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United States23745 Posts
On January 04 2014 07:28 UmberBane wrote: Also I think nobody would argue against it if you said that the League scene today, especially in Korea, is much more competitive than it has ever been, especially way back in S2. Which makes it even more impressive what SKT have done. Thorin called it "one of the best storylines in esports history, nevermind just LoL in 2013", which seems understandable. Yeah, their dominance in the scene is truly something to behold. I'm a Bullets fan, but I would be totally fine with SKT winning again because of how awesome the storyline is.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
fandom is ultimately about big stars and big teams. hype is good for the scene even if not entirely rational. (though 'hyping' skt would be like hyping flash circa 2008, basically as rational as you can get)
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I just noticed that OGN doesnt seem to like Ziggs too much? Was he picked at all? (Only watched the quarterfinals this season)
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i think maknoon used ziggs in the group stages, but that might have just been at iem
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Poor frost 
Shy feels like the only truly strong player on the team
Space/madlife feel like they're stuck in the end of s3 when ezreal/vayne/thresh/blitz were among the strongest champs in botlane. Space's lucian is kinda uninspiring, thresh and blitz both have a hard time against a lot of the meta supports (or at least I think they do, esp. leona).
Helios is terrible, and all the Frost midlaners are just below strength. It's kind of terrifying how they've managed to acquire three midlaners that are all not good enough for OGN, even if GBM did show some promise last season. It's also an idiotic way to run the team, because giving GBM playtime in the quarters after sitting out most/all of the group stage is not the best way to build team coordination.
Like pretty much everyone else, I feel like they need to wipe mid/jung players from the org... I would say also bring in subs for botlane, or, at the very least replace space and bring in a Madlife sub - as much as I love his plays, relying on old champs 3x in a row isn't very inspiring - there's a reason thresh and blitz weren't banned -_-;;
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Thresh is still really strong, the reason Madlife can't go with Leona though is because his team is always way too far behind to commit to that kind of aggression. Frost is literally so weak right now compared with the true top 8/10 OGN teams that even a good Leona play midgame is really just going to get his team aced.
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On January 05 2014 07:16 cLutZ wrote: Thresh is still really strong, the reason Madlife can't go with Leona though is because his team is always way too far behind to commit to that kind of aggression. Frost is literally so weak right now compared with the true top 8/10 OGN teams that even a good Leona play midgame is really just going to get his team aced.
Oh yeah I didn't actually think about that part, lol~
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United Kingdom50293 Posts
On January 05 2014 01:21 chalice wrote: i think maknoon used ziggs in the group stages, but that might have just been at iem I think he used it at IEM vs SAJ, then again frost could have run donger vs SAJ and probably still win.
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Here's my tinfoil hat theory about Frost: their roster is designed for marketability, not so much winning games. We've seen how resistant the fans of popular teams can be to roster changes in other regions (think EG, TSM etc) and the CJ teams are (or at least were) by far the most popular teams in Korea; they also seem to have the most PR and interaction with the fans. If you look at their roster changes from a marketing perspective, it makes sense: you take Helios, a jungle who had been having issues, but was familiar with the team's fans; you take Ganked By Mom, who has a limited champion pool but is funny, outgoing and wears a bow-tie, and you take Maknoon, an out-of-form toplaner inexplicably converted to mid, but who is also a huge name in LoL, both in and out of Korea. You also have Space, who to be fair was quite a good player a season or two ago, but who I'm guessing CJ will be unwilling to let go despite his form issues simply because he is... adorable.
I mean, none of these changes really made sense to me in terms of building strength. Teams like KT and SKT have shown a level of pragmatism and ruthlessness in adjusting the rosters of underperforming teams, but they always try to promote promising new talent, or poach players currently at the top of their game. Blaze has taken this approach and is much stronger for it, but Frost is now stuck with a bunch of also-rans and has-beens. It seems fairly obvious to me that Frost need a new jungler, and need to replace their entire mid roster, as well as bringing in a sub for AD (move Captain Jack maybe). I guess we'll see what they decide to do in the off-season.
