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(03/24/18 5:05pm)
By Tanner Kinney
There’s a big meme about Riot’s esports department treating EU LCS like second class citizens. Through not giving visas at the proper times, not stepping in to stop really terrible stuff from happening in the participating organization (shoutouts to MoveYourMothers), and then the shenanigans with giving EU LCS best-of-twos, but NA LCS best-of-threes, it’s kind of true. That, along with making more cash money here in the States, is probably why NA tends to import so many EU players. It seems they’ve now overpowered us though, because they’ve infected our beautiful LCS with something people didn’t expect:
EU loves ties (Riot’s reasoning for giving them best-of-twos), so now NA gets to love ties as much as they do. This past week, we had five additional tiebreaker games, all of them deciding seeding for playoffs. The results of these games will shock you! Well, they shocked me at least.
From second to fifth: A Clown 9 story
A number of analysts started the season placing Cloud 9 at fourth or fifth place. I also placed them at fourth place at the beginning of the split, before deciding they were the best team ever in the middle of the split. In a classic LCS move though, the meta shift completely ruined C9, who spent the last few weeks since 8.4 was introduced losing games to everyone who wasn’t a bottom tier meme team and Clutch Gaming. So how did Cloud 9 go from competing with Echo Fox for the top slot before crashing down into the place many analysts had them at the start?
Well, it really does stem from the meta shift. Early in the split, C9 found success off the back of Licorice playing more damage oriented top lane picks. Kled, Camille, Gnar, Gangplank, it didn’t matter. Licorice would find leads and get enough attention from the tank playing Sven that he could carry. However, now that Tracker’s Knife was removed and tank wall-of-meat junglers fell out of favor compared to picks like Kha’Zix, Olaf, and Skarner who require much more proactive play and build a bit more damage compared to other picks. If teams want a hyper-tank, they’d need the top lane to play it. And Licorice performed well enough in lane, but he failed to play tanks effectively in teamfights. Compared to TL Impact’s Cho’Gath, Licorice’s Shen was basically deadweight, much like the Shen’s in my solo queue games.
This is especially concerning going into playoffs, as C9 will be facing Team Liquid for the third time this next weekend. And let me tell you, I don’t want to see the ways TL is going to embarrass C9. C9 does do well in playoffs though, where TL historically has choked, and has famous choke-artists like Doublelift and Pobelter in key roles. I pray for C9’s success, but they stand in the way of TL getting fourth. Nothing will stop TL from securing fourth, and C9 was complicit before. All for the memes.
https://twitter.com/JackEtienne/status/975536450904051712
https://twitter.com/TLDoublelift/status/975585665428500481
Stealing first place from under our noses
I spent much of the split bashing 100 Thieves. I refused to be convinced they were a good team. No, Meteos is washed up garbage, Ryu has no motivation, Cody Sun is a fraud, etc. It turns out, as usual, I am the fraud. My biggest miscalculation in BOTH of my power rankings was counting out the Thieves (and giving too much credit the Counter Logic Gaming). I don’t think anyone truly expected 100 Thieves, especially after their midseason slump, to go on a winning streak and burn everyone to ashes. Then again, I’m pretty sure I predicted that they could make that run if they kept up momentum. And they sure did.
And we never saw it coming.
https://twitter.com/MeteosLoL/status/975536750759063552
What changed within 100 Thieves to get them to first place? Honestly, it’s just great play from the team as a whole unit. Aphromoo is a legendary shotcaller, and everyone else has been playing to their level. On top of that, the ADC meta shifted slightly in 8.4 and 8.5, and Cody Sun can start playing champions like Jhin, which he found massive success on. They were able to adapt to the meta faster than their opponents, which got them wins upon wins. On top of that, Echo Fox and C9 both started slumping hardcore, with Echo Fox’s botlane getting exploited by everyone—even freaking OPTIC of all teams. Echo Fox especially has been questionable, not playing Fenix and Adrian, instead playing Damonte and Papachau from their academy roster. Through all of this chaos, 100 Thieves made the ultimate getaway, snatching first place right from the grasp of Echo Fox. Going into playoffs, I wonder if they’ll continue to convert their momentum into a split victory. I have my doubts, considering TSM is always a massive playoff team, but I now know not to count out 100 Thieves. So let me ask you, do you believe in the Phantom 100 Thieves?
Playoff quarterfinals predictions
Saturday at 5 pm EST: Team Liquid v. Cloud 9
This one is hard to call. Obviously, judging by recent results, Cloud 9 would lose, right? They’ve played enough games recently against TL to have already lost a best-of-five, which is worrying. Yet, C9’s coaching staff is some of the best in the NA LCS. If anyone can patch up their weaknesses and find a big win or three, it would be C9. TL will have blue side advantage in three out of their five potential games, which is pretty massive. I’m giving this one to TL, because not only do they need to win to get a shot at fourth place, but also because I’ve lost all hope in Cloud 9.
Sunday at 3 pm EST: Team Solomid v. Clutch Gaming
This one is much easier to call: TSM 100%. I love Clutch Gaming, they are a really good team that will almost certainly improve for next split. Yet, Clutch never actually wins against any team better than them. TSM, right now, is better than Clutch Gaming. On top of that, TSM is always a better playoff team compared to their regular season records. It’s hard to see any scenario where Clutch clutches a victory. TSM all the way. And if they end up facing 100 Thieves in the finals, then I guess I owe my guy Finchy an apology for flaming him this whole split.
Playoffs are here, and then MSI beyond that. Very exciting stuff. What’s more exciting is Patch 8.6! Due to patch delays, I haven’t gotten a chance to try out the new runes and changes on the Patch, but I have a feeling that bruisers are going to be crazy strong. Darius, Tryndamere, Irelia (who’s getting reworked soon), Riven, basically any hero that’s trying to get an early lead with ignite and smash their lane opponent will benefit from these changes. Duskblade is also getting omega-nerfed, which will lead to assassins being less strong, though the compensation buffs for champions like Graves, Wukong, and Zed scare me as someone who likes to not die every fight as Janna, Soraka, and Nami. Varus is also getting removed from the bot lane (again) due to Guinsoo’s Rageblade nerfs, but is replaced with Kai’Sa, who probably got overbuffed like Ornn did. That will be fun to ban every game. As tanks potentially re-enter the jungle to make way for top lane bruisers, I won’t have to deal with Rengars feeding in my solo queue games. Oh, who am I kidding, they’ll keep feeding forever.
Until next week, remember to type “/mute all” after you give first blood, and please don’t take Conqueror on ranged heroes. It will not work for you. Just don’t do it. Unless you are on the enemy team in my games. Then I highly encourage it.
Sources: YouTube, Twitter, Dot Esports
Images: Rift Herald, Giphy,
(03/16/18 5:00pm)
The roguelike and roguelite genres have been massively successful in the past decade, particularly in the indie scene. The ability to make small, low-budget games that are infinitely replayable is an enticing prospect to a lot of small indie developers. Unfortunately, Steam’s oversaturation problems have made it so a lot of these titles end up not receiving the attention they deserve. Plus, a lot of these roguelikes fail to do anything truly special with the genre. Even the excellent Heat Signature from last year failed to be truly replayable despite a cool aesthetic and world. However, just in the first few months of this year, the genre seems to be climbing back up. The absolutely phenomenal Slay the Spire, despite being early access, has drained countless hours of its playerbase, myself included. And now, from the developers of one of the biggest roguelike games FTL: Faster Than Light enters Into the Breach, another incredibly smartly designed and addictive roguelike that manages to be deep both in gameplay and emotionally.
(03/15/18 7:56pm)
Historically, the race for playoffs tends to have some excitement, but many things are already locked in. The top teams are generally already guaranteed a playoff-bye in the final week, but this year no team has been confirmed their playoff-bye. On top of that, the playoff teams themselves qualifying are still on a razor’s edge, with some fates being in the hands of the individual teams, and other fates in the hands of teams like the Golden Guardians. Over the past two weeks, only Echo Fox, Cloud 9, Clutch Gaming, and 100 Thieves have secured a spot. Team Solomid, Team Liquid, and the surprise contender of Counter Logic Gaming are all still competing for those final two spots. Who will claim them? Which meme team will play spoiler? As there’s a lot to cover but not a lot of time, I’m going to touch on something everyone loves: scenarios!
(03/14/18 9:48pm)
By Tanner Kinney
Historically, the race for playoffs tends to have some excitement, but many things are already locked in. The top teams are generally already guaranteed a playoff-bye in the final week, but this year no team has been confirmed their playoff-bye. On top of that, the playoff teams themselves qualifying are still on a razor’s edge, with some fates being in the hands of the individual teams, and other fates in the hands of teams like the Golden Guardians. Over the past two weeks, only Echo Fox, Cloud 9, Clutch Gaming, and 100 Thieves have secured a spot. Team Solomid, Team Liquid, and the surprise contender of Counter Logic Gaming are all still competing for those final two spots. Who will claim them? Which meme team will play spoiler? As there’s a lot to cover but not a lot of time, I’m going to touch on something everyone loves: scenarios!
There are a few different combinations of who takes that final spot (for those who love math), but I’ll go over the basic path each team has to make to get that last playoff spot.
