#opticgaming

At the risk of another team announcing some sort of roster swap I decided to make some predictions. The North American LCS starts this weekend and if you have been paying attention to the meta internationally you know things are sort of crazy. With that in mind, rather than trying to theorycraft how well a professional ADC player can perform on Vladimir, I want to make things a little simpler. I’m going to focus on what we actually know about a team and the factors that will help them against their opponent. Speculation is fun and all but when Taliyah becomes a viable (and heavily banned) jungler it helps to stay a tad reserved when making predictions.  

Game 1: 100 Thieves v. Team Liquid

6/16, 5:00pm EST

As is tradition, we get a rematch of the Spring finalists right out of the gate. Neither organization has made a change in their main roster which I think translates to the same results. Questions might get raised around Team Liquid’s Support Kim "Olleh" Joo-sung and his poor performance during the early parts of MSI. That speculation shouldn’t hold much validity as Team Liquid nearly turned around their rough start at the tournament into a Knock-out stage appearance. If things get too dicey, Team Liquid may opt to funnel their resources into Yiliang "Peter" "Doublelift" Peng who outmatches all of 100 Thieves members. The current game state might contain an excess of unusual champions in the bottom lane, but I would still put my money on Doublelift to win any match-up.

Prediction: Team Liquid

Game 2: Team SoloMid v. CLG

6/16, 6:00pm EST

A classic match-up paraded around as a rivalry of equal titans. But if you have any sense, you know that TSM has had the better end of this match-up for a majority of the history of the NALCS. On top of that, TSM had been bootcamping with Weldon Green and the last time that happened TSM went on to tear through the league. The biggest question mark on TSM right now is around their announcement of bringing up Jonathan "Grig" Armao from their academy team to split time with Michael "MikeYeung" Yeung in the jungle position. Whoever ends up taking the jungle position on TSM for this match will probably not make a difference in the final result. Perhaps CLG’s coach Tony "Zikz" Gray has divined immaculate strategies to push CLG’s current line-up to thrive in this diverse meta, but it’s impossible to ignore the history of this match-up.

Prediction: Team SoloMid

Game 3: Clutch Gaming v. Cloud9

6/16, 7:00pm EST

I was having a good deal of trouble trying to decide on a winner for this match, but thankfully Cloud9 announced they were benching Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen, Andy "Smoothie" Ta, and Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi. This immediately puts the ball in Clutch Gaming’s court, as Cloud9’s core members will be getting replaced by Greyson "Goldenglue" Gilmer, Tristan "Zeyzal" Stidam, and Yuri "Keith" Jew. As inviting as it is to theorize why players are getting benched, I am going to keep this to the point: Cloud9 are not going to be at the top of their game and this win should belong to Clutch.

Prediction: Clutch Gaming

Game 4: FlyQuest v. Echo Fox

6/16, 8:00pm EST

FlyQuest has made a few changes to their line-up. Lucas "Santorin" Tao Kilmer Larsen is coming back to North America to serve as jungler, Jang "Keane" Lae-young is moving into the midlane, and Kevin "KonKwon" Kwon is taking on the support role. Most importantly, Brandon "Saintvicious" DiMarc is joining the fold as a coach. Overall I think FlyQuest has had the best off-season so far and has created a recipe for success. Unfortunately for them, I don’t think those changes will be enough to take Echo Fox down. At the beginning of every split it seems to take a while for most teams to settle back into being on the stage and sort through strategies. Echo Fox on the other hand is known to go full throttle and ignore the passive nature of other teams. So while FlyQuest gets comfortable in the new split, Echo Fox is very likely to run them over.  

Prediction: Echo Fox

Game 5: Golden Guardians v. Optic Gaming

6/16, 9:00pm EST

Ending Day 1 with the bottom two teams of the 2018 Spring split standings is almost poetic. Both squads have made changes for the better, but Optic Gaming should have an easier time rolling into a new identity. Terry "Big" Chuong will be joining Optic Gaming in the support position and David "Cop" Roberson is coming on as a coach. Rather than completely change the direction of Optic gaming , these additions can work to refine Optic Gaming into a cleaner team. Golden Guardians on the other hand may need sometime to define themselves without Hai "Hai" Du Lam making the calls. I agree that Son "Mickey" Young-min is a better player, but removing Hai changes the entire structure of how the team functions. A shift that impactful in Golden Guardians makes Optic Gaming favorites this opening weekend.

Prediction:  Optic Gaming

Day 2

Game 6: Team SoloMid v. FlyQuest

6/17, 5:00pm EST

Saintvicious might help mastermind a way for FlyQuest to topple the mammoth that TSM is, but that seems unlikely. I truly believe FlyQuest can make a run in play-offs with their line-up but they need time. Maybe the combined efforts of former TSM players Jason "WildTurtle" Tran and Santorin striving for revenge will be enough for a FlyQuest victory, but speculation can go only so far though and FlyQuest has too much on their plate in week 1.

