#martigan

Part 3: Martigan

Rules : Find a song for each first letter of your character name. It’s always better if it fits to them but it’s not mandatory! 

M ~ Middle Fingers - I am tired of seeing pretty people everywhere / I am not a model, middle fingers in the air / I used to drink whiskey, now I'm stuck with Perrier / I'm an alcoholic, middle fingers in the air

A ~ Asereje (The Ketchup Song) - Friday night it's party time / Feeling ready looking fine / Viene diego rumbeando / With the magic in his eyes / Checking every girl in sight / Grooving like he does the mambo

R ~ Russian Unicorn - A "Hot Pocket" for twenty cents is a steal any day of the week / I wanna shave that mustache and then have gelato / We're here for too long / We gotta run, ok? / And trick those monsters so that they don't shoot my left nut.

T ~ The Streak - Oh yes, they call him the Streak / (Look at that, look at that) / Fastest thing on two feet / (Look at that, look at that) / He's just as proud as he can be / Of his anatomy / He goin' give us a peek

I ~ I Just Had Sex - I'm so humbled by a girl's ability to let me do her / 'Cause honestly I'd have sex with a pile of manure / With that in mind / The soft nice smell of girl's better / She let me wear my chain and my turtle neck sweater

G ~ Get Lucky - We're up all night 'til the sun / We're up all night to get some / We're up all night for good fun / We're up all night to get lucky

A ~ A Little Less Conversation - A little less conversation, a little more action, please / All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me / A little more bite and a little less bark / A little less fight and a little more spark / Close your mouth and open up your heart and, baby, satisfy me / (Satisfy me) Satisfy me (satisfy me)

Every Offseason typically comes and goes in a similar fashion: moves are made, the community either gawks with amazement, gasps in shock, plaintively moans in sadness or grunts in confusion. However, this offseason, the vocal cacophony of the League of Legends community have been louder than before. Changes have been rife in each region with notable names leaving teams we thought they would never leave, rumours flying like ladies underwear at a Tom Jones concert and the Reddit detectives out in force to solve the current great mysteries of the Offseason. While EU and NA have had their fair share of changes, rumours and departures, in the last few days, news about the Korean offseason has made its way westwards and, boy, is it fascinating.

Najin e-mfire - Up in Flames

Photo Credit: OnGameNet

Najin e-mfire, one of the iconic Korean League of Legends organisations, has effectively disbanded.  While there were rumours that were never confirmed of Lee “Zefa” Jae-min leaving the organisation earlier in November, the more pressing news was revealed these last few days. The Najin e-mfire organisation, as we know it, is no more: Park “Tank” Dan-won, Jang “Cain” Nu-ri, Cho “watch” Jae-geol, Yu “Ggoong” Byeong-jun, Kim “Pure” Jin-sun, Lee “Duke” Ho-Seong, Yoon “Peanut” Wang-ho and Oh “Ohq” Gyu-min.  Furthermore, their Head Coach, Park “Reach” Jung-suk has also left to go to coach at CJ Entus, along with Cain. Coaches Chae “ViNylCat” Woo Cheul and Kin “MOKUZA” Dae-woong have also been confirmed to have terminated their contracts. There are currently no rumours as to where the next destination is for the players, though it shouldn’t be hard for some or even all of them to find starting positions, domestically or abroad. Ohq is a very gifted mechanical player and, along with top laner Duke, was a shining light on a Najin team that has struggles in the LCK, finishing in 5th in the Summer Split and the Playoffs, coupled a poor performance in the Kespa Cup, dropping out of the tournament in their first Bo3 against Anarchy. They have been a team with great individual mechanical prowess, but lacking in the excellent strategical knowledge to consistently pull out wins. When they did, it was typically rather impressive. This is, at the time of writing, the largest disband of the offseason and, it being Najin, it’s quite a sad thing to see. I’ve been a fan since the days of Black Sword and I admired the talent they had in the most recent iteration. Though I’m sure we will see some of these players again but, for now, Najin e-mfire is no more.