Team Liquid
Despite an impressive start, Team Liquid find themselves in an awkward situation. Their strategy has been exposed week after week by teams that definitely shouldn’t be beating them, and as a result their standing have taken a huge hit. TL hasn’t had a 2-0 week since week 3, and have been consistently been going 1-1. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the TL roster that’s causing them to tank so hard. People have their theories, but from my perspective it seems the whole team as a unit is slumping, aka the classic TL problem. Xmithe and Olleh seem to be having the worst of it, but Impact and Doublelift also have their games. It doesn’t help that they lose to teams like CLG, but when Biofrost is so good at bullying in and out of game, there’s not much you can do.
https://twitter.com/Biofrostlol/status/962511719732887552
On the brightside, a 1-1 week is all TL needs to secure a spot in playoffs. Fortunately, they face OpTic in their last week, and OpTic has somehow managed to look worse than the Golden Guardians. Then again, TL has lost to Golden Guardians before. Even if TL loses to Cloud 9 (which is likely), they will still be fine as long as they don’t crash headfirst into the #GREENWALL. Gatekeeping TL from playoffs would be pretty funny for OpTic to do, considering the disparity between the two teams in early power rankings. Knowing this team though, they’ll beat C9 then lose to OpTic, because that’s just bound to happen.
Team Solomid
Team Solomid have made quite the recovery from their early split. It was obvious the team had some kinks to work out, and even though I placed them 8th place in the middle of the split, they don’t deserve that ranking. Their wins have been much more impressive and consistent than TL, and it’s clear improvements are being made. After taking down C9 in week 8, TSM is riding high on momentum that should carry them into the last week. In fact, considering they’ve only lost to 100 Thieves in the past two weeks, I’d say TSM has a good shot of going deep into playoffs, as long as they don’t get an unlucky first draw.
To get to playoffs, though, TSM has to first win at least one game. Their opponents, however, are much scarier than TL’s. While TL is facing an OpTic team that have tilted beyond recognition, TSM is facing a steadily improving Golden Guardians who have nothing to lose as they have no chance of making playoffs. If Golden Guardians can play on TSM’s weaknesses, or even just do some dumb cheese-strategy that will only work once, TSM can lose that game. TSM also faces another playoff contender: Counter Logic Gaming, who have gone 4-0 in the past two weeks. But we’ll get to Counter Logic Gaming in a second. It’s believable that TSM could lose both of these games, but it’s admittedly unlikely. Losing to CLG? Sure, I can see that. Losing to the Golden Guardians? Definitely less believable. But CLG is praying. They have faith in their golden brothers.
https://twitter.com/clgaming/status/972966151239057408
Counter Logic Gaming
Counter Logic Gaming started rough like TSM, but failed to show that much improvement for a while. Many people wrote them off as dumpster tier, unable to win any games, possibly worse than Golden Guardians. I’ve been a CLG fan long enough that I’ve never lost the #FAITH, and gave them honest odds of reaching playoffs. That didn’t seem to be the case in week six, as they took another crushing 0-2 to the solar plexus. At that point, they only way CLG could make playoffs is by winning every single game, and having key rivals losing games. It seemed like it would take a miracle.
Fortunately, the moment you count CLG out is the moment they become their most powerful. That is why they are known as Counter Logic Gaming (among other, real reasons).
After changing shot-calling duties to Biofrost - taking pressure off of Huhi - and luckily having the meta shift in their favor, CLG has had a complete revival. In the past two weeks, as stated before, they have not dropped a single game. This includes taking down teams like Echo Fox in week 8 and C9 and TL both in week 7. The faithful were rewarded once again. They haven’t completed the salty runback yet though, thanks to the top teams giving TL and TSM too many free wins.
Unlike TL and TSM, CLG needs to win both of their games, one against OpTic and one against TSM. If they keep playing like they have been, that’s definitely possible, but beating TSM will be a battle. They also need ONE of TSM or TL to lose BOTH of their games. If TSM and TL both win a single game, the playoff dream is dead. Even if one of those teams loses, CLG still has to beat that team in a tiebreaker game, as they would be tied in head-to-head with either team that loses both of their games. Then, and only THEN will CLG take that last playoff spot. The odds are pretty much completely stacked against CLG. Any analyst worth their salt has already counted them out at this point. But I’m not worth any salt, I’m a zealot with complete and total #FAITH in my boys in blue. I want to see them finish the fight. For me.
Games to Watch: All of Them
The best part about this last week is that every single game matters. The top teams are looking for playoff-byes, while the mid-tier teams I talked about all are looking to secure the last two playoff spots. Of course, most people can’t watch every single game, so I’d say just watch the ones that are vital in deciding the final two teams going into playoffs. Will TL finish their disappointment spree? Will TSM choke before playoffs? Will CLG fail in finishing their flight to the top? So many questions. So many scenarios! This is what makes League of Legends really good.
Well, the final week is upon us, unfortunately. Then we have playoffs, then the Mid-season Invitational. If I continue to do updates for that, I’ll probably have to do a quick rundown of the teams from other regions that aren’t as bad as North America. God bless the USA (and Canada and Mexico) for being bad at League of Legends.
In other news, Patch 8.5 will be played for rest of the split. This patch brings buffs to a number of junglers, namely Nocturne, Olaf, and Rengar. Cinderhulk has also been nerfed, which will make it harder for tank junglers to reach hypertank status. Generally, this means bruisers and assassins re-enter the jungle, but we’ll see. Tristana got altered, somewhat, but we’ll see if that changes her pick or win rate. I have my doubts. Jhin also received some nice buffs, and considering Jhin has been a decent counter to Trist’s weak laning in the past, I think bot lane will be slightly more dynamic. Kai’Sa was also released, and she’s made quite the non-impact. Let’s just say picking her in almost every situation is borderline trolling. The best part of last patch were the Swain buffs, as he’s now a champion! He’s probably a bit too strong, but now that Vladimir has fallen out of favor and Galio got a fat nerf slapped on him, we may see Swain as the new tanky AP option. I’ve been having success with Swain in my solo queue games, but don’t take my word for it, take mid lane expert Scarra’s opinion on it:
https://twitter.com/scarra/status/973335885830701056
Until next week, please stop picking Rengar and Kha’Zix in my solo queue games, all you do is steal kills early then go full Finchy thinking you’re indestructible. No, ending the game 14/20 is NOT a good thing, you were NOT carrying this game, PLEASE uninstall. Thank you.
Images: Tenor, YouTube, Twitter, Medium
(03/10/18 8:01am)
by Tanner Kinney
The roguelike and roguelite genres have been massively successful in the past decade, particularly in the indie scene. The ability to make small, low-budget games that are infinitely replayable is an enticing prospect to a lot of small indie developers. Unfortunately, Steam’s oversaturation problems have made it so a lot of these titles end up not receiving the attention they deserve. Plus, a lot of these roguelikes fail to do anything truly special with the genre. Even the excellent Heat Signature from last year failed to be truly replayable despite a cool aesthetic and world. However, just in the first few months of this year, the genre seems to be climbing back up. The absolutely phenomenal Slay the Spire, despite being early access, has drained countless hours of its playerbase, myself included. And now, from the developers of one of the biggest roguelike games FTL: Faster Than Light enters Into the Breach, another incredibly smartly designed and addictive roguelike that manages to be deep both in gameplay and emotionally.
A battle against aliens on a large scale but a small battlefield
Into the Breach follows a similar pseudo-future world much like the one that FTL: Faster than Light had but sticks to the planet Earth instead of a galaxy-trotting adventure. The story follows a team of pilots who have the ability to travel between timelines in a seemingly hopeless attempt to drive back the invading Vek, an alien race of giant bug monsters destroying what remains of a flooded Earth. These pilots fly giant combat vehicles that have various capabilities and sometimes odd design quirks but are all effective when working together. The player must guide their crew across four islands, completing missions and bonus objective to destroy the Vek and gain that sweet, juicy reputation. The final mission involved taking the battle to the Vek nest, blowing it up from the inside.
At its core, Into the Breach is a grid-based tactics game but on a small scale. Think something like the maps of X-Com but on a scale of roughly 8x8 tiles. This makes for short, intense missions that can be easily picked up and put down. Unlike most tactics games where the goal is to kill the enemies completely, the main objective in Into the Breach is to maintain Grid power, essentially a global health bar. Once that bar hits zero, the mechs cannot be powered, and the Vek finish their destruction of that timeline. It’s okay though, because there are always more timelines that can be saved, even if one ends in failure.
A unique part about this is that sometimes losing health on the player controlled units is optimal. Compared to something like Fire Emblem, where every hit could mean permadeath for a beloved character, the mechs can take enough hits that sometimes, to preserve Grid power, the player must order a pilot into the line of fire. This is surprisingly emotionally taxing, as each pilot has a name and sometimes a unique portrait and backstory. To save the world, sacrifices must be made. In terms of creating highly emotional situations, this game nails that completely.
Another unique gameplay element that stems from the global health bar is that killing the enemies isn’t always the best way to win. In fact, it’s very rarely the best way to win. The early learning curve of the game can be brutal until it’s discovered that simply avoiding taking damage is better than outright killing the Vek. Attacks performed by certain mechs not only deal damage, but also push and pull to units out of their position. This means the giant punching mech can push a bug about to destroy a building out of the way, sometimes into the line of fire of another enemy attack. Enemies can also be repositioned to block more enemies from spawning. The amount of variants in strategy is so numerous that it wouldn’t be feasible to write about them all here. The insane depth held within the small 8x8 grids makes for a strategy game that’s not only fast-paced, but also a deeply tactical experience.
A bright pixel aesthetic to contrast the dark, high energy soundtrack
One of the key defining traits of Subset Games’ previous title FTL: Faster than Light is the unique pixel aesthetic that is believably futuristic while also being very simple. Into the Breach delivers on that but even manages to improve upon the previous game. Characters within the game are given full portraits for their dialogue within mission, and the artwork there is just beautiful. The designs of the different mechs are all unique and easily recognizable, key within a strategy game like this. The enemy designs for the different types of enemies are mostly unique, but some enemies like the scorpions and the leapers sometimes can be confused for each based on how similarly they are designed. The different islands, despite mostly just being recolors based on the combat environment, also look very vibrant and distinct. For a game that can be as emotionally heavy as Into the Breach, the bright pixel aesthetic really helps make the game pop.
