The Anatomy of a Base Race

by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

The Weakness of the Split Push

LCS Week Four brought two intense base-race games. Victory came before a lot of people even realized the game was ending. The games were split, ironically, between NA and EU. Fnatic vs. Alliance and EG vs. LMQ. In both games the advantage seemed to be going in favor of the eventual loser. Fnatic had a strong kill lead and they were in control of the speed of the game. EG had been ahead in gold even after the game was over. Both Alliance and LMQ made critical choices to swing the momentum of the game in their favor and force the enemy into a hard decision.

First up, Fnatic against Alliance. Everyone was looking forward to this game as a close match-up. Fnatic were the winners of the Spring Split but were looking lackluster and sloppy in their first few games this summer. Alliance were the front-runners and despite their few losses, they looked like a powerhouse. I’d like to take a moment to look at the lineup for each team.

Fnatic in my opinion had the better pick/ban phase here. Banning out the popular Lee Sin jungle is always good because he’s far and away the best right now. Jax was nice as well because Fnatic’s comp just isn't built to handle a late game Jax (No one could stop his split push) and Wickd has been known to pull it out.

Fnatic first-picked Braum as soon as they saw he was left open. This was particularly surprising to me and I’m sure Fnatic as well. What was more surprising was after Alliance made their two picks, Twitch was still open. Rekkles had an outstandingly scary game on Twitch the day before against SK and to leave the rat open and not pick him away from Rekkles is either a slap in the face or stupid. To be fair though, Alliance did pick away Lucian because of the synergy that Braum and Lucian’s passive have. Cyanide also picked up Evelynn at the same time to go with the stealth theme. Then they rounded it all up with a Twisted Fate and Shyvana pick-up. All around, Fnatic built a solid team that not only was full of champs that are strong in the meta, but also work pretty well together.

If you look closely, Fnatic’s team is really focused on controlling the map and forcing mid game team fights. Twisted Fate, Evelynn and Twitch can all show up on someone without them realizing how out of position they are. Once the fight starts, Shyvana can come flying in if needs be and Braum can protect the possibly slightly out of position Twitch. Laning would be the weakness for Fnatic if one would guess. Especially if you look at their match-ups.

I feel Alliance really fell behind right from the start with their picks and bans. First of all, letting Braum though was a bit of a mistake. It literally forced them to pick up Lucian and let Twitch through to Rekkles. Ziggs was a nice ban, however, as was Morgana since Nyph picked up Thresh. The early Kayle pick was actually very well-played. Kayle has the amazing versatility of going almost anywhere (of course her professional viability has been top and mid). This left Wickd and Froggen the ability to trade Kayle off into whatever lane they felt would be better. She ended up going top to handle Shyvana, with Froggen taking Leblanc with the final pick to bully Twisted Fate early on and make sure his Level 6 ganks would be forced with either low health or after backing to base. Elise was a pretty standard pick, considering Evelynn and Lee Sin were off the board as of that time, leaving her as the only standard left.

 Alliance built their team around picking people off when they tried to rotate. While Kayle was a nice flex pick, I don’t really think she fit well with this composition. Kayle is a constant damage mage who can make a hyper carry invulnerable for a short amount of time. No one on her team can make a lot of use out of her ult other than herself. Lucian should be able to kite effectively with The Culling and Relentless Pursuit, and Froggen is all about bursting people and leaving immediately. Invulnerability is never a bad thing to have, but it’s value on this team is lacking compared to what some other top laners may have been able to bring. The rest of the team, however, can grab someone and burst them down before the enemy knows what happened to them.

Game

Now into the game. Shook on Elise starts with a pink ward over extra pots. This is a very smart pick up from Shook. He knew he could use the spiderlings to tank jungle minions and used the extra gold to try and track down Evelynn. Both teams set up and protect their buffs, a much different strategy than what had been occurring that day. In fact, we ended up with standard lane match-ups. It’s important to note this because this is a huge win for Alliance.

Alliance had a team made of people who were strong laners/dueling champs. If Fnatic had forced a lane swap and given free farm to Twitch and later on let Shyvana get some after lanes had pushed, they would have been able to avoid most fights until they hit their mid to late game spike. Alliance would have had to force picks and make themselves vulnerable.

When I saw the composition and how the lanes had worked out to be standard, I had expected Shook to try and make an early gank and play off the advantage all of the laners had. Shook never even attempted a gank until late in the game, and even then he wasn't successful. At the 5:00 mark, there had been almost no immediate action in the game. Alliance’s passiveness was making them lose before they even fought. Even worse, Soaz’s Shyvana was outfarming Wickd on Kayle. It was only a slight lead, but the fact that Kayle hadn't dominated that lane was a bad sign.