KT Rolster – Looking Pretty Fly

Photo Credit: OnGameNet

In comparison to Najin, KT Rolster’s roster changes look utterly petite in comparison. Both mid laner Kim "Nagne" Sang-moon and support Lee "Piccaboo" Jong-beom have departed the team; Nagne’s destination is yet unknown but it is said that he will be taking some time off from competitive LoL, while Piccaboo is slated to be playing “for a foreign team”, igniting the rumour that he will be headed for the massive NA eSports franchise known as TSM. While this rumour is still yet to be official confirmed, a matter complicated by Bora “Yellowstar” Kim’s departure from Fnatic, I’m intrigued to see where he will end up: Since his acquisition by KT, he has been an integral part of their most recent success in the Summer Split of LCK and in the Playoffs: In Summer, Piccaboo was 4th in his position for KDA (4.4), 2nd in Wards per Minute (1.45) and had 72.1% Kill Participation. In Playoffs, He was first for WPM (1.64) and 3rd for KP (65.8%). Any team that picks him up will have their ranks bolster by his effective vision control and his teamfight ability. However, he has been known to die on solo warding/roam mission, as his share of his team’s death stat shows (1st for Regular Season at 28.7%, 2nd in Playoffs at 25.4%). In the place of Nagne and Piccaboo, come a seasoned veteran and an interesting rookie. Song "Fly" Yong-jun, the old Jin Air Stealths and LSPL’s Young Glory middle laner will be filling for Nagne and Lee "IgNar" Dong-geun, one of the few LZ-IM’s bright spots is replacing Piccaboo. I would say the IgNar is one of the best prospective support talents in Korea right now and is an excellent replacement for Piccaboo in terms of his playstyle: Both Piccaboo and IgNar have quite aggressive, playmaking styles so it should make the transition to difficult. Fly is a harder question to answer. Overall, Young Glory was not the most successful LSPL team during Fly’s stint as their mid, but that doesn’t necessarily point to him as an issue. I will reserve judgment on Fly until I see him play in the 2016 Season. On the flip side, KT has done well by retaining Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho, their top laner and arguably one of the best in the world at his position. He was the MVP in the Summer Season with 1400 MVP points, beating out Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok and was second for KDA in his position (4.7). Both Go “Score” Dong-bin and No “Arrow” Dong-hyeon have also been retained by KT, a move that I also considered to be pretty good. Both are solid players, with Arrow showing moments of excellence throughout the both the Regular Season and the Playoffs. Overall, KT have come out of the Offseason relatively unscathed and I am waiting to see what they will be capable of in the Spring Season.

SK Telecom – And then there were 4

Photo Credit: TheScoreEsports

Although Worlds has now come and gone with its entirely expected conclusion, you might think it strange that I start this article by revisiting a match from Worlds to write about. Specifically, I looking at the semi-final match between KOO Tigers and Fnatic. No, this is going to be an article about how Fnatic should have won and are the superior team etc. KOO were the better team, they won fairly and deserved the place in the finals. What I wasn’t to look at is the discussion that arose following the match about the possibility of the Best of 3 system being implemented into LCS.

Photo courtesy of Riot Games 

Since its inception, the LCS has always had a Bo1 system. This decision was made in order for all teams to play three times a week, back when there were only 8 teams in the LCS, with the addition of “Super Weeks” where teams had to play even more games. Then, following the Expansion tournament, it went to each team playing twice a week with no Super Weeks but a longer season overall. This has been the way of things. However, when it comes to international events, there have always been questions raised about how this system prepared players when, typically, international tournaments, featured more Bo3s and Bo5s. Coupled with the fact that by 2015, EU and NA remained the only major regions that still used the Bo1 format, serious doubts were raised about how these regions could compete with regions like the LCK that had used multiple game formats for their regular season, not just their playoffs.

