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AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
I've always been a big supporter of cross-regional play; there's just something about watching teams from around the world colliding that's on a completely different level to regular competitive play. It's not just about the national pride or that all the teams present represent the best of the best on the planet. You see, it's quite peculiar. All teams and players play the exact same game, and they are all trying to answer the same question: "What is best way to win?" Yet their answers are different, sometimes even wildly different. In a way, it's like the story of the Blind men and the elephant.
The story goes as follows. A group of blind men have been asked what an elephant is like. Each man touches a different part of the elephant and comes to a different conclusion. The man who touches the trunk insists the elephant is a type of snake. The man who touches the ear says it must be a type of fan. And while all of them are convinced their view is correct, it is only until a passing King tells them they are all wrong that they realise what the elephant really is.
In a way, Worlds is like the story of the blind men and the elephant. After weeks of constant and bitter fighting in order to become the best in their regions, teams have a very specific view of what winning in League of Legends means. But whatever they know, there is still more to know. Perhaps the winning team has seen the whole elephant. But more likely, even they are also blind and also have much to learn. And we saw this at Worlds. Despite SKT winning a crushing 3-0 victory against Royal in the finals, there were still many things they learned at the event, and realised they still had to learn. And if the best team in the world still has much to learn, what say everyone else? From the intricacies of Annie Support (no, it's not just about her stun) to the crazy level 3 Aatrox dives or just #thingsFakerdoes, there's something for everyone to take away from Worlds.
So what does TeamLiquid have for you this time? GTR rolls up with the history books and tells you about SKT, the winningest team ever. Next up is a closer inspection of SKT`Bengi, and why Bengi is the real force behind SKT. We quickly delve into a look at all the champions released in Season 3, and what their impact in the profession scene has been. Once again, the TeamLiquid Editor Awards are back to honour some of the best players and their plays. With Season 4 changes slowly being revealed, we look at what this could mean for the pro-scene.
And if you need a TL;DR of the actual World Championship overall, we would be remiss not to recommend this.
Once again, we're also experimenting with new layouts for our articles, so let us know what you prefer below!
Table of Contents
Conquerors of the World
The Jungle Factor
A Competitive History of S3 Champions
Awards and Accolades
What do the S4 changes mean?
Closing Words
Conquerors of the World
By GTR
In what was one of the most one-sided grand final matches in the history of League of Legends, the Korean Regional champion, SK Telecom T1, swept the Chinese powerhouse Royal Club Huangzu in a total of less than ninety minutes. For the victors, the title of 'Season 3 World Championship Winner' has reinforced to not only Korea, but the world, that SK Telecom T1 still remains one of e-Sports most storied dynasties.
From what once was a team known as 'Boxer's Team' through the golden age of Korean e-Sports, the Korean behemoth had a rocky start in League of Legends. Beginning in early 2013, the team developed two squads. One of them was led by star free agent Reapered, after being benched by AZUBU Blaze in favour of the rising top-laner Flame. The other was led by former Chaos Clan Battle, Starcraft II and League player Kkoma, retiring from his playing days into a coaching role after the StarTale League team folded due to a lack of funding. These two were offered the luxury of picking and choosing their team, and moulding them the way they wanted.
For Reapered, he picked players that he felt gelled well with his play style. Kkoma was quite the opposite - he picked up Korea's hottest solo queue stars in order to grind together a super team. The two teams entered Champions Spring 2013 with high expectations.
While many were familiar with Reapered, Impact and PoohManDu from their times on AZUBU Blaze, Xenics Storm and GSG respectively, the two teams showcased some of Korea's next generation of players. For the first team led by Reapered known as 'Terminator' - the biggest talk of the team was mid-laner SuNo. Known for his dominating play in solo queue, many were wondering whether he could live up to his skills on the Korean ladder. On the other hand, the second team was led by what many deemed to be SuNo's 'rival' - Faker. Much like SuNo, Faker was an extremely talented solo queue player who came with a lot of hype. Champions Spring was a perfect setting for summoners over the world to see what they could do.
By the end of the season, despite the first team making it to the bracket stage, Reapered and friends could not renegotiate a new contract, and with the exception of Beelzehan, left the organization in search of greener pastures. Reapered and friends would eventually be picked up by the brand new Jin Air Green Wings organization a month or so later. However, the second team looked very promising. Despite going down to eventual champions MVP Ozone in the semi-finals, they managed to sweep CJ Frost in the 3rd/4th place match 3-0. The team however, was largely dependent on Faker snowballing and carrying the game - an issue Kkoma would resolve over the off-season.
As the second team transitioned to be the only squad for the SK Telecom T1 organization, the Summer season was of extreme importance to them. As they were not around during the previous Winter 2012-13 season, they were a very long shot of making it to the World Finals due to a lack of circuit points. Anything but a victory would most likely have seen them not make it to the grand stage in Los Angeles. We all know how the story goes after that. A nail-biting grand final against eternal rivals KT Rolster saw them secure the top seed in the Korean Regionals, where a week later, they swept the Bullets in a brutal beat down. The world was now going to see the behemoths of Korean e-Sports take action on the international stage.
With their victory at the Staples Centre, SK Telecom T1 has risen from what was only a team recognized by a select few amount of people around the community to a team recognized by a lot of people. The individual skills of Faker and Piglet have sky-rocketed their popularity through out the World Championships. With WCG 2013 and the upcoming Winter season of Champions coming up, the expectations will be set even higher for them. It is up to them whether they can keep up their level of play and continue to bring home trophies for Korea's biggest e-Sport team.