Thirty seconds later, Cyanide made the first gank at bottom lane. YellOwStaR jumped forward on Braum and got a quick start on his passive onto Thresh. Twitch followed up and Evelynn showed herself right after. Nyph flashed backwards to try and escape, but the sudden pressure was too unexpected. He went down and Tabzz escaped. Rekkles was already 1/0/0. A minute afterwards, Evelynn goes bot one more time in the same fashion. Still no pinks bought by Nyph and there’s a similar outcome. This time Wickd on Kayle tries to turn things around with a teleport to a ward, but they get nothing from it and run off. Twitch gets another kill.

At a quick glance you’d say Rekkles is already way ahead, but if you would look at CS at this time, Tabzz’s Lucian was up 25 creeps. So if we assume a 400 gold first blood plus a second kill at 300, Rekkles has 700 gold extra. However, take an average of 22 gold per CS and Lucian makes up 550 of that gold, putting Rekkles up only 150 - not even enough for a non-consumable item. The fact that Lucian was that far ahead in CS was huge in keeping him in the game. If they had been even, Rekkles most likely would have run away with the game.

There’s a lull in the action until 9:00. Fnatic coordinates a tower dive on Kayle in top. The combination of Evelynn, TF's ult, and Shyvana is enough to overpower Wickd’s ult and they take a clean kill with Soaz’s Dragon’s Descent being used to escape the tower aggro. This was a well-played gank which led to Fnatic taking the first tower. However, Alliance realized how many members were in the top lane, and took dragon right afterwards, unknown to Fnatic. Despite Fnatic completely controlling the game and making all of the early moves, they’re only ahead by 1k gold.

At 12:15, Fnatic make a bold move and pull a 5-man gank bottom using both TF's ult and Shyvana teleport. The gank is successful in gaining a kill on Thresh for Shyvana, but with all of the resources used, Kayle is able to free farm top. Fnatic split up afterwards, and while sitting in the bottom mid brush, Evelynn is caught out. After a small tussle, Shook’s Elise takes the kill. He is chased down by Xpeke directly afterwards, making it an even trade. Of course, an even trade is better for a team that is behind. It seemed like Fnatic wanted to take the dragon, but they didn’t realize Alliance already took it.

While trying to siege mid around the 14:40 mark, Nyph tosses out a hook and hits Shyvana. At first it seems Alliance just wants to poke at her for a  bit, but they keep poking into a full engage. After spending so much time and energy on Shyvana they have no abilities to use on anyone else when Fnatic tower dives. Cyanide gets a revenge kill on Elise, and Lucian is chased out through the jungle by Braum and Twitch. With a quick flash, Rekkles takes the kill. Alliance did, however, keep their tower up through all of this.

16:00 in,  Alliance take the second dragon. At this point Fnatic have improved their lead, but only to 2k gold. Considering the amount of pressure they’ve been flaunting and control they had, most people would have assumed they were far ahead, but Alliance’s dragons and CS on Lucian were keeping them in the game.

Finally, Fnatic get the mid tower they had been sieging at 17:15. However, after all of this time Alliance has taken Fnatic’s mid tower low as well. Fast-forward to 21:08. Xpeke TF ults down into bottom. A critical thing to notice here is this is 45 seconds before the next dragon spawn. Fnatic had no timer and if they did, I doubt they would have used TF’s ult so soon. They get no immediate kills out of it. At the same time, right at dragon, Leblanc and Kayle  get split by Braum and Evelynn. Braum ults onto Froggen and Evelynn pops her ult on Kayle. At first, it seemed like they were going to split targets, but right after the Braum ult, YellOwStaR turns right around and jumps onto Cyanide. Wickd ults himself, moves over to the red side wall and flashes over. Fnatic have control for the third dragon, but head to bottom in order to siege the tower first. Remember, Fnatic don’t have the timer for dragon..

           

This was a mistake as once again, Alliance move forward and start dragon at 22:00. Nyph zones out Fnatic once they realize and make their way over with a well-placed box. Kayle and Leblanc poke while Elise and Lucian take the dragon with their better sustained damage. Alliance takes the third dragon and as Fnatic attempts to back off, YellOwStaR moves late and is caught by a Thresh hook. He’s low health from the small engage before and is quickly taken out.