Another key trait of FTL: Faster than Light is the moody, atmospheric music by Ben Prunty. While Into the Breach ditches the slow, atmospheric music, the change made here is definitely a good one. The more atmospheric soundtrack of FTL: Faster than Light served the lonely space travel very well and is quite good. Into the Breach moves to much more upbeat but still relatively dark soundtrack that fits the fast-paced tactical gameplay while keeping the oppressive atmosphere of a planet under fire. The battle themes for the different robot squads that can be unlocked are all fantastic in their own ways and provide even more depth to the individual stories of these teams. Into the Breach’s soundtrack might even be better than FTL: Faster than Light’s, and that’s an impressive bar to reach.
Addiction made manifest through a smart progression system, but sometimes fails
A good roguelike game needs to be replayable. For example, the fantastic Slay the Spire keeps every run fresh by giving the player new cards to build their combat decks as they climb the spire. Into the Breach has a very strong progression system, though it struggles to be as addictive as other members of the genre. Each pilot has an experience progression system similar to X-Com, with each promotion giving a new skill that enhances their ability to pilot the mechs. Some pilots can move more tiles, while others can use more mech reactor energy to boost their strength. When a run inevitably dies, because they will, the player can choose a pilot to bring from one timeline into another. This means that a fully promoted unit isn’t lost when a run is lost and can allow a very strong boost through the sometimes brutal early game.
Unfortunately, aside from using coins from achievements to buy new mech teams, there isn’t much else carried between runs. Each map will be randomized, of course, but due to the 8x8 grid, a lot of maps can begin to feel very similar. The train maps in particular tend to all play out the same way and are the most reliably easy mission to take on if they appear, though I’ve heard from some people that they are actually quite challenging. After doing a number of runs in a row, the game can become a bit stale. The core gameplay is definitely amazing to play in short bursts but over long periods of time can become a bit of a drag. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, just something to think about for people looking for their next addiction.
Featured image from Wccftech
(03/05/18 12:48am)
As I write these articles, I start to learn more about how to actually be an analyst. For one, in the word count I like to maintain with these articles, I can’t be as in-depth as I’d like. For two, it’s easier to judge a team when you actually have time to fully watch every game. You can miss a lot by just looking at results and highlight reels. My power rankings last week were probably a bit, well... I admit I made a few mistakes. Not a day goes by that I don’t call myself a fraud. As once said by the famous George Lucas, “I may have gone too far in a few places.” You can never count out the underdogs. Though, since they are in the middle of the standings, they aren’t huge underdogs. So, like middledogs? Is that a thing? It is now.
(03/04/18 10:49pm)
by Tanner Kinney
As I write these articles, I start to learn more about how to actually be an analyst. For one, in the word count I like to maintain with these articles, I can’t be as in-depth as I’d like. For two, it’s easier to judge a team when you actually have time to fully watch every game. You can miss a lot by just looking at results and highlight reels. My power rankings last week were probably a bit, well... I admit I made a few mistakes. Not a day goes by that I don’t call myself a fraud. As once said by the famous George Lucas, “I may have gone too far in a few places.” You can never count out the underdogs. Though, since they are in the middle of the standings, they aren’t huge underdogs. So, like middledogs? Is that a thing? It is now.
As the last few weeks shake out, there seem to be three tiers: the top two, the bottom two (or three), and then everyone else in the middle. At the top, of course, you have Echo Fox and C9. At the bottom, you have the meme teams of Golden Guardians and OpTic Gaming, along with Counter Logic Gaming if you don’t have #faith. And then, in that juicy, delicious middle bit, you have all the crazy teams. Team Solomid seem to go back and forth between trash tier and kings. 100 Thieves have hit their stride again. And Clutch, Team Liquid, and even FlyQuest (sometimes) have had enough good showings to be legitimate threats. Momentum is huge in the LCS, though, so let’s take a look at a couple of teams who are riding high off impressive 2-0 weeks and see what they can translate going into the wild west of Patch 8.4, especially compared to their brothers in the middle of the pack.
Team SoloMalcolm in the Middle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsOCAUWpR0c
First, though it gives me great pains, I will admit that I completely counted Team Solomid out for reasons that, well, weren’t really justified. Sure, they have terrible showings in their first few weeks, but they’ve shown strong performances before, and this past week they picked up their first 2-0. They took down OpTic, which was expected, but surprisingly managed to take down the top team of Echo Fox, and very cleanly too. It was shocking to see this TSM roster manage to easily beat the best team in the League, but I guess that was my fault for counting out their strengths. Then again, is their win against Echo Fox really indicative of any improvement? The last team I talked about beating Echo Fox was CLG, and, well, they aren’t looking so hot right now. Did TSM play really well, or did Echo Fox just play badly?
Take a look at the draft. This is where Echo Fox’s first mistake was made. Why Fiora mid? Why Zilean support with Kalista? And why Vladimir with the rest of the comp? It was just bizarre. TSM’s comp may have lacked a hyper tank like Sejuani, but Galio and Camille can get tanky enough. Plus, the Camille and Galio ultimate combo can be very deadly when Galio builds damage items, which he of course did. Huni may have performed well on the Vladimir, but the rest of the comp just didn’t make sense together. I’ve seen Fiora as a Galio counter pick in the past, but Fenix wasn’t able to make use of the pick other than to get a farm lead. Fenix overall just seemed to be underperforming hard, which may be the result of Echo Fox trying new things on stage. If this was best-of-threes, I’d understand a little bit. In best-of-one’s, however, TSM was able to abuse Echo Fox’s attempt at being cheeky and trying new things.
To their credit though, TSM’s roster also looked like they’ve improved as well. I think TSM is probably better than I ranked them and definitely have a high chance of making playoffs if they convert their work in these games into future weeks. Echo Fox, however, needs to work on their ability to win games against worse teams, then they’ll be as good as C9. Oh, wait.
100 Kings is better than Clown 9, mathematically
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn4Vd17yafQ
And now the other team I probably underrated, 100 Thieves. Despite my constant flame of my friend who put a bunch of stock into 100 Thieves early, even though they didn’t seem that great to me, I will admit it here: they are a pretty good team. Well, components of the team are good. I still think that 100 Thieves have a number of weaknesses, and they can’t keep getting away with murder. Or theft in their case. Like TSM, 100 Thieves had a 2-0 week and took down the other team at the top, Cloud 9. Plus, unlike TSM, there’s much less room to reason that the win wasn’t entirely deserved.
For the most part, both teams ran pretty standard drafts. I’m always iffy about Skarner personally, but that tactic has done very well since the buffs they gave him earlier in the split. Teams have performed well on it. C9 themselves have done well with Skarner, it being a popular ban against Svenskeren. The real surprise was Aphromoo pulling out the Thresh pick. Aphro is one of those supports who’s become famous for roaming, hooking supports like Thresh and Blitzcrank (and Bard, sort of). Aphromoo was key in victory; it seems like every skillshot he fired landed. He gifted Cody Sun a massive lead, similar to how I give my duo trash ADC free kills in lane, and then Cody Sun could just pop off. If you listen to the shotcalling within the game, Aphro is also guiding the ship, making the big calls. He’s always been considered one of the greats, and though he stagnated on CLG, he seems to be returning to form.
So, is 100 Thieves actually good now? Will they convert their momentum into future weeks? Looking at the remainder of their schedule, there’s a good chance. 100 Thieves seem like a very momentum based team. When they are on fire, they are like a mini-inferno, scorching everything in their path. When they get stopped and set back, it takes a bit for them to warm back up. If they can avoid losing to TSM next week, then I expect them to keep rolling into their match against Echo Fox in Week Nine. If they do get stopped, well, at least the week after they only have to play against the LCS meme teams.
Games to Watch
Echo Fox vs Golden Guardians on Saturday at 8:00 pm EST
Echo Fox may have lost their against TSM, but they followed it up by completely smashing Team Liquid’s NA LCS speedrun record with an impressive 22 minute game. Can Echo Fox beat their personal best against the worst team in the League? I sure hope so, especially since games on 8.4 seem to end much, much sooner than previous patches.
100 Thieves vs Team Solomid on Sunday at 5:00 pm EST
Hey hey, what a coincidence that the two teams I talked about here, both coming off 2-0 recovery weeks, are facing each other in week seven! I’m so good, it’s like I planned it. In reality, I’m excited to see how these two teams carry their momentum into week seven, and assuming now Saturday upsets for both teams, we get to watch someone’s winning streak end. At the very least, I can flame my friend who’s a fan of both teams regardless of the result.
Week six done and gone, and I finally get to watch every game live again. I missed it more than you’d expect. I’ve continued to play more games on the recent patch, and I’ve personally discovered that mage supports are quite good when played well and that any character that used Tear of the Goddess got straight buffed. While my first thoughts were Karthus and Veigar, that also includes Ryze and Cassiopeia, two incredibly strong, high skill-cap mages with lower win rates in solo queue but high win rates in pro play. Ryze in particular has almost hit a 50 percent win rate in solo queue, which means he’ll be god tier in pro play again. That’s just fantastic. Again, Zoe is gutter trash until they figure out how to fix her, and the Tracker’s Knife removal will alter the jungle landscape completely. Once again, early game junglers will find themselves in a better place, and players like Lira and Akaddian may start returning to form. We’ll have to find out, but those are just some thoughts from me. Until next week, I hope your recent games have been going better than mine, because I’m still on a massive loss streak. Someone help. Please.