Writers Note: This piece was inspired by riptide's Final Edit, Masters of the Universe, written in August 2009. Please take the time to have a look and read it if you have not already, as it gives a detailed and depth history of SK Telecom T1.
The Jungle Factor
By Chiharu Harukaze
In solo queue, one the most overlooked and verbally abused positions is the Jungler, along with the Support. Yet ironically, the Jungler is perhaps the most important position at the highest levels of play in competition amongst world-class teams.
Most people understand what the position of the Ranged AD Carry is one of the hardest scaling roles on the team. Therefore, to win the mid-late game the aim should be to feed as much gold as possible to take advantage of how heavily the multiplicative scaling of Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Crit and Armour Pen all combine. However, an AD Carry is useless without a team built around him or her, which allows him or her to operate freely and mangle anything unfortunate enough to walk into their attack range. This is where the two solo lanes step in. Whether it’s a Double AP set-up, Assassin or Bruiser set-up they provide the necessary threat in the mid game that drives the tempo of the game.
But once teams of equal or comparable skill levels clash, it is generally rare for a solo laner to completely outplay their opposing solo laner. Teams will rarely pick terrible match-ups into each other, and even if one player has a slight skill advantage it’s often not enough to overpower and kill their opponent since backing off and recalling is always an option. This is why the Jungler is so important - in a world where everything else is equal the jungle gank is the primary tool to breaking the status quo and giving the solo laners the power they need to take over the game’s tempo.
It comes as no surprise then that teams which are led and built around their junglers do very well. In the Season 2 World Championships the two finalists of Azubu`Frost and Taipei Assassins were both teams focused around their junglers. SKT T1 can be classified as such a team as well, despite the hype the surrounds Faker (their mid laner) and their duo bot of Piglet and Poohmandu.
Bengi (the SKT T1 Jungler) not only has an incredibly high contribution to SKT’s kill count overall but was also responsible for nearly all of SKT’s first kills in their games in the Semi-Finals and Finals. Just how influential was Bengi?
- Out of the 8 games played, he helped secure the first kills for SKT in 7 of them.
- 6 of those kills were First Blood.
- 2 of them were also double kills in solo lanes which set up Impact and Faker to take control of the mid-game.
Those stats are terrifying for any player, regardless of what role is played. But for a jungler it’s an incredible weapon to wield, being able to tactically select which lanes to start the snowball in. And when you have a team full of talent backing the Jungler up, it’s perhaps no surprise just how scary SKT T1 is.
* Bengi contributed to over 72% of all kills in the two Bo5 games in the Semi-Finals against NaJin Black Sword and the Finals against Royal Club. Over the course of the World Championship, his contribution ratio was one of the highest even if we adjust the comparable scores for other junglers to allow for the fact losses will typically result in more deaths than a win.
A Competitive History of S3 Champions
A look at how the Champions released in Season 3 fared
By: AsmodeusXI, Soniv and Chiharu Harukaze
Some video games are defined by their narratives, others by unique art or gameplay. League of Legends is a game defined by the Champions. Whenever a new challenger joins the League, the game itself changes, as does the professional scene that revolves around it. Since the Taipei Assassins came from out of nowhere to take the Season 2 World Championships, eleven Champions have entered the competitive environment, some of which fly far under the radar and some of which leapt from the shadows to define the metagame for the past year. With the SKT T1 Hype Train pulled in to Championship Station, it's time to look back at the new blood that emerged on the Fields of Justice during Season 3 to see how they've changed League of Legends.
The Season 2 but not avaliable for competitive play era *
* While Rengar technically fits the criteria of "Not Available in Season 2 World Championships," he saw plenty of play in Season 2, especially at IPL5. In fact, by the time Season 3 rolled around, his time in the metagame had already passed while the time of the other Champions on this list was just beginning. As such he is not included as a "new" Champion for the purposes of this list.
Syndra: The Dark Sovereign is a very unique champion that was not a popular pick in the LPL, LCS, and OGN Champions series, although it's worth noting that she saw a good deal of success when picked (with a 63% winrate). This could be attributed to opponents' lack of familiarity with the Champion, though. One of Syndra of particular note was Copenhagen Wolves' Bjergsen (now of TSM), who managed to score an impressive pentakill in an extended fight during the EU LCS Spring Split.
For a champion with one of the highest burst combos in the game, why was she so underappreciated? The answer is because the design of her kit heavily emphasises set-up and positioning. Syndra is not only incredibly squishy, her max burst takes time to set up and she has trouble protecting herself. In the Season 3 world of assassins, she becomes a liability. Even if you trade 1-for-1, the assassin has still accomplished their goal. At the same time, the easy access to early game sustain meant as a burst caster it became harder for her to shine in lane.
Things aren’t all doom for the Dark Sovereign though. Her complexity gives her a high skill cap, but also makes her an incredibly rewarding champion and could result in a big showing in Season 4.
Kha'zix: Kha’zix was only played sparingly at the end of Season 2, such as in Fnatic’s uber-assassin comp at IEM VII and as a tactical pick against TPA at IPL5. However, in Season 3 that all changed thanks to the revamped Tear of the Goddess, Manamune and all-new Muramana. This singular change highlights just how much smooth and efficient itemisation is for a champion’s success, regardless of their innate kit.
