush muramana?
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EPT
