In the latest Ties’ Takes, we look at the fallout from the OPL finals, and explore a couple of the more interesting storylines that we saw emerge from Split 1’s Finals run, including the idea of how player hubris could change the course of a series.

Post Mortem

In a region with a rich history of gallant underdogs and fanciful gauntlets runs, at the end of the day the story of Oceania tends to be that the Chalk always wins. And so it remained last week, when the Dire Wolves’ hype train came barrelling from the lower bracket into the much more fancied Legacy roster. I had predicted “the fastest best of five in OPL history” and it looked I may have been scrambling to do some maths at one point, and after a valiant but ultimately token resistance, Legacy closed them out.

There were a number of threads that I found interesting from the finals that you could pick at, should one have a mind to. The first one is that I can’t quite place my finger on how we got to this point. As a fan, I almost feel cheated that we were denied the OPL-classico grand final we seemed to be drawn inexorably towards.

This is not intended to, though it doubtlessly does, take anything away from the Dire Wolves who displayed a feat of endurance and resilience that only feels overshadowed by the Sin Gaming and Order runs of years previous due to the current playoff format and that it started with a loss.

• Read more: Order forge OPL history with 9-1 miracle gauntlet run

I also don’t intend to use this as a dry way of pointing out that “Of course this is different, everything is different in the current environment.” Rather, it felt like that once we all realised that Legacy and the Chiefs were either the two best, or two of the three best, that we all settled in for an entertaining split of “who is going to win the race to third” among the rest of the teams while we waited for a grand final treat we had not seen in some years.

And then it didn’t happen. All the emotional preparation and investment I had put into the split fell by the wayside and it just felt…anticlimactic that it wasn’t Chiefs/Legacy.

I’m not mad about the resulting match, we got to see the Wolfpack make an accounting for themselves that didn’t seem possible. I had written them off. We’ve seen the infamous ‘Kai Kerflop’ on more than one occasion as Ben “Kai” Stewart’s teams would spiral their seasons into the gutter.

At the beginning of the season, I was utterly convinced we’d see it again. At the regular season’s end I was utterly convinced we were seeing it again. Then they lost their first playoff match and I was banking the sentiment.

Still and through it all they found another gear. Even though 3-1 doesn’t read good on paper, I still think there were more positives than negatives for the Dire Wolves when you look at the totality of this playoff run.

And what more can be said about James “Tally” Shute that hasn’t already been gushed about? I think the comparisons to the end of Simon “Swiffer” Papamarkos’ playing career are apt, and not just because they both had a mean Galio. What I love about both of these players, is that when they were on the picks like Tally’s Cho’Gath, or the aforementioned Galio, they exploit the biggest advantage they have left – brain gap.

It isn’t a case of not having the hands anymore – both players have the totality of career and individual plaudits to show that. The thing that I love most about these mid picks is that it’s identifying the biggest differential that the player has over basically all of their opponents – experience and knowledge – and exploits it mercilessly.

It really pleases me to see Oceanic teams identify the different ways you can win a match other than trying to take skillcheck matchups and just hoping to press buttons better than the other team. The “don’t worry, I’ll dumpster this guy” approach feels like it is opted into far too often, as we saw throughout this playoffs.

Solo Lucian Blues

One of the main examples we could see from this is the curse of the solo lane Lucian pick. It actually started spritely enough, with Jesse “Chazz” Mahoney picking up a couple of wins on it, and Pentanet.GG picking up a couple of losses. After getting bounced with it twice, PGG actually took it for themselves and it had a decent, yet unspectacular, showing for them in a losing effort to the Wolves.

This became the story of it as the season played out, and is part of the reason why I don’t like it. You pick it to bully lane and pressure early towers, but the tradeoff for this is heavy in a competitive environment. It forces your jungler’s hand to shadow the Lucian (as we saw Park “Croc” Jong-hoon making time for Romeo “Thien” Tran in the playoffs), risking early Dragon control going out the window. If you don’t get your own jungler into the mix you risk the enemy jungler crashing Lucian’s party and ruining the point of picking a lane bully in the first place.

Then, even if you get through laning phase with the bully ahead as planned, you need the composition to be spiking at the right time to take advantage of this plan so you can begin to take objectives and accrue leads before the other composition begins to do what it wants to do.

In my opinion, it’s taking the path of most resistance. Too much needs to go right to make the solo lane Lucian worth its investment. Further, we saw the pick absolutely crushed in the playoffs with a 0-4 record with Harry “Haeri” Kang (twice), Thien and Chazz all unable to make the pick work. It’s inconsistent with how the playoffs tended to go – teams take fewer risks in the early game and wait for more controllable outcomes in teamfights, as evidenced by the longer game times.

We see this across Esports and traditional sports that things slow down and teams go for outcomes they can control over unpredictable risks. This doesn’t seem to be the place you want a solo lane Lucian. You want him in those early skirmishes and dominating the chaos. It isn’t just here either, globally the solo lane win rate reads like a disaster: 39% in LCK, 36% in LPL, 25% in LCS, 20% in NA Academy – only the LEC has a positive record, with two wins from its two matches (regular season records).

Winning is already hard. I don’t see any reason that teams should make it harder on themselves.

There’s nothing more dangerous than a 2-0 lead…

Normally this adage applies to traditional sports, but it seemed in the playoffs this split that it applies to the OPL as well, because no team closed out a 2-0 lead into a sweep. Three times teams had the chance, and each time they couldn’t get it done.

It could very well just be something as straight-forward as the desperation of being put in the 0-2 hole, but I’ve encountered a little of the attitudes of pro players when they’re ahead and feeling good about themselves. Accordingly, I formed the theory that players permitted themselves a little hubris and decided that it wasn’t just enough to be beating them in the series, they needed to show that they were better players. They had to win with style.

So, I enlisted the help of former OPL analyst, OCS head coach, and Snowball contributor Callum “CDM” Matthews to have a look at these three games and see what we could find.

PSA: must be logged in to a Riot account to view match history

Avant 0-2 Order

Match History

This first game is probably the closest thing to proving my hypothesis. The Lucian mid pick rears its ugly head here, and it left the Order composition begging for magic damage. The Lucian started out only okay, then things rapidly got worse, comparatively and composition-wise. The Syndra was up over 500 gold at 10 minutes, which is not ideal to say the least. The gold difference was even, negligible at 20 minutes. While better than down 500, this still is not where the Lucian wanted to be.

And things went from bad to worse there. I would have liked to have seen an Orianna here, but just anything to keep the Sylas and Olaf honest with their resistances would have worked.

Dire Wolves 0-2 Order

Match History

This game is tragic. You may remember game 4 as the one with tragic gameplay, with the early kill for Swip3rR’s Rumble negated by the Wolfpack turning around Order’s effort to ram the advantage down their throats, but this one is tragic because after three bans and three picks each, Order have got them. They had them.

They got the Senna/Maokai pair to get the funnelled heavy tank and late game Senna passive damage combination, and even managed to secure the Trundle into Olaf matchup that went so well in game 1.

But after the second ban phase they take Corki, allowing Shok one of his signature picks in Cassiopeia. Then Dire Wolves throw the curve ball with Malphite, but it actually doesn’t matter here, Order are still fine. As Callum pointed out, this draft is still excellent for Order – if they can take Gangplank last.