Normally, Tear is a weak buy in lane. It acts as a virtual GP10 item that pays out in mana over time rather than raw gold. Because it is initially stat inefficient, an opponent with equal gold has the option to buy efficient items such as Dorans and out-trade you, causing you to lose lane. However, champions like Kha’zix were able to convert mana directly into offensive power through ability spam with Void Spikes (W) and Taste Their Fear (Q), while still having mana up for an escape against ganks with Leap (E). Suddenly, Tear became an incredibly efficient buy that also got better over time and had an amazing build path into the destructive power of Manamune's added physical damage.
With these changes, Kha’zix had wave clear, split pushing power, duelling power, assassination power, spammable poke, resets to clean up team fights, an escape jump move and stealth. It is little wonder what Kha’zix was such a highly contested pick and ban. But after Patch 3.08 that all changed. In OGN Champions alone, Kha’zix’s pick/ban rate fell from 69% in Spring to 2.5% in Summer. Will he return? Perhaps, but likely it will take another itemisation or patch change for it to happen.
Elise: When Rioters Coronach and Meddler designed Elise, the Spider Queen, they could not have known they were about to release one of the most important Champions of the year. Elise's Champion Spotlight focused on her impressive jungling strength and while the jungler has remained her most played role, she's also seen extensive play as a top, mid, and even support. Her unique and powerful kit allows her this versatility and is what has made her so popular on the Fields of Justice. On one hand, Elise commands considerable damage with the %-health combination of Neurotoxin and Venomous Bite, allowing her to deal obscene damage even when she only builds Sorcerer's Boots. On the other hand, Elise's Cocoon/Rappel means she can almost always close the gap for a kill or allow one of her teammates to do so. On top of that, Elise's Spider Swarm passive and clever use of Rappel allows her to dive turrets with little consequence, making her a valuable asset in the objective and 1v2 focused metagame of Season 3.
Few Champions are as widely picked or banned as the Spider Queen. During the Summer Season, Elise was picked and banned in over 90% of games in every league except the EU LCS. There are also very few junglers that don’t have Elise in their repertoire. Elise is TSM's TheOddOne most picked Champion during the NA LCS while Elise was a regular go-to for C9‘s Meteos. It's practically inconceivable that Elise will leave the metagame any time soon (at least without a nerf), so arachnophobes beware: the Spider Queen will return in Season 4.
Zed: Zed personifies some of the largest shifts in Season 3. The increased AD itemisation (and the infamous League of Black Cleaver patch) allowed for a larger range of strategies (including al AD teams). And it was this environment that Zed was released into, and quickly took over.
Zed’s kit is deceptively simple, as it has an incredibly high skill cap and allows for good players to outplay their opponents. The tools in his kit, such as the shadow clones, can be used offensively to kill people or defensively as an escape tool and even for utility such as checking the Fog of War. Zed is also incredibly flexible in-game, presenting a duelling and split-pushing threat in addition to his assassination potential and roaming ganks, while making incredibly huge plays.
But perhaps what is most important, yet often overlooked, is that his kit contains two very important things: wave clear and ranged farming. The two combined mean that even when behind or in bad matchups, the Zed player can simply choose to farm safely or quickly clear and push the wave regardless if the lane is frozen, pushed to tower, or being camped. For the Zed player, it is simply a matter of biding time until you’re ready to start 100-0’ing people.
It is perhaps unsurprising that Zed was a part of nearly every mid-laner’s repertoire and was almost permabanned against all teams, regardless of whether they were the best Zed in their region or merely good. In fact, if you tried to make a tier list for Zed players you would probably have end up compiling a list of professional mid-lane players instead. It perhaps just goes to show that Ninjas are truly OP.
The Pre-Season 3 League of Black Cleaver era
Nami: The Tidecaller saw little action in the early days of Season 3, remaining an oft-overlooked choice for support players for the first half of 2013. Across China, Korea, NA, and EU, Nami was picked fewer than 20 times and had mixed results across the board. For some champions, so little play dooms them to a relative non-existence, but such was not the case when the Summer seasons rolled around. After spending the Spring Seasons on the sidelines, Nami returned with a vengeance in the Summer, with each region picking or banning the fishy support over 40 times. With practice, professional players realized how powerful Nami's kit could be with the massive stun of Aqua Prison, the powerful buff of Tidecaller's Blessing, and the engage and disrupt potential of Tidal Wave. In particular, builds maxing the Tidecaller's Blessing in lane were found to be particularly powerful, especially with frequently-picked AD Carries such as Vayne on whom the buff was extremely deadly. In many ways, this was thanks to the relentless buffs Riot threw Nami's way, allowing Nami to stay on a single point in Aqua Prison (Q) while still having a lower cooldown and longer duration CC, while Tidecaller's Blessing was given stronger visuals.
The Vayne/Nami combo first saw play in Korea with SKT T1's PoohManDu bringing her strenghts to the forefront. In other leagues, the Tidecaller complimented lanes with regional favorites Twitch (China) and Varus (EU). Despite the preference for Nami in the Summer Split, Worlds saw little of the aquatic support champion. This was most likely due to the Triforce change which made front-loaded burst and lockdown more important than the subtle buffs brought by Nami. Similarly her most frequent laning partners were exchanged for new powerhouses like Corki, with whom Nami is not nearly as effective. But make no mistake, Nami is still as good as she was before.
Vi: The Piltover Enforcer burst onto the scene in the middle of the break between seasons and was quickly adopted by the Western LoL scene. On release, Vi possessed a combination of tankiness, engage potential, and damage that allowed for incredible strength for both ganks and objective control. In particular, Vi's W, Denting Blows, gave her huge %-health damage at early levels, giving her the ability to decimate jungle monsters with ease. Between this and her Vault Breaker, many junglers realized they could use her powerful mobility and damage to take fast and secretive Dragons in the early game, especially on Blue Side. This eventually led to a nerf of Denting Blows, after which Vi saw very little play for several months.
