On September 14 2014 11:37 Goragoth wrote: I'm surprised people here are ranking the Chinese teams so low. From what I've seen (I don't follow the LPL much though) the Chinese teams look like they have much cleaner team fighting than Alliance/C9/TSM and are individually as mechanically skilled or better than their western counterparts. Also, at All-Stars (for whatever that's worth) OMG looked to vastly outclass C9.
Don't think you want to use the all-stars as an example though. That was c9 without hai.
OMG smashed Fnatic and C9 pretty hard.
Also it's not like Hai is the Faker of SKTT1 or anything.
He is, however, the shotcaller. On the list of "Things You Don't Want Your Team to Lose" I think that comes in second, only behind "That guy that will 1v9." This tournament was also about 4 months ago.
4 month is not going to magically transform the Chinese scene into garbage. A team might go up or down, but the scene is not going to drop that hard in 4 months, especially with so many teams there.
On September 14 2014 11:37 Goragoth wrote: I'm surprised people here are ranking the Chinese teams so low. From what I've seen (I don't follow the LPL much though) the Chinese teams look like they have much cleaner team fighting than Alliance/C9/TSM and are individually as mechanically skilled or better than their western counterparts. Also, at All-Stars (for whatever that's worth) OMG looked to vastly outclass C9.
Don't think you want to use the all-stars as an example though. That was c9 without hai.
OMG smashed Fnatic and C9 pretty hard.
Also it's not like Hai is the Faker of SKTT1 or anything.
On September 14 2014 11:37 Goragoth wrote: I'm surprised people here are ranking the Chinese teams so low. From what I've seen (I don't follow the LPL much though) the Chinese teams look like they have much cleaner team fighting than Alliance/C9/TSM and are individually as mechanically skilled or better than their western counterparts. Also, at All-Stars (for whatever that's worth) OMG looked to vastly outclass C9.
Don't think you want to use the all-stars as an example though. That was c9 without hai.
OMG smashed Fnatic and C9 pretty hard.
Also it's not like Hai is the Faker of SKTT1 or anything.
He is, however, the shotcaller. On the list of "Things You Don't Want Your Team to Lose" I think that comes in second, only behind "That guy that will 1v9." This tournament was also about 4 months ago.
4 month is not going to magically transform the Chinese scene into garbage. A team might go up or down, but the scene is not going to drop that hard in 4 months, especially with so many teams there.
Just as OMG has the potential to get worse, C9(who was already handicapped with Link) has the potential to get better. In 4 months SKTK went from being a dynasty to being a possibly top 4 team. They used to be ahead of KTB who was far ahead of the rest of the scene. Now they're playing musical chairs with Shield and KTA to the song of "Who is going to show up today?" when it comes to the 3rd best team. Oh, and KTB can't make it out of groups.
On September 14 2014 12:14 GhandiEAGLE wrote: Also important to note is that Fnatic has a habit of showing up bigtime when they give a shit, AKA not all-stars but last year's worlds
On September 14 2014 11:37 Goragoth wrote: I'm surprised people here are ranking the Chinese teams so low. From what I've seen (I don't follow the LPL much though) the Chinese teams look like they have much cleaner team fighting than Alliance/C9/TSM and are individually as mechanically skilled or better than their western counterparts. Also, at All-Stars (for whatever that's worth) OMG looked to vastly outclass C9.
Don't think you want to use the all-stars as an example though. That was c9 without hai.
OMG smashed Fnatic and C9 pretty hard.
Also it's not like Hai is the Faker of SKTT1 or anything.
didnt they win vs fnatic with link ? i would say they are comparable and omg smashed them all
On September 14 2014 11:37 Goragoth wrote: I'm surprised people here are ranking the Chinese teams so low. From what I've seen (I don't follow the LPL much though) the Chinese teams look like they have much cleaner team fighting than Alliance/C9/TSM and are individually as mechanically skilled or better than their western counterparts. Also, at All-Stars (for whatever that's worth) OMG looked to vastly outclass C9.
Don't think you want to use the all-stars as an example though. That was c9 without hai.
OMG smashed Fnatic and C9 pretty hard.
Also it's not like Hai is the Faker of SKTT1 or anything.
didnt they win vs fnatic with link ? i would say they are comparable and omg smashed them all
Yeah, but singular games against teams in roughly similar skill areas don't mean much and Fnatic fanboys will always say "They didn't care about the tournament so it doesn't count." like they do every time Fnatic loses in non-LCS playoffs/Worlds.
What is significant is that C9 beat OMG in the group stage at that tournament.
Well, it's important to note that just as C9 had no Hai, OMG had no Cool during All-Stars. They were using Xiyang instead, and though Xiyang is good in his own right, he's definitely no Cool.
