Season 2 Finals: Game 4

The final game of the world championships was incredible, and much closer than the previous match.

With first pick in their hands, Azubu Frost left Jayce available and instead banned Maokai. By removing the strongest counter to AoE compositions Frost forced Taipei Assassins to ban Sona and allow Jayce to pass through. Frost then enacted their bold plan to run a poke composition against TPA. Poke compositions are notoriously weak if they give up early game advantages, and Frost was choosing to run this composition against a team who had established early game leads three games in a row.

Having picked up Jayce, Frost masked their plan with Shyvana and Lulu. While Lulu is a strong pick for the composition, her ultimate combined with Shyvana's is a powerful engage. Shyvana doesn't bring a lot to a poke comp herself, but is a strong counter-ganker with her speed and durability. Frost was more concerned that CloudTemplar be able to secure their early game than contribute poke or disengage and used this decision to hide their intentions. Picking Graves and Lux finalized the composition. Frost chose Graves over Ezreal due to a need for additional disengage, which Graves' Smokescreen provides in spades. Lux, meanwhile, is arguably the single best poke AP in the game. While definitively a poke composition, Frost's team was not particularly weak in a team fight. If they could eke out an advantage by poking down towers, they would certainly be able to finish off TPA.

TPA's picks were very similar to the previous game, with the notable swaps of Shen instead of Jax and Ezreal instead of Vayne. Shen's global presence plays well with TPA's early aggression, and can potentially shut down a poke comp through his split-pushing. Grabbing him also prevented Frost from potentially running a Shen jungle. TPA may have wanted to field Vayne again, as Nunu is an incredibly good support for her, but her close range makes her a liability against poke compositions. Recognizing by that point what they were up against, TPA made the right decision.

Unfortunately for Frost the game started out very poorly. They attempted to invade TPA's Red, not knowing that it had been warded. With Stanley covering the nearby ramp to Frost's Blue, TPA had a very good idea of where Frost was hiding. TPA, rather than trade buffs, camped out near their mid tower to set up a counter-ambush. The moment Frost left the Wraith bush and entered ward vision, TPA moved to attack. While RapidStar escaped by the skin of his teeth, Madlife made an unfortunate route choice in full vision of the ward and was hunted down. Woong then compounded the mistake by running into the warded bush, hoping to steal Red. Before he even entered the bush Stanley was already in a position to flank him, resulting in a 2-0 kill lead for TPA at the very outset.

However, because of all the action Shy had obtained a fair amount of farm bottom. Sending Bebe and Mistake to 2v1 against Shy would barely have much effect while giving Woong and Madlife a chance to catch up and weaken Stanley. Instead TPA pressed their advantage by simply inverting the bottom and top lanes, placing both teams' duos top and solos bottom.

For the next four minutes Frost prevented TPA from extending their advantage, up until TPA executed one of the greatest series of subtle plays in the history of League of Legends. Though one coordinated action after another, TPA maneuvered Stanley from bottom to top and Bebe/Mistake from top to bottom, giving themselves massive Dragon control and leaving Frost a step behind.

It began innocuously with a gank bottom by Lilballz. While the gank itself didn't result in much of note, it gave Stanley the opportunity to farm and push the lane. Meanwhile, Toyz sent RapidStar back to base. Toyz then took Wraiths and roamed top, leaving Lilballz mid to pick up farm. Having pushed bottom, Stanley recalled to buy Heart of Gold and headed toward mid. Toyz' gank failed to result in kills, but sent both Woong and Madlife to base. Toyz and Mistake recalled as well, leaving Bebe to free farm as Lilballz handed mid over to Stanley.

Next, Mistake followed Toyz to mid rather than return to top lane. As Bebe recalled top, Stanley handed mid lane over to Toyz. Then Stanley, Mistake, and Lilballz attempted to at Frost's Blue. While the steal and subsequent gank top were both unsuccessful, Stanley had now shifted top lane, while Bebe was already bottom with Mistake en route.

As Toyz soloed Blue, Lilballz played off the expectation that junglers will assist their team with buffs to gank top once again. This gank did not result in any kills, but again bought breathing room for Stanley. With Stanley in a good position top and Shy pushed to his tower bottom TPA had complete Dragon control, and took it uncontested and without any threat to their towers, the culmination of over three minutes of carefully orchestrated plays.