Another contributing factor to her absence from the competitive scene were the changes to Locket of the Iron Solari, an item that gave Vi a huge amount of power in the early game. With the changes to the item, Vi's use for it decreased, and with it some of her strength. However, Vi made a massive resurgence in the OGN Summer Playoffs, LPL Summer Playoffs, and World Championships. Due to the assassin-focused metagame prevalent at the Season 3 World Championships, Vi's impossible-to-avoid engage and significant CC perfectly complimented the high-damage abilities of Champions such as Ahri and Zed. SKT T1's Bengi was a force with this in the OGN Championships, pulling out this ace pick in the Semifinals and Finals and immediately drew respect bans for it at Worlds. With Champions such as Ahri, Zed, and Fizz still dominating the mid lane, Vi's all-in style may be seen for some time to come.
Thresh: Unlike Nami, this Support was immediately embraced by players across the globe soon after release. His influence continued even through the Summer Season when teams had time to adjust to him, with his lowest pick/ban rate at 85% in the NA LCS. Riot's creation of the Championship Thresh skin for Season 3 is telling: few Champions have had the kind of influence that the Chain Warden possesses. Thresh's contributions to professional play are too numerous to name; it's unlikely that any support player has failed to use him in one game or another. But if there is one stand out player it would undoubtedly be CJ Frost’s Madlife, the long recognized God of Support who showed the world just how powerful Thresh's kit can become when used to its fullest extent with some ridiculous plays. In the West, Curse's EdWard found similar notoriety for his Thresh preference, earning him the nickname "Thresh Prince" from Deman. Despite nerfs and changes it's unlikely that Thresh will ever fall out of favor due to the intrinsic power in his kit, so Season 3 will hardly be the last we see of Thresh's soul-powered hooks.
The Season 3 Weekly LCS Matches era
Quinn: The first Champion of Season 3 was the ADC duo of Quinn and Valor, a widely-hyped IronStylus Champion with a unique ultimate that turns her from bow-wielding ranger to ferocious taloned eagle. Though the aesthetics of this design were interesting, in practice it put a squishy ADC in the front lines to make use of Tag Team. This flaw meant that Quinn quickly fell out of favor of most players, even after some rather significant buffs. To date, Quinn has been picked 6 times in KR, CN, NA, or EU and all but one have been losses. There has been some experimentation by players such as WE`Misaya with a roam based Quinn but they have not been terribly successful.
Her problem just that, well… Whatever she tries to do another champion can look at her and say “Anything you can do I can do better”.
Perhaps with a minor tweak or two she might be a good 4th or 5th counterpick. But until then it’s best not to hold your breath.
Zac: Much like Thresh, professional players immediately adopted Zac into their arsenal. The Secret Weapon is, perhaps, the ideal brusier: a Champion that builds tanky yet deals extraordinary amounts of damage by building health (a trend that pervades many of Season 3's Champion designs). His tankiness is supplemented with the multiple slows and knockups built into his kit. In addition, Zac's passive, Cell Division, gives him an incredible amount of survivability whether he's diving into dangerous situations from the jungle or scraping through a 1v2 top lane. But his Elastic Slingshot really puts the cherry on the already tasty cake, allowing for ganks and initiation from incredible distances over what are normally safe walls.
Most competitive play put Zac in the jungle, where his heavy damage to monsters and incredible initiation range via Elastic Slingshot made him a terror for all opposing laners. In a solo lane, Zac is one of the strongest of the "herbivore tops": laners that can almost always freely farm due to their sustainability and over-time dueling potential. The buffs to Spirit Visage only improved said sustainability, making him even stronger with the increased healing potential. Though less prevalent than Thresh overall, Zac made a huge impact on the competitive scene, featuring in a large percentage of games in every region and only in the EU LCS was he not banned out over 50% of the time.
Zac was also the signature Champion of C9's ace jungler, Meteos, whose 100% win rate and 39.3 KDA contributed to the downfall of every other NA squad. Samsung Galaxy Ozone’s Homme also played a powerful Zac top during OGN's Spring Season but chose other Champions in his Summer debuts. Zac's prevalence in professional play has already earned him several nerfs, but the green blob cannot be kept down and continues to bring his incredible play-making abilities to the competitive scene. Zac was a much lower factor at Worlds and will likely be overshadowed by many other junglers in the beginning of Season 4, but the strength of his core kit means that he should not be counted out.
Lissandra: The only mage released in Season 3 was accompanied with massive fanfare, Poros, a complete rewrite and retcon of Frejlord lore, the release of the Poro-populated Howling Abyss ARAM map and Poro-snax. Have we mentioned Poros by the way?
Like many Season 3 champions, Lissandra has a very wide kit that offers wave clear, mobility, CC and a lot of flexibility in how best to employ her spells. While she has some limitations, such as a short range on her Ice Shard (Q), her kit is very well suited to destroying the assassin meta. However, her strengths can be countered. She can struggle in matchups against longer range mages, especially in team fights. Due to her lower range, she is susceptible to poke, and can often get kited. If a Lissandra falls behind, it is hard to catch up because her full combo burst on the back line will not only fail to do sufficient damage, but also leave her sitting in the middle of their team while they wait to pounce.
