Group Stage Double Round Robin All matches are Bo3 Top 5 from regular season qualify for Playoffs Bottom 2 are placed in the Summer Promotion tournament
Playoffs Top 5 from Group Stage Single Elimination King of the Hill. Wild Card match is Bo3. Round 1 onwards is Bo5. Top 4 qualifies for Rift Rivals 2020 - LCK vs LPL vs PCS vs VCS Winner qualifies for Mid Season Invitational 2020
Afreeca Freecs DAMWON Gaming Griffin KT Rolster APK Prince Dragon X (Formerly known as KingZone Dragon X) SANDBOX Gaming Hanwha Life Esports Gen.G T1 (Formerly known as SK Telecom T1)
I'd like to preemptively thank KT for making sure my sleep schedule isn't messed up this split by assembling a roster I won't care to wake up early for.
On January 12 2020 22:42 Gahlo wrote: I'd like to preemptively thank KT for making sure my sleep schedule isn't messed up this split by assembling a roster I won't care to wake up early for.
LCK announces that for the time being, there will be no live crowds to help control the spread of coronavirus. Otherwise, the games will continue at normal schedule.
I was very, very wrong about Soraka, but really that Soraka Yuumi comp is beyond hilarious, Olaf with an upgraded BC was basically a hyper carry, HLE played it scared but you could really see that T1 had no answer to a the Yuumi delivery express train.Aphelios really should've considered buying tank items or Zhonyas, 3 seconds of invun and Soraka heals the team back to full health.
Faker is trying so hard to make plays, but the level of his opponents is just too high these days. New HLE ADC looked solid. Cuvee outclassed Roach pretty hard, although he did get to play Sett and Soraka. Canna was OK, looked like an upgrade but T1 has drafting issues.
Keria Ali was a great watch, but his general game needs improvements. My theory for Tusin int is that Deft knows his playstyle inside and out, and tells his teammates where they might find him. Or maybe he's an inside job. Or maybe KT curse is real. Or maybe, just maybe, Tusin was actually carried by Deft all along.
On February 08 2020 03:40 DarkCore wrote: Keria Ali was a great watch, but his general game needs improvements. My theory for Tusin int is that Deft knows his playstyle inside and out, and tells his teammates where they might find him. Or maybe he's an inside job. Or maybe KT curse is real. Or maybe, just maybe, Tusin was actually carried by Deft all along.
Dragon X's new jungler Pyosik is really good as well. Definitely a rising star.
Sword is such a flop, don't think I've seen a single game so far where he wasn't detrimental to his teams success. Meanwhile Doran is picking up pace and looks like a great rookie, GRF shouldn't even exist as an org anymore.
Yeah, they have a solid core, but Summit dumped on Sword so hard: laning, mechanics, macro, team fighting, map awareness and lots of little things that don't make a game, but do add up.
Sandbox does need to work on a few things though, series was a snoozefest and they didn't draft for it. Also why is Dove playing so much Zoe, he's great on her but she needs chaotic fights and picks to be useful, not an armistice where everyone promises to only take turrets when the enemy team isn't around.
Game 2 didn't have a draft gap imo, Doran missed his abilities every single fight, and AF had a great tanky comp which could live through Ziggs MF dmg to tower dive. Then they lost a fight, lost the baron and lost the game in like 2 minutes. Looked like AF could have won if they managed to snowball the mid game harder, although it's hard to take objectives vs Ziggs.
Game 3 was similar, AF made a poor rotation (that inhib trade for 2 towers, lmao), lost baron and suddenly the game was over.
Cuzz picks Nid...attempts to invade level 1 and not only dying but making his ADC flash to heal and try and save him.....only to find out his ADC has barrier. You hate to see it.
Wtf was that game 3? Faker bringing the LCS to the LCK with his new contract.
On February 19 2020 22:09 AdsMoFro wrote: Cuzz picks Nid...attempts to invade level 1 and not only dying but making his ADC flash to heal and try and save him.....only to find out his ADC has barrier. You hate to see it.
Wtf was that game 3? Faker bringing the LCS to the LCK with his new contract.
In the words of LS, Deft was compelled by a cosmic force to clown a won game. Like, those iron plays man smh
Nuguri dumpstered Sword so hard at the start of game 3, then proceeded to botch a 2vs2 tower dive and got caught out. If not for that, the game would've probably been over by 20 minutes. So sad to watch a roster with Tarzan, Viper and Ucal struggle so much.
i cant understand why ucal/untara etc would even accept a griffin contract. should have avoided griffin like the plague. tarzan and viper staying on was also stupid
My guess is that they didn't get any other offers, Ucal is great but he's got tough young competition in the form of Showmaker and Chovy, and Fly, BDD fill other top team slots (Faker is tenured into T1, he's never leaving as we all know). On paper, GRF is still better than KT, HLE and APK, and Sandbox didn't change their roster much. So yeah, there wasn't anywhere else to go, unless he was offered China bucks, or an NA retirement plan (Ucal is 19, lol).
