The Casual Fan's NA LCS Power Rank!

With the North American League Championship Series booting back into high gear this weekend, I'd thought I would share some of my thoughts on how the North American teams stand up to each other with their European imports. So without further delay, we'll proceed form eight too one!

#8 - Dignitas. Let's get something straight, I am a Dig fan, I love these guys and I sincerely think that Qtpie is one of the best AD's in North America, but at this moment there isn't really a lot else going on for them. Scarra is kind of just another mid right now, Kiwikid is still new to support, Crumbz has some moments of brilliance and Cruzer just looked totally outclassed against Wickd at the Battle of the Atlantic event. I hope to see this team improve and I think they can, but right now they are in deep trouble.

#7 - Curse. Curse probably isn't actually as bad as I'm saying they are, but thats mostly because I haven't jumped on the Quas hype train. Dominate and VoyBoy seem to be meshing well together in play so they've got that over Dig at least. Cop and Zekent will almost guaranteed be one of the most average bottom lanes in North America, and with the upcoming changes in patch 4.1 almost forcing the 2v2 every game Curse's bottom lane will have to lean on their solo lanes even more if they are to start winning games.

#6 - CLG. I don't get it. I just don't. CLG has everything in the right place to be top 2 team material. They have one of the best strategic minds in League with MonteCristo coaching them, one of the two most mechanically gifted players in North America with Doublelift and Link who are both very capable of carrying games. I'm particularly fond of Doublelifts preference to playing Jinx, a champion I think can carry games infinitely better than other top picks such as Cait, Lucian or Sivir. On the other end of the bot lane, Aphromoo seems to have become very comfortable with supporting and is enjoying it, and Nien continues to evolve into a high quality top lane player. Finally, they have the super strong European jungler now in Dexter. They should have everything going for them, but things just don't seem to work out. I wouldn't be suprised in the slightest if CLG challenged for Top 2 in NA, but until something magical happens that makes this team work they'll continue to wallow in mediocrity.

#5 - Coast. Coast looked really good playing against the other challenger teams during their relegation period, but those are only the challenger teams. Coast suffers from the same problem that Curse does in my mind in that they are good players, just not great. Nothing about them really stands out, but their bot lane doesn't make me cringe with how passive they are at least so I'll rate them a fair bit higher than Curse. Someone's gotta be the middle of the pack team I suppose.

#4 - XDG. I honestly didn't know whether to put XDG or EG here, ultimately the recently renewed commitment to swapping Xmithie to AD and Zuna to jungle forced my hand though. Xmithie is a great jungler, and I really don't think he's going to fully adapt to the bottom lane until very late into the split or even the summer split. Zuna's positioning as AD was well... pretty awful, he just seems to want to go in deep all the time, so I guess Jungle will suit him better, but really this move overall is a mistake I feel. Despite this bad move within the team, I still think XDG will be a strong team that will give people a good run for their money. If they can stop throwing games I think they can beat anyone really.

#3 - EG. All hail the European rejects! Seriously though, this team has a really solid line-up. Snoopeh seems to be back on the rise getting his mechanics back together. I do thin Yellopete is way to passive, but the bot lane makes up for it with Krepo being willing to go balls deep at a moments notice and on top of that the team seems synced up with Krepo well, diving right with him. Innox seems to be a solid top laner, but I do hope to see a bit more from him over these next few months. Lastly there is Pobelter. He's super strong, I'm not going to lie, but EG cannot afford to fall into the trap they did with Froggen. They cannot rely too much on their mid, they must realize that other people on the team are totally capable of carrying the game as well. regardless, this team looks to be solid throughout the year. How ironic it would be if they made it to worlds from NA and Alliance failed to make it...

#2 - Cloud 9. The biggest debate I had with myself over these placements was the top 2. It seems pretty clear but who are the two best teams in NA right now. (I'll give you a hint, its the ones that WON Battle of the Atlantic matches.) The real question is which of these two is better than the other though? Ultimately I had to put the boys in light blue in second, but really I can see either of these two being number 1 easily. Cloud 9 absolutely dominated the last split of  the LCS with strong team fighting oriented compositions and decisive decision making. Having one of the best Junglers in the entire world acting as the spearhead certainly helps as well. Coming into this split Cloud 9 have to prove that they can still be the best consistently. I again criticize the bottom lane for being passively oriented, however Cloud 9 plays that as a strength by having Sneaky and Lemonation play utility oriented bottom lane that allows for the solo lanes to shine. I don't think its optimal, but it works pretty darn well.

#1 - TSM. Team Solo Mid has only made one change, but boy was it big. Team Owner Reginald stepped down from the starting roster to coach the team. Replacing him is star European mid laner Bjergsen. This not only makes what I thought was TSM's weakest point one of its strongest, but it also removes the massive power dynamic issues that plagued the team during Season 3. In game I feel that TSM is now actually in a position to communicate in a healthy manner. Combine that with TheOddOne's recent surge in performance and we have a scary scary TSM. Just how strong is TSM now? Strong enough that I think Dyrus is the weakest player on the team now. Yes Dyrus, the North American All-star that consistenly performs and often would be large factor in TSM's season 3 wins is now the weakest person on the team. They're like SKT K lite now, thats honestly not even a real dig at TSM. They are scary and I expect great things from them this season.

So there you have it! Some random fan's opinion on how the LCS teams are going to do in NA this split. Hopfully I get at least a couple of them right.

The busiest week of StarCraft II! Part 3!

So I didn't realize that Dreamhack started very early this morning. So all of the group stage games have been played out, so I guess we'll just talk about the results and how the bracket stages will be played out from there.

Group A: NaNiwa managed to take 2nd place in the group over Hyun, which I did not expect, otherwise pretty much exactly how I thought it would go down. RIP on Lucifron Hype.

Group B: The two notable things that happened here was Polt's very lackluster performance and JYP performing very very well. JYP hasn't had a noticeable result in a long time and has been very quiet. I didn't think he could stand up to the powerhouses of this group, but he came to play. Polt didn't. For whatever reason Polt only seems capable of playing his best in WCS America and MLG. Events in Europe or Korea seem to give him a lot of trouble. That is a weird mental block to have for a native Korean.

Group C: This group went pretty much as I expected it to. Taeja is an absolute beast. I thought sOs would give him more trouble, like that he would beat him, but I can't be surprised at this result either. INoVation's stellar TvT is probably the biggest surprise of the group.
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Group D: This group literally played out exactly like I thought it would. Jaedong is an unstoppable monster outside of finals and Hero acquires magical powers at DreamHack Winter so their stellar performances are 100% expected. Would've been nice to see Welmu there, he could've maybe shaken things up a bit, or at least actually made Goswser actually work to advance.

Moving right along to the bracket stage games, I'll only highlight the ones I'm interested in. Starting with the Team Liquid team kill of Taeja and Hero. Why do these tournaments insist on pitting these two against each other constantly? just a shame. I expect Taeja to win here and then have Hero make a huge run in the Loser's bracket. Next Jaedong and INoVation. It should be a total clash of the titans sort of thing, but I really think Jaedong has this won, INoVation's TvZ just isn't as dominant as it once was.

Taking a trip down to the Loser's bracket we have Polt and Hyun. One of these two is going straight out of the tournament. Wow. That is just how stacked this tourney is. Clash of the WCS America  titans, if Polt can somehow convince himself that he's actually playing in the NASL Santa Monica studio and not Stockholm I think he'll win convincingly. Lastly we have TLO and JYP. I want both of these guys to make deep runs in this tournament, but one must end their journey now. Based on how the group stage games went... Well both of them sucked lost a all their PvZ games, but JYP was against Life so I'll give him the edge. Sorry TLO, maybe NaNiwa will lose fast as well so you won't feel bad.

If you aren't watching DreamHack this weekend, something is wrong with you, or your an IdrA fanboy. So something is wrong with you. hehehehehe. Seriously though, watch DreamHack, cause it's the best tournament of the year. GOGO Jaekongdong.

Let's face it, these are your eventual finalists, no one else here matters. 

The biggest weekend of Starcraft in 2013! (Part 1 of 3)

I've legitimately thought a lot today about writing a post where I do something beyond just talking about E-sports and in particular talk about things happening in my own life. I know it'd be a crazy stretch to do that, especially on my own personal blog, but hear me out! The thought crossed my mind. Thats all it really did though, no talk about me today, on to video games!

Some of you know this weekend as American thanksgiving. While that is certainly true, this year its actually the busiest weekend for StarCraft II. We have 3 separate major tournaments running with the World Cyber Games trying to remain relevant, the Intel Extreme Master's stop in Singapore where Acer.Scarlett will attempt to win her first premier title, and finally we have one of my personal favorites, the Annual awarding Liduid Hero with a check festival Dreamhack Winter. I'll be giving my own brief thoughts on who I think each of these tournaments are going to play out. We'll start with WCG and then talk about real tournaments tomorrow and Thursday. #ShotsFired

First up the World Cyber Games in Kunshan, China. This is going to be a weird tournament, because we have 4 groups of 7-8 players that are all going to play each person in their group in a Bo3 with only the top two of each group advancing. That means over two days, nearly 100 Bo3 series are going to be played. Thats at least 200 games! That is an ungodly number of games, I feel so sorry for both the casters and the players here, it's going to be grueling to say the least. Especially if you lose the first few and are essentially eliminated half way through the day. There are going to be pointless games being played and that just shows that the tournament format is bad. Never the less, out of each group I feel there are 2 favourites to come out of each of them. Group A will have PartinG and Sen completely out classing the rest of their group. Group B might be the closest, but I feel that France's Dayshi and China's Jim will be advancing, (That doesn't mean I won't be cheering for my fellow Canadian Desrow!) Group C will be dominated by Sora with MacSed following behind, with maybe the American Xenocider making an upset. Group D will be Korea's Soulkey wrecking everyone and the German protoss HasuObs picking up the pieces of the wreckage to advance in 2nd.

Into the playoff stage it will become like every other tournament in that the Koreans will likely dominate. I think PartinG looks to be the most likely to take the whole tournament, Soulkey could also take it, don't be shocked if its those two in the finals.