It is thus perhaps not a surprise that she saw a low level of play, with only the EU LCS seeing her picked or banned in over 50% of games. The most notable users include ATN.Forellenlord who first demonstrated the power Glacial Path/Frozen Tomb-led wombo combos. Fnatic's xPeke and Gambit Gaming's Alex Ich also made effective use of Lissandra, maintaining high win rates with her during the Summer Split. But at Worlds, Lissandra became a priority ban against the Best of the West, Fnatic, for whom Lissandra acted as a powerful Teleport-wielding top laner in the hands of SoaZ.
The use of Lissandra in double AP compositions in the top lane rather than as a mid-lane counter pick to assassins is underexplored, and so look to see more of the Ice Witch as Season 4 arrives.
Aatrox: The final competitively available Champion release of Season 3 was Aatrox, a lifesteal-centric bruiser with a revive passive similar to Zac's. Aatrox was another champion that failed to catch on in most regions, but the EU LCS took the Champion and turned him into a powerful jungler. Though he only saw 12 games in the EU Summer Season, he was picked or banned in 89.5% of games in the playoffs, showing just how much EU teams grew to fear his Dark Flight, the surprisingly high damage and slow of Blades of Torment, and the sheer damage output of Blood Thirst/Price and Massacre.
Other regions saw the strength of the pick from both Cyanide and Diamondprox at the World Championships and the Darkin Blade was quickly on the perma-ban/pick list. But the power of Aatrox was best exemplified by OMG`Lovelin's all-in style whose fearless early dives into towers came as a shock to many. Aatrox is definitely going to stick around for Season 4 and if we see more Lovelin style plays, that doesn’t seem like a bad thing.
Awards and Accolades
The TeamLiquid Editor Awards
By: JBright, onlywonderboy, AsmodeusXI, Chexx, Fionn and NeoIllusions
“See Hero Kill Hero" Aggression Award: OMG LoveLin
This hallowed award dates back to when Gambit Gaming, then known as Moscow 5, first stormed the scene with their completely new aggressive style that disregarded all old rules about counterjungling and teamfighting and got right in the other team's face from the very first minute. Although it was coined by Gambit’s Mid Lane, Alex Ich, there is nobody else it could have gone to other than OMG's star jungler LoveLin.
![[image loading]](/staff/Atrioc/seeherokillhero.png)
Better hope he's not looking at your hero.
LoveLin has taken everything you think you know about aggressive carnivore junglers, pumped it full of steroids and strapped it to an exploding rocket headed for the sun - and that's before he gets snowballing. In OMG’s group stage domination, he's shown a clear preference for extremely deadly duelists and dive heavy Junglers like Aatrox and Lee Sin, along with one incredible highlight performance on Volibear against TSM. Let's take a look at his actions that game:
1. Starts Doran’s Blade on Volibear because he is LoveLin.
2. Clears both buffs, ganks top and kills Dyrus.
3. Ignore small camps (leaves all 3 up) to gank top again - getting another kill on Dyrus. Spend his gold bounty on Mobility Boots
4. Counter ganks mid, executes Reginald.
5. Rushes bot for a gank, makes an insane Flash/Frenzy execute on Xpecial, barely survives thanks to Chosen of the Storm, baits WildTurtle to his death.
6. Ganks mid, forced Reginald to ulti
7. Ganks bot, doesn't get a kill but.....
8. Ganks bot AGAIN and executes WildTurtle.
This is all before 10 minutes in game and he's picked up multiple kills/plays for his team in every single lane.
Demonstrating that the metagame in China is all about the early offensive and not giving your opponents any room to breathe, OMG has certain made a case for fans to pay greater attention to China’s LPL in Season 4.
Honorable Mention: SKT T1 Faker
If one single play, not just for this tournament but pretty much for all time, could define the "see hero kill hero" award, its probably Faker's hilarious lvl 1 death vs LemonDogs. While there have been a ton of outstanding mid lane performances so far in the group stages (Cool, Alex Ich, Mancloud, xPeke, etc. have all had some great games), Faker has stood above the rest with his willingness to duel his opposing midlaner to the death. As the level of play rises, it becomes more and more difficult to solo kill someone 1v1 in the mid lane, but Faker has been able to consistently make that his mission.
![[image loading]](/staff/Atrioc/seeherokillhero2.png)
Nothing fake about the KDA
Also, since killing everything in sight during World's group stages games wasn't enough - it turns out that he is also the infamous Barcode Killer and has been terrorizing the upper echelon's of NA solo queue for the past few weeks.
With their upcoming match against the Taiwanese Gama Bears being a bit of a question mark due to how little information about that team is available, we wont know until Tuesday whether Faker will be able to keep up his aggression against the safer style they showed in their regional qualifier. If he does, however, we can guarantee we will be seeing some kills.
P.S. Did I say that first play embodied the "see hero, kill hero" mentality? I was wrong. This one does.
“I got the Reset (yes!)” Big Plays Award: Fnatic
Our biggest play from the Group Stage comes from Fnatic's second game against Vulcun. Looking to take revenge on the only team to beat them in group play, Fnatic came out of the gate hard and fast. Vulcun managed to grab first blood, but the team seemed to forget about xPeke's teleport and was punished for their over extension going one for three in the trade. From there, Vulcun just fell apart as Fnatic picked up kills and every lane and further extended their lead. The play itself came as Fnatic sieged Vulcun's tier 2 tower, and Vulcun blew all their cooldowns trying to kill xPeke.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kiett/lol/wombocombo.gif)
Although xPeke went down, the rest of Fnatic was enough to clean up the fight. With a combination of Elastic Slingshot, Let's Bounce, and Stranglethorns, the members of Vulcun were juggled into the air three times (2.75 seconds of unmitigated CC), completely immobilizing them for most of the fight. The entire combo landed on four members of Vulcun and would have hit all five had Sycho Sid not used Sanguine Pool to escape. Vulcun set themselves up for failure by grouping up trying to kill xPeke, but Fnatic played the fight extremely well, including a nice wall Flash from YellOwStaR to set up a near perfect Stranglethorns. Fnatic's group stay play was truly impressive, and this single fight really embodies how strong they currently look.
