[PC] League of Legends

[DevilHighDxD]

TiP vs TSM, for a moment I thought water won't be wet.

[Eisdrache]

Spoiler for TIP vs TSM:

Flat out boring series. Rush cannot play Nunu for life and TIP has absolutely no clue how to play from behind. They are the perfect proof why chinese meta will always fail. If you are behind (a lot), DON'T FIGHT 5V5, YOU WILL LOSE EVERY TIME.

Originally Posted by Mach56gs

Spoiler for Game 5:

UOL and Fnatic don't have the tools to take on TSM/C9 at MSI.

Spoiler for f:

C9 barely made it to finals and has been looking shaky all split. TSM is a solid team but far from unbeatable. While UOL may or may not be successful with their pocket picks and fnatic is slightly lost when their aggression doesn't work out and they fall behind, both certainly can take down their NA counterparts.

[Mach56gs]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

Spoiler for f:

C9 barely made it to finals and has been looking shaky all split. TSM is a solid team but far from unbeatable. While UOL may or may not be successful with their pocket picks and fnatic is slightly lost when their aggression doesn't work out and they fall behind, both certainly can take down their NA counterparts.

Eh, kinda salty but its genuine sentiment. Not that EU is bad....

But UOL is heavily reliant on their support as a playmaker. Problem is Lustboy is just as good and has a deeper of a champ pool. A support ban can go far and Bjerg can deal with POE, which Monte and other commentators have brought up. Given this situation, the only chance of UOL was kikis carrying, but Kikis goes for cinderhulk on tank champs, not carry champs.

Also UOL is a new team. They've proven to be a strong team but... they have their inexperiences. SK practically handed them the victory.

Fnatic has a better chance. A much better chance.... But they rely on outplaying, which isn't exactly possible against the rock that is TSM's lanes. And we can see how their aggression hits themselves in the foot if played without good enough vision/timing and can engage in unfavorable fights...

[Last Sinner]

Spoiler for Thoughts on LCS semins:

Fnatic vs H2K - Fnatic can outplay at this level but at higher levels, doubtful. H2K still have considerable room for growth as well. Promising futures for both.

C9 vs Liquid - I....I just don't understand...how could Liquid throw away their 2-0 lead by placing their futures on freaking Lulu in a tank meta?! Sheer insanity - they are the architect of their own curse. Cloud 9 got out of jail and Sneaky carried them hard.

UOL vs SK - Ah, those Unicorns...they are fun to watch. They sometimes are their worst enemy but they really do think up some awesome team comps. Their bot lane is probably their weakness, but jungle and mid have been going so well lately to counter that. As for SK, they did some msitakes typical of solo queue. Fredy122 refusing to ward when he didn't even pick flash and get utterly punished for it - so slack. Fox was only effective on Zed and Powerofevil's depth showed him up. Svenskeren and Unforgiven aren't enough to carry this. And honestly, Unforgiven deserves to be on a better team.

TSM vs TIP - Some sanity finally prevails along with some great play. Santorin was exemplary in this series, Bjergsen was on point as usual, Wildturtle has really upped his game in the last few weeks, Dyrus avoided being the target of excessive ganking, Lustboy showed great teamwork/peel, especially on Nautilus.

I expect TSM to win the NA spli, probably in 4. EU...I think it will go to 5, won't even dare to pick who. I guess I'd prefer Unicorns of Love but Fnatic is the consistent one, even with a new lineup.

For anyone interested, Chinese LPL playoffs start today in 10 hours. No idea what the 'real' strength of teams are because I feel that with a 44 game split, teams were getting burnt out by the end and manipulating results to avoid playing Edwards Gaming.

Believe Korean LCK playoffs gauntlet starts this week a day after Chinese starts. GE Tigers get to wait at the very end safely with SK Telecom safe until the 2nd to last match. Can't see anyone showing much threat to them aside from a very slight possibility for CJ Entus since Madlife has been revitalized by the current meta. Jin Air have utterly lost the plot in the current meta and anyone else left is too inconsistent.

In closing, this moment from the final week of regular season LCK is a strong candidate for most hilarious moment of 2015 play. Monte's laugh is priceless.

[Mach56gs]

@LastSinner

Alright, I'm an SK fan-atic (heh) so I'll bite. Monte gives some very key insights:

Spoiler for SK vs UOL:

Freddy is fine in teamfights. Game 4 he was camped and killed twice and he still was equal in lane presence and his teamfighting was superior. In the no kill game 3, he solo pushed down Sion's turret. SK was actually looking ahead until the massive fumbles (dying to pink ward).