I can only assume that Swip3rR’s Gangplank wasn’t current, because instead they flex the Maokai to the top lane for a new support in Tahm Kench and now Order’s damage is cooked. It’s too little, it’s too late and without the wave clear, global threat and most importantly the zone control that Gangplank provides by 23 minutes they’ve given up the baron, their small lead and ultimately the game.

This one I don’t think was hubris, by any stretch. But it’s an interesting case study in how one pick could have changed so much in this game.

Dire Wolves 0-2 Legacy

Match History

This one is a form of hubris, but not the one I had in mind when I formed my idea.

The genesis for this game comes from Game 1. I don’t know what piece of candy that Legacy’s coach Jensen Goh dangled out in front of Dire Wolves to distract them, but it sells them up the proverbial river. Legacy blind the Trundle jungle in the R1/R2 rotation… and Dire Wolves oblige them by picking the Olaf for them. Madness.

Kai proved that his team can adapt and they won’t make the same mistake twice though. When Legacy start on the AD/Trundle opener at R1/R2 in game 3, the Wolves respond with Kindred…and Legacy are basically doomed. Leo “Babip” Romer does the best he can on the Trundle pick as the map explodes around him, but he’s powerless. He’s down roughly 750 gold to his direct opponent at 15 minutes, and it’s nearly double that just five minutes later.

I think Legacy thought they could dictate the terms of this draft to Dire Wolves, and Dire Wolves showed that they wouldn’t be pushed around. At least for this game, given they handed Legacy a reasonable Trundle matchup by B1’ing Jarvan in game 4 and letting them go right back to their nonsense.

So at the end of these games, I was left with a hypothesis that couldn’t be proved from this sample size, but I still feel like there was a lot to learn about the way that teams handled being in this scenario. I’ll be looking to bring you some examination of trends like the 0-2 deficit in future editions of Ties’ Takes.

With Split 1 in the books, and moves already being made for Split 2, the time has come for teams to put the learnings they will have taken from their own experiences like these and make the push for the World Championship.

Next time on Ties’ Takes, we’ll begin looking at what each of these teams would, could or should be looking for as they make this push.

Follow Reece “Ties” Perry on Twitter.

Photography courtesy of Riot Games
Produced by Josh Swift

We’re going off-schedule with an exciting look at who Legacy could turn to in the aftermath of EMENES departure, and we break down the longest games in OPL history in today’s #BigStatEnergy

There was just too much that unfolded since I penned my last column to make you wait the full fortnight for that.

Legacy’s mid-lane sensation Min-su “EMENES” Jang has spectacularly left the roster in the middle of the split. The wording of Legacy’s release suggests this was relating to out-of-game behaviours and attitudes, specifically towards training. That much, at least, is clear to me.

With talk behind the scenes swirling around the approach to practice, it does make you wonder if he is linked to that, but I have no information to confirm that in either direction.

• Read more: Legacy Esports part ways with rookie mid laner EMENES

While mindlessly speculating as to what exactly went down to get us to this point might be fun, that isn’t the kind of mindless speculation I’d like to entertain you all with. Today’s flavour of mindless speculation involves where Legacy may turn to for their next mid-lane option.

Let’s look at five names, each with varying levels of likelihood, of being the next Legacy mid laner.

The Chalk

The clear front-runner is former Mammoth Academy mid James “Halo” Giacoumakis. Halo has been almost good enough for two years now in OCS – almost good enough to take down the Dire Cubs in last year’s grand final, and almost good enough to make the playoffs with the Legacy Genesis Revival tour.

There isn’t really a better active domestic option out there who is a natural mid laner. At least of those, who are active players (ooh, foreshadowing). He seems to play everything and the only players he struggled against are currently in the OPL.

The only thing you’d want to be cautious about is passing a player behaviour check, and not necessarily in-game. The reason he isn’t in the league already is salary expectations – as in, he wants one. Which is fair enough. But he’s spent considerable time in Twitch chat talking an inordinate amount about the players who did elect to play on the lower salaries this year. Doing these kinds of things in Riot’s broadcast channel is not likely to endear him to any decision-makers.

With that said, given who has passed checks I can’t see that stopping him, and so he is the odds-on favourite to finally show up or shut up.

The All-Star

I don’t think this next one would be overly likely considering he was already considering a role-swap to a different role. But, given that he’s talented, available, popular, and the lines between top and mid lane are becoming ever blurred, we must at least consider Jackson “Pabu” Pavone.

The two-time all star had arguably one of his best years on Gravitas last year on a roster that struggled at times, and with his regular content on Twitter, his stream and here on Snowball Esports, you know that he’s current in both his playing skills and OPL knowledge.

Ultimately, I don’t know if this one is too likely as I’m unsure if the role swap situation between either he or Topoon would lead to enough likelihood of success to satisfy either Pabu himself, or Legacy GM Tim “Carbon” Wendel.

The Thanos

“Fine, I’ll do it myself”

Part of me, and I don’t think it’s too bold of me to suggest that a part of us all, wants to see Carbon himself… and his “signature” Riven find its way into Legacy’s mid lane.

I don’t know if he can play mid. I don’t know if he wants to, and I don’t even know if it’s allowed under Riot’s rules. But the heart wants what it wants. And this is what mine wants.

The Prodigal Son (again)

This one I quite like because it involves a role swap that was teased in rumours that were circulating before the start of the split. They involved James “Tally” Shute rejoining the fold alongside OG prodigal son Leo “Babip” Romer.

Now, this callously robs us of half the co-stream power duo and that’s a definite downside, no question. But to return back to Legacy in his old role of AD Carry would free up Quin “Raes” Korebrits to play in the mid lane he was rumoured to be swapping to preseason. And that’s the part of this that interests me. It’s one of the better options Legacy have in the mid lane just to minimise the drop-off in raw talent alone, though it would be a compromise of sorts on talent in ADC.

Tally is an option that I see appealing to Carbon’s traditional sports heart. He’s familiar to the organisation, talented, a good teammate and has played the role before – for Legacy no less. In addition, he also understands the importance of the rivalry with The Chiefs – so between him and Raes wanting to stick it to his old team, their veteran presence would provide a real boost to the younger players as this rivalry plays out across the top of the OPL ladder.

I’m fairly confident that I want this to happen more than it is actually likely to happen, but there are parts of this that make sense across a number of levels.

The “Galaxy Brain” Choice

While we’re talking about returning old players and role-swapping them… how about Legacy have the plane pick up an old friend on the way back from Korea?

Former Legacy top laner Ju-seong “Mimic” Min would be a wild choice. To be honest, I don’t even know if he’s still playing. He may have gone to do military service, and with the coronavirus outbreak causing havoc in Korea it may not even be a good idea.

But if those concerns can be handled, it’s a wild choice that just may work better than anyone would have thought. We know that Mimic is an excellent player, and the points in Pabu’s favour are also in Mimic’s – he had a great season when we last saw him and top lane champs are basically all mid lane champs now, too.

This would be a “rich man’s Pabu” option that I just can’t see Legacy, and more relevantly the Adelaide Football Club justifying the expense for. Unless their mandate is “just go for the title” – which is antithetical to the measured approach Legacy have had for two years, if you were going to transplant a top laner it may as well be Pabu or Tally.