Honorable Mention: SKT's 12 minute inhib + Faker Charms
Sometimes an impressive play can't be summed up in a single GIF, but is rather the culmination of several minutes of crisp execution. This happen in the final group stage match when SKT managed to take a 12 minute inhibitor off the undefeated OMG. Starting at the tier 1 mid tower and ending with the inhibitor, SKT simply outplayed OMG for a little over a minute straight. After catching Cool out of position, PoohManDu chose to burn Crescendo on the single target and deleted him with the help of Faker and Piglet. This set the entire series of events into motion. From there Faker just went off, hitting several max range Charms on members of OMG who thought they were safe. One key Charm was on the freshly respawned Cool who didn't contribute much of anything before dying a second time. In the entire engagement Faker was four for four on his Charms. The entire team reacted quickly to each Charm and blew up the members of OMG before they could even react. There was certainly some mispositioning on the part of OMG, but SKT fully capitalized on this, taking one of the earliest inhibitors in competitive League of Legends.
“Garen in the Bush Surprise Performance Award: Fnatic YellOwStaR
TL's pick for the Best Surprise Performance in the Group Stages is Fnatic’s YellOwStaR. His incredible support play, especially on his comfort picks of Zyra and Leona, has turned him into one of the pillars of Fnatic's success in the 2013 World Championship. Some carries have had trouble getting fed during the Championships, but this bloodthirsty support sure knows how to. With Zyra, YellOwStaR won four out of five matches with a KDA of 8.4, while his Leona earned Fnatic four victories with an average KDA of 7.7. We haven’t seen Leona in the professional scene for a while, but YellOwStaR put her back on the map and made her look completely overpowered to boot. He has earned the highest KDA of any support player and the fifth highest KDA in the tournament, which, in case you've forgotten, contains Champion-farmers like Faker, Uzi, xPeke, Pray, and Piglet. YellOwStaR took command of bot lane throughout the Group Stages, charging forward fearlessly and engaging on his opponents even if he had to waste Flash to do so. One particularly genius moment was his Zyra Wall-Flash to land a five-man Stranglethorns and setup an amazing Fnatic Wombo Combo. On top of all this, YellOwStaR's final Group Stage match showed that he could even play top lane on a competitive level.
Of course, this is TL, so we have to keep up a certain standard (read: Korean bias). So let's just say that YellOwStaR played more like a Korean than the entire Ozone roster during the Group Stages. And speaking of Ozone...
Honorable Mention: Samsung Galaxy Ozone Dade
Who said surprises had to be positive? After Samsung picked up the MVP Ozone squad, fans' expectations of the OGN Spring 2013 winner and Summer 2013 third-place finisher increased. Ozone let them down. In every match they showed a total lack in preparation for the foreign competition and training on the current patch. It was as if Ozone was a relic of the past, frozen in time, and woken up for Worlds to find its old style was not viable anymore. Even the team's Picks and Bans were questionable at best. Of the entire underperforming squad, Dade's apparent discomfort with the current metagame and overall shoddy performance stuck out most of all. He didn’t prepare new champions, such the favored assassins Ahri and Fizz, and made quite a lot questionable decisions which led to things like dying twice in 3 minutes against Fnatic. Long story short, Dade and Ozone put on a poor performance at Worlds, so much so that they literally shamed their Korean fans.
Olympic Javelin Track and Field Award for Biggest Throw: Vulcun TechBargains' Botched Baron in Vulcun vs. Gambit
eSports truly hits its stride when teams are in do-or-die circumstances, so Vulcun vs. Gambit was fated to be an important game of the tournament. With both teams fighting to keep their quarterfinal hopes alive (albeit one had a far greater chance), expectations were high for the match. Despite the praise that the analyst desk gave Vulcun at various points throughout the tournament, it seemed obvious to most that Gambit, who looked far stronger throughout the group stages, would take an easy win. To pull out a victory in the match, Vulcun needed a significant early game "head start" that would push them through their comparatively weaker late game play. Gambit, not being a team that falters early, was unlikely to fall prey to Vulcun's early aggression.
Except then they did. Hard.
In the first 20 minutes of the game, Gambit hardly looked like a team that could escape the group stages at Worlds. Their early plays around their jungle camps and Dragon resulted in either stolen objectives or deaths and none of their ganks did more than get Vulcun members to low health. Vulcun, on the other hand, played their aggressive style to perfection, successfully and frequently ganking lanes. Their focus was on Alex Ich's Ahri, and by the time Alex found Gambit's first kill of the game he was already 1/3 and losing in farm. In fact, so was every other Gambit lane, and when you're being outfarmed by the famously CS-lite Zuna, you know something is going wrong. Vulcun came out on top in every engagement with ease, and by 19:00, Vulcun was up 10 kills to 2 with a 6K gold lead.
Then they made the the NA Throw Play: they went for an early Baron.