On September 14 2014 11:37 Goragoth wrote: I'm surprised people here are ranking the Chinese teams so low. From what I've seen (I don't follow the LPL much though) the Chinese teams look like they have much cleaner team fighting than Alliance/C9/TSM and are individually as mechanically skilled or better than their western counterparts. Also, at All-Stars (for whatever that's worth) OMG looked to vastly outclass C9.
Watching the LPL regionals, both OMG and SHRC (and really every Chinese team barring perhaps EDG) have major weaknesses when it comes to map control and objectives, with a particular overemphasis on Baron. Watching OMG throw several games harder than old Dig by trying (and failing) to force a baron fight was not particularly inspiring. One standout game was OMG throwing what was like...a 8+k (?) gold lead 15 minutes in by spending 20 minutes either trying to take Baron or bait a fight at baron. And ultimately letting EDG come back into the game HARD (and never getting a single baron that game to boot). Again...not particularly inspiring.
Also as everyone else noted, losing Hai and their main shotcaller for All-stars hurt C9 hard.
On September 14 2014 12:18 krndandaman wrote: Western teams also improved a lot imo. Relative to last worlds, I think this year's western lineup of Alliance, Fnatic, C9, TSM, LMQ, and SK is alot better than last year's Fnatic, C9, TSM, Lemondogs, Vulcan, and Gambit.
Also agree, though I wouldn't really call LMQ a "western team" .
On September 14 2014 12:45 Apex wrote: Well, it's important to note that just as C9 had no Hai, OMG had no Cool during All-Stars. They were using Xiyang instead, and though Xiyang is good in his own right, he's definitely no Cool.
OMG was also a better team at the time. So unless the difference between Cool => Xiyang is enough to make up for Hai => Link + team difference...
Fantasy for worlds. Same as last year, just pick shit and hope for the best. Be warned that point values and stuff aren't finalized, and currently are fairly arbitrary. Tell me in that thread or PM if something is out of line.
in the few games i watched i saw EDG just playing safe, giving up early leads almost on purpose, and still winning almost effortlessly. SHRC and OMG looked like they could lose to a NA/EU team on a bad day and it seemed like EDG's playstyle would be easily exploited by either of the samsung teams.
As bad as China looked, at least they're not a region in which a team the calibre of TSM can win a split
Like sure, they'll more likely than not get 3-0'd by Korean teams when it comes down to it, but thinking that the region is weaker than NA or EU is somewhat laughable
On September 14 2014 13:36 Kupon3ss wrote: As bad as China looked, at least they're not a region in which a team the calibre of TSM can win a split
Like sure, they'll more likely than not get 3-0'd by Korean teams when it comes down to it, but thinking that the region is weaker than NA or EU is somewhat laughable
EDG is a top contender for 1st despite their weaknesses, but OMG and SRHC? Much more debatable from what I saw of their regionals play.
On September 14 2014 13:36 Kupon3ss wrote: As bad as China looked, at least they're not a region in which a team the calibre of TSM can win a split
Like sure, they'll more likely than not get 3-0'd by Korean teams when it comes down to it, but thinking that the region is weaker than NA or EU is somewhat laughable
EDG is a top contender for 1st despite their weaknesses, but OMG and SRHC? Much more debatable from what I saw of their regionals play.
I don't think anybody truly doubts China as de facto the second strongest region in the world. Heck, if scrim results are anything to go by, EDG has legitimate arguments as being one of the strongest teams in the world including the Korean teams. Even if we go by recent international tournaments or recent scrim results, there's little evidence pointing to the argument that teams like OMG are anything but a favourite against teams like Cloud9.
However, the point is that outside of perhaps EDG, all the non-Korean teams at this tournament have obvious and clear weaknesses that can be exploited by even lesser teams. I don't think it's a stretch to say that TSM can topple SHRC with all their inner turmoil and hilariously bad communication issues, even if SHRC is the better team, especially if they get their shit together. With all the teams scrimming their asses off, and working to become a better team, we could see some upsets here and there, especially considering how exploitable the vast majority of the teams in this tournament are.
That being said, just because China is shit, doesn't stop the fact that European and North American teams are shit as well, and the same goes for a lot of the Korean teams. I think Najin Black Sword is a terrible team despite finishing technically 5th in the Korean Summer Season. I think Cloud9 have clear and exploitable weaknesses which is why they get trashed so frequently by TSM, OMG, and shit-tier Korean teams during scrims. I think because of the obvious lack of well rounded teams, it's a battle of research, and making sure each teams get to maximize their relative strengths and hiding their weaknesses, and that will depend a lot on the coaches, which is why I think TSM will do better than SHRC, because despite SHRC being the better team in my mind, SHRC can and will be exploited, especially if they're busy having egho battles instead of working on reducing their problems and trying to expose their enemies' weaknesses.
Pretty sure the western world is aware that the Chinese region may very well be the 2nd strongest region after how Royal and OMG played last world championships, hence why so many pros are having such high expectations of EDG this time around
EPT
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