Images: YouTube, DLBTAP
(02/25/18 1:05am)
Week five has finished and, honestly, there weren’t too many surprising results. The week played out pretty normally, at least until Team Liquid got bopped by Golden Guardians, which will be covered later, don’t worry. In the meantime, I promised mid-split power rankings and I’m going to talk about teams playoff potential. Only the top six teams will be competing for that big win and a chance to represent North America at the Mid-Season Invitational and I don’t think every team has a chance to get there. Just like before, these predictions are based on perceived power going into the second half of the split, along with their previous results. Consistency and stability are key for top teams, while really impressive looking, but volatile teams may find themselves lower than expected. I hope that someone gets really angry at this—it will make my month.
(02/25/18 12:32am)
by Tanner Kinney
Week five has finished and, honestly, there weren’t too many surprising results. The week played out pretty normally, at least until Team Liquid got bopped by Golden Guardians, which will be covered later, don’t worry. In the meantime, I promised mid-split power rankings and I’m going to talk about teams playoff potential. Only the top six teams will be competing for that big win and a chance to represent North America at the Mid-Season Invitational and I don’t think every team has a chance to get there. Just like before, these predictions are based on perceived power going into the second half of the split, along with their previous results. Consistency and stability are key for top teams, while really impressive looking, but volatile teams may find themselves lower than expected. I hope that someone gets really angry at this—it will make my month.
1. Cloud 9
If you look at the standings, Cloud 9 isn’t at the top. That doesn’t mean they any worse of a team. In fact, I’d say that Echo Fox and C9 are looking really close together at the top, but I’d give the edge to C9 because of how consistently well they play. C9 has had their share of comebacks and little fiestas, of course, but they haven’t had the fiestas to the level of Echo Fox. C9 will win games consistently against worse teams, while Echo Fox lost to Counter Logic Gaming, who are straight garbage. C9 tends to build leads from strong macro play building off of the great play by the entire roster. Even when losing early game to TSM, in Week 5, they are able to claim victory. In terms of playoff potential, they will easily be able to grab a playoff spot, and likely a playoff bye for being in the top two.
2. Echo Fox
Echo Fox is a fantastic team. Sometimes they look like the best team in NA, possibly in the West as a whole. Then, other times, they just make mistakes and lose leads to teams that they really shouldn’t be losing to. I’ve already said a lot about why Echo Fox is lower than C9, but it really is just that I don’t trust their consistency going into the future. Immortals with Huni also won a lot of games, and they never made an LCS finals match. They will make playoffs, and probably grab the second playoff bye as well. Unless Dardoch self-destructs.
3. Clutch Gaming
According to TSM Hauntzer, Clutch Gaming is a team that has no good points. TSM Hauntzer has also been 2-0’d by Clutch Gaming. CG is one of my personal favorite teams to watch, just because they’re games are so exciting. This is likely a bit of a biased placement, but hey, the standings at least agree with me. CG has a lot of strong players, and some of them haven’t even reached their final form. Lira still hasn’t looked to his previous form, and once he gets there, CG can only improve. They will make playoffs easily, and if Echo Fox goes kaboom they might even grab a playoff bye. I doubt it though.
4. Team Liquid
How appropriate for Team Liquid to be fourth. This isn’t even a meme, they really are the fourth best team right now. TL has a lot of good moments. Sometimes they smash teams with ease, having the fastest games this split. Sometimes they fumble and look terrible, getting smashed by the freaking Golden Guardians. TL has also lost to 100 Thieves, which really shouldn’t have happened. They are just kind of a mess of a team. Still, they are better than most as long as they don’t choke, just because the roster is so good. They will likely make playoffs, but I don’t think they’ll be able to grab a playoff bye.
5. FlyQuest
This is harder to judge than you’d expect. 100 Thieves and FlyQuest are both close in the standings, and there are different strengths for each of them. FlyQuest has struggled to beat teams better than them, but they haven’t lost against teams worse than them, other than CLG. 100 Thieves has beaten teams like CG and TL, but also lost to the Golden Guardians, TSM, and, well, FlyQuest. I think FlyQuest’s roster has higher potential than 100T, to be honest, so I’ll give the edge to them. Once FLY Fly gets settled in, the team will probably pick up more wins. I think FlyQuest will make playoffs, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see them booted out if another lower team starts a salty runback to the top.
6. 100 Thieves
Some will say this is hate bias that puts them this low, and yeah, partially. I just am still not convinced that this roster is any good over time. They’ve had strong games, but also games were Meteos and Ryu just get embarrassed. Cody Sun is good sometimes, but sometimes he’s Cody Done. It’s a hard call. They, at least, have similar odds of making playoffs as FlyQuest.
7. Counter Logic Gaming
Ignore the CLG icons I have on both my main account and my smurf account, there’s no bias here. CLG doesn’t really have anything iconic about them. Their star personalities have all left, and the organization just seems lost. The team itself I still want to believe can turn it around and pull a salty runback. The buffs to bruisers and assassins in the jungle will definitely help Reignover and he’s sort of the deciding factor for this team’s success. If he sucks, the team sucks. Stixxay hasn’t had great performances either, but he’s looked good on Ezreal. It’s a tough call, but considering they were able to beat Echo Fox, they have a chance to challenge the best teams. I think, if they start the salty runback, they could claim a playoff spot. It’ll be close, but they might do it. I have faith.
8. Team SoloMid
https://twitter.com/karonmoser/status/965327686246764545
The only thing preventing me from putting this horrible disappointment of a TSM roster at the very bottom is the fact that I really would be a fraud for putting OpTic and Golden Guardians above them. To me, the reason TSM sits lower than CLG is the fact that their roster looks so good on paper, but is getting completely wasted and there’s no real good reason as to why. TSM just tries to stall out games, and either just gets run over for not being proactive, or throws the game by getting a key objective stolen from MikeYeung. At the very least, TSM has finally been able to transfer their worlds performance to the NA LCS stage. That’s not a good thing. I don’t want to even see TSM at playoffs, I think it would benefit the team more if they didn’t make it. They still could, if I’m being realistic, but the margin is slim.
9. OpTic Gaming
OpTic isn’t the worst team. Congratulations! You win... absolutely nothing. OpTic’s roster seems like it could work, but none of the players seem to work together. On top of that, Lemonnation really just needs to retire. He’s missed more point-blank skillshots than I do, and I’m a gold player. PowerOfEvil really did pick a roster that gets him another chance at worlds; now, PoE makes enough money to buy worlds tickets, and he can enjoy worlds in the best seats in the house. In case you’re wondering: no, they won’t make playoffs.
10. Golden Guardians
https://twitter.com/GoldenGuardians/status/959516664931823616
Another team with a washed up former C9 player, Golden Guardians just are the butt of jokes for this split. In the race to the bottom, they’ve lost even to OpTic. This is another case of a roster just being kind of a joke, even more so than OpTic. The bot lane of Deftly and Matt is just outclassed by almost everyone else, the mid lane of Hai just seems to always lose lane, and it looks like Lourlo is the only person trying to win games at this point. Contractz went from one of the best junglers in NA to being a shadow of his former self. And that’s completely ignoring the whole fiasco with Locodoco, which at least made for good memes. At the very least, they beat Team Liquid. That’s gotta mean something, right? And again, no, they won’t make playoffs.
I’ve played a few games on Patch 8.4 at this point, and I’m not sure what to think. The nerfs to tank supports didn’t really do much, and the mage items changes just made it harder for mage supports to itemize CDR and damage—at least in my experience. Reddit told me that mage supports would be coming back, but it was all lies. At least the mid lane is getting shaken up, with some different picks gaining power. I think we’ll start to see more Veigar picks as games continue to go on for hours, since he scales so well with the new items AND the rune Gathering Storm. Kai’Sa also got announced as a new ADC, but with 500 range, a shield, and AP ratios, I doubt she’ll see much play in the bot lane. Maybe she’ll be played mid or top, like Corki or Lucian. Also, Lee Sin is now unplayable, which is good. At the very least, Zoe has been gutted and is completely trash now. God bless you Riot Games, no longer do you need to fire the live design team. Until next week, here’s a reminder to continue to ban Zoe so your teammates don’t feed as her. You won’t regret it.
Images: YouTube, Twitter, Esportsranks
(02/19/18 11:46pm)
Now, let me start by saying I wasn’t able to catch the games live for week four. So, despite being a true fraud, I will personally apologize for this week of analysis. I’d also like to issue an apology on behalf of anyone who bet on the teams that were expected to win, because no one could be expected to predict the absolute madness week four brought us. 100 Thieves got exposed sooner than expected, picking up no wins against teams they definitely should have beaten. Team Solomid and Counter Logic Gaming failed to capitalize on their upswing from last week, both taking losses on the first day. TSM only picked up a win on day two because, well, they played CLG. And finally, Clutch Gaming is starting to deliver on some of that promise they showed early in the season. It’s a shame there’s so much to talk about this week, because I don’t have time to cover it all. Instead, I’m going to talk about a couple of teams I haven’t really touched on in detail.
(02/17/18 6:26pm)
by Tanner Kinney
Now, let me start by saying I wasn’t able to catch the games live for week four. So, despite being a true fraud, I will personally apologize for this week of analysis. I’d also like to issue an apology on behalf of anyone who bet on the teams that were expected to win, because no one could be expected to predict the absolute madness week four brought us. 100 Thieves got exposed sooner than expected, picking up no wins against teams they definitely should have beaten. Team Solomid and Counter Logic Gaming failed to capitalize on their upswing from last week, both taking losses on the first day. TSM only picked up a win on day two because, well, they played CLG. And finally, Clutch Gaming is starting to deliver on some of that promise they showed early in the season. It’s a shame there’s so much to talk about this week, because I don’t have time to cover it all. Instead, I’m going to talk about a couple of teams I haven’t really touched on in detail.