Even after a 2:0 teamfight, it was still too early and too dangerous for Vulcun to take on the legendary monster, but they did it anyways. Gambit saw this fatal mistake and pounced. Within 30 seconds, Alex and his remaining teammates racked up 4 kills while giving none, then took the Baron that Vulcun began. Now with only a 4 kill and 2K lead, Vulcun's massive early advantage was nearly depleted, taking with it their greatest hope of winning the match. Gambit truly secured a gold lead when they pushed through two middle turrets and three more kills in their first minute with Baron buff. From there on out, Vulcun lacked their former confidence and Gambit capitalized on the opening Vulcun provided. Alex Ich in particular excelled on his Ahri, reaching a K/D score of 13/3 by the end of the game. In the end, Vulcun could no longer hold off the Gambit onslaught and fell to Gambit's superior post-game-donation play.
Vulcun could hardly have asked for a better start in this important match, which, historically, is all they need for a win. Yet one terrible decision cost them their last shot at the quarterfinals. Such a huge throw with so much on the line makes Vulcun's Botched Baron against Gambit our choice for the Olympic Javelin Track and Field Award for Biggest Throw.
Honorable Mention: Dade's Ryze v. Ahri in Ozone vs. Gambit
An Honorable Mention for the throw award must be handed to the significantly underperforming Dade after the last game of the first day of the group stages. For reasons unknown to fans, casters, or critics, Dade was under the impression that the recently-nerfed Ryze remained a viable mid-laner in the "League of Ahri." Perhaps he failed to grasp the magnitude of the nerfs, or perhaps he failed to respect the challenge of his opposition - it's hard to tell what he was thinking. He went into battle against Vulcun and promptly donated first blood to the NA team. Perhaps the team's eventual victory on the backs of Imp and Looper sent the wrong message because Dade proceeded to pick Ryze again into Ahri again when the Nine-Tailed Fox was chosen by the more formidable Alex Ich of Gambit. This time the Korean team could not recover from Dade's first blood donation and Gambit proceeded to stomp them into the ground, surprising all save the faithful fans. Fool Dade once, shame on you, but fool him twice and that's a throw; the highly lauded Korean mid-laner should've understood the metagame well enough to realize he was walking into an unfavorable matchup. Whether it was due to misinformation or sheer hubris, Dade's Champion selection in Ozone's second game started them on the path to 3rd place in the group, making their poor choice in Ryze an impressive throw.
What do the S4 changes mean?
An analysis of some of the S4 changes and what they might mean for competitive play
By: MoonBear
In the far-away Rift of icy Frej-lord,
Mamort the Support had a only ward.
A nice little ward. It was new. It was pink.
But the foe had oracles. So it was gone in a blink.
"Please give me some gold" Mamort used to plead.
This Support was so sad. Quite sad indeed.
- Dr. Seuss
Mamort the Support had a only ward.
A nice little ward. It was new. It was pink.
But the foe had oracles. So it was gone in a blink.
"Please give me some gold" Mamort used to plead.
This Support was so sad. Quite sad indeed.
- Dr. Seuss
So far there have been three key disclosures from Riot about the Season 4 change: the changes to sight, Support changes, changes to several key objectives and Jungle changes. While there will be more information to come, one of the most important changes is going to be the changes to how we are going to see itemisation theory change.
Itemisation for the Support and Jungler
The adoption of the 1 to 5 positions for farm priority create two tiers of income, with the solo lanes and AD Carry in the 1st to 3rd positions hoarding most of the gold while the Jungler and Support in the 4th and 5th positions having the least. The common idea behind this is that having gold means buying powerful items, and more powerful items on your carries means more damage which means winning more.
However, the reason why farmed Supports and Junglers are a rarity is not because items on them are bad. Quite the opposite in fact. The job of the 4th and 5th position in a team is to create an advantage by getting off their rotation of utility/CC skills and heavily influencing fights through intangible benefits rather than damage. This also means that having the survivability to cast those spells a second time doubles your usefulness in a fight. Unlike in DotA, being able to buy Cooldown Reduction allows you to get those spells off more often, especially because CDR is often paired with health or resistance stats. That means that even the 4th and 5th position players have a way of scaling throughout the game even if they are not buying hard carry items.
But farm on the Supports and Junglers is still good, why did we not see more of them at Worlds? The answer is two-fold. The first is that there needs to be a strong incentive to overtly allocate farm towards the 4th and 5th position players. I have argued before that sometimes it is better to let your Support farm the big minion wave that is pushing, because the 200g that lets them finish an Aegis is far more important for the team before the next big fight than the 200g on a carry who just picked up a Trinity Force and has nothing to buy with only 200g. However, the focus in Season 3 towards early brawls and confrontations compared to the extended laning phases in Season 2 meant that often the Support would not have time to buy even the components of Aegis. Instead, their focus was dumping all their money into consumables like Wards, in order to secure fast and early objectives in order to snowball the game. This creates an environment where teams are encouraged to "race to the bottom" as fast as possible - there is little point in making holistic economically efficient decisions when the other team is threatening to undercut you with fast consumable spending. (This was also a driving force behind the omnipresent Elixir of Fortitude starts in early Season 3 until their nerfs.)
The second reason is almost a natural corollary to the first. It is established theory that in low economy games, objectives and kills can act as an alternative source of gold and replace income from minion farming. In an environment around early objectives though, for the 4th and 5th position players these alternative sources of income are often their primary source of income. Therefore, objective taking and denying is equivalent to deciding the income for the 4th and 5th positions in both teams. So it further emphasises controlling that income over item progression. No incentive for item progression means no incentive for farmed supports.