The Dark Horse

I wish I could take credit for this one, because it’s a really interesting option that I would implore both parties to consider. But when Snowball’s own Harry Taylor came to me with this name that he’d seen on the list of available free agents my eyebrows arched high with intrigue over this name that I’d thought was inactive.

After having a cup of coffee with 100 Thieves, OPL winning coach Richard “Phantiks” Su would tick a lot of boxes for Legacy. Let’s go through them:

• He’s a natural mid laner
• He’s, as far as I know, available (from a League of Legends standpoint)
• He has working experience with the entire roster (though once removed with former Mammoth Academy support Isles)
• He can be immediately plugged in as a viable option to a team trying to contend for a title.

Phantiks represents the best choice they could make in my opinion. This is a player who exists on excellence. He needs it like we need air and water. That kind of drive is exactly the right kind of replacement for the mentality and approach Legacy are claiming fits their values.

As a coach, he’s expanded on his already impressive game knowledge and would give Goh “Jensen” Quian Sheng and James “Denian” Goddard a third coach out there on the rift.

I love this option. It’s the one I want to see the most, and it would really shake up the league to see Phantiks back terrorizing the mid lane.

Big Stat Energy

This time on Big Stat Energy we explore the longest games in OPL history.

Pentanet.GG GM Pete Curulli brought up that his team had just taken part in the longest game in OPL history last Friday in their nail-biting loss to the Dire Wolves. Thanks to the boffins over at Leaguepedia, I was able to comb the OPL archives to see where the game had placed among the league’s longest games since its inception at the beginning of 2015 and the trip back through time yielded some interesting finds. Let’s take a look at the most interesting of them.

The longest game ever was one I was – indirectly – involved in during my brief stint as an analyst. Tainted Minds took down Sin gaming in an hour-and-five-minute slugfest that saw current TSM Academy player Lawrence “Lost” Hui triumph alongside OPL throwback Michael “Zahe” Dunn, who will feature regular appearances among these games.

The Pentanet.GG/Dire Wolves classic came in at the sixteenth-longest game at 51:11. Much like Zahe, the Dire Wolves are a regular contributor to this list of the sixteen longest games, having appeared in half of them with a 4-4 record.

Legacy and Avant were next, each with four appearances, though with disparate fates as Legacy went a perfect 4-0, and Avant a more pedestrian 1-3. Tainted Minds were 2-1 in their relatively brief stay in the OPL, and three teams had two appearances, with the Chiefs’ 2-0, Immunity’s 1-1 and Mammoth’s 0-2 creating a symmetrical record across the teams with two games. Abyss, Bombers, Infernum, Order, Pentanet, Sin and Tectonic all had one showing each.

What I want to highlight here as being really interesting is the absolute dominance of red side in these long games. 12-4 is overwhelming odds, with the Dire Wolves being half of those blue side wins (including last Friday gone).

The red side win rate of the fifty longest games in LoL’s competitive history was only 54% so it’s hard to know if 16 game sample is not big enough or if there’s something to be looked into there in terms of global win rates, how they shift over time within a game, and whether that’s something that teams should be drafting towards.

I won’t list every player who appears, but I do want to highlight a couple of regular and interesting appearances. Only Swip3rR and Tally among top laners have appeared more than once and remained perfect, with BioPanther being there three times and lost twice.

Carbon, having been a career Legacy player was always going to be perfect, being 3-0 and is joined by Spookz on that mark. Spare a thought for Sybol who is 1-3 on this list.

If you’re noticing a pattern here you won’t be surprised to learn that ChuChuZ and Swiffer are each 3-0, while Getback and a surprising Phantiks are each 1-2.

Lost is 2-1 among his three appearances on the list, offset by the 1-2 of Chenyboy, who is not a name I expected to write about in 2020.

Across our supports we see a 1-2 record from Cuden and a perfect 3-0 from EGym.

With one exception, in all of these roles I’ve left out the most regularly appearing player. These six players (due to a tie at support) are the longest of the long, the princes of patience, and the sultans of slow play.

Here is our All-Time Long Slog Team:

James “Tally” Shute:  4–0*

Michael “Zahe” Dunn:  3–2

Stephen “Triple” Li:  2–3

Calvin “k1ng” Truong:  2–3

Andrew “Rosey” Rose:  3–2

Jayke “Jayke” Paulsen:  2–3

*Includes two of his ADC games

There’s much more to dig into with these games, we haven’t looked at long games vs slow games (ie long game with no kills), nor champion impacts. But those are stories for another time. So, with this jam-packed bonus edition of Ties Takes in the books, I’ll be back next week with the mid-split OPL review!

Follow Reece “Ties” Perry on Twitter.

Photography courtesy of Riot Games

The OPL ladder looks like a cycling race, with leaders, stragglers, and a big pack in the middle. Let’s dive on into the guts of that pack and see who looks like rising and falling over the next few weeks!

The tour winds on

We’ve reached the end of the first round robin, and the league really does resemble a great cycling event, with the bottom of the league a full two wins behind the pack, and the pacesetters have pulled themselves two wins ahead of the peloton.

Some of what was expected has come to pass – Legacy are very good, Mammoth are struggling mightily, and the Dire Wolves are comfortably in playoffs ?–  a distance away from challenging for first, but equally far away from being outside of the playoffs.

Pentanet.GG and Chiefs have surprised us, despite most reasonable projections having both in the playoffs. What we knew about each roster before seeing any play has been outweighed by what each has brought to the table.

And despite a social media propaganda campaign trying to convince us otherwise, it may just turn out that Gravitas was #NotVeryGood after all.

Tune into a future Ties’ Takes for some mid-split award contenders. We’ll have played over half the games by then, so it’ll be a good time to have a look at those. But for now, I want to have a look at three teams who we might not have the full picture of through eight games.

Dire Wolves

The Wolves are sitting pretty in third, but I become filled with dread when I think about them hanging onto the spot. And it’s all for weird, intangible, and arguably arbitrary reasons.

Of all the teams I’ve watched play this year, I think the Wolves draft to a plan the best. I’m not saying that the plans are the best, or that their picks are the best for that plan. What I’m highlighting here is that when you look at a DW draft, more so than other teams, you know exactly what they’re trying to do, and when they win games it looks like how you imagined it would in their head. In my mind that says that they have the best grasp on their identity. By having this approach to their draft on lock, their success is the most repeatable.

Where they fall down is in their sometimes baffling gameplay. The standout in this is the Week 1 game against Mammoth, where they made exceptionally hard work of the win and really should have swept them aside. Now, that was the sub roster and so you can point the finger at not having Ha “Vital” In-seong, and perhaps a little of the Shernfire-era Dire Wolf arrogance coming back to roost, but make sure you can get the job done first. If the Wolves can clean this up, they’ll be in great stead.

The other elephant in the room for this team is we’ve literally seen this before from the trio of Ben “Kai” Stewart, Ryan “Chippys” Short, and Ari “Shok” Greene-Young and it went completely up the creek. So, while I’m cautiously optimistic for the Dire Wolves, their next three weeks is as hard as it gets. I won’t declare them legit contenders until the core can improve on their win rate heading into playoffs.