100 Thieves, caught and detained by local Guardians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV4ofE6wQ6U
Last week, I predicted that the 100 Thieves would start losing games and falling in the standings. Now, this was partially because I don’t think their roster can consistently deliver and partially because my friend is a big 100 Thieves fan and I wanted to rustle his jimmies a bit. I did not predict, however, that they would lose to FlyQuest and Golden Guardians. As it turns out, they really are 100 Frauds. I don’t know what’s a bigger story, Golden Guardians picking up their first win, or 100 Thieves losing to the Guardians. FlyQuest, at the very least, picked up their win off the back of a smart (at least, unique) draft and their new mid laner FLY Fly. The Guardians changed absolutely nothing other than having Locodoco get fired for disrespecting women. So, how in the hell did the predicted 0-18 team pick up a win against a team that, admittedly, looked like top of the table material?
Looking at the draft, I have absolutely no idea how GGS pulled through. With Camille jungle and Illaoi top lane pulled straight out of solo queue, versus a very meta team drafted by 100 Thieves, a better team would have won. For a while, 100 Thieves WERE doing well. Yet, with some insane play by Contractz on Camille completely outmaneuvering Meteos’s Sejuani, getting good flanks and counter ganks, and some really good teamfights from GGS, they jailed the Thieves before they could make their getaway. I’d give the win to Contractz, of course, because he really did step up, but EVERYONE from GGS stepped up their game. The team drafted, also, turned out to be incredibly smart by GGS, with the Camille countering the Azir pick. 100 Thieves also just seemed to be doing poorly this week. Meteos in particular is getting caught out and looking rather weak, with the bot lane not doing much better. It’ll be interesting to see whether GGS continues to do well, or goes back to the trash. I just hope 100 Thieves keep losing, because starting strong and then losing horribly would be appropriately Finchy of them.
Clutching onto victory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBOl-wByBw0
I think one of the teams I was most excited for was Clutch Gaming. EnVy last year, particularly in the summer split, was a team that at their best looked amazing and was fun to watch. At their worst they had trouble actually winning games. The age-old adage of the wise sage William “Scarra” Li applied to EnVy, “up until they lose, they are winning.” Clutch Gaming, the team bought by the Houston Rockets, not only had a funny dumb name in the preseason (Clutch City Gaming), but also were essentially EnVy but with upgrades in the top and mid lanes. They’ve had trouble actually pulling out wins, again, but are looking stronger than before. Now, in week four, they finally find success taking down both TSM and the #GREENWALL. Not exactly huge victories, but certain players have proven their worth and strength.
Take a look at their win against TSM. At first, it may look like Clutch won by simply waiting for TSM to outplay themselves (which they did). It also looks like Clutch should have lost from their abysmal level one play where Clutch failed an invade and got two members killed by TSM. TSM was racking up wins and tower kills, but failing to secure objectives like dragons or Barons. Why? Because our hero, the legend Apollo Price himself made ultimate plays, stealing key objectives from the lackluster looking Mike “MikeYeung” Yeung. Lira may not have looked good on Skarner (or in most of their games, really), but at least they secured objectives. And, let’s just say that Corki, Ezreal, and Gangplank picking up two Infernal Drakes shouldn’t have tipped late game team fights in favor of Clutch Gaming’s raw damage. TSM simply just can’t do anything with the leads they have. For Clutch, the (Apollo) Price is Right.
Games to Watch
OpTic Gaming v. Golden Guardians on Saturday at 5:00 pm EST
It’s a race to the bottom and OpTic and the Guardians are trying not to be the ones sitting down in the gutter. Both of them picked up wins in week four, but are still obviously the weakest teams in the league as of right now. For this match, I actually expect the Guardians to pull out another win. OpTic may have better players, but are playing like less of team than the Guardians. Plus, if the Guardians can pull out another smart draft, they ought to have victory secured.
Cloud 9 v. Echo Fox on Sunday at 5:00 pm EST
We are at the middle of the split! This means that rematches begin. In the first round robin, Echo Fox took the win over Cloud 9. Cloud 9, however, has shown huge improvement in taking down almost every other team and sitting at the top of the bracket. Will Cloud 9 continue their ascension or will Echo Fox pull them back to Earth? Probably the first, I believe in Cloud 9. I would be willing to say they are probably the best team right now.
Another week gone, and we are reaching the halfway point. That means it’s probably time for more power rankings. This season it seems they aren’t having a week break in the middle like they’ve had in the past, so that will be next week unless something insane happens—watch out for that. In terms of upcoming patches and whatnot, Zoe is finally getting substantial nerfs in patch 8.4. Plus, a quick word on the viability of new Swain: he sucks. I’ve yet to see, in high elo play, Swain do well. He lacks damage and tankiness despite having both. He’s basically a worse alternative to Vladimir. I doubt he’ll see play until his numbers get buffed. Finally, Kog’Maw nerfs have turned out to be very impactful, and the new top ADC’s are Tristana and Varus. Tristana in particular is insane, simple, and effective. She’s so good, even my duo (trash) friend can climb by playing her. I hope they buff other options instead of nerfing her though. Don’t do it Riot, don’t put ADC in the gutter. We can’t go back to the dark days. Never again. To end, one final phrase from scholar and super top laner Hashinshin: “fire the live design team.”
Sources: ESPN
Images: YouTube, The Rift Herald
(02/09/18 8:18pm)
To be honest, week three wasn’t looking like an exciting week of games initially. Every game just seemed like a mismatch between a team on the top end of bracket and a team on the bottom end. During Sunday’s games, they seemed so predictable that both of the analysts on the desk predicted the exact same winner for each game, purely coincidentally. I also didn’t expect much from this week. It just seemed like we’d see if the top teams really were as strong as they looked. As it turns out, a few teams we counted out just came back and surprised us, while the true top teams didn’t falter in crushing their enemies. As we start getting closer to the middle of the season, the best teams I think will reach their place at the top, while the frauds who took advantage of the early chaos will start to be exploited.
(02/09/18 6:27pm)
by Tanner Kinney
To be honest, week three wasn’t looking like an exciting week of games initially. Every game just seemed like a mismatch between a team on the top end of bracket and a team on the bottom end. During Sunday’s games, they seemed so predictable that both of the analysts on the desk predicted the exact same winner for each game, purely coincidentally. I also didn’t expect much from this week. It just seemed like we’d see if the top teams really were as strong as they looked. As it turns out, a few teams we counted out just came back and surprised us, while the true top teams didn’t falter in crushing their enemies. As we start getting closer to the middle of the season, the best teams I think will reach their place at the top, while the frauds who took advantage of the early chaos will start to be exploited.
Return of the King(s)
The first two weeks were absolutely brutal for both Team Solomid and Counter Logic Gaming. By the end of week two, both teams only managed to pick up a single win against a team that was predicted to be low tier trash anyways, and even then CLG seemed to only barely beat the Golden Guardians. I was with the angry Reddit commenters, blaming TSM’s communication and saying that the CLG roster needed to be gutted completely, or at least Reignover needed to be cut. Serious work needed to be done by these teams if they wanted to compete with the undefeated Echo Fox and the explosive looking 100 Thieves. Fortunately, it seemed that the first two teams awoke a fire in TSM and CLG, with both scoring a 2-0 week that they should’ve been scoring much, much sooner.
CLG vs Echo Fox began week three with a bang. The match lived up to usual Echo Fox bloodbath expectations, but this time CLG flowed with their chaos instead of trying to fight against it. At the start, Echo Fox were taking anything they could and getting away with it. Huhi’s Zoe was seemingly getting shut down, while Reignover’s Nunu did little else but secure dragons early on. In CLG’s favor, Darshan kept advantages in the top lane, while the bot lane went relatively even. It still seemed like Echo Fox’s raw power was going to take down another team. Fortunately for the viewers, that’s not what happened.
I believe the real deciding factor of this game is the absolutely disgusting pick potential from Huhi. Huhi’s usage of the Sleepy Trouble Bubble kept finding CLG kills they would not have gotten otherwise. Combined with Braum stuns from Biofrost and Nunu’s Bloodboil, Stixxay’s Kalista was given free reign to start melting targets, particularly in the last fight near Elder Dragon where they picked up a clean ace and ended the game. Echo Fox was completely unable to push their advantages simply by the pick power the CLG composition had. Zoe may be busted, but CLG used that power to their advantage. It may not have been clean, but taking a win off an undefeated team had to feel good for the struggling CLG.
The other former king, TSM, showed an impressive week, not only having two very clean victories, but one of those victories being against a team that was previously sitting at the top of the standings. Their match against 100 Thieves may not have been the bloodbath that CLG had, but it was completely controlled by TSM at all times. Though TSM lost a couple of kills early, they got picks that mattered and snowballed a lead purely off of objective control. 100 Thieves may have picked up a few tower kills, but they could not get a single Dragon or Baron buff out of TSM’s hands. Getting good luck with the Dragon spawns was big boon to TSM as well.
On top of all of that, Bjergsen and Hauntzer played absolutely out of their minds, completely eclipsing everyone else in terms of damage dealt. Even though 100 Thieves almost started to pull it back, the dominating lead TSM had just was too strong for them. Finally, TSM was able to execute on that controlled, calculated TSM style they had been trying to against a team perceived as good. I still hold it that 100 Thieves are a bunch of frauds, and once teams get better they will drop in the standings, but that’s besides the point. TSM simply put out an amazing performance this week, and I’m excited to see them start their climb back to the top like a sports anime protagonist.