For the western regions, not running in a Bo3 is meant to place a larger emphasis on each individual game. But, in certain circumstances, it means that the results of these Bo1 may not always reflect the quality of the teams and their strategies. Some games might be lost by a poor level 1 start and thus, a game has been lost based not one each teams true ability whereas, in a Bo3, it would mean that the team that lost had a chance to comeback from that early mistake and demonstrate their true tactical prowess. One could argue that these games are, in fact, are lost based on strategy, as in one team did go in with the certain level 1 plan. Typically, however, when Level 1s go south or occur, it doesn’t occur because of overall strategic excellence. I’m not denying that there are instance where this does happen, but in the cases where this isn’t true, a team’s tactical ability is not adequately shown.

Installing the Bo3 format for the regular LCS season would finally bring every region in line with a multi-game format. This can be seen as more adequately preparing all teams for international competition where Bo3 are the standard for Round of 8 onwards.at a base level, this would result in a more competitive international scene overall, reducing the discrepancies between the true top teams (aka the Korean teams) and the western teams.  A more competitive game is a more enjoyable game to watch and, while one can certainly derive some enjoyment from watching a good old fashioned pub stomp, I find it much more fulfilling to watch a game that is one a knifes edge, where any team could win at any moment, full of tension and drama. That being said, I doubt it would be the final miracle needed for western teams to suddenly start taking down the top Korean teams. What probably would help to reduce the discrepancy is international movement of teams amongst competitive regions, such as teams from LCS competing the most recent Kespa Cup. Unfortunately, such a move has been blocked by Riot Games. This wasn’t always the case as CLG.Eu and 6 other foregin teams went to compete in Azubu The Champions Summer in 2012 where CLG.Eu they came second, losing 2-3 to Azubu Frost in the final, but the most recent competitive LoL legislation has prevented such cross-regional competition outside of sanctioned international events. This loss over mobility over regions can certain be seen as harmful to teams looking to compete in the comparatively stronger regions on a regular basis in order to raise their own skill. You know what they say; “To be the best, you got to beat the best”.  

Photo courtesy of OnGameNet

Recently and, much to the delight of some of my colleagues, the EU closed beta for Blizzard’s new, hot, young, virile IP Overwatch was recently announced and is coming along sooner than expected. It’s been interesting to watch the development of the game since the first details appeared. What’s even more interesting is where the game is going to go following its actual release. In my eyes, Overwatch is absolutely begging, pleading to be an eSport – it seems to have the mixture of diverse characters, interesting mechanics and quick-wristed FPS action that competitive plays drool over. It’s interesting to note that, in an interview with PCGamer, Jeff Kaplan, Game Director on Overwatch, stated that “It's dangerous to be overly committed to esport too early in the lifespan of the game. This is something we have a lot of experience with at Blizzard and there's a lot of lessons learned around the studio. From its very inception StarCraft 2 was targeted to be an esport and I think there was a lot of grief that came out of that”.

So, Blizzard, much like its other title, Hearthstone, haven’t designed Overwatch from day one as a competitive esport. But, in the same fashion as Hearthstone, the community, purely as a result of the game’s nature, will more than likely turn it into one. At first, small online tournaments will be the norm, then maybe bigger offline events will start up and then it’s only a matter of time to see how long before Blizzard start to create official sanctioned tournaments. The big question for me is not how long before this happens but how big can Overwatch become? Be warned, this is purely a speculative exercise on the possibilities, so it shouldn’t be taken too seriously up to the point where this article nails everything about Overwatch’s competitive future and I should be heralded as some sort of minor prophet and Blizzard should probably hire me. A man can dream.