Prediction: Team SoloMid.

Game 7: Team Liquid v. Golden Guardians

6/17, 6:00pm EST

Should be a pretty easy task for Team Liquid to take Golden Guardians down. Even if Team Liquid were to fall to 100 Thieves and Golden Guardians ended up smashing Optic Gaming it wouldn’t be enough to convince me otherwise.  A simple glance tells you that Golden Guardians’ players as a whole are several pegs below Team Liquid’s.

Prediction: Team Liquid

Game 8: CLG v. 100 Thieves

6/17, 7:00pm EST

100 THIEVES WILL WIN!!!!.... Phew… that was a close one. CLG almost got me with their friendship.  That may have been a little mean, but I do actually think this match could be close. CLG are almost synonymous for their wide variety of strategies that don’t work in what I would consider strict metas. With the way things are going, there might be enough wiggle room for CLG’s more unique game style to work against a 100 Thieves team shown to be reliant on play-making in the past. Combating that though is 100 Thieves’ head coach Neil "pr0lly" Hammad, who has proven he can also tango when it comes to theorycrafting. If that isn’t enough to convince you, Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black has done a good job of outdoing his former team and will likely take them down once more.

Prediction: 100Thieves

Game 9: Clutch Gaming v. Echo Fox

6/17, 8:00pm EST

A rematch of the 3rd place Spring split series that should have the same outsome. As mentioned earlier Echo Fox is relentlessly vicious and are not likely to wait around for their enemy. In the Spring split, Clutch Gaming always did a fantastic job of mitigating their loses to eventually turn the tables into a victory. This passive play style was easily mapped out and routed by Echo Fox in their last match up though and I find it hard to believe that Clutch Gaming can increase their defenses enough to take the match this time around.

Prediction: Echo Fox

Game 10: Cloud9 v. Optic Gaming

6/17, 9:00pm EST

Cloud9 will take this…. Is what I had written as a placeholder until benchgate happened.  I can’t make the same clean call against Cloud9 like I did with their match against Clutch, but I think Cloud9 will take another loss. Optic Gaming has a wonderful chance to secure a victory unless Cloud9 backtracks hard on their roster decision.

Optic team is no more

Source: liquipedia.net

The Danish team have announced that all of them are going their separate ways and are looking for organizations to buy them out from their contracts with Optic.

After the team was placed last at the ESL Pro League Season 10 group stage, MSL announced that he would be stepping down from the team and after this an official announcement came of disbandment of the roster.

OG telah menjadi salah satu tim sukses dalam game Dota 2. Bagaimana tidak, pada akhir Agustus 2018 lalu mereka berhasil menjadi juara di ajang terbesar Dota 2 yaitu The International 8. Mereka berhasil mengalahkan salah satu raksasa China, PSG LGD dengan skor dramatis 3-2 dan berhasil membawa pulang trofi juga uang tunai senilai  US$11,234,158 (Rp163 miliar).

Secara mengejutkan mereka memilih untuk tidak mengikuti major Dota 2 pertama, Kuala Lumpur Major, dan minor DreamLeague Season 10. Banyak fans yang bingung serta mengkhawatirkan kondisi internal dari tim tersebut. Namun hal tersebut nampaknya hampir benar, Ana, carry yang berhasil membawa tim tersebut juara TI8 memutuskan untuk mengambil rehat.

Walaupun sebelumnya Ana pernah mengumumkan masa rehatnya. Namun ini merupakan kali keduanya rehat dari ranah kompetitif. Dilansir melalui akun sosial media tim OG, Ana akan mengambil rehat yang lebih lama dari yang pernah terjadi sebelumnya. Berita buruk ini nampaknya banyak membuat fans kecewa, terleih lagi mereka sudah terlihat kompak dengan formasi yang sudah ada. Tapi, kebingungan juga menghampiri fans yang bertanya tanya siapakah yang bakal dan cocok untuk menggantikan Ana pada posisinya sebelumnya  Nah, baru-baru ini OG mengumumkan siapa yang pantas menggantikan Ana.

Ternyata orang tersebut adalah Pajkatt, mantan pemain dari tim OpTic Gaming. Seperti yang kita ketahui, Pajkatt merupakan salah satu pemain senior dalam kancah Dota 2. Dia sendiri telah berpindah tim sebanyak 14 kali selama karirnya. Pajkatt memiliki playstyle yang berani menekan musuh dan tidak takut untuk melakukan inisiasi dan juga cukup terkenal ganas.