All around me are familiar faces
The big hype of the season was around the new teams entering the Rift. Despite that, most of those teams were placed relatively low in most power rankings, my own included. The ol’ reliable teams like Cloud 9 and Team Liquid stayed at the top, while good looking new teams like Clutch Gaming sat at the bottom. Just looking at the current standings, the only new team above fifth place is 100 Thieves, and I expect them to start losing more in the coming weeks. Maybe not next week, considering they face FlyQuest and the LULden Guardians, but soon enough. I’m notoriously wrong in my predictions though. So, what makes Cloud 9 and Team Liquid so consistent?
Let’s start with Team Liquid. They got taken down a peg in week two after losing to 100 Thieves, but didn’t let that keep them down. The mark of a truly good top team is being able to soundly beat the bottom teams, sometimes absolutely murdering them. Team Liquid is definitely a good team at doing that. They’ve beaten their own record for fastest game time of the split three times already. It’s like watching the speedrunner Darbian beat his own world records over and over again. Their current best was scored against the LULden Guardians, clocking in at 26:24. The Guardians got absolutely nothing other than a sound beating from Pobelter’s Azir. There’s almost no silver lining for the Guardians in that game, it was just a massacre. Team Liquid also put up a similarly good performance against FlyQuest the day before, with FlyQuest also getting nothing but a sound beating from Pobelter’s Corki. Pobelter is a monster, and has a good team around him to highlight that. Finally, the prodigal son of North America is rising to the top as a godlike mid laner. He might even be top ten best in NA now.
Similarly, Cloud 9 had their brains turned on in their matches against OpTic and Clutch Gaming. C9 beat OpTic thanks to some amazing play by Smoothie, along with the team as a whole just playing so well with Smoothie’s aggressive Alistar. I wish my Alistar was as clean as Smoothie’s, but I’m also a dirty Janna one-trick so my brain is too small for that. Clutch Gaming did slightly better than OpTic, giving C9 a little bit of a struggle, but C9 still scored the victory in that game, again, thanks to Smoothie. Credit to Clutch Gaming, Febiven is looking like a monster and the Clutch bot lane is looking fairly solid, but C9 is just too strong and too consistent. Their only loss was to Echo Fox, another first place team, so it’s truly commendable how well they’ve been doing, especially since analysts like myself expected them to do worse with Svenskeren and Licorice. Sven and Licorice have been absolutely amazing for the team, Licorice especially smashing any and all expectations people had for him despite being a rookie. It’s always a pleasure to see C9 do well, as long as they never return to the dark days of almost relegation. Never again.
Games to Watch
Cloud 9 v. Team Liquid on Saturday at 6:00 pm EST
Two first place teams battle it out for sole possession of first place (until Echo Fox plays later that day). These matches are always exciting, just because two top teams battling it out will always lead to a great game, generally. It may not be as bloody as an Echo Fox game, but it’ll be good. Plus, Pobelter’s on a quest to prove himself as the best mid laner in NA, and Jensen stands in his way of that title. I think Team Liquid will pull out the win, but both teams are so close that it will be exciting to watch.
Team Solomid v. Counter Logic Gaming on Sunday at 7:00 pm EST
The original El Clásico of the NA LCS, TSM and CLG have both been on an upswing from week three. Who is swinging harder? Will TSM’s raw power be too much for CLG, or will the Counter Logic chaos take down TSM’s methodic playstyle? CLG likes to get messy in their games, for better or for worse. I think TSM will probably handily win this game because CLG is actually a terrible team with no redeeming qualities and I have absolutely no faith in them at all. Nope, never rooting for CLG. This is definitely not me trying to lower the CLG hype so that they can pull out a win when you believe in them the least. Nope, not at all. CLG is just a trash team.
A quick concluding look at upcoming patches, 8.4 is looking like it’ll shake up competitive play a bit. Mage items are getting revamped, so certain champions that are currently good may either get better or worse depending on how broken the new items are on them. I honestly don’t know WHO will be strong, but I’d like to believe that Veigar may make a reappearance. Or rather, I hope Veigar makes a reappearance. He’s my favorite tiny master of evil. 8.3 on the other hand, eh, not likely to do that much, other than Ryze might see less play. We won’t see 8.4 for a few weeks though, so who knows how teams will be looking by then. In other news, my duo partner and I both reached Gold ranking this past weekend. It’s not a huge achievement, but my duo partner only recently started playing and he’s already better than people who have played it for eight years. So, remember to always chase your dreams kids, even if you are duo trash.
Images: YouTube, Esportsranks
(02/08/18 12:32am)
by Tanner Kinney
Picture this: you are in a bar with your best friends: Shaggy, Solid Snake, Garfield, and Hank Hill. You are simply talking about life, Hank and Shaggy share a toast to their struggles and Garfield complains about Mondays on a Saturday evening. Suddenly, the bar is invaded by a gang of angry penguins, all demanding typical penguin things from the bar patrons. Garfield attempts to bail, but is taken down immediately. All seems lost. However, the lost Knuckles tribe has arrived to the bar as well, and spit on the penguins harassing their queen, the beautiful Nep-Nep that sounds like a 30 year-old neck-bearded man behind his voice changer. You thank the Knuckleses (Knuckles’s? Knuckli?) for their contribution, and ask if there’s anything you can do for them. Simply, they inquire one thing:
“Do you know de wey?”
This scenario is one that may seem like someone did all of the hallucinogenic drugs at once while watching Boomerang and old commercials for PlayStation games, then documented their thoughts live, but is something entirely possible thanks to the power of technology. The true purpose of virtual reality is to bring back the hit spiritual successor to Second Life, VRChat. VRChat is essentially the O.A.S.I.S. from Ready Player One, except with less shameless pop culture references and features people with personalities. The player takes on an avatar, generally some dumb meme or an anime girl, and just interacts with other people playing characters. That’s about it. The locations vary greatly, and some servers and maps are ripped one-to-one from their source, but really it is just a social simulator.
This social simulator, however, has become an internet phenomenon. Twitch streams are widely popular, with people like Pokelawls, Jameskii, and many more getting huge off of this VR craze. There may not be real money to be made in VRChat, but there’s an economy much stronger than any traditional economy: a memeconomy. The memes flow faster and stronger with every stream, and famous characters like Hank Hill are given a whole new personality that is scarily close to his original appearances. There’s too much going on in VRChat at any time that discussing its history would be akin to writing a brief history of every major event on the Earth, so I’m just going to cover a few more famous characters and happening within this wacky world.
The Loli Epidemic
A very common set of characters that appear as avatars within VRChat are anime girls, voiced by adult males because, as we all know, GIRL stands for Guy In Real Life. Some of these anime girls are your typical fair: tall, angsty looking, scantily clad, and with proportions as realistic as getting a 5-star pizza from Little Caesars. But that’s not the only type of anime girl, those blend into the crowd. The ones that stand out and start fights are the lolis. For those who still have some self-respect left and don’t know what a loli is, essentially it is a girl who looks like she’s 12 years old. The story may say she’s a 3000 year old vampire or an immortal aspect of the elements or some other cop-out but she looks like she’s 12.
In VRChat, they appear in great numbers, generally sticking with generic lolis but some are more iconic. One of those is Kanna, the adorable please-do-not-lewd dragon girl from the anime Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. She’s easily one of my favorite anime characters because she’s so gosh darn cute. In VRChat, Kanna is essentially like the bait Chris Hansen would have on To Catch A Predator. They solicit and tempt poor unsuspecting weaboos - or 'weebs' - and have run rampant for far too long. The Kanna’s are in such great numbers that they even have their own anthem, a parody of “Gucci Gang” called “Kanna Gang.” Some people have even taken to kidnapping the lolis for whatever reason to remove them from society. Truly, the lolis are a danger to society.
Also, to anyone who truly thinks it’s okay to lewd the 12 year old looking girls, and to those stalking the pure lolis on VRChat, there’s only one thing I have to say to you:
People Getting Too Into Character
As someone who dabbled in internet forum usage back before I discovered actual video games, I used to participate in “role-playing” on internet forums. Generally, they were Pokemon themed, text-based role playing games with some actual mechanics, sort of. I never really understood it, I was too young. It wouldn’t be until I picked up playing Dungeons & Dragons that I would understand the power of the role-player. And I hate it dearly outside of its environment. When I play Final Fantasy XIV, I shun all people doing their disgusting role-playing as their trashy cat-girl Miqo’te in my pure, Final Fantasy experience. My avatar Ferah Fuzzybuns specifically hates Miqo’te with a burning passion, yes even the cute ones because they hold higher social status as a majority group while Lalafells aren’t given the proper respect they deserve! Lalafells just get unsolicited petting and aren’t taken seriously because they are small and potato-like, it’s not fair I tell you!
Wait, where was I? Right, role-playing. Disgusting. The thing about VRChat is that, when you take an avatar, you have two reasons for it. One: You liked how it looked or it is a favorite character of yours. Two: You want to embody that character with your entire being. Voice, personality, movements, memes, you name it. There are people who get really, really into their characters in an attempt to grandstand on Twitch streams and, those who execute properly, can bring something new to the experience.