As I said, Overwatch’s own genre helps to gear it towards the competitive crowd. First Person Shooters can’t help but be competitive in the end; the very thought of human players squaring off to see which had the faster trigger finger and the better gun skill. Over the years though, while these themes are remained largely consistent across the genre, different games have chosen to focus on different elements of the genre. CS:GO has gone for more tactical, slow methodical gameplay where knowing exactly where your opponent is going to be and killing him before he kills you reigns supreme. On the flip side, Call of Duty, which only truly developed into an eSport rather recently, is more fast-paced and is more about mastering a Quake-style movement system to outmanoeuvre your foes in order to complete the objective of the game mode. Both examples are extremely fun and gratifying to watch in their own right, though I lean closer to CS:GO, and this demonstrates that, typically FPSs will attract a competitive crowd regardless of whether they were designed to or not. It’s genetic.

On what I’ve watched of Overwatch gameplay, (Believe me, I’ve seen pretty much all there is to see) it’s hard not to conclude that this is the game’s inevitable future. You have FPS game play, based around objective elements, combined with a host of different characters who create a wide variety of different classes and roles to play. In addition, these characters all have abilities that can help turn the tide of battle, which adds an additional layer of mastery because, while a good player will know how to use the ability, a great player will know when it is best to use that ability. It’s not a question of whether it’s going to be an esport, it’s a question of when and will it be supported and allowed to grow.

Official support is critical for a game to become an eSport. Whether that support comes from the actual developer like it does for Riot Games or whether it comes from third parties such as ESL or even events like the SanDisk Invitational, without it, it’s hard to consider it to be a legitimate eSport with reduces its viability  for the top players of that game. While Overwatch has the ingredients to be a great eSport, if Blizzard or even companies like ESL do not adopt it and move it onto a wider stage, then it’s hard to consider it among that pantheon of current eSport games. All that scaremongering aside, that is more than likely going to happen. Blizzard did so with Hearthstone and, as previously mentioned, that wasn’t innately designed to be a competitive eSport. But again, TCGs have innately competitive components in a similar way that FPSs do. Of course, people are going to play it to be the best. Blizzard just helped legitimise it through the BlizzCon championship and there were other major events for it like the ESL Legendary series and many other online tournaments held by numerous organisers.

I think it’s safe to say that, following the events of the Quarterfinals, EUphoria is in full swing. Fnatic’s clean sweep of EDG left us gawping with amazement as it completed the trifecta of poor Chinese performances at Worlds while Origen’s 3-1 defeat of Yoe Flash Wolves left us wondering and, dare I say, hoping for the chance of an EU vs. EU final. However, no matter how much speed this Origen vs. Fnatic hype train ramps up, there’s a big, buffer looming in the distance. A big, Korean-shaped buffer.

You see, the final Europe is dreaming of is, most likely not going to happen. In fact, most people know it won’t happen. The primary reason for this is the Origen/SKT Semi-final match.

SK Telecom, as they have done for a while now, look unstoppable. They lost only 1 Bo3 in Champions Summer and are so far undefeated at Worlds 2015. They have done so without losing a single Tier 2 turret. They steamrolled their group and AHQ couldn’t even dent them in their Quarterfinal match, losing 3-0. With every international tournament they attend, they always look like the favourites and it’s always with good reason.  Right now, they have the average shortest game time at 28.6 minutes. The next closest semi-finalist in terms of game time is KOO Tigers with 33.3 minutes and KOO definitely does not have the same 9-0 record as SKT. These games aren’t bloodless either. SKT has only 4 kills less than KOO, the leaders in terms of Total Kills at 156 and are only 3 kills behind Fnatic at 153. However, SKT has half the number of death of both these teams: 55 deaths compared to the 94 of KOO and 104 of Fnatic, suggesting a much more strangulating approach to SKT than the brawls of Fnatic and KOO.