Order

Will the real Order please stand up?
I repeat
Will the real Order please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here
Y’all act like you’ve never seen an inconsistent Order before…

I’ll spare you all terrible spoof song lyrics, if only to sing the Ballad of Mighty Haeri. The young Harry Kang has been magnificent on an Order lineup that has at times struggled with Brandon “Swip3rR” Holland’s deaths in the early game, and Ronan “rare7” Swingler’s in the mid-late.

I bring up Order here because their record itself is a bit questionable if you expect them to be a top three team insofar as they lose to teams above them and beat up on the teams below them. Also, they’ve played Gravitas twice. This says to me they’re about where they should be. They need to ramp up if they want to maintain their current spot, and quickly if they expect to climb.

Maybe some of that coach difference that was hinted at in a tweet before the season could help here?

Pentanet.GG

Pentanet for my money is in the opposite situation to the Dire Wolves. And not just because of the obvious third-versus-third-last comparison. While the Wolves are falling victim to their gameplay not matching the quality of the game plan, at times Pentanet.GG’s gameplan is obtuse, inaccessible, or just plain absent.

At their worst, they look like a team bereft of identity. “Getback Friday” memes sprout and Souli looks very much like the rookie that he is.

In full flight they look decisive, full of purpose and committed to their goals. The teamwork is abundant, Jake “Rogue” Sharwood’s engages enable the team and Paris “Souli” Sitzoukis is given ample opportunity to explore his competitive limits and plenty of space for mistakes. At their worst, they look like a team bereft of identity. “Getback Friday” memes sprout and Souli looks very much like the rookie that he is.

What I want from this team is just to let Mark “Praedyth” Lewis carry. I don’t know if this is being stopped by coach Scott “Westonway” Farmer, or Praedyth himself. Let the man auto-attack some time. Dare him to deal some relevant damage, challenge him to perform in these midgame fights. As Legacy fans from last year will attest, he’s rather good at it when he does it.

If they can fix this up, accept and understand that this is a Praedyth-centric team and make sure he’s there contributing to kills and not just irrelevant Ezreal damage, then they can turn this split around. He’s third-bottom in kills despite being fourth in KDA and second in gold share in his role which, combined, is a sign that indicates he isn’t converting his safety and leads into impact in games. They’ve played the Chiefs twice already, so when you look at the ladder as it stands, they have the easiest last 13 games of all the teams.

Big Stat Energy

I’m working on something for future Big Stat Energies that should be a bit more meaty, but I just wanted to take today’s column to highlight a few intriguing numbers that I’ve seen on Games of Legends:

• The Chiefs have three of the top individual kill games, on three different players.
• Mammoth have given up three of the top individual kill games, to three different teams. (This one perhaps not so surprising)
• Raes has three of the best four CSPM (CS per minute) games
• Pentanet.GG have given up three of the best CSPM games. (I would cynically argue this is indicative of not being pressured enough in lanes and that Praedyth needs to be unleashed more, but even though two of them are ADC’s this is not prescriptive)
• Shoutout to Avant’s rookie ADC Violet for crashing the top two’s KDA party. He’d been touted behind the scenes as one to watch and while KDA is a fairly useless isolated statistic, it’s still an achievement.

The second round robin is where we really see the teams settle in to what we can expect from them as the season closes, so it’s now the teams at the bottom have to make their push if they want to be in the scrap for finals places.

Friday from 4PM AEDT is when we’ll rejoin the action, so make sure to see if these three teams can better their split trajectories for that fight!

Follow Reece “Ties” Perry on Twitter.

The OPL returned with a new look for its new era. CS:GO is also up and running again with MDL (though I won’t cover that today), and Ties’ column is back with the first column of a new decade.

Impact Performance

I came away really impressed with Minsu “EMENES” Jang. I know I’m not alone there; many others were as well. Don’t mind the broadcast where he arrived to mixed reviews, with  Skimmy beginning day 2 by commenting on his day 1 performance that he was “not as convincing as he may have wanted to” before following up with “When you put that much hype into somebody you need to see more convincing results at that level”.

So apparently EMENES needed to pack multiple good games into his first game. If someone can hit me up on Twitter with how the heck he was meant to do that, I’d appreciate it.

Looking at that first game, though – it really shows the more subtle ways that great players are great. On the Orianna, and – let’s be honest – with his bot lane doing a baby int around him, EMENES quietly built himself an impressive early game. His team helped him out by getting him the kill on the top road, and he paid them back in kind, handling a 1v1 against Dragon “Dragku” Guo on the back side of the team fight despite getting caught off-guard by the Mordekaiser out of the bush.

The thing that I liked most out of EMENES was that he built an impressive game without a highlight-reel Command: Shockwave. Few things change a game quite like a huge Shockwave, and to have the impact that EMENES did on his Orianna without hitting a game-breaking ultimate shows a no-fuss way of going about his business that in my mind showed impressive poise in his first stage game.

On that overlay

Look, I don’t want to go in too ham on this, it’s been done to death. To me, it looked like a conscious decision to hide the part of the spectator client that shows the champion stats and buffs. The issues are twofold to me: 1) It’s just such a large, pulsing blue around it that it really stands out and takes attention away from the action. And 2) Is that even something we want in the first place?

I spoke with an OPL fan outside my normal echo chamber of friends I discuss esports with, who lamented the loss of the champion stats/cooldowns/buffs/etc panel, and they pointed out that with the release and popularity of Senna, that having the panel there to see her stacks of mist would be really helpful.

Initially I wasn’t too sad to be rid of this panel as I have a vague memory of it blocking out something important in a teamfight one time. But after hearing this, which I hadn’t first considered, I’m now in favour of being able to see it again.

I’m sure Riot got the message on the Week 1 overlay loud and clear, so let’s see if we can get something a little more minimalistic, as opined by Brandon “Juves” Defina.

I think the LCK overlay is a good example of less is more. Clean and can see important bits of information.

I’ll say it again, less is more.

— Brandon Defina (@SINJuves) February 5, 2020

The rest of the weekend

• I came into this split worried about Avant, and an 0-2 week isn’t going to help this at all. I don’t think Dragku is a player they should have been building around and nothing he showed me so far has changed that.
• I like the edge Dire Wolves have going into preparation for future weeks. If Kai doesn’t know what he’s going to do before each game, how can the opponents be expected to predict it?
• I want to see more games from Pentanet and Chiefs before I’m completely confident with how I feel about either
• I was impressed with Gravitas. I expected a disaster, and at times they looked more organised than a lot of other teams.
• NichBoy continues to be a delight in my life.

GG great OCE banter

It was great to see some hard-hitting banter go around the league, led by Chiefs coach Chris “SeeEl” Lee who had this to say post-match after Pentanet.GG coach Scott “Westonway” Farmer vowed to hand him his first OPL loss ahead of their Friday meeting:

Where’s my loss?

GGWP @Windowsmonkey https://t.co/EeVjw2sdFu pic.twitter.com/76VYHtKcDy

— Chris Lee (SeeEl) (@coachseeel) January 31, 2020

He definitely had the last laugh with the win. Congratulations to SeeEl on the win, and a bigger congratulations on his fourth career competitive victory taking his tally past his career competitive rulings. See you on stage in Week 3.

Big Stat Energy

I’ll close with this week’s edition of Big Stat Energy, which is all about the numbers that I find interesting around the scene. And it’s a quickie today.

Had Order not punted a monster gold lead on Saturday, the following stat would have been true:

Since the Rift Rivals break last year (5th & 6th July 2019), not including games against each other, Avant and Legacy would have been a combined 0-24.

Pour one out for Rift Rivals, by the way. Raise your #RipRivals.

With rare exception, the first week of the OPL was just as fun a watch as it has always been, even with the myriad new faces. Beyond our prediction feature matches, I have my eye on Dire Wolves/Gravitas as the match most likely to be fun. The Wolves should handle them comfortably at full strength, but “should” is a funny word when it comes to winning in the OPL.

See you in a couple of weeks with more Ties’ Takes!

Follow Reece “Ties” Perry on Twitter.

Returning from their run at the 2019 Overwatch World Cup, AVRL sits down with team New Zealand’s Equinox, Signed, and Noxious to talk about their journey through BlizzCon.

Barely a fortnight ago, team New Zealand shipped out on a Tuesday evening under a cool spring breeze, heading to the biggest event that many in the team had ever been to. With a calm temperament, the players and staff boarded for a destination that had culminated the hopes and dreams of all those who had come before it.

August 2017. Team New Zealand lands in LAX to represent the nation for the preliminary of the biggest international event of the year. That event was none other than the Santa Monica Group Stage of the 2017 Overwatch World Cup, an event that precedes the existence of both the Overwatch League and Overwatch Contenders.

Back during a time when Dale “Signed” Tang joined team New Zealand as an up-and-coming hotshot rising through the amateur scene. Well before becoming the back-to-back Contenders champion and establishing himself on the most successful Australasian Overwatch team of 2019 that we know him for today.

“New Zealand is at a different level compared to 2017,” Signed mentioned, looking back as the only returning member of the original team that set foot in Santa Monica. A team that unceremoniously finished last place in their group among powerhouse teams such as the USA and Taiwan (comprised of the championship winning Flash Wolves roster), taking only a single map from Brazil to end New Zealand’s run at a score of 1-11.

General manager Cameron “Equinox” Dul said that “expectations were not high at all” for the New Zealanders based on past performances.

“People were definitely underestimating team NZ but for good reasons. Mainly for how we performed at SEA Invitational and also where NZ placed in 2017.”

That invitational was New Zealand’s first international exhibition of the year where they fell 0-3 to eventual finalists Japan in the opening quarterfinal of the tournament. “We started scrimming the week before the SEA invitational,” head coach Matthew “Noxious” Sawyer said in regards to officially kicking off their training and preparation process for the World Cup. “The biggest challenges were adapting to the meta and finding teams willing to scrim us.”

Anyone local to the region is no stranger to the plethora of timezone and latency hurdles teams are required to navigate through in order to find effective practice. But despite having to work through difficulties, the team was optimistic about their chances. Going into this year’s World Cup, New Zealand remained among several other teams that despite having participated in previous years, were yet to claim their first international victory. It was abundantly clear from the start of the campaign that this team had plans to change that.

In terms of setting goals for the event, coach Noxious had admirably stated that they were aiming to achieve top two in their group. An aspiration shared by the team in particular as the official bracket was drawn for the preliminary stage. That knockout bracket in question, released the day before the opening World Cup match was to be played, detailed the exact premise of the opening stage of the event.

Twenty eight teams would be split across five single elimination knockout groups. From the preliminaries only one team from each group would progress to the Top 10, joining the likes of prequalified teams such as South Korea and the United States for the next stage. In order to get there, New Zealand would have to battle through Austria, Australia, Denmark and Taiwan (Chinese Taipei), all of whom were drawn into group A.

It’s here people! Here are the brackets for the preliminaries to head into the group stage. Wake up early, make a cuppa and come show your support! Tag us if you’re watching the games! #kiwisup pic.twitter.com/kt1yTixC2K

— Team New Zealand Overwatch ?? (@NZOWWC) October 31, 2019

“As the team rapidly developed and as brackets were being released, I quickly gained more confidence and knew the team could perform well,” Equinox stated alongside a confident Signed who revealed that “when we saw the bracket we knew we could beat Austria and Australia,” a claim that would be tested within 12 hours of the team’s official bracket announcement as New Zealand would face Austria at the top of the morning in one of the opening matches of the 2019 Overwatch World Cup.

At 9:00 am local time the next day, New Zealand took their gloves off for their first official World Cup match in two years – and it was short.

Group A – Game 1 results:

?? 3?? @NZOWWC
?? 0?? @TeamAustriaOW

?? New Zealand advances, facing ?? Australia in the next round! pic.twitter.com/bYWv4TbC16

— OWWCTracker (@OWWCTracker) October 31, 2019

Suffice to say New Zealand were living up to their expectations insofar as breaking the losing streak of the past. In comparison to his last run with the 2017 team, Signed voiced that “we practiced more, we had a better understanding of how to get better due to the resources we have now compared to before. People wanted to get better and tried harder.” This first taste of victory would result in Austria’s prompt elimination from the World Cup and set the stage for the fated trans-Tasman showdown.

“Signed/Colourhex is an amazing DPS line, Jungle has great experience, August was great at adapting to flex support, and everyone was willing to grind and support our least experienced players in Joker and Plihs.”
Noxious

With only an additional “A” and “L” separating the two teams, Australia had been a very well known quantity within World Cup history compared to Austria. They were one of ten teams directly invited with financial support to participate based on international results from past performances. Those results included four total appearances across all four years the World Cup had taken place, two podium finishes at group stages leading to two qualifications to the main BlizzCon playoff stage, falling short only at the quarterfinals. Needless to say Australia was a strong favourite not only in this matchup, but in the group itself.

Team New Zealand knew this was likely going to be the stumbling point for their 2019 run. Both teams were very familiar with the other sharing a joint Contenders region in their home setting. Outside of the World Cup, Noxious is the coach of the historic Sydney Drop Bears who’ve held three consecutive Contenders titles across 2018. On the opposite side was coach Sam “Face” Merewether as Noxious’ predecessor from the same Sydney Drop Bears that claimed two of those titles.

Alongside Face stood two-time team Australia head coach and Boston Uprising’s assistant coach Jordan “Gunba” Graham with Australia’s general manager Andrew “RQT” Haws — head coach of ORDER; Signed’s Contenders Australia team with teammate Max “Unter” Unterwurzacher, also on team Australia. For these two close-knit teams, both knew the end result would mean the elimination of the other from the tournament, heralding this match as the final resting ground for their 2019 campaign.

New Zealand is seed 26 and @AUSOWWC is 6th. We are so damn proud of our boys for putting on a good show. Making aus work for it until the tie breaker match. Go get em Australia pic.twitter.com/lk75M8RzkC

— Team New Zealand Overwatch ?? (@NZOWWC) October 31, 2019

New Zealand fell short. By a sliver of a margin and the difference of one map, team Australia had secured themselves a rematch with their 2018 groupmates Denmark to decide who would progress to the next stage. “It was unfortunate to meet up with Australia as they were one of our natural scrim partners due to time zones and ping, but we were confident going in,” said Noxious. “Both Australia and team NZ had very clutch moments against each other, we hadn’t lost Eichenwalde to team Australia in recent scrims before.”

That second map of the series taking place on Eichenwalde would end up defining the match, allowing Australia to equalise an early lead held by New Zealand after map one. Easily the closest affair of the series, New Zealand was one fight away from a 2-0 match point position against the group favourites before Australia’s Jason “ieatuup” Ho tipped the scales irreversibly with an unnoticed Reaper dismantling the Kiwi’s final defence. The impact of which would be felt later on in the series as New Zealand claimed Paris as the fourth map in what could have been an overall 3-1 victory had they also confirmed Eichenwalde earlier.

“We kept a good mentality through losing Eichenwalde and crumbling on Junkertown to bring everything back on Paris to tie up the series. We fell short in adaptability on Junkertown and Oasis and that was our downfall in the end.”
Noxious

“It was unfortunate that we made more mistakes than them on the day, and there were very crucial ones that led to us losing maps that we shouldn’t have lost,” said Signed in hindsight. General manager Equinox echoed similar sentiments saying “this match was winnable.”

“The team was disappointed for not winning as it came down to minor mistakes. Being Australia, there was a lot riding on that match and it would’ve been amazing if we won.”

Australia would go on to suffer a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Denmark, who themselves had narrowly missed the playoffs in 2018 after an upsetting loss to Sweden on the last day of the Bangkok group stage. From that context, both Australia and New Zealand could take solace in knowing that another darkhorse team who had fallen short of playoffs for two years running would go on to have one of the most successful World Cup runs in recent history as an underdog country.

The 2019 World Cup would end as a watershed moment in international Overwatch history. South Korea would be toppled for the first time in four years. Team USA would finally become World Cup champions. A small country would relish the small victories as even New Zealand’s little slice of history would make their bittersweet ending taste that much better.

You can follow Equinox, Signed, Noxious and Team NZ on Twitter.

Overwatch commentator and analyst Kevin ‘AVRL’ Walker breaks down Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 announcement, new features, and what it means for Overwatch’s competitive landscape.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent your weekend with eyes glued to the monitor, eagerly awaiting Blizzard’s annual opening ceremony keynote for this year’s big reveals. To be specific, I’m talking about the worst kept secret in the week long lead up to BlizzCon, the surprise(?) sequel of Overwatch 2.

With the sight of Lilith’s translucent heartbeat mimicking my own, I too was summoned by the blood of the willing to witness what exactly the Overwatch development team had in store for us this weekend. Here’s a quick summary of what was announced:

• Brand new coop PvE experience with story missions and hero missions featuring hero levels, talent trees, and a focus on replayability.
• Upgraded engine with updated visuals for heroes, enemy factions, and the player UI. Also Genji has a sports hoodie.
• 4 confirmed maps with more in development:
  • Rio de Janeiro
  • Toronto
  • Gothenburg
  • Monte Carlo
• 2 confirmed heroes with more in development:
  • Sojourn
  • Echo
• Overwatch’s PvP multiplayer will be compatible with the original game. All PvP content including cosmetic unlockables will be brought forward into the sequel. Owners of the current Overwatch will not be required to purchase the sequel to play PvP.
• New core gamemode “Push” featuring a tug-of-war style objective. Push will be added into the competitive rotation and Overwatch League.
• No release date announced.

Answer the call.

Overwatch 2 builds on the award-winning foundation of epic competitive play, and challenges the world’s heroes to team up, power up, and take on an overwhelming outbreak of threats around the globe.

Learn more: https://t.co/XhKgOJGPNV pic.twitter.com/vdPIDH6UNk

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) November 1, 2019

If you’re asking me what my initial reaction was, I would tell you that the onslaught of prior leaks had definitely dulled the blunt force impact of the overall announcement. While the news hasn’t knocked me clean to the ground it’s still left me dazed and seeing two.

As a self proclaimed PvE god (I once held the top ranking in Overwatch Retribution for a total of 2 hours) I will always welcome the addition of more co-op and narrative content. But I know for many of us the real question we had on our minds was in regards to how the competitive multiplayer would evolve, and that is really the focus of what I want to discuss.

I will be clear in that no reasonable person is ever going to be upset with the addition of more of the usual suspects to the existing rogue’s gallery. New maps? Great. New heroes? Love it. New visuals? Very cool. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still waiting for something else. Perhaps I’m being greedy with maybe even a sprinkling of self acknowledged entitlement, but in truth I had secretly hoped for a much bigger gameplay overhaul.

I guess the pervasive aura of uneasiness can be explained as a side effect of Overwatch Chapter 2 not truly feeling like a sequel in the traditional sense. The end result of which leads us to maintaining the status quo, which may not be a bad thing but it does mean some of the deeper issues with the core gameplay leading to player dissatisfaction will go unchanged for now. That however is a lengthy topic for another day.

The real juicy patty of the proverbial burger I want to bite into is the content announced that I believe will make the biggest impact on the competitive landscape; Push. This will be the first core game mode released since the launch of Overwatch in May 2016. Unlike deathmatch, CTF and other arcade modes introduced over time, none of those are defined as being a core game mode that is played in the standard quickplay and competitive rotation.

The reason this is important for the game is due to the need for greater variety in competitive modes; filling a vacant gap in current professional match formats as well as allowing for the potential to replace existing game modes if desired.

The first statement is easy to address as currently the Control game mode is played twice as maps one and five (or more for tiebreakers) in a standard first-to-three (or best-of-five) match. This places a greater weighting on Control in professional play where no other game modes are repeated in a standard match.

Adding a fifth competitive mode allows for each game mode to have equal weighting in a series, addressing fairness across the map pool. All of that is fine assuming we want to maintain the status quo of continuing to play each game mode equally.

An alternate consideration is the potential of removing game modes from professional formats that do not offer appealing gameplay. Assault (2CP) comes to mind first and foremost as the primary offender from the perspective of most players. General gameplay of the mode aside, the other issue both Assault and Hybrid modes share is the capability and frequency of draws.

No one likes to see draws in either their own games or professional play. Nothing stifles a match more than navigating a draw which causes complete redundancy during an active series. Reducing the capability or frequency of draws through adjustments to offending modes or removal of those modes will significantly improve the gameplay experience for viewers and players.

This is where I have to give praise to the design of Push as a mode akin to Escort that prevents the capability of draws. To catch everyone up on how the new mode works; Push is a two-way payload escorting game mode that revolves around control over a neutral mobile objective.

Unlike traditional Escort, the payload in Push is a robot which pushes a team coloured distance marker to denote the greatest distance achieved by either team in that particular game. When one team loses control over the objective, the robot switches sides, running toward and pushing the distance marker for the other team in the opposite direction.

Just like a traditional payload in Escort, the objective can be contested by both teams whereby the robot pauses in wait for either team to maintain control again. The team with the greatest distance achieved when the timer expires or the team that completes a full distance push to the end of the map will be the winner.

The overall gameplay of Push however is the result of familiar territory previously explored in other team based games. As is natural with a successful game like Overwatch, many of the most notable features are borrowed or inspired by the design lessons of past games.

Of those games, Team Fortress 2 is a clear standout among others for design inspiration. Push itself draws many similarities to the popular “Symmetrical Control Point” game mode featured in TF2, commonly referred to in the community as 5CP. The real genius in the design of Push comes with solving the challenges of 5CP which held the original game mode back.

As the staple competitive game mode in TF2, anyone with past experience in professional play will tell you that despite it representing the core competitive experience, it was also flawed in many areas.

For those unfamiliar, the goal of 5CP is to capture five control points placed in linear fashion on a symmetrical map. Each team begins with two points under their control and a neutral middle point to be contested from either side. Once the neutral middle point is captured, the team with control over three points pushes toward the opposing team’s second point where that team will look to defend, to be repeated until all five points are captured by a single team.

If this is beginning to sound familiar than you’ve already landed on more than a few similarities between TF2’s 5CP and Overwatch’s Push. While the gameplay of 5CP at times can be fast and fun, one of the primary issues often experienced is pacing. Despite TF2 being the team based shooter that first introduced the payload mechanic, the escort game modes landed flat among the competitive community and were not played in most organised settings.

The payload mechanic when brought over to Overwatch however introduced a much welcomed tempo regulation device, serving as a focal point for teams to contend over much like the ball in most traditional sports. The lack of this mechanic in 5CP means the pace is set simply by how quickly a team can move across the map, resulting in incredibly fast map completions and total blowouts for opponents in one sided games.

The opposite is also painfully true for close matches as once a team successfully captures the neutral middle point, both sides will enter a stalemate that can last for egregiously long durations where neither team is willing to risk pushing into the other.

Where Overwatch’s Push solves these problems is by introducing a payload that regulates the pacing of the game while keeping the core 5CP gameplay experience intact.

In order to incentivise teams to push as the mode’s namesake would suggest, the greatest distance achieved by each team is recorded with a physical marker. As this marker represents an alternative win condition, teams are strongly encouraged to push the objective as much as possible and as far as possible, thus solving the stalemate problem often encountered in 5CP.

Due to the nature of the regulated speed at which a payload can move, teams will also experience far fewer blowouts at a far more acceptable pace. Teams must win considerably more consecutive fights in order to fully capture all objectives on the map, allowing defenders more opportunity to fight back. As stated by Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan, internal testing has resulted in far more map wins decided by greatest distance rather than full map completions.

With the addition of Push, Overwatch has now successfully ported TF2’s most highly played competitive game mode. As a former competitive TF2 player this was the one gameplay experience I had optimistically wished for the most since Overwatch’s release.

While there have been many big additions announced to other parts of the game, Push is unequivocally a major win for the PvP focused side of the game. For both ranked players and Overwatch League fans, this will be something important to look forward to in addition to everything else announced.

While there’s certainly still a lot of work ahead before all complaints are quelled, this is at least a good start in the direction Overwatch is heading.

In this first trip into my grab-bag column, we digest the fallout from both the minor and the major and we see what’s creating #BigStatEnergy!

Major Debrief

*This section was written as DH Malmo began.*

The major is now well and truly behind us, leagues have started back up and the year-closing event season is in full swing with Dreamhack Malmo underway after Grayhound Gaming qualified into that event.

On the surface, little seemed to have changed since IEM Katowice – The Renegades retained legend status for the second consecutive time, and Grayhound found new heights in achieving their second pyrrhic victory from two trips to the major. So while the major is long gone, rippling below the surface is a new wave of promise in the Oceanic scene that I want to touch on.

Avant

The first of this new wave is the rise of the rejuvenated Avant squad. Retaining only Mike “ap0c” Aliferis and Jay “soju_j” Jeong from the previous iteration, the squad retooled with Euan “sterling” Moore, formerly of Grayhound and two players out of the Breakaway Esports squad in Jared “HaZR” O’Bree and Jireh “J1rah” Youakim.

They returned to action in the Minor qualifiers, carving a swathe through the event – toppling madlikewizards, Order, Ground Zero, taking a map from and putting a rocket up Grayhound before knocking off Order a second time to find themselves in Europe for the Minor.

The Minor itself saw them play 5POWER on either side of a swift 0-2 to Grayhound – eventually, they bowed out after losses to Tyloo and MVP PK. Their run was punctuated with tough losses on their own map picks, despite being paced by solid play from sterling.

Despite falling at the last hurdle, the side showed a lot of promise not just for themselves, but for the hopes of the rest of the region. Avant are in a tight fight with the Chiefs, Order and Genuine for the next best squad after Grayhound, and for Avant to put up such a showing in spite of the lack of experience shows that as the rest of the region continues to build, we can hold hope that the day of three Oceanic teams at the major being closer than we all might have thought.

Grayhound

For their part, the Hounds did their efforts one better on the scoreboard but showed a typically tenacious run through the major. In Katowice, they dropped two best-of-ones before dropping a respectable series 2-0 to Fnatic.

They started on a similar trajectory with an opening loss to Cr4zy – who showed themselves to be a feisty squad throughout the major – and Forze led to a collision with Brazil’s third-best team in INTZ. This time they overcame the 0-3 curse…only to find themselves in the line of fire of Vitality, then thought by many to be the second-best team in the world over recent months. Vitality would springboard from a 2-1 result over Grayhound, all the way into the top 8 of the major – and so Grayhound, despite their disappointment, can look back on the event with pride.

The background story for Grayhound was the farewell tour of Erdenetsogt “erkaSt” Gantulga, as visa issues meant he had to return to his home of Mongolia. ErkaSt leaves behind a colossal legacy of great play, and as a catalyst in the Grayhound squad that has paved the way for future teams, much like Avant, to chase their international and major dreams.

Replacing him in the team after his departure is Joshua “INS” Potter, formerly of Order. INS joined the team for the DreamHack Malmo qualifiers, and after a slight misstep against Genuine Gaming in the second round, stormed through the rest of the qualifier, dropping only a single map in games played the rest of the way (the 3-1 against Genuine in the finals included an automatic one-map advantage for coming from the upper bracket). That map was part of a spectacular series against Avant which I thoroughly recommend re-watching if you missed it.

I had the opportunity to ask a couple of questions to Grayhound’s AWPer Simon “Sico” Williams who talked about how the qualifiers helped the integration of INS and how the trip through the lower bracket as having some benefit, even though they’d obviously have preferred to take the easier route through the upper bracket.

“When getting a new player there is always a teething period where you get used to each other’s playstyle. You go over your strats and your entire game again and make sure all the roles are properly-suited to each player. Playing more games definitely helps us become better as a team and get the finer details of our game more concrete heading into Malmo”.

Sico’s own experience at the major saw him go head-to-head with ZywOo, and since joining the hounds he has taken on some giants of the AWP in Kenny “kennyS” Schrub and Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács – and he had this to say on these European powerhouses: “Aside from the obvious fact that they are very sharp and fast with the AWP…a lot of the European AWPers have different styles and are more dynamic with their positioning than Australian AWPers”.

Perhaps cheekily, I finished by asking Sico how INS was going to copy him next, having taken his spot in Order when Sico left and now following him to Grayhound. Ever the team player, Sico only had his eyes on the prize as he hoped to “pop his major cherry”.

If Grayhound continue as strongly with INS as they have started, that is but a matter of time.

Renegades

“Only a matter of time” describes the hopeful, yet fatalistic outlook I’m sure many Renegades shared with me as they were down 0-2 in the New Legends stage. Despite two competitive matches against Avangar and NRG, it felt like more of the same that we’d seen from the Renegades in between the two majors.

In fairness, Renegades had what could be politely described as one long nightmare from February to August after that initial wonderful success at the Katowice major. Visa issues and disrupted preparation plagued their attempts to consolidate their major run and left them with no consistent match fitness and dependent once again on a boot camp to find their form.

Their way out of the 0-2 pit started thanks in large part to Jay “Liazz” Tregillgas making a sparkling run through the major. Liazz finally showed the performances he was putting up before he joined the Renegades after not being able to stand out in a largely thankless role. In particular, he combined brilliantly with a throwback Joakim “jkaem” Myrbostad outing to topple G2 Esports and helped Renegades seal their second straight top 8.

The quarterfinal would see a comfortable 2-0 win over an ENCE squad going through a little turmoil as aleksib was on his way out of the Finnish side. They took Avangar all the way to the second overtime on Mirage, before the clock struck 12 on this wondrous run as they dropped Dust2 16-9.

In the face of what seemed to be the most impossible position, the Renegades reeled off their best finish at a major. The magical performance of Azr’s troops has had wide-ranging impacts throughout the scene. Firstly, the most important impact is that all the concerns, all the doubts that were coming in from outside the team during their rough patch between the two majors was smoothed away with this run. Winning, as they say, cures all ills.

Much as it was with IEM Katowice flowing into this major, the next standout effect is one for the rest of the scene. By not needing to go through the minor system, we will see another case being made by our teams for three Oceanic teams making it to the first major of 2020. Avant and Order have been having themselves some fierce battles over the quest to be the third-best team in the region, and they may be driving themselves into a position where they can each threaten The Chiefs off of what previously looked like an unassailable second.

There’s been a cavalcade of crazy results that have followed the major, and it’s a series of events that makes the next major cycle an enticing prospect. There’s still plenty left to play for in Oceanic Counter-Strike this year as teams jostle to put themselves in the best possible place to make that great run into the first major next year.

Big Stat Energy 

Each column, I’ll be taking a look at statistics that intrigue me, and then talking about whether or not there’s something behind these stats, or if it’s just the wonderful circumstance of numbers.

The Great Oceanic Ezreal War

Those that know me know that I have had an axe to grind with this for some considerable time. I have had it with most OPL teams picking Ezreal. Absolutely had it. I think this pick, with notable exceptions, does absolutely nothing for the region. Let’s dive into why.

Ezreal serves several useful purposes. The most common reason is that it is a high source of damage per minute from must-respect range across the course of the game, while maintaining the ability to stay quite safe with his Arcane Shift.

That same range allows it to whittle down a wave from safety as well. It can serve as part of a great poke/siege composition. And it does an excellent job of nullifying enemy bot lanes where the composition has been designed to get a lead through bot-lane. Ezreal/Braum, a lane I have railed against on many occasions for doing nothing, is noteworthy for its specific ability to turn a lane that an opponent is depending upon to nothing. To borrow a phrase from another game:

“But it doesn’t do anything!”

“No, it does nothing.”

But this is not how it plays out. At least not in this league. Time after time after time we see the Ezreal picks put into situations where it doesn’t suit the composition, where it is asking the pick to teamfight off its ideal tempo, or with not enough damage supporting it to win a fight.

If you’re planning to teamfight with an Ezreal, something has probably gone wrong unless it is massively fed or is sporting a Trinity Force into a squishy enemy composition. You’re planning to fight with a pick that needs several seconds and ideally multiple rotations of Mystic Shot. Not only that, all of them need to hit, and probably he needs to be close enough AND safe enough to be auto-attacking alongside that.

All in all, it’s asking really a lot from the pick to be set up for failure like this and ask it to succeed. And speaking of success, let’s have a look at the numbers that feed this big stat energy. Take a gander below at the win rates of OPL AD Carries (and Victor “FBI” Huang, as one of the great luminaries of the pick from OPL days gone by).

There’s some good in this, no doubt about things. FBI, while he was still here, was immense on the champion, and arguably it’s his signature pick. K1ng is another player who is a legacy Ezreal player and is excellent on it. Raes was not someone I associated with it, but this year he came on in leaps and bounds showing great performances in both wins and losses.

After that, and throwing out Looch’s (and Anderu’s if you must) win rate for sample size, it’s abysmal viewing. Top of the list salvages that 41.8% win rate in 2019 which is awful in and of itself. Let’s explore some of the reasons behind that number.

Traditionally, teams in Oceania love big teamfights. It’s something we do relatively well as a region. It lets the players display their micro-skills which they’re inclined to want to do over patient, methodical build-up. If you can teamfight well, then you can win from in front and even from narrowly-to-moderately behind. Players play to this strength, and so they look to teamfight with their Ezreal in situations where it is off the proper timing, or when they don’t have control over when and how the fight happens, nor correct vision control to protect their carries.

So as I touched on before, teams pick Ezreal in some situations where it doesn’t make sense. In Oceania, fights are often over before the Ezreal can get enough Mystic Shots away to be threatening.

Excellent teamfighting teams like The Chiefs can take advantage of this to punish Ezreal compositions that get caught in fights. The Chiefs excel against the Ezreal pick by forcing teamfights upon it, exemplified by their undefeated 12-0 record when the enemy team picks Ezreal.

Flowing on from this, Ezreal requires unbelievable discipline from everyone on its team. You need to have discipline putting it in positions to succeed, you need to play patiently with the pick – particularly if you go to a dedicated poke composition, and the Ezreal player needs to be unbelievably disciplined in the way that they position an Ezreal for maximum damage output.

One of the elements that makes the best three Oceanic Ezreals above so good at the pick, and particularly k1ng and FBI, is the way they hover on the razor’s edge of danger. They know they need to be close enough to weave in autoattacks to augment Ezreal’s spell damage, close enough to make Mystic Shot harder to dodge, yet far enough away that they can stay safe.

This can be overwhelming for all but the most spectacular of players. Ezreal is a champion that regularly does high damage yet doesn’t always have the impact to match the raw damage number. The best players don’t just put out damage, they have massive impact with the Ezreal. And that’s just not everyone.

Verdict: This is not all the fault of the champion. He’s certainly not a bad champion, not by any stretch. The pick can bring a dynamic punch in widely different situations. But he’s not a get-out-of-jail-free pass to being a late game hyper-carry. He asks a lot, of the composition, of the execution, and of the pilot.

But just because the problem isn’t always the pick – that doesn’t mean it is OK to play it. Pro League doesn’t exist in a theoretical vacuum, it exists in the real hands of the real players who need to make the pick work in real games. In a region still developing the discipline to play this pick at the highest level, across all the players in the league, it just feels like taking the path of most resistance.

At the end of the day, if your name isn’t k1ng, FBI, or now Raes…I don’t want to see Ezreal in the OPL. I’m declaring war on this pick – just stop doing it.

With this meaty first edition complete, thanks for reading through the first of my columns. Check back next time, where you can expect to find a little more CS, a little more league, and more great Tie Takes.

Follow Reece “Ties” Perry on Twitter.