Aiming took his old team down. DAMWON losing their way. Nuguri seems to keep getting isolated by teams. I think his weaknesses were shown at Worlds and now LCK teams are also abusing him.
For those unaware. There was a mini scare in the LCK yesterday. The host of the LCK Korean broadcast, Mina Kim, was sent home for a fever and the teams and broadcast team were put under self-quarantine.
Thankfully, Mina has tested negative for the Coronavirus. However, there has been a rising amount of positive tests for Covid-19 in Korea (partly due to improved testing for the virus), so we may soon see the LCK also go on break although there has been no announcement from Riot Korea or any information claiming that it will happen.
Hopefully, given how likely it was for the virus to spread to KR, the LCK has a plan for how they can continue broadcasting. Although, given how KR is being locked down like CN, that might be impossible.
T1 could be first for a day today if they beat Griffin, and they probably would, this iteration of Griffin is nothing like they were in the last two years
I figured out it could be solved by delaying the YT stream by a few minutes. My guess is the upload connection was unstable, so eventually I would catch up with live. Also could hear that every few seconds the sound was clipped.
Not the most interesting games today, but the second T1 game was hilarious, GRF is so bad.
The top teams have quality games with some hiccups. The bottom half of LCK seem pretty bad imo, not much better than what you see in bottom LEC and LCS. They're not very proactive, don't seem to have a good grasp of macro and often have big skill differences in certain positions.
Good: T1, GenG, AF, DRX OK: HLE, DWG (both closer to bad imo) Bad: GRF, SB, KT, APK
What's particularly sad is that teams like GRF and KT have players rotting in them that you would normally consider very good (Viper, Ucal, Tarzan, Aiming, Tusin), and SB seems to have been on a steady decline continuing from last year.
GenG getting Sett, Senna and Pantheon to clean game AF tells you everything you need to know about power creep in this game. Even if GenG was clearly the better team, Senna had over 80 stacks by the 20 minute mark, which is when she starts hitting like a truck from a mile away...
Didn't watch, but stats suggest it was a slaughter. Worth watching? Still feel bad that Tarzan, Ucal and Viper are hanging around on a bottom tier team this year.
overall id say the games arent worth watching. the games were 1 sided and the only notable highlights were chovy completely dumpstering sword in lane in game 1. if youre watching it for the narrative of doran vs sword and then the series is a bit of a let down.
What are people's opinion on Doran so far? LS rates him mid pack and miles from the top, but I thought he was playing fairly well when I watched (only about half of his games though), and could hold his own. Chovy is probably top 3 toplaner anyway, based on what we saw at the start of the split, he's just a monster talent.
for once id agree with ls and say doran is pretty mid tier. he does whats required by the team in terms of macro but he aint no khan, theshy, kiin when it comes to straight up beating your opponent.
On March 03 2020 14:29 cLutZ wrote: Where was MSI supposed to be this year? Looks like, at best, we could get a new BOTA? I think that would be fun enough to be worth hosting.
Never announced. Worlds is in China. Word is MSI was going to be in Dubai...lol. Now I've heard Australia as a potential destination.
I mean, I guess its lucky they procrastinated, kinda. But you can't get a good venue booking this late. Hasn't this happened to Riot before? Like kinda recently.
Watch GenG vs DWG game 2 if you want to see one of the weirdest games of the split. Casters didn't even focus on the pentakill because nobody understood what just happened.
Think today once again proved that T1 is better than DRX, but:
Game 1 shows what a joke ocean soul is. A full build Orrn upgrade Cait is unable to put a dent in an Aatrox with 1.5 armor items and Death Dance, what a joke. Late game comps feel like RNG simply because the real 'late game' is getting ocean or mountain soul. Teams have picked up on this and draft champs that fully exploit it, I'm pretty sure that a legit reason why pros are jumping on Kalista is because her buffs mean that if you get those two souls you're unkillable, Deft would go in to poke Teddy and wasn't even able to get through BT shield.