At a basic level, it can be attributed to the strength of their players. Marin, the captain, is the best Top Laner at worlds, closely followed by Smeb and Huni. His play, this tournament especially, has been exemplary and has carried his team to victory one more than one occasion like his 10/0/6 game as Fiora in the first game against EDG in the Group Stage. He also hold the second largest % Total Gold Share on SKT behind Bang, suggesting that resources are prioritised into him after Bang while also typically holding a 13 CS lead over his lane opponent at 10 minutes. Speaking of Bang, in my eyes, Bang has been a key force in SKT for this World Championship. At one point, he held the highest KDA of any player at any international tournament and still hold the highest KDA for his position and by a large margin. He is one of SKT key damage threats and is one part of SKT triple threat which was best encapsulated by a picture I saw on Inven: If Marin doesn’t carry, then Faker or Bang will carry and so on a so forth. There’s only so many resources you can put into shutting a player down, so it’s a herculean task to stop all 3 of SKT’s carry stars. Coupled with a very smart jungler and Worlds Champion in Bengi and Wolf who, despite taking plenty of flak for not being up to par to his support peers such as Piccaboo and Gorilla in the LCK, has shown growth and has been key to SKTs vision control.

Taking on this colossus falls to Origen. Proudly the protagonist of the top Cinderella story at Worlds, Origen’s rise from Challenger series to Worlds Semi-finalist has been nothing short of electric to watch. xPeke should be, rightfully, applauded for this feat. But, despite all this, I don’t think it will be enough to halt the SKT juggernaut from reaching the final that it probably deserves to be in.

The centre of OG is not, in fact, xPeke but their rookie ADC, Niels and it’s hard to deny that this guy deserves all the praise and hype that has been placed on him. Considering his arc from straight out of SoloQ to LCS to 2nd in Summer Playoffs to Worlds to Top 4 at Worlds is utterly astounding, though by no means a world first (In fact, SKT can claim a similar feat with its original roster when they were rookies), but is still impressive nonetheless. His stats are demonstrative of his status as the central carry of Origen; Highest KP at 88%, Highest Damage to Champions per Minute (610), Highest % Damage Share (33.3%) and Highest % Gold Share (28.1%) with xPeke in close second. The stats would leave you to believe that OG is simply Niels & Friends, where the rest of OG simply play second fiddle to this great Dane. This is not the case. As with in the EULCS Finals against Fnatic, Soaz has shown why he is one of the top players in his position in EU and is more than comfortable with playing this carry meta, being considered by some to be one of the top Gangplank players in the worlds. Amazing and Mithy has also been key, providing most of the engage and disengage for OG and it’s often left to them to set up fights for Niels and Soaz. Mithy has been especially good at this, boasting a 74.8% Kill Participation, second only to, you guessed it, Niels.

So where does that leave xPeke? Originally, he was considered to be the weak link in OG going into the tournament, especially considering EU is, historically, stacked with talented Mids. Febiven, for example, has been setting the world stage on fire with his play since MSI and has continued to demonstrate his prowess throughout the Summer Season and at this tournament. Again, purely looking at stats, xPeke seems to fulfil this idea of being the weakest link. He has a -2.6 CS@10 and a -117.6 GD@10 leaving him in the bottom 5 in both those categories. Where xPeke’s strength lies is not shown in his stats but instead in his actual games.

Firstly xPeke and Soaz can, for the most part, be credited with running the double TP meta, running it as far back as season 2 and, for a long time, considered “The Fnatic Special” when they were both on that team. With the re-emergence and current strength of the TP meta, this plays into OGs hands. In addition, xPeke focus on utility, team fight oriented champions and his subsequent play on said champions has more than quelled such doubts. The game against LGD highlighted this when his Shockwave effectively turned the game for OG and allowed them to take control the game. This style also facilitates Niels as a hard carry, giving him even more tools to succeed. This ability to play team fight helps to somewhat neutralise the gold disadvantage he typically accrues in lane.

On the other hand, against Faker, a man who had both the highest GD@10 (449.6) and the second highest CSD@10 (16.1), it may not be enough and Faker must just be able to gain such an advantage against xPeke that, not matter how well xPeke plays the subsequent team fights, he won’t be able to have the desired impact due to such an disadvantage. You can also be damned sure that Bengi knows that Niels is the main threat and will be sure to place a greater emphasis on making sure that Bang will be able to get ahead. Soaz tendency to overextend without vision will also be another target for Bengi and Marin to seize in order to further swing the game in their favour.