Woong and Madlife arrived bottom shortly thereafter, too late to have had any impact. With the primary purpose of having your duo lane bottom gone, Bebe and Mistake quickly switched back top again. The moment Woong and Madlife swapped back to top lane, Bebe and Mistake attacked them aggressively and, with Stanley ulting to make it a 3v2, killed both under their own tower without suffering a single loss. While this gave Shy the opportunity to deal significant damage to bottom turret, it put TPA well ahead of Frost.

Realizing the increasingly dire position they were in, Frost began aggressively pushing turrets. A 3k gold lead twelve minutes in is big, and Frost couldn't afford to let it extend further. TPA immediately recognized Frost's tactical shift and reacted accordingly, pressuring Frost's towers wherever they were able. This kept the gold gap, and TPA's advantage, steady.

Due to an engagement bottom where Lilballz died, losing TPA an Oracle's, CloudTemplar was able to deny TPA vision across the map. Facing the superior poke of Frost, TPA was not able to prevent them from taking Dragon. The damage TPA had already taken gave Frost an opportunity to push mid, but they were quickly deterred by Toyz' superior wave clear and waves of minions pushing top and bottom.

Seeing Woong bottom collecting farm, TPA made another play for Frost's Blue. Despite being thwarted by RapidStar, TPA were still able to capitalize on Woong's position and quickly took Frost's top turret. Frost then sought to renew their pressure on TPA by pushing mid while TPA was busy buying and dealing with the minions pushing bottom.

TPA responded to the pressure quickly and decisively. An instant after Shy attempted to harass Lilballz, Stanley was already ulting in to fight. Lilballz immediately Flashed after Frost, forcing two Flashes from Frost. At this point Frost could likely have escaped, but with all of TPA clumped together they instead attempted to fight.

CloudTemplar ulted into the middle of TPA, and while his ultimate did not hit any targets it placed him in the perfect position for a combination with Lulu ultimate. RapidStar followed up with Lux Ultimate, leaving all of the four TPA players present at half health.

However, several factors came into play which turned the fight against Frost. Shy was almost completely ineffective during this period. With all of his abilities on cooldown he was easily zoned by Nunu's ultimate and Exhaust, and took considerable damage. Meanwhile, Madlife and CloudTemplar were hit by the combination of Nunu and Orianna's ultimates. Before Woong could even arrive both CloudTemplar and Shy had fallen.

While both Bebe and Woong arrived late, Bebe arrived first and into a more favorable position. With Frost's tanky frontline dead, Woong had no breathing room to fight. He and the rest of Frost were forced to retreat despite many of TPA's players being very low on health. In hindsight Frost could probably have avoided this engagement altogether, but retrospective analysis is always easier than making an on the spot judgement call. It was possible for Frost to win that teamfight, but the small details worked against them.

This encounter set the stage for Frost's defeat. The core of a poke comp is the slow, agonizing tower push, sapping an enemy of their strength while you whittle down and take a tower. With TPA well ahead of Frost, Stanley could now take full advantage of Shen's ultimate and split push. This threat eliminated Frost's freedom to push and poke, hamstringing their team composition. Frost had no option but to poke as long as possible before forcing an engagement.

Frost executed that exact strategy, but it did not work out in their favor. Rapidstar caught Toyz with a Light Binding, and Frost quickly burst him down before he could finish using his ultimate. However, Shy and CloudTemplar both took considerable damage in the process, while the rest of TPA was largely unhurt. Both players quickly fell to TPA as Stanley ulted in, leaving Frost with an unfavorable exchange for all their trouble.

Up until this point the game was reasonably close, but from here on it would be entirely TPA's game. As with their previous victories, TPA would extend and crush Frost with their lead, though their aggressive play would backfire slightly during one tower dive. Still, by the time the game finished TPA's lead ballooned to over 16k. Any players wishing to understand how their own team can close out a victory should use TPA as their first and foremost point of study.

In the end TPA's superior coordination, teamfighting, and closing ability crushed Frost. When the Season 3 World Championships happen this level of play will be the bare minimum required to effectively compete. Frost was an excellent team, but TPA was simply better. It's a shame that many North American players were uninterested in these finals, as they were some of the best and most exciting games in LoL's history.

Season 2 Finals: Game 3

While the shortest game in the series, the third game still presents many interesting points for analysis. How did Taipei Assassins get ahead so quickly? How did the situation degrade to the point that Azubu Frost surrendered rather than attempt to play it out? As usual, it all starts with the picks and bans.