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United States23745 Posts
The cheers for Frost were insane considering how mediocre they've been performing. Branding is king.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
that approach may work now but it's not a long term strategy. plus, they need a lot of improvement on the back stage part of the team. they really need to revamp the coaching staff or get more analysts. given how these first generation teams are more player-run than kespa teams. frost doesn't seem to adapt to s4 changes all that much.
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On January 05 2014 15:22 onlywonderboy wrote: The cheers for Frost were insane considering how mediocre they've been performing. Branding is king.
How long will this last? Look at EG underperforming whole season 3 are behind voting on facebook for iem. World Elite popularity dropped after all the loses+2 members left and Misaya retire. Hell if cloud 9 lose to tsm this season there will a popularity drop.
I guess only TSM and Gambit doesnt have this issues.
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Is OGN going to swap over to the Yasuo patch for the semi's?
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On January 06 2014 01:45 skykh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2014 15:22 onlywonderboy wrote: The cheers for Frost were insane considering how mediocre they've been performing. Branding is king. How long will this last? Look at EG underperforming whole season 3 are behind voting on facebook for iem. World Elite popularity dropped after all the loses+2 members left and Misaya retire. Hell if cloud 9 lose to tsm this season there will a popularity drop. I guess only TSM and Gambit doesnt have this issues.
EG dropped off because EG's members intentionally didn't promote it as Alliance/EG thing was happening. They're still probably the biggest European team in terms of fanbase.
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Blitzer
Australia243 Posts
I think Space is pretty decent, however his champion pool was hurt a bit as Vayne/Twitch aren't as good as they were and also playing ad carry is not so much fun when your jungle/midlane is getting owned every game. Madlife is still a very talented mechanical support and Shy is one of the best top laners around.
Helios + their mid have been horrible. I honestly don't know what they need to do to fix this area. Probably recruit a jungler at the very least from solo queue. They need to make some hard decisions on a number of players on their roster. Maknoon may eventually be able to make midlane work with some more practice, next season may be telling for him.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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On January 06 2014 18:53 oneofthem wrote: make maknoon jungle Hotshot, is that you?
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I also don't believe Space is the problem. Carrying as ADC when your team is constantly behind is really really hard. Mid and jungle have been the most important positions for a long time now and I'm sure everyone can see that this is where Frost is lacking.
Hellios didn't perform on blaze and he isn't performing on frost. Rapidstar/gbm have always been decent but not among the best (there's a reason madlife was the one drawing all the bans), now they've clearly fallen behind and maknoon.... he's already part of the older generation and is not even a mid player, really weird choice to pick him up.
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Game 3 pretty much epitomizes Frost's problems: GBM was a non factor, Helios played like utter garbage on Evelynn, and whenever Madlife tries to make a play it results in more deaths on Frost because they're already so far behind. Ozone played very well in this series but Frost certainly didn't make it a hard feat.
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The land of freedom23126 Posts
On January 06 2014 01:45 skykh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2014 15:22 onlywonderboy wrote: The cheers for Frost were insane considering how mediocre they've been performing. Branding is king. How long will this last? Look at EG underperforming whole season 3 are behind voting on facebook for iem. World Elite popularity dropped after all the loses+2 members left and Misaya retire. Hell if cloud 9 lose to tsm this season there will a popularity drop. I guess only TSM and Gambit doesnt have this issues.
Does Gambit really have big popularity? It feels like only here in Moscow, crowd cheered for them loudly. At Gamescom there are close to no real support for them with whole EG/Fnatic crowd.
I really hope Frost will be able to strike back. Shy and Madlife are still top-1/2 in region in their respective positions, Space can't choke so hard always. They just need stable jungler who will do same hard work as CloudTemplar did for all these years and finally give ONE midlaner FREEDOM. Let him play always, give him confidence. It's last chance probably. Now or never. #ChampionsSpring #believe #FrozenKingdom
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