Here is where the magic happens. Because Alliance made a good pick and had kept themselves in the game as far as gold is concerned, they rush mid to take the low turret. As most of the team takes mid, Leblanc runs interference in the jungle by wraiths, forcing Soaz and Cyanide to take a much longer route into their base. Note that it’s only Shyvana and Evelynn though. Rekkles and Xpeke have gone back to bottom to try and counter push.

With all five mid, Alliance are able to out shove the strong pushers of TF and Twitch. As they take down the inhibitor tower, Soaz sits back and Braum moves up to try and stall, but he is hooked when the tower gets low. Once the tower is down completely, they go all in and kill YellOwStaR once again, following up on Shyvana right after. Evelynn finally comes in behind Alliance as they close in on the nexus. This whole time Twitch was pushing continuously. Xpeke, on the other hand, had second thoughts and started walking back to base. However, as Soaz went down he changed his mind again and popped his ult to go back to push with Twitch.

Xpeke and Rekkles back as their nexus turrets go down, but at this point it’s too late. Alliance closed it out and won the game with some great strategical play that set themselves up to capitalize on Fnatic’s positioning. While this was definitely some great play by Alliance, Fnatic really mispositioned and had split their calls in what they wanted to do. Alliance made a great play in not only starting the dragon, but starting it from the side where they could easily transition into the mid tower that was about to die. The fact that they kept going was purely because of Fnatic’s misplay from there.

To avoid redundancy, I’m going to look at the pick ban phase and only the shift for EG/LMQ.

All in all EG have a solid team fight team, right off the bat you can tell their plan is to let Jax get big and just sustain under tower while he split pushes. Ziggs and Lucian have all the abilities necessary to keep their towers alive and just hold out. I believe the Lee Sin pick was partially because of Helios’ ability to make plays with him and to get Jax rolling early. The bans that EG focused on were things that would either shut down Jax in top lane or basically anything that they felt would let LMQ get a lead early. LMQ have a great ability to snowball a lead when ahead.

LMQ built a composition based on poking out EG. It’s an interesting concept and late game one would think EG would have the advantage, barring some great Caitlyn Peacemakers and Nidalee spears. Braum is great for disengaging and Shyvana is just going to tank out the Ziggs and Lucian damage, since Shyvana can’t handle Jax late game. LMQ’s bans were similar to EG’s in that they were attempting to ban out the strong/known champions that EG plays. Also, Lulu and Corki would be able to clear waves, and while they did let Ziggs through, that’s about it.

Game

4:00 in Helios ganks top and First Bloods Ackerman’s Shyvana with a quick tower dive, but Shyvana gets a kill in response. The kill went over to Jax though, which is exactly what they wanted to get out of that. If Jax can split, EG will win.

At 6:45 Helios is caught out trying to snowball Pobelter’s lead in mid. NoName and Mor had roamed to help Nidalee, who was getting poked out. After some dancing and Pobelter being zoned out, XiaoWeiXiao tosses a spear from the distance to get the kill. The fact that Mor was able to roam came from how Vasilii had dominated with his Caitlyn in lane, gaining 52 CS at this time over Altec’s 36 on Lucian.

Once we hit 10:00, we see Helios and NoName, who had been mirroring each other all game, connect by LMQ’s red buff. While taking a pink, Helios gets cocooned, but Pobelter was quicker on the draw - following up and as soon as he’s free. He combos with Pobelter’s bombs to kick NoName back for the kill. While all of this is happening, Innox and Ackerman were having a brawl, with Innox about to die. Pobelter and Helios made the smart roam up after their kill and gave Jax a jump out, and Ziggs cleaned up the kill on Shyvana afterwards. At this point, EG was still down in gold from lost dragons. They had traded this off in order to get Jax fed, which was working well.

After Jax gets a solo kill on Shyvana, EG made rotations and took all three outer towers, pulling themselves up to a 6k gold lead. Jax, having a Blade of the Ruined King and a Phage at this point, was becoming a late game terror, compared to Ackerman - who had no complete items at this point. At around 19:00, EG decides to pressure LMQ’s blue buff. Nidalee is caught with a binding after LMQ laid down some poke. Mor jumps to protect his mid laner and is successful, but a clutch teleport nets Jax a kill as they disengage. Meanwhile, Helios takes down Elise back further in the jungle. EG, up until this point, had been pressuring their lead well, and getting their Jax fed enough to split.