TPA's bans reflect their respect for the two team compositions Frost has obviously mastered, the AoE composition from the first match and their legendary abduction compositions. Having proved that they also can field a strong Karthus, TPA took two critical abduction champions and two critical AoE champions off the table.

Frost's bans might be mistaken as targeting poke compositions, of which Jayce and Nidalee are typically central. Rather, Frost simply couldn't afford to let TPA grab any of those three champions as their first pick. Karthus had been instrumental in both games thus far, warranting a ban to keep him out of TPA's hands. Giving a team who dominates the early game champions like Nidalee or Jayce would have similarly been a grievous error.

TPA did not hesitate to grab Orianna for Toyz, who crushed the legendary Froggen using her. With Sona out of the picture TPA was not afraid of Ezreal, and instead grabbed Dr. Mundo and Nunu. These picks reflect confidence in the autonomy of TPA's carries, aside from their own crowd control the only help they might expect from the supporting roles would be slows. In return, Lilballz would hopefully dominate the jungle on one of his best champions, providing his team an early game advantage, and Nunu would buff both of their as of yet unpicked carries while massively debuffing the opposing AD carry. Having two carries who scale phenomenally with Nunu's Bloodboil, Vayne and Jax, would provide redundancy for Nunu's utility. Moreover, this composition brimmed with movement speed, allowing for both excellent chasing and escaping.

TPA's picks left Shen and Anivia open for Frost, a strong combo as it can be incredibly difficult to burn through Anivia as well as her egg in time to block Shen from arriving via his ultimate. With Sona gone and TPA constantly dominating the early game, Frost picked Leona and Ezreal in order to have a strong kill lane and additional crowd control for the latter parts of the game. The Vladimir pick looked to add substantial sustained damage and amplification to the quagmire which Shen, Leona, and Anivia would create in team fights. This was another AoE composition from Frost, but hopefully one which would do better early-game.

Frost's plan to have a substantially stronger early game worked fairly well. By the ninth minute there was no significant different advantage in gold on either side, and for the most part both teams had a similar amount of control. However, CloudTemplar made several mistakes which began to tilt the game in favor of TPA. First, he was late to arrive at his Red after it respawned, allowing Lilballz to steal it. Next, CloudTemplar attempted to steal TPA's Red, but did not pull it back far enough to warn him of Lilballz approach. Finally, he compounded these mistakes by saving Smite for a potential Dragon on the chance a subsequent gank bottom succeeded. As a result of these mistakes, and Madlife's attempt to help, TPA took both Reds and first blood. With CloudTemplar severely wounded, Stanley was able to fearlessly harass Shy, leading to a second kill roughly a minute later. While the resulting gold gap wasn't as significant as in previous games, it was still an early game disadvantage they could not afford.

It's important to note TPA's next actions. Lilballz picked up an Oracle's and completely cleared bottom lane of wards while Bebe and Mistake pushed. While this failed to set up a tower dive, it allowed Lilballz and Toyz to steal Frost's Blue. At the same moment that Lilballz began taking Blue, Stanley finished pushing top and immediately moved toward Dragon. Frost could not contest with RapidStar out of mana, Shy stuck top, and all lanes pushed. Frost mitigated the damage as best they could by counter-stealing TPA's Blue, but even that was dangerous as they were very nearly caught and it allowed Toyz to push and cause RapidStar to miss farm. The critical point of interest is that TPA's plays were safe. While they could have attempted to bully Frost with their early game advantage, they instead worked as a team to cautiously and methodically extend it.

Almost every play thereafter followed a similar format. After a fight bottom where Madlife died TPA was able to take a turret with little resistance. Then, with bottom pushed and TPA converging mid, Toyz began a fight with RapidStar. While the rest of TPA arrived too late to save Toyz or kill RapidStar, Madlife was killed and the tower was left undefended. Meanwhile, Stanley was strong enough to push Shy out of lane by himself and take the turret. TPA set up an ambush in to cut off attempts to reinforce the turret, and though it didn't work out it reflected TPA's incredibly talent for creating a domino effect with their advantages. While the enemy is still reeling from the last hit, strike again.

This continued for the rest of the game after CloudTemplar fell to Toyz while retreating from an attempt to catch Lilballz. With Shen out of the picture, TPA pressured mid while Bebe farmed and pushed bottom. Woong and RapidStar attempted to mitigate the issue by taking Blue, but were instead pincered. With Frost down two of their carries, TPA picked up a turret and began to move toward Dragon. CloudTemplar and Shy, misjudging the next move and positioning of TPA, chased Stanley only to get caught and double killed. Having retreated through a ward, TPA was aware that attempting Dragon would be dangerous and instead moved back to see if Frost chased. When it initially seemed as though they hadn't, they began to recall. However, Frost then attempted Dragon, in what can only be described as desperation, and were again pincered, resulting in two more kills and Dragon for TPA. In the span of a mere 4 minutes the gold gap exploded from roughly 3.5k to 10.5k.

Once TPA took another tower and Baron, it was obvious that nothing short of a miracle would bring Frost back into the game. At the same time, Frost had continuously compounded their mistakes, underestimating TPA's tenacity, movement speed, and game sense. Clearly off their game, Frost made the tough but clear decision to end the game immediately and preserve their psychological stamina than allow TPA to wear them down any longer.

The psychology of League of Legends is an occasional topic of interest, but it isn't particularly different than any other form of competition. Being aware of your mental state and mitigating any factors that might diminish focus is extremely important. Even if Frost had extended the game another ten or fifteen minutes, they likely would have only delayed the inevitable and exhausted themselves. Frost's decision to staunch the bleeding and accept the loss shows that they understand the mental beating a team can suffer.

With TPA's team fighting and early game proving to be incredibly difficult to overcome, and their own breakdown to overcome, Frost would make a daring decision for the fourth, and ultimately final, game. That analysis will come tomorrow.

Season 2 Finals: Game 2

The second game of the Season 2 Finals can't be considered outside of the context of the first.

Having lost a game after establishing a very clear lead, Taipei Assassins was naturally concerned about the possibility of a second overwhelming AoE composition. While they did not ban out any key AoE champions, their quick pick of Sona was clearly designed to block another Sona/Ezreal lane and weaken Azubu Frost's AoE potential. The Karthus pick was also a key anti-AoE choice, as there are no champions who can compete with his sustained AoE. Caitlyn's range also makes her strong against AoE, allowing her to skirt its edges while still applying damage.

While it would seem at first glance that TPA was overly afraid of AoE, it's important to note that these picks also served other purposes. Shen and Karthus both apply global pressure in the early game, while still being strong team fighting and late game champions. Caitlyn, Mundo, and Sona all have very strong poke, giving TPA an edge in tower pushing. In fact, all of TPA's picks had disengage with the sole exception of Shen. The resulting composition was simultaneously strong against AoE teams, strong early game, strong in team fights, and strong in poke.

Frost's picks were interesting in their own right. With Sona stolen, Frost could have still aimed for an AoE comp using Zyra instead. Cognizant that TPA would be wary, Frost instead grabbed Anivia and Maokai to turn TPA's own zone control strategy against them. Zyra's crowd control and plants enhance this zone of control just as much as they would have aided an AoE composition, and in a long game she becomes a huge threat. Combined with Jax's damage AoE stun, Frost put together a deadly composition of survivability, control, and damage.

Another advantage for Frost was the power of each lane. All three lanes were strong against their counterparts, a fact on display early as Stanley, Toyz, and Bebe/Mistake were frequently pressed to their turrets. This strength was enough to carry Frost through the first fourteen minutes of the game with their only death being the result of Lilballz catching Madlife with impeccable timing. Even when Karthus ulted solely to help TPA push the bottom turret, Frost held fast and stayed in the game.

Unfortunately for Frost, the early pressure they applied in lanes did not result in an advantage. All of TPA had equal or greater farm than Frost, giving them a substantial gold advantage. Then at the fourteen minute mark the global power of TPA's team comp went on full display. The combination of Karthus' and Caitlyn's ultimates took down Madlife even through Woong's Heal. Immediately afterward Toyz teleported top just as Lilballz swung around for a second gank. With all of Anivia's control abilities on cooldown there was nothing to stop TPA from catching Shy and Rapidstar. Meanwhile Woong and CloudTemplar both died in a trade versus Mistake and Bebe, only barely managing to take out Mistake in the process. What had been a manageable gold gap became a devastating chasm as TPA picked up kills, turrets, and dragon.

While Frost would pick up another kill on Mistake, the next fifteen minutes would be a case study in the careful, methodical extension of a lead. Cognizant of their overzealous mistakes in the first game, TPA applied just enough pressure to allow themselves to farm and extend their gold advantage, while inhibiting Frost from trying to hold off for the late game. By the time the action resumed around the thirty minute mark, the gold gap between the teams was over ten thousand.

Frost's team composition had potential, but their failure to convert strong lanes into a farm advantage and an unfortunate ace at 15 minutes put them behind. Because TPA's composition was designed to be strong at all stages of the game there was little Frost could do to stop them after yielding so big an advantage. TPA's careful, flawless grind to victory was all but inevitable.

Season 2 Finals: Game 1

Be aware that this and all posts on the subject contain spoilers. If you haven't watched the finals yet do so now, not because I want you to read my analysis but because they are some of the best games in League of Legends history.

The first game is notable for being the only game which Azubu Frost won. It's important to note that for the vast majority of the early game, and much of the game thereafter, Taipei Assassins had a clear gold lead and advantage. Understanding what happened and why begins with the team's picks.

The initial picks from both sides were fairly innocuous, but were nonetheless critical to each team's strategy. Anivia has incredible control over the area of a team fight between her stun, her wall, and her ultimate. Combined with Lulu's slows and knock up, it becomes difficult for opponents to avoid fighting within the unfavorable ground of Maokai's ultimate. Moreover, Maokai's ultimate multiplies the power of Anivia's passive and the health gain from Lulu's ultimate. Finally, Maokai is a strong pick against AoE compositions, for which Sona/Ezreal are common choices, without being weak against other possibilities. TPA's final picks reflect their awareness of Frost's plan, as well as their own strategy. Olaf is already incredibly tanky and difficult to stop when his ultimate is up, and combined with Maokai he can easily dive through the AoE to reach Frost's carries. TPA's plan was clearly to have Vayne hang back to avoid the bulk of the AoE while the rest of the team survived off their mix of defensive multipliers and innate tankiness, and then let the best cleanup carry in the game go to work.

Frost's strategy was a little more straightforward, but at the same time they made a few subtle choices which cut into the effectiveness of TPA's team composition. Karthus has some of the highest sustained damage in the game, especially if the enemy fights within his Defile. Even with Maokai's ultimate Karthus is extremely dangerous. Amumu adds additional sustained AoE damage and incredibly strong initiation to the mix, locking down opponents long enough for Sona to ult (or vice versa) and Ezreal to follow up. Irelia brings true damage to counter Maokai's protection and additional AoE. All of the champions Frost picked are also strong even in non-AoE compositions, giving Frost more options than simply AoE or lose, though ultimately AoE would win them the game.

In the early game Frost had a brief lead following CloudTemplar's level 3 gank top. This was an interesting moment as most players consider Amumu's early ganks weak. While it took two Flashes and an Ignite, CloudTemplar and Shy successfully ganked Stanley's Olaf from full health when he was on his half of the river. Amumu doesn't have burst, but the power of two stuns and sustained damage was enough to bring Olaf down.

The lead didn't last, and it's important to highlight what TPA did to catch Frost unaware time and again. After Frost's failed counter-gank top resulted in two kills for TPA, Lilballz was able to farm up enough gold to buy both Philosopher's Stone and Oracle's. He then aggressively cleared Frost's wards, going well out of his way to reduce their vision of the map. Rather than leave it to the psychological pressure of the fog of war, TPA's players frequently changed lanes, roamed, and collapsed on any skirmish or teamfight at the drop of a hat. The combination of early pressure and vision denial resulted in a 5k gold lead for TPA despite Frost's slight farm edge.

Where it all went wrong for TPA was the next teamfight. TPA expected Frost to attempt a flat out retreat after taking dragon, leading Toyz and Stanley to use Anivia's wall and Olaf's axe to try to cut off CloudTemplar and Shy's escape. Frost immediately turned to fight, making the placement of both abilities worthless. If Anivia's wall had been placed to block the rest of Frost it would have at least forced Flashes in order to enter the fight.

Every member of TPA was bunched up, not expecting Frost to simply turn around and fight. As a result when CloudTemplar nailed Toyz with his Bandage Toss all five members of TPA, and most importantly Bebe on Vayne, were caught in Amumu's ultimate. For a critical two seconds Bebe was unable to make any contribution to the fight, wasting a significant portion of Vayne's ultimate. At the same time the stun from Bandage Toss prevented Toyz from exerting any zone control, and when he attempted to use his ultimate Madlife hit him with Sona's, cancelling the Glacial Storm. Toyz was egged before he could do anything significant. While Bebe avoided most of the AoE, these issues allowed RapidStar's Karthus to sit untouched in the middle of TPA for almost the entire fight. By the time Toyz resurrected and TPA burst RapidStar down they were already dangerously low on health. With Woong's Ezreal at full health, Requiem incoming, and TPA's crowd control expended to kill RapidStar, survival was impossible.

Between the Dragon, the quadra kill, and the tower that followed Frost closed the gold gap to 1.5k gold in the blink of an eye, with most of that being concentrated on RapidStar. TPA began to rebuild their lead by picking off isolated members of Frost, but when the next hard engage came under their own tower it hardly mattered that Bebe dodged Amumu ultimate or that RapidStar was the first to die. RapidStar flashed over a wall to not only position himself in the middle of TPA, but also in where Vayne's Condemn wouldn't push him out of the fight. By the time RapidStar was dead all of TPA were below half health, setting up what was nearly a second quadra kill. TPA were still ahead on gold at this point, but they had no answer to Karthus. The difference in team-fighting strength was such that they lost even when Amumu ultimate was down.

While TPA's team composition had potential versus an AoE composition, the combination of good farm and seven kills in a matter of minutes made Karthus too big a problem for TPA to deal with. It was still a close, hard fought game, but one that clearly became Frost's to lose once they caught up to TPA.

Patch Day: Twisted Fate Update

Today's patch has nothing but bugfixes and the awaited visual revamp to Twisted Fate. Sadly, that means no patch note analysis. You will also note I have yet to post any Season 2 World Championship Finals analysis, leaving you utterly bereft of my insights. For that I apologize, and hope to rectify that problem soon.

Season 2 World Championships: Day 3

Day 3 was a fiasco.

There's not much else to say about Day 3 because really, not a whole lot happened. The most eventful part of the night involved a game where over 80 wards were killed by CLG.EU alone, but that game didn't even end before the nightmare of internet outages, stream crashes, and game restarts returned. The most interesting part of Day 3 was the near-simultaneous birth of tens of thousands of network/live event experts who summarily criticized Riot for having no idea what they were doing.

Exactly what went wrong is, at this point, lost in an unnavigable sea of speculation. The vague nature of our knowledge hasn't stopped people from acting as if they know what Riot could have done. While the vast majority of criticism has been fairly worthless, there is at least one obvious issue that Riot can and should have addressed prior to Day 3's events.

First and foremost, League of Legends should have had a way to resume failed games in tournaments. The inability to resume games from a minute or so prior to crash caused several restarts, which unfortunately also crashed before they could complete. At the very least the WE vs CLG.EU series could have come to a close that night, even if the issues and time spent would have still prevented the semi-finals from continuing.

DotA 2 has this functionality, and without it the International 2, the recent high-profile Dota 2 tournament, would have had multiple disasters on par with Day 3's mess. Several games crashed, but were resumed from a point in time shortly before the crash, allowing players to pick up from where they left off without disadvantage. As such, most barely remember the issues and think fondly of the tournament. If LoL had similar functionality the reflections on that night would have likely been very different.

Thankfully it appears Riot's new venue will not experience the same problems, but that's a subject for tomorrow.

Season 2 World Championships: Day 2

As will be true for all posts regarding the World Championships, there will be spoilers. Read at your own discretion.

In stark contrast to the previous day's events, the second day of competition consisted entirely of incredible games. It might be hard to tell from the blowout results, but even the most one-sided series was at the very least interesting and competitive.

The day started with an incredible series between Moscow 5 and Invictus Gaming. Champions rarely seen in the North American competitive scene made appearances, with M5 picking Xin Zhao, Evelyn, Zilean, and even support Zyra. iG kept the matches close, but eventually collapsed versus M5's superior teamfighting and late-game play. These games set the stage for an incredible day.
 
Next came the shocking series between Taipei Assassins and NaJin Sword. Despite surviving the previous day's group stages, TPA was considered one of the weaker teams in the tournament. With NaJin an easy shoe-in for the the finals few people expected TPA to come close to matching them, let alone fight two of the closest, most action-packed games of the entire season. When the dust cleared TPA not only proved themselves challengers on the world stage, but beat NaJin in back to back games for the most incredible upset since NaJin eliminated Azubu Blaze in the Regionals.

Finally came North America's last hope, Team Solomid versus Azubu Frost. While TSM was far more competitive than any of the other North American teams, Frost ultimately dominated them with a carefully executed poke composition and superior play past the laning phase. The defeat was resounding enough that TSM's Reginald briefly announced his retirement before cooling his head and retracting the hasty, depression-fueled decision. It was a sad day for TSM fans to see them go home with only two games played.

Thankfully TSM, and other North American teams, seem to be taking these results at least somewhat to heart. It's clear to them that the international competition has left North America behind, and while they may not have a clear idea of how to improve, at the least they understand that improvements must be made in order to remain competitive.

Day 2 was ultimately a resounding success, featuring some of the best games ever played. Every game was worth watching, unlike the previous day's disappointments. With nothing but teams of the highest caliber remaining, one hopes the rest of the tournament will feature games of similar excellence.

Season 2 World Championships: Day 1

Before I begin, I'll warn you that this post will contain spoilers if you have yet to watch any of the matches. Read further at your own discretion.

Day 1 of the Season 2 World Championships can be summed up in one word: disappointment.

There have been a number of tournaments and competitions in the past couple of months, including the regionals, where the strict adherence to the current meta was excused because teams were ostensibly saving their secret strategies for the world stage. Many players and theorists have been waiting with great anticipation for the new and interesting strategies that were supposedly being kept under wraps. So far they haven't surfaced.

Almost all of the strategies displayed have already cropped up in past tournaments. 1v2 lane swaps, triple teleport compositions, and fast turret pushes are relatively recent developments, but are nonetheless a far cry from the secret exciting metabreaker strategies that were expected. The only truly new strategy was Dignitas' roam strategy, which bore a closer resemblance to a train wreck than a competitive meta. Thus far, players looking to this tournament for a new meta will be nothing short of disappointed.

At the same time this tournament has brought to the foreground the waning competitiveness of the North American teams. Both Dignitas and CLG.NA have been eliminated, and convincingly so. They were not beaten by the advancing teams so much as routed. It's an all too familiar situation for eSports veterans; North America tends to do well early on, but after a honeymoon period Europe and Asia are fast on their heels. Unless TSM has a stellar showing today this weekend will serve as a rude awakening to the North American competitive scene.

In a way we, the players, may have contributed to the downfall of our favorite teams. Of the teams that were eliminated three feature one or more extremely popular streamers. At the professional level teamwork, strategy, drilling, and research become incredibly important, but make for inadvisable or boring streaming material. As a result, popular streamers are torn between the steady, guaranteed income from streaming and the practical needs of a competitive team. It isn't a 1 to 1 correlation, CLG.EU advanced despite having many prominent streamers, but fan demands appear to make pursuing necessary practice regimens difficult.

This isn't to say that the tournament is a wash. There were many exciting games and epic moments to be found. Azubu Frost versus Invictus Gaming was an incredible match. CLG.NA's triple teleport base race finish against SK Gaming was surprising. NaJin Sword versus Saigon Jokers was close and interesting. The venue itself is fairly impressive, minus the failure to account for the effects of sunlight upon gaming monitors. The disappointments all stem from hype that hasn't reflected reality, and the failure of popular teams to compete on the worldwide stage.

We'll see how the tournament develops over the coming days. It's my hope that the coming matches will be much more competitive, and feature the heretofore unseen secret strategies that will define Season 3.

Thought: Season 2 Rankings

The cutoffs for the final brackets for Season 2 have been revealed. Of note is the addition of a diamond ranking beyond platinum for the best of the best, and the use of top rating instead of current rating.

The latter of these changes addresses an issue that arose at the end of Season 1. Because the season kept getting extended, players who had achieved rankings had to fight with Elo decay to maintain them. Each extension caught players unaware and unprepared, resulting in lots of confusion and irritation. By making top rating the key to a ranking, players need not fret about Elo decay once they've achieved their goal.

However, this change also allows players to use friends or Elo boosting services to push their accounts into brackets they have not earned. It doesn't matter that the boosted player's Elo will dramatically crash shortly thereafter, they'll have achieved a gold/platinum/diamond top rating regardless. It should surprise no one that this possibility has many players up in arms.

I don't begrudge anyone for wanting rewards, but these sorts of shortcuts cheapen the accomplishments of others. While nothing can change the fact that it was my own skill which carried me to platinum, the context surrounding that fact can be changed. The value of my accomplishment is muddled when other players abuse the system.

How widespread a problem this will become I don't know. It won't keep me from shooting for diamond, but it gives me pause as I consider how people will view rankings in Season 3.