The Season 4 changes are a good step to addressing this core problem. Firstly, the new scaling mechanics reward putting farm on supports. With the Support acting as the force multiplier on the team having the force multiplier scale now directly rewards for farming their support. This means that a team with a gold lead is now able to out-power their opponent through stronger Supports rather than how many wards they can afford to buy. The increases to assist gold also means good Support players will no longer rely on objectives as the primarily income stream. The limitation on wards per player also prevents the ward spam, encouraging item development while the new Trinket means the Oracles no longer completely compulsory to force an objective, although Oracles will still be very strong. By creating the incentive system that rewards teams for farmed Supports while also providing the mechanics to do so, Support players are going to become much more influential.
And that's also a good thing too, since the mentality at the professional play often trickles down and influences the general player base. And less Support abuse is a good thing.
Itemisation for Carries
In many games, there is a split between economic growth and damage power. Let's use build orders in Starcraft 2 as our example here. Anyone who has played SC2 knows that build orders are very distinct and each one is designed to accomplish a different objective. For instance, a Forge Fast Expand is designed to be an economy centred build that obtains a quick expansion at the expense of combat units. It trades early damage for the economy that powers a strong army mid game. As the game progresses, players have to make similar choices between investing in economic growth, technological upgrades and more army. Each decision has a real opportunity cost and professional players can use their superior skill to 'outplay' lesser opponents through clever and more efficient decisions about what to invest in.
In League of Legends, this distinction does not exist. If you want to power your economic growth (farming harder), you buy the exact same items you do if you want to kill people more (damage power). For example if you're an AP Burst Mage, buying more AP lets you clear waves faster and kill people faster. The same goes for, say, AD items for an AD Ranged Carry. Because farming and damage power is tied so closely, it encourages snowballing from itemisation because the only real response to someone getting a power item (such as a Deathcap) is simply to try and get your power item as fast as possible in response. If your opponent has gotten it and is simply interested in farming, they're still ahead of your in fighting power so you need to get your own just to fight them. If they're more interested in fighting and taking objectives, they still farm faster than you so trying to stall is less useful.
This is why Executioner's Emblem seems so interesting. There's not much that's been revealed about it, but it seems like the first item designed for carries that is explicitly about farming minions as its primary purpose. While it was announced a part of the changes for Support gold income, it also represents a possible first step for meaningful itemisation decisions for Carries. By creating items that do more than just offer fighting power, it means that good players can use their knowledge of the game to analyse the current game state and choose the better item. It also means that team comps could potentially be designed around farming. The bane of late-game 6 items is actually getting there, especially in a game environment that encourages fast pushing. But by creating that tension around choosing between economic growth and damage power, you allow for different power curves in item developments and create interesting clashes between teams, the same way say an economically greedy build order fights off against an aggressive build order in Starcraft.
It seems a odd thing to consider in a MOBA game, but it's not unprecedented. For example, in DotA the Battle Fury item is pretty much designed to be an item to set up economic growth. While it has damage power, it is lacklustre compared to other comparable damage items.
While Executioner's Emblem is likely just a small change, it does represent the first step in what could be a new way to see how we itemise carries and how the power growth of carries might change in the future, especially if the pushing meta falls out of favour and we return to more extended laning phases.
Closing Words
And so another Season comes to a close. Season 3 has brought so many changes both on and off the Rift. But the biggest is of course the format of the LCS, and how it has become the driving force behind competitive play. There have been some ups and downs to the various Championship series, and how they feed into the Worlds format as well as the qualifications for the Championship series themselves. But all is still young, as as we look to Season 4 it's definitely heartening news to hear things such as Coke Zero sponsoring Challenger League competitions. Looking back, it's pretty shocking how far League of Legends has come. (Do you still remember when people were forced to use the Spectate Summoner Spell on the tournament client in order to get any casting done?)
Season 3 has also proved several things we predicted on TeamLiquid. For a start, analysts and coaches have now become standard practise accross the globe, and it seems unthinkable that a team would be able to reach the top without one. Also, teams are now much more aware about issues such as creating and exploiting timings, and drafting team compositions as a whole rather than just a mixture of good stuff. But there's still much more for players, analysts, writers, coaches, casters and spectators to discover, especially with the Season 4 changes coming up fast. Isn't it exciting?
On TeamLiquid, we've also seen many changes in our beloved League of Legends subforum, including an expanded roster of staff and thing like Atrioc's amazing Guide to Fizz. We're not going to rest on our laurels however, and there ae still more things planned. I can't confirm if we're working on Blizzard or Valve time (or even some bizarre fusion of both), but I can say we have things planned soon™.
If you're looking for more updates, perhaps I could recommend the new TeamLiquid LoL Twitter feed? We'll be regularly tweeting any interesting updates or when TeamLiquid articles are published. There's also NeoIllusions our lovely Admin in charge of all things LoL who tweets about many things, and MoonBear who tweets deep analysis live during tournament games whenever possible. You can also feel free to tweet things at us and we'll try to respond!
And finally, I know I always say this, but thank you to all our readers and TeamLiquid regulars, especially those who have stuck by us since the beginning. Please stay safe, have a great Harrowing (pick up them Vintage skins like Kitty Kat Katarina!) and we'll see you when Season 4 rolls in. Perhaps we'll have something special before Snowdown arrives!
Art by ATK402 ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/NeoIllusions/twitter.png)
This edition of the TeamLiquid LoL write-up was brought to you by NeoIllusions, JBright, MoonBear Chiharu Harukaze, GTR, Chexx, AsmodeusXI, onlywonderboy, Flicky, Fionn, and Soniv.
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