The most famous of these is probably the guy who role-plays as Hank Hill. You know the one, Hank the Hill, the guy who nails the voice perfectly and rarely drops accent. There’s only one clip I’ve seen where he dropped character, and that takes serious talent. He sings, plays guitar, basically he’s the Hank Hill of every anime girl’s… dreams? Maybe? Other than him, I’ve seen some very talented Vegetas, Garfields, Shaggys, one or two Solid Snakes, and probably some others I’m forgetting. I’m dead serious when I say people get into their characters. It’s truly shocking how hardcore these people are. If you get a chance and stumble upon a VRChat stream in the dark of the night, you’ll find these people living it up in their dream world. Filthy role-players.
And of course… Ugandan Knuckles
It wouldn’t be an article about the mess that is VRChat without discussing the meme that transcended the game into normie territory: Ugandan Knuckles. The 3D model is based on a drawing of Knuckles in a video done by Gregzilla about Sonic Lost World. This drawing is funny of its own, just a dopey looking Knuckles. A 3D model of the art was made, then transferred into Unity to be in VRChat. At this point, it’s relatively harmless. Then, thanks to Forsen and the Ugandan memes that spawned from his chat, potato Knuckles evolved into the proud Ugandan Warrior Knuckles. This little avatar would gather in large groups, trying to find the way, spitting on non-believers and respecting their “queen,” aka the closest anime girl.
I assume through the power of the internet it spread like wildfire, starting with a couple of videos, then a couple tens of videos, then hundreds upon hundreds popping up on YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr I assume. There were people out in real life that were spouting the Knuckles memes, and that’s when you know things are scary popular is when the normies grab a hold of it. There was so much supersaturation of Ugandan Knuckles overflowing into various, non-VRChat Twitch streams that they were considered cringe-worthy memes within like a week of their inception. Here we had a dead horse that wasn’t just getting beaten, it was getting destroyed with various guns, blades, gunblades, hammers, shields, can-openers, basically anything that could be used as a weapon bludgeoned the poor horse. I know, for my money, I got tired of it very quickly. It was still very funny at first though.
https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/951519837351591936
This isn’t to excuse Ugandan Knuckles for being a tad, well, tasteless. Borderline racist, sometimes stepping into overtly racist, but definitely questionable. Once the funny voice and meme starts to dull on you, and you really think about it, Knuckles using a comedy accent, talking about Ebola, acting tribal, and other bizarre activities starts to be less funny. Imagine pulling this out into real life, where people are actually doing this. That would not fly in anyway, shape, or form. Yet, in VRChat, it becomes possibly the definitive meme of the game. And that, my brothers, is not the way.
I’m definitely missing a lot of VRChat’s insane community. A game that came out of nowhere becoming this hub of insanity and possibly the greatest killer app VR could ask for is cool to see. The world itself is a little hard to follow for someone who isn’t entrenched in it, but I’ll click on VRChat videos in my feed and enjoy myself for what it’s worth. I’m sure I’d enjoy playing it too, if I had a VR headset. Then I could finally, truly role-play as my avatar Ferah Fuzzybuns and bring upon the inception of the Lalafellowship! A new age is upon us! Praise the Lalafell!
Sources: YouTube
Images: YouTube, Twitter, Imgur, Know Your Meme
(02/08/18 5:00am)
Picture this: you are in a bar with your best friends: Shaggy, Solid Snake, Garfield, and Hank Hill. You are simply talking about life, Hank and Shaggy share a toast to their struggles and Garfield complains about Mondays on a Saturday evening. Suddenly, the bar is invaded by a gang of angry penguins, all demanding typical penguin things from the bar patrons. Garfield attempts to bail, but is taken down immediately. All seems lost. However, the lost Knuckles tribe has arrived to the bar as well, and spit on the penguins harassing their queen, the beautiful Nep-Nep that sounds like a 30 year-old neck-bearded man behind his voice changer. You thank the Knuckleses (Knuckles’s? Knuckli?) for their contribution, and ask if there’s anything you can do for them. Simply, they inquire one thing:
(02/06/18 5:00pm)
Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM.
(02/04/18 3:07am)
Week 2 isn’t the most important week in the LCS. Teams are still figuring each other and themselves out, and as patches change and metagames shift, teams are forced to adapt to survive the progressing weeks. Week 2 may not have shifted the meta, but teams are more comfortable within it. The expected result is that teams who did well last week will continue to succeed, while teams who struggled may improve will still probably end up losing games. Results weren’t too interesting, though some of the games certainly were impressive. Those impressive games may have also been impressively bad. There are two main takeaways from this week though: who is at the top, and who is at the bottom.
(02/02/18 9:39pm)
by Tanner Kinney
Week 2 isn’t the most important week in the LCS. Teams are still figuring each other and themselves out, and as patches change and metagames shift, teams are forced to adapt to survive the progressing weeks. Week 2 may not have shifted the meta, but teams are more comfortable within it. The expected result is that teams who did well last week will continue to succeed, while teams who struggled may improve will still probably end up losing games. Results weren’t too interesting, though some of the games certainly were impressive. Those impressive games may have also been impressively bad. There are two main takeaways from this week though: who is at the top, and who is at the bottom.
Year of the Fox
Since their joining of the LCS in the Spring Split of 2016, Echo Fox has been somewhat of a joke team. Their initial roster contained a bizarre mix of players that didn’t gel together very well, though they occasionally got a win every now and then. Sometimes very occasionally. The fans of the LCS were constantly confused as to why Rick Fox didn’t cull their godawful bot lane of Keith and a random support for literally anyone else, or as to why they kept pulling in world-class talent like Froggen and Looper, then squandering it. Froggen may have played his heart out, but Looper just seemed like he was in retirement. Even after bringing in a promising rookie in Akaadian, they benched him when things started going south, bringing in solo queue talent Grig, the only LCS player who’s full summoner name will get you chat banned. I was one of the three Echo Fox fans who were getting disappointed every week because we just couldn’t win.
Finally, in the year of our Lord 2018, the faithful have been rewarded. Rick Fox has managed to pull together a roster that not only seems to gel together well as a unit, have good communication, high class talent, and a great team environment. Echo Fox is finally winning games consistently, which is great, but what matters is that they aren’t just winning. They are absolutely smashing the competition and pulling back some great comeback victories through good drafts and team play.
Take a look at the TSM v. Echo Fox game. TSM was easily going to win the game, at first. Hauntzer and MikeYeung worked valiantly to shut down Huni’s Gangplank, with Hauntzer’s Vlad even pulling off a solo kill under tower. Bjergsen was able to fend off Fenix’s incredibly dangerous Zoe, and the bot lane was able to get more advantageous fights. TSM had claimed two inhibitors, a Baron buff, two powerful Mountain Drakes, and a 10k gold lead over Echo Fox and just needed to squeeze Echo Fox to death. TSM was finally delivering on their promised power from the start of the split. TSM was playing smart and coordinated and, to their credit, looked infinitely better this week than last week.
Echo Fox wasn’t going to make it easy. Through a series of good picks and good fights orchestrated by the jungler Dardoch, the game was put back in Echo Fox’s hands. Huni was able to scale with the incredibly powerful late game champ as GP, and Fenix was showing why Zoe is such a contested pick, even though her record is surprisingly poor across all regions. After claiming a Baron buff and getting winning fight after winning fight, with Echo Fox’s carries dealing out consistently high damage, Echo Fox was able to pull a miracle comeback against a TSM that finally looked to be regaining their footing. The most important part of this match is that it isn’t just Huni or Fenix carrying Echo Fox: the entire team is working together to pick up the slack of their teammates when one is struggling. If Echo Fox keeps the win streak up, and Dardoch doesn’t implode again, Echo Fox will easily take the top spot of the split.
Golden Guardians? Looking more like Bronze Guardians
As with every competition, someone has to win, and someone has to lose. Echo Fox may be 4-0 right now, but on the opposite end of the ladder are the Golden Guardians sitting at a disappointing 0-4 start. The team bought and funded by the Gold State Warriors, even being announced on the court to a number of confused basketball fans, doesn’t seem to be showing anything that makes them a top contender. To the credit of the team, there are no imported players currently on the roster, sticking entirely to North American talent. This isn’t a terrible thing, as previous CLG rosters that contained all NA talent have gone very far, even winning a split. Golden Guardians, however, aren’t able to find success.
Last Sunday, the Guardians battled their rivals for the worst team in the NA LCS, CLG, in a game that can be described as… embarrassing. Granted, these games are definitely better than my low elo solo queue games, but that’s not saying much. CLG didn’t even play well, despite winning. Stixxay made a number of positioning errors, looking completely lost without Aphromoo. It reminded me of the AD carries I play with in my ranked games. Reignover continues to disappoint, but at least Biofrost was looking better. CLG’s roster at least has Huhi and Darshan pulling out good performances, Darshan especially putting the team on his back for their game against the Guardians. The Guardians have nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The team was only hyped up slightly for their mastermind shotcaller in Hai. And sure, Hai may have been able to pull a failing C9 out of the gutter, through the gauntlet, and into worlds in 2016, but teams have improved since then. There are shotcallers that, while not as good as Hai, get close enough to where it comes down to the mechanics of the team. And Hai’s mechanics are not up to snuff. They weren’t when he was on FlyQuest, and they still aren’t now. So now the team is left up to the rest of the team. Lourlo is a decent top laner, but can’t compete against so many other players. Deftly and Matt aren’t bad either, just average. Contractz was considered a good player, but despite having a fairly strong game on Rengar against Clutch Gaming, he makes a number of dumb plays and just sometimes just confusing plays. So there’s no real amazing talent on GGS, so what about team play? If you want a good idea of how they team fight, their fight against CLG at 41:37 on the clock shows that they have failures in communication. It just looks like they were diving in one by one to die to CLG. It’s not looking good.