Game 5 he was too shy to overextend and push the 1-3-1 splitpush strategy, ironically being too careful for his own good. This is less of his weakness than SK being awkward with splitpushing strategies....

....And well not selling his *&^%$ Doran's shield. Thats... well its greedy. 80 health and a block isn't freakin' worth it man.

Sven was a munster.

Fox had a good showing on all of his champs, pulling even or ahead in lane. Problem is that he's overaggressive and was punished for it. Game 3 was the clearest example of this where he baits himself in Sven by trying to take out a pinkward while trying to roam bot in the enemies jungle. Should have just let Sven do the pressure and just keep his lane push, taking out turret. Once again, awkward team-play, which was even more exposed in game 5. When UOL caught Nrated, Fox should have taken out mid inner turret, played the 1-3-1 splitpush better, etc.

Forg1ven is great.

Nrated is just bad early game. Real bad. However his Annie play had some great ults like locking down POE at a crucial dragon fight. Not shabby in his teamfighting, although he's not stellar.

Overall SK should have taken away Morgana and Thresh. UOL had the right idea of taking out the strongest factor of SK's earlygame, and SK should have responded. Fox has a good enough champ pool and played well enough in this series to have pulled even with POE, which he had done for every game.

More importantly, they needed to play to their style that they chose. Monte's vods reviewing these games are very insightful, like how SK was winning game 3 until the flushed the toilet.

Overall its not Forg1ven deserving a better team. Its just the fact that SK lacks the team cohesiveness and tactics when playing the splitpush style. They like to fast-push and take objectives and roll over people in teamfights, but when that is taken off the table in picks and bans (Graves and Lucian), they need to be able to stick to their plan B and gradually win the game. Right now they try and close out the game too early by making baron calls or power-plays that are a bit too risky and with too little turret gold in their pocket.


Overall, SK had this series won when they were burning down baron. Freddy could have been in the pit. They could have timed their spell rotations better. It was their game to lose and it was no individual member's fault, they just rolled a 1.

Like literally 1. 102 health left when Orianna's R connected. One AA the dream.

What I mean to say is that trading people around is not the best way to go about it. This is the 15-3 team that has the best record in the EU split history, and they've been one unit for about half a year, playing competitively for one split.

So we need to give it time.

UOL has been together longer, lol.

[Kafriel]

Well, I'm not really happy with the semi results, the teams I expected to make it just didn't cut it and it's a real shame to see games like those...

Spoiler for finals:

in any case, UOL vs Fnatic will be hilarious, taking their previous games into account

[Awrya]

Spoiler for EDG vs WE:

EDG almost pulled a TL, but gathered themselves to win G5.
WE really exceeding expectations, they upset GE Tigers at IEM and now they pushed EDG to 5 games when most expected a 0:3 or 1:3.

[DevilHighDxD]

Wow the championship's curse is fucking real, EDG PawN suffered waist pain that needed 2 months of recovery. No Faker vs PawN rematch for us at MSI.

I worrying that LPL teams that has SSW's members won't qualified for the world. OMG, IG and Snake representing China?

[Eisdrache]

I'll have to watch these Monte VODs but I actually share LastSinner's thoughts about fredy. He ALWAYS is greedy and against good teams he gets punished every.single.time and there is nothing SK can do to compensate.

It's nice that he's doing fine in team fights but it's just giving the enemy team free advantages on a silver platter without any necessity at all. You would think that there is a learning effect after it happens that often but nope, always greed.

As for the baron steal, although I don't really understand how Orianna ult can steal baron against smite, sometimes you just get (un)lucky. Didn't stop me from screaming like a madman when it happened lol.

[Last Sinner]

According to the updated LoL Esports schedule, the Korean LCK playoffs starts in about 24.5 hours from when I did this post. Starting with CJ Entus vs Jin Air Greenwings. When the rest of the gauntlet is, not sure yet.

LPL quarters finish tomorrow and the semis happen over the next few days after.

NA/EU 3rd place happen in around a bit over 2 days from now, grand finals the day after.

[Eragon]

Spoiler for OMG vs LGD:

I wasn't expecting a stomp but, god damn if LGD didn't look like Samsung White. Kills into turrets into Dragons into invades. So good. Although, it could also be that OMG is bad, since I don't really follow LPL, but I doubt it.