There is a further factor that tilts the scales against Orgien. The tournament-wide banning of Gragas. The loss of Gragas, overall, is somewhat harmful to all teams within the final 4. He was the go-to jungler for running both engage and disengage and formed one part of the holy trinity of junglers at Worlds: Elise, Rek’Sai and Gragas. Though all teams will suffer and need, and have been given, time to rethink strategies, Origen, arguably, had a greater reliance on the Rabble Rouser.

Primarily, Gragas was Amazing’s champion of choice in terms of times played and win rate: 75% win rate at Worlds (4 times played; 3 wins, 1 losses; 2.86 KDA), 71.4% win rate in the Regular Summer Season (7 games; 5 wins, 2 losses; 6.08 KDA) and 40% win rate in the Summer Playoff (5 games; 2 wins, 3 losses; 2.3 KDA). That is nothing to be sniffed at. Removing this champion is going to place greater emphasis on the so-called “2nd Tier” junglers: Lee Sin and Eve with even the possibility of Nunu, Nidalee and more seeing greater play. This matter is made even more pressing by the fact that Bengi really doesn’t have this same reliance; In fact his most played champion is Elise (5 games, 5 wins) with Gragas only being played the once. It’ll be interesting to see whether OG and, especially, Amazing, can adapt in time to bring a greater variety to his champion pool outside of his Gragas success or whether they’ll focus more on denying that Elise away from Bengi. Even if this happens, Bengi should be comfortable on the other champions currently in the meta or he even might call on the Nunu he likes to play.

I know I’ve been pushing and pushing this idea that this EU vs. EU will not happen and, like I said it most likely won’t. Most likely. But, that still leaves an absolutely minute chance that it could happen. For some, that’s enough. Origen has shown that it can beat Korean teams. They did beat KT in the group stages and, at that point, KT was considered to be the 2nd best team out of the LCK and did eventually finish top of Group D. That was, though, a single game and OG were beaten come their second encounter. Taking a single game of KT is by no means a good indicator of how well they’ll before against the LCK’s best, considering that KT were dismantled by SKT in the LCK Summer finals and since, in Bo5, it’s been 3 years since a western team have beaten a Korean team. It’s hard to judge Origen’s place in the international order considering the how young the organisation is.

In the universe we currently reside in, the Fnatic/SK Telecom final is the forgone conclusion at this stage. That being said, I am, by no means, discounting KOO from making the final. KOO Tigers have markedly improved since their Summer Playoff match vs KT, which was demonstrated in their Quarterfinal rematch. In this set, KOO showed and excellent pick and ban phase, something that KT did not, giving up Fiora to Smeb over all 4 games and letting Kuro have his beloved Viktor. Speak of the devil, Smeb was a… well… a devil throughout this series and has been a standout player throughout Worlds. He leads the stats for top laners in Damager per minute, Damage per Gold Spent, is the only top laner to break the 500 DPM ceiling and is utter bloodthirsty with 52 kills, the highest out of any player, in any position, at Worlds. In the Quarterfinals, he had a combined 13/5/16 KDA on Fiora and showcased some of the most graceful play ever on that champion. The top lane will certainly be one to focus for all in the KOO/Fnatic Semi-final.

That being said, FNC / KOO could still very easily be won by Fnatic, considering how well they’ve been playing as a team and the skill of individual players. Their 3-0ing of EDG was undertaken with finesse and poise from a mechanical standpoint and also showed how well Fnatic can play at any stage in the game, be it at a deficit or with an advantage. In conjuncture with very mechanically skilled players and, undoubtedly, the best coach in western League of Legends, Fnatic are in a very strong position to vie for that place in the finals and, maybe, can eve challenge SKT for the Summoner’s Cup, but that is a different story altogether.