On the bright side, the Guardians were able to get a gold lead in both of the games they had in Week 2, which is an improvement from last week. Unfortunately, the Guardians schedule isn’t getting any easier, with them facing TSM and Team Liquid in Week 3, and Echo Fox and 100 Thieves in Week 4. They might be able to beat TSM. I’d give them a very, very low percent chance to. Like the chance my duo partner has of getting out of Silver. And the chance I have of getting out of Silver.
Games to Watch
Clutch Gaming v. 100 Thieves on Saturday at 7:00pm EST
Two teams that are looking good, but have had some matches where they struggled. Clutch has had plenty of success on Saturday, but can’t beat the two top dogs in TL and Echo Fox. 100 Thieves is currently 3-1, but their loss against C9 showed how the team can be dismantled. This will definitely be an exciting match to watch.
Counter Logic Gaming v. FlyQuest on Sunday at 9:00pm EST
Two teams that have had some success, but just as many struggles. This is the point where CLG tries to prove they aren’t actually a bottom tier team, and are working to improve. For FlyQuest, they need to prove they can soundly beat teams worse than they are, which is important for a team who wants to climb the ladder. May not be the most entertaining match, but one to watch.
Echo Fox v. OpTic Gaming on Sunday at 5:00pm EST
Echo Fox has had consistently fun matches to watch, and this should be no different. I don’t think OpTic stands much of a chance though. I only want the #GREENWALL to pull out a win, any win. Please, anything but 10th place.
And so ends week two. Weeks three and four will finally give us better insight into how every team actually stacks up against one another, but for now we still only have predictions and a bit on information on teams. Will Echo Fox keep their lead over the other teams, or will the teams right below them steal the top spot? Will 100 Thieves start to lose their stride as other teams find synergy? And how many Stopwatches will get summoned in the new patch? All of the Stopwatches. A league of Stopwatches, all with perfect timing. It’s about to get golden in here.
Sources: YouTube
Images: YouTube, Dot Esports
(01/31/18 7:40pm)
by Tanner Kinney
Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM.
The Japanese role-playing game genre, also known as the JRPG, is one that has seen a lot of changes over the years, for better and for worse. While gameplay may not have changed too much for some established franchises, the tone and overall aesthetic of these titles has become less fantastical, with swords and sorcery and sometimes robots, and taken in a new direction. To put it simply, JRPGs have become more… well, anime. Recently, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 provided a sequel to the relatively grounded Xenoblade Chronicles that, while still a great experience, tended to rely on the crutch of fanservice and anime waifus that it didn’t really need. JRPGs about J-Pop idols and high school students have become more prevalent than your average sword and sorcery romp through the countryside. Some people pine for the old days of an old-fashioned adventure through beautiful fantasy landscapes, like the RPGs on the Super Nintendo.
Fortunately, Tokyo RPG Factory has worked to provide experiences that emulate those golden years, first with I Am Setsuna in 2016 and now with their new title Lost Sphear. Coincidentally, for a story about the power of memories, Lost Sphear uses the memories of classic JRPGs to not only give that feel-good nostalgia, but also to create some good memories of its own.
Visually and musically a Super Nintendo title for the modern age
Lost Sphear’s greatest strength is in its charm. Now, this charm isn’t necessarily due to qualities that are good or bad, but it’s still charming nonetheless. For example, graphically the game is very pleasant. It has a similar style to its predecessor I Am Setsuna, essentially being a Super Nintendo RPG like Chrono Trigger, but with the beautiful 2D sprite work promoted to 3D models. These 3D models somehow hold the same charm as their 2D counterparts, even if they aren’t as visually impressive. Simple things like character movement, enemy designs, and the design of the world map are all very nice to see. The character designs themselves aren’t too interesting though, sticking mostly to traditional Square Enix character archetypes. On the bright side, the main party is a cast of varied and colorful characters, though there aren’t too many standouts compared to the main cast of games like Chrono Trigger or Earthbound, where each character is instantly recognizable. Visually, the game delivers exactly what it intends to do with no fluff or excess amounts of anime tropes.
The music delivers on what it intends to do as well, though it isn’t as good as the soundtracks it tries to emulate. There’s something amazing about Super Nintendo MIDIs that no game attempting to be modern will be able to copy, no matter how hard they try. The soundtrack isn’t bad, of course, it’s pretty decent. There are some tracks I like, but none of them really stand out. In particular, the first major city in the game has music that, while good upon a first couple listens, becomes grating after the city holds the player hostage in its cycles of backtracking and running around aimlessly.
Compared again to the classic JRPGs, there aren’t any songs like “Corridors of Time” from Chrono Trigger or “The Red Wings” from Final Fantasy IV that can be pulled out of a crowd as examples of good music within their respective games. To put a specific reason to why Lost Sphear feels so bland, it’s the instrumentation of the songs. Many songs rely too heavily on woodwinds and strings, while soundtracks like Chrono Trigger’s had a large variety of instruments that can be heard, even through the Super Nintendo’s sound chip. The soundtrack still has its charms and its moments, but it’s a charm that loses its luster over time. It’s like watching an enthusiastic young relative do the same cartwheel over and over again. It’s endearing at first, but eventually both you and the child start getting sick of it.
A simple story that restores lost hope
The story in Lost Sphear is one that is relatively simple, but is delightfully nostalgic in all the right ways. The concept of the story is simple: you play as Kanata, an orphaned swordsman with a magical power to restore things that are trapped within a white fog. This phenomenon is referred to as being “lost.” After discovering and utilizing this strange new power, Kanata sets off on a globe-trotting quest with his friends Locke: a small boy with a crossbow and an empty stomach, and Lumina: a girl who is basically discount Tifa from Final Fantasy VII, to restore the lost parts of the world. Along the way, Kanata uncovers dark secrets of the empire he once respected, and works opposite of them despite their goals of restoring peace to the world to be in line with his. Kanata takes on large robots, sea serpents, forest monsters and the occasional imperial grunt on his quest to restore hope to a world slowly losing it.
The plot is relatively simple, yes, but it’s effective. On top of that, the aspect of restoring what is “lost” is not only a story element, but also an element woven into the gameplay itself, which is always impressive. The player quite literally travels around the world, restoring the lost parts of it on the player’s time, rarely happening in cutscenes. The real icing on the cake is the writing and interactions between the main cast. The cast may be a set of classic Square Enix archetypes, but they are all still unique in their own ways. They have their quirks, and they have great lines interacting with one another. There are some lines in the game, particularly ones delivered by the mysterious stranger Van, that are actually pretty hilarious. If their goal was to emulate the writing and storytelling of the JRPGs of old, then Tokyo RPG Factory definitely nailed it. Especially when compared to the heavy-handed and cliched writing of modern JRPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, this game is a breath of fresh air.
Combat that waits its turn patiently, but delivers something new
Lost Sphear’s core gameplay, at least in its combat, is the active time battle (ATB) system. This combat will feel instantly familiar to anyone who has played the Square Enix JRPGs of old. Each unit in combat must wait for their ATB gauge to fill up before performing an action. That action can be an attack, a spell, using an item, or going into a giant robot suit (because that’s a reasonable thing to do when faced with the dangers of some moss-covered penguins). Unlike RPGs like Final Fantasy IV, where both parties face each other on opposite sides of the screen, or Chrono Trigger, where the combatants move automatically, the player is given complete control of the movement of the party. Positioning of attacks and area-of-effect spells are key to quickly ending encounters. On top of that, timed hits are added through the “momentum” system, where by attacking and getting hit, characters build up momentum. By pressing a button at the right time during an attack, additional effects can be added to both basic attacks and skills.
The combat starts off very slow, as moving party members in active time can be a bit of a hassle when it seems there’s no benefit to it. As the game progresses, however, positioning becomes vital in dealing with certain fights. An early battle against a giant boar essentially teaches the player to use the system of actively moving the party into more advantageous positions as to not get gored by large, pointy tusks. The closest comparison to this system of combat, other than I Am Setsuna, is probably the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, though Neptunia is classic turn-based combat rather than the ATB system of Lost Sphear. It’s a little thing, but it keeps combat engaging throughout the later portions of the game. A lot of other JRPGs struggle with this, especially ones where most encounters can be won by simply having higher numbers.
Accenting the stellar gameplay is the extremely customizable system of skills and passives that Kanata and friends hold. Skills are not inherently learned by the party, they exist in items called “Spirinite.” Each party member can only equip a set number of Spirinite, but there are often more skills and passives that can be obtained compared to what can be equipped. This allows the player to specialize the members of their party. For example, Kanata can either take more offensive skills and focus on dealing higher damage, or he can take defensive skills and passives to take a more supportive role in combat. The choice is up to the player. On top of that, these skills can be given additional effects through equipped momentum Spirinite, which applies the specific effect of that momentum ability upon activating momentum mode in combat. Kanata’s Wind Blade can be given an Air Boost ability that significantly boosts the damage of the attacks.
The cherry on top of this system? Each skill can be renamed to whatever the player desires, within the character limit. It’s a small touch, but there’s always some fun to be found in casting spells that are given dumb meme names.
Featured image from Destructoid
(01/28/18 2:36pm)
The first week of the spring split is always an explosive one. New teams have entered and are battling it out with the former kings. Massive roster shifts tend to inevitably shake up who’s at the top, and many power rankings look like they were put together by frauds. As I fully admit from the start that I’m a fraud, I will say that I misjudged the power of certain teams. Then again, only one week of games where each team has only played two games is a bad judge of the power of teams. Many teams take a while to gel and become powerhouses; while other teams naturally click, but struggle to have the natural ability to hold their high ranking. So, which teams are struggling, which teams are succeeding, and which matches next week are going to be the ones to watch? Let’s get into that.