And once again we come to the base race. At a whopping 46:20 total time, LMQ had taken Baron and were sieging mid lane as five. As Jax split pushes the bottom, Lucian drops The Culling to deter LMQ off of the mid inhibitor tower. Ziggs drops the Mega Inferno Bomb as well. Mor shields The Culling, and the Mega Inferno Bomb does not hit many targets. This prompts LMQ to engage, knowing they had an ultimate advantage in fight, as well as the fact that they were baroned-up and able to tank tower because they were at late game status. As the tower went down and the Culling ended, Braum uses his ultimate and knocks up Pobelter. Krepo makes a mistake here and shields Altec’s Lucian (who had a Banshee’s Veil spell shield) and not Pobelter, who receives all of the knock up and is immediately deleted.

Altec and Krepo focus their damage on the tanky Elise, and Helios uses his kick on Shyvana on the side of the fight and achieves nothing with it. LMQ lost Braum in exchange for Ziggs, and is still strong enough to win a 4v3 fight. Innox and LMQ both take inhibitors and move on to nexus turrets. However, the crucial fact here is that Ziggs is down for EG. They have no way to keep all of LMQ off the tower. All of their damage left is single target. That, in addition to all of LMQ having a way to speed up their attack speed. Jax had no way of matching their speed. He makes the mistake of trying to teleport back to a dying tower, wasting any possibility of winning the game.

Closing Thoughts

So what has been learned? If you’re planning on split pushing, you have to be able to stall while your fed duelist takes towers as soon as it turns into a base race. Even the most fed split pusher will lose out to more bodies on the opposing team. Fnatic couldn't agree on what they wanted to do. They floundered and let Alliance walk right into their base. And when Fnatic called their bluff, Alliance went deep in and took the game in the confusion. EG’s mistakes came from not pressuring with their top laner enough. They got Jax ahead and did nothing with it while LMQ slowly poked their way back into the game. The fact that LMQ ran a poke team was what really won them the game, because it became a fight of who could hit skillshots, and the last fight especially showed that LMQ was on top of that.

            

Visa Issues Screw Gambit For Wembley

by Jodi "PunkLit" McClure

Due to visa issues, four core members of Gambit will be unable to attend this weekend's EU LCS in Great Britain. Three to six weeks are required for Russian citizens to acquire that visa, and players cannot be abroad during that time, as they have to leave their passports in a consulate.

Gambit learned about the London trip on May 22nd, and could not even apply for an emergency visa without missing two weeks in Cologne. The team stated in a Gambit press release that they are the innocent victims of "organizer's careless actions." Had they been notified in a timely manner, they could have acquired the visas during the off-season without any obstacles.

Riot declined the team's request to reschedule their games and Gambit is reasonably upset about the situation, as it puts them at a great disadvantage. Organizers did try to remedy the problem, but it was too late to find a solution, so now, Gambit can only express condolences to their disappointed fans. 

Their make-shift line-up for the Wembley event will be:

Top - Cabochard 

Jungle - Loulex 

Mid - NiQ

ADC - Fury III

Support - Hiiva 

The temporary members have been added to Riot's Fantasy LCS Website with estimated points.   

Patch 4.10: What does it mean for the LCS Midlane?

by Reece "Sabrewolf" Dos-Santos

One thing it certainly means is that Nidalee’s 7/0 record in the NA LCS will either stay frozen or begin to pick up some losses. Nidalee’s human form numbers were hit across the board to provide some kind of counterplay and a bit more attractiveness to the cougar form.

The “keep throwing spears from the fog of war and one will hit eventually” gameplay was incredibly frustrating to watch and even more frustrating to play against. Where big damage should usually have some kind of drawback, spears were a guaranteed health bar eater with no positional setback. In the off chance that you were caught, all you needed was a few helpful teammates to wall you off and allow you to pounce away, heal yourself with Primal Surge’s unreasonably high healing output and throw some more.  But Riot were holding nothing back against the Bestial Huntress as her main source of sustain got hit as well. The changes to Athene’s Unholy Grail means it’s not always going to be a must have rushed item for AP mid laners anymore. With the magic resist levels halved and the mana regen lowered it will no longer heavily snowball the mid laner that buys it first, and opens the door to other items like Morellonomicon returning to the meta - especially with the added 5 AP bringing its AP up to 80.

But the Athene’s nerf and the nerfs to mana regen items also opens the door for a new breed of mid laners to reign supreme. Abyssal Sceptre’s 70 AP and 45 MR is now unrivaled if you are looking to pick up AP and MR, especially when factoring in that it lowers enemy MR by 20, meaning if the enemy mid laner decides to pick up Athene’s, you need only get close to them and it’s like they never even had it. The gap closing burst-assassin mid laners like Fizz, Kassadin, Katarina and Lissandra will benefