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.

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.

A quick note on power rankings: Power Rankings are different to how one would traditionally rank teams. Normal rankings are a bit more based on ability than results. In a traditional ranking if one team beat another you could still rank them lower if you thought they were still worse than the team they beat. Power Rankings are by definition recency-biased and results-focused and are more of a snapshot of how a team looks right now than how they have looked throughout the year or how they project overall. A bad loss may see a team drop below a team most would see them as being better than. A string of losses can see a team tumble down the rankings. 

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Andrew Wray
Reece Perry
Callum Matthews
Swifty
Bencel

A quick note on power rankings: Power Rankings are different to how one would traditionally rank teams. Normal rankings are a bit more based on ability than results. In a traditional ranking if one team beat another you could still rank them lower if you thought they were still worse than the team they beat. Power Rankings are by definition recency-biased and results-focused and are more of a snapshot of how a team looks right now than how they have looked throughout the year or how they project overall. A bad loss may see a team drop below a team most would see them as being better than. A string of losses can see a team tumble down the rankings. 

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Andrew Wray
Reece Perry
Callum Matthews
Swifty
Bencel

Full disclaimer, I am first and foremost a play-by-play monkey. I talk about all the things that happen when they happen. If you asked me how or why my first instinct would be to shout ‘Spawn! This guy has a question for smart people.’ (Never EGym though, that guy feeds in every solo Q game I get.) Since joining the LPL team, I have not been able to keep up with every game played in the OPL. But I have been able to watch quite a few matches before the LPL broadcasts.

Top: Brandon “Swip3rr” Holland
I had the pleasure of working with Big Swips during the League of Legends: State of Origin tournament. Well known for his tank play, the Armoured Titan has been able to show that he can play carry oriented champions too. With Gangplank nerfs and the resurgence of tanks like Sion in the top lane, Big Swips will be a force to be reckoned with in the Top Lane.

The man has an incredible work ethic. He is always looking to see how he can improve himself, on and off the rift.

Honourable Mention: Jackson “Pabu” Pavone
The young gun who was hyped up for a long time as a mechanical genius now has one full professional split under his belt. This will be an important split to track Pabu’s performance to see how much of the hype he had leading up to his professional career follows through.

Jungle: Brandon “Juves” Defina
While casting the OPL, Juves and Carbon stuck out as the ultimate ‘leaders’ for a team. Constantly looking to mentor younger players and constantly allowing them to grow. They always made sure to provide the emotional backbone, leadership and support their teams needed.

Carbon’s ‘old man hands’ as he likes to call them means we now see him sitting down on the couch – more talking about the OPL than actually playing. (I am upset that there is no VB in his hands when doing so.) This leaves Juves as the last of the two major leaders in the League.

His ability to mentor talent has a proven track record as the likes of FBI & Rogue started with SIN Gaming. Ryoma had a great split with the team before moving back to the Chiefs, where he came from as a substitute for Swiffer.

Split 1 2018 has been rough for SIN, especially in comparison to the multiple “Sinderella” Runs and Rift Rivals performance that we saw from the squad last year. All eyes will be on the veteran Juves to turn things around.

Honourable Mention: Leo “Babip” Romer
Every Legacy game last split, I would wonder “Is this the week we will see Babip step in for Carbon and start his professional career with Legacy?” Babip was mentored by Carbon and a star player for their OCS team. Now starting for the Chiefs rebuilt roster, it will be interesting to watch how much of an impact Babip provides in The Chiefs climb back to the top.

Mid: Stephen “Triple” Li and Tommy “Ryoma” Le
There is no honourable mention here; these are my players to watch in the Mid lane. They were the underdogs in 2017, in the shadows of the likes of Phantiks, Swiffer and Claire. Now it’s their time in the spotlight. Both have helped their team to the top of the table halfway through split one.

Triple has made his way to the Dire Wolves and had big shoes to fill. Phantiks finished 2017 as the best player in the OPL. So far, Triple has adapted to the Dire Wolves well and the pack has yet to drop a set in the OPL. One of the mean reasons Triple did not make an appearance at Origin was due to Ryoma being able to provide synergy with FBI.

Ryoma had a large impact in the performance that Sin had during 2017 as well as the 2nd place finish for NSW in Origin last year. He is quiet in comparison to other Mids in the league, often providing only crucial information to the team, but is attentive and listens to calls. He is flanked by the vocal Destiny and Swip3rR this split which will allow him to do what he does best, listen to the team, focus on the mid lane and destroy his opponents.

Bottom Lane: Victor “FBI” Huang & Jake “Rogue” Sharwood
Last split, I was very vocal in thinking that this was hands down the best bottom lane in the league. Which was a bold statement to make when the likes of Lost & Cupcake, Raes & EGym, Blinky & Jayke and King & Destiny were around in 2017. Their synergy is unmatched, both FBI and Rogue are incredibly skilled when it comes to mechanics and have been working together for a few splits now.

Although FBI made a few critical errors last split, he seems to have honed in on his decision making for 2018. Rogue just gets better and better with each split. It was a tough choice to not pick him up for Origin 2017, instead going for EGym for the synergy with Coach Jish and Swip3rR. (Big mistake, EGym’s Tahm Kench cost me 20 Elo. Should have benched him and let Tgun play.)

Order now sit top of the Table and have only dropped a single set. Impressive for an organisation’s first split in the OPL. A lot of their power comes from this bottom lane duo and I believe that will continue.

Honourable Mention: Myles “Blinky” Irvine & Jayke “Jayke” Paulsen
The Bash Bros are still at it and are the only other bottom lane pairing left from 2017. They started 2017 strong but didn’t end the year well. They have had a decent showing so far in 2018. Tracking their performance to see if they can reverse the trend from last year will definitely impact Avant’s performance.

These are the people I think will be interesting to watch in 2018. Why Snowball trusted a washed up dyslexic play-by-play shoutcaster from the LPL to write this? I don’t know. But at least I don’t feed in Solo Q.  Which EGym is great at.

A quick note on power rankings: Power Rankings are different to how one would traditionally rank teams. Normal rankings are a bit more based on ability than results. In a traditional ranking if one team beat another you could still rank them lower if you thought they were still worse than the team they beat. Power Rankings are by definition recency-biased and results-focused and are more of a snapshot of how a team looks right now than how they have looked throughout the year or how they project overall. A bad loss may see a team drop below a team most would see them as being better than. A string of losses can see a team tumble down the rankings. 

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Andrew Wray
Reece Perry
Callum Matthews
Swifty
Bencel

A quick note on power rankings: Power Rankings are different to how one would traditionally rank teams. Normal rankings are a bit more based on ability than results. In a traditional ranking if one team beat another you could still rank them lower if you thought they were still worse than the team they beat. Power Rankings are by definition recency-biased and results-focused and are more of a snapshot of how a team looks right now than how they have looked throughout the year or how they project overall. A bad loss may see a team drop below a team most would see them as being better than. A string of losses can see a team tumble down the rankings. 

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Andrew Wray
Reece Perry
Callum Matthews
Swifty
Bencel