If I can throw some real talk down about now, WCG is a relic and not really that rel event of a tournament anymore. The only part that seems to matter is the Korean Qualifiers, since none of the foreigners (Non-Koreans) that would have had a even play this anymore. It's just like a charity to for the 3 Koreans that make it to the global finals. If your thinking of watching your first StarCraft Tournament this weekend, don't have it be WCG, not while there are two other very high quality tournaments going on at the same time.

RIP on WCG. Plz. 

Source of picture World Cyper Games. Plz don't sue me.

Some Review of WCS 2013, and my Thoughts on WCS 2014 Plans

In case you did not know, Blizzard released their plans for their World Championship Series (WCS) for two thousand and fourteen. Fans, players and hecklers alike were in anticipation of this news, particularly if any nationality or residency requirements would be introduced to help prevent the mess that was the WCS America region where they top eight throughout three separate seasons had only one person native to North America, (a Canadian) tying it with Australia and Norway for the year. 

Blizzards first step to fixing this problem is allocate the number of spots available for challenger league qualifiers (The tournament that funnels into premier, the highest league.) shall be limited to certain numbers based on nationality. fifty percent of qualifier spots are guaranteed to those who call North America their home, (whether by birth or legal residency) while only two will be available to their main competition, South Koreans, and even those sports are actually wildcards open to anyone. If you are wondering, while 1 Canadian made the top eight over three seasons, eighteen Koreans made their way to the top eight, possessing 75% of the top spots, and always claiming the title and runner up spots. This will probably prevent many Koreans from making their way up to premier league spots, while giving many more North Americans opportunity to attempt to make the jump. 

However, these changes do not affect the seven Korean players already seeded into Premier via their previous seasons performance, nor does it affect the Twelve Koreans who will be looking to make the jump to premier in the challenger league best of five matches that will take place early next year. It is highly likely unless several Koreans are matched against their countrymen that we will still be seeing as many as 16 Koreans in premier league, and with the new format, it will be difficult to remove them. WCS America looks to remain GSL* lite for the time being. 

You will notice I have not mentioned how this change will affect Europe`s own WCS competition. This is because Europe does not have the problem of being totally overrun by Korea. While it is true that the top 4 spots are still very Korean, there has been at least one European in the top 4 each season. There was even a French player who made the finals in season one! (RIP in peace Stephano) 

What has kept Europe safe from the invasion though? Are Europeans just better players and therefore more capable of repelling the coming invaders? while I do think Europe is ahead of North America overall, that's not really what kept them safe. The almighty wall that is Europe to Korea lag has kept them much safer than their own level of play. Harsh lag has made it very difficult for Korean players to surge forth in the 2013 year, and its simply not cost effective for the Korean teams to send their players over to Europe just to attempt to qualify for a tournament now is it? Most of the Koreans that made deep runs in WCS Europe were part of European teams where it made sense to bring them to Europe to play. Only IM.MVP (who won a season) and MVP.duckdeok (also won a season) were members of Korean based teams and also made deep runs into WCS Europe. 

To close my thoughts somewhat randomly. I think Europe looks to be in a good spot for WCS. North America might need some more time before they are able to showcase North American talent. At least there's some hope so the NA players will continue to try. Also did not mention the changes to the Korean region. Going to be good to have GSL back, looking forward to staying up way to late many nights to watch it again. Peace out!

Hopefully this guy and win a tourney soon. Couple of 1st places would solidify him as the best in the world. 

I Wanna Work in E-sports but I'm Still Just a Lurker

               I think everyone kinda has this job they really want but don’t really know how it’s even possible to get it. Some of them get really motivated and find out and then do it. Some find out and don’t. Some though never really even let it become anything more than a fleeting dream. I haven’t decided which of those three I am yet. Partly because I haven’t really ever settled on what I think would be that dream job. All I really know is that it’s in online media. Online shows, sites, article that sort of thing. I really think working in the E-sports scene would be just an absolute blast.

 Getting into E-sports is a complicated idea in itself though. Mostly because there really isn’t a set way to get into it. One of the more commonly accepted ways is the simple procedure of constantly producing content. Really that’s the best way. If you really try to boost the community the community will accept you and help you out. Artosis is the best example of this in my opinion. This guy hopped on a plane to Korea with no idea what was going to happen, but he constantly produced content and built himself up as a respectable person in the community, eventually his work was rewarded and he is now arguably the most respected and well known casters in the entirety of the Starcraft II community, stable job as the Code S (Premier League of sorts) caster with his best friend Tasteless. Total nerd baller.

Where E-sports is at now, I believe a good solid way to get into the industry would be to do two things. First get off to school and learn a skill that is relevant to E-sports, secondly continue to be active in the community and produce content. It’s critical that you strive to make sure that the content you make is the best you possibly can. This includes taking criticisms and building off of them. Not that I really know much, I mean I’m not all that active in the E-sports community myself. You know what? I’m gonna change that. This is one of my absolute favourite things in the entire universe and I don’t help build it up. That has to change. Time to get active! (In E-sports) WHOOOOOO!!!!!

Ten Bucks to whoever finds the French guy. (HInt, it should be obvious)