[DevilHighDxD]

Btw LPL is having a China vs Korea All Star during the same day as their final. Chinese fans are voting in top Chinese players against ex-samsung white/blue players.

Originally Posted by Eragon

Spoiler for OMG vs LGD:

I wasn't expecting a stomp but, god damn if LGD didn't look like Samsung Blue. Kills into turrets into Dragons into invades. So good. Although, it could also be that OMG is bad, since I don't really follow LPL, but I doubt it.

Chinese's syngery with Korean is way better than with their own fellow Chinese players somehow, it pretty crazy. PYL, the Chinese Mata who currently duo with Imp is considered one of the top strongest bot lane in LPL with only Meiko and Deft (players from EDG) to rival them. Also not to mention Clearlove and PawN (also from EDG), the strongest jgl and mid combination. Their record against Rookie/kakao is friggin 5/0. It really crazy, PawN has a hidden passive called "SSW buff" it kinda enable EDG to play like SSW.

[Eragon]

Spoiler for SK vs H2K:

SK needs to start giving classes on throwing along with CLG. So bad. Well played H2K, well deserved.

[Witch of Uncertainty]

Originally Posted by Eragon

Spoiler for SK vs H2K:

SK needs to start giving classes on throwing along with CLG. So bad. Well played H2K, well deserved.

Yeah. I was slightly frustrated that H2K won more on capitalizing on SK's blunders than anything else.

[Last Sinner]

Spoiler for TIP vs TL:

The curse is over...Liquid previal in 5. Typical the Lulu-double marksman comp clinched the series. Piglet proves his naysayers wrong, Fenix starts hitting good form. As for TIP, Rush really dropped off once the tank meta came to pass. Definitely needs more in his arsenal that Lee Sin and Gragas.

[Eragon]

Spoiler for FNC vs UoL:

I don't know why teams keep picking Lucian. He's absolute shit from every match I have seen apart from the one game yesterday in this new patch. Doesn't help that UoL kept fighting when they should have just farmed. One T1 turret at 35 minutes is just very poor decision making. Anyway, congrats to FNC and well played UoL. Just need to get more consistent.

[Mach56gs]

Originally Posted by Eragon

Spoiler for SK vs H2K:

SK needs to start giving classes on throwing along with CLG. So bad. Well played H2K, well deserved.

Tilt is real.

I'm scared that they will become the CLG of EU, but I'm going to try and downplay my fears by saying that they're still a relatively new team that needs to work on its team cohesion. Forg1ven hasn't had the best competitive team experience, neither has Fox. Hopefully with time these kinks are worked out, but they also were outplayed in the picks and bans. Their analysts need to step up their game.

[Eisdrache]

Spoiler for FNC vs UOL:

Very enjoyable series. Hardly error-free but still enjoyable.

Spoiler for TSM vs C9:

Yawn, what a boring series. Lemon was napping all series. Balls was outfarmed every game. Hai flat out got outplayed by Bjergsen. Meteos wasn't bad but he had no impact either. Sneaky cannot carry a whole team.

It's unbelieveable that a team like the current C9 can make top2.

[DevilHighDxD]

Spoiler for TSM vs C9:

I don't think any western teams can beat TSM at the moment. NA>EU, but yep, so boring the matches.

[Last Sinner]

Spoiler for FNC vs UOL:

Chaotic, erratic, overdiving. Entertaining for their own league but bound to be punished at MSI. Either way, grats to Fnatic. And to UOL for their position in their first split.

Spoiler for TSM vs C9:

Really pleasing to see how far TSM have come in the last year. More diversity in their compositions, better rotations and teamfighting than last year. Also the only team that won their series in less than 5 games. Most well-rounded this team has ever been. Time for them to show they can do this against Korea and China at MSI.

Spoiler for LGD vs SS:

Well, well....LGD rise to the occassion when it really mattered. Snake's consistency throughout the season went right out the window. Imp is back - and that's dangerous. LGD vs EDG - that will be quite a final.

Spoiler for CJ Entus vs Jin Air:

Oh dear....Jin Air...you are completely lost in this current meta. Madlife is back, he is pulling off the freaky plays reminiscent of the peaks of CJ Frost. I still think SK Telecom will get the better of them this coming week, but a spot at S5 Worlds is still plausible for CJ Entus.