The same two souls are turning bruisers into unkillable super tanks that also do a lot of damage. Specifically Aatrox/Morde/Sett who have some form of sustain and/or shield (and also Orrn, but by design he's supposed to be super tanky), they just roll over teams when they get those souls because if you ignore them they're full health hitting your carries, or they soak your entire team's damage while their own carries focus you down.
ngl i am really salty this game T1 outplayed, outfarmed and outfought Gen.G but Gen.G won because they drafted a broken adc that Ruler didn't even play that well for most of the game
Edit: Damn I forgot that Gen.G took first turret so of course they win, my bad lol
Edit 2: Honestly T1 Clid this series... like getting caught 3 (actually 4) times across 2 games is just not good play from Clid at all
Honestly, this series could have easily been a 2-0 if not for the certainlyT 2020 champ>>>certainlyT 2016 champ. T1 still top of LCK after those changes.
Faker being forced to play Lethal Tempo on Akali because of client lag tells you everything you need to know about the state of the game. Not enough to stop T1 from winning, but still pretty bs.
GenG slips further down on the ranking list, T1 def above them and it looks like DRX is also better when Chovy is playing his best (but seriously, that was one of the most disgusting Zoe games anyone has ever played).
Game 2 is exactly why the recent Sylas buffs were stupid: he's effectively an AP champion that has unlimited gap closers, while also having a heal so big he can tank as much as Orrn. Basically unbeatable if he doesn't get blown up, giant damage soak that you must focus.
Also surprised GenG let T1 draft a very similar comp again, Corki Varus is basically untouchable while having crazy poke and lategame, while Sylas draws all the attention.
Team Dynamics top laner Rich looks like he's going to tear through the promotion tournament. Apparently he's a two trick but no one wants to ban his two champions.
On April 29 2020 17:55 10bulgares wrote: Team Dynamics top laner Rich looks like he's going to tear through the promotion tournament. Apparently he's a two trick but no one wants to ban his two champions.
Well, he's in LCK now. Rich is a vv famous HOTS player for those who don't know. One of Sandbox and Griffin will be eliminated after today...
Although, with franchising on the horizon it could be for only one split.
it is insane how far grf has fallen, honestly I don't want to ever see this trash org in the LCK ever again. Hopefully their better players can get on a LCK team next split
griffin getting demoted must be like top 1 anime vindication stories or someshit. i dont think theres ever been another case in esports where the villain gets justice delivered to them this badly and the victims exonerated this much. honestly i feed bad for tarzan, viper and ucal. simply put theyre just too good to be playing in that league. what cvmax said about worlds still holds true, "its sad that 1 player ruined the run for the remaining 4". sword should be investigated for match fixing at this point. one of the fights in game 1 he literally ignored a fight right next to him and committed to destroying a pink ward which allowed ez to arcane shift and kill tarzan for free.
1:15 for the fight. theres no possible excuse sword could come up with for that
Don't, they needed to get out of the org. Tarzan and Viper will probably be picked up by someone, (although Tarzan not looking so great...), I'm a bit worried for Ucal because he's good, but every LCK team already has a mid laner they can be happy with. They will at least end up in someone's B team.
Fucking over Kanavi, and coach cvmax getting fired right before Worlds, likely due to a power tripping manager. Together they left little doubt that the org cared little for the players, and that shady (downright illegal) business dealings were being done.
Google a few articles, you'd be shocked. A forged law firm seal, politician calling for investigations, Kanavi's slave wage contract and all the finger pointing, you'll be left scratching your head pretty hard. And the org was still allowed to stay, I refuse to believe the rest of the staff didn't know about this stuff.
On April 30 2020 05:19 DarkCore wrote: Fucking over Kanavi, and coach cvmax getting fired right before Worlds, likely due to a power tripping manager. Together they left little doubt that the org cared little for the players, and that shady (downright illegal) business dealings were being done.
Google a few articles, you'd be shocked. A forged law firm seal, politician calling for investigations, Kanavi's slave wage contract and all the finger pointing, you'll be left scratching your head pretty hard. And the org was still allowed to stay, I refuse to believe the rest of the staff didn't know about this stuff.
OK, thanks. I thought the players were the villains.
Some sweet, sweet justice has been served. Griffin as a team is really nothing without cvMax. If anything this split proves just that point, literally the split after cvMax is fired is the one where they get 10th place and relegated in Summer. Karma's a bitch, and Griffin got what they deserved, too bad some players had to suffer
I don't necessarily think cvMax was the sole reason they performed so well, and that removing him would lead to disaster of this degree. If GRF had instead transitioned peacefully to another (qualified) head coach, they might've stayed as a mid tier team. But the way he was fired, and all the bs that went with it, definitely contributed to their performance drop.
And the organization deserves it. My hope is that everyone bails from the sinking ship, so that good staff find work somewhere else, and the criminals get ostracized. But based on how much nepotism apparently occurs in the KR scene, it's probably wishful thinking. Worst case is they rebrand and buy themselves back into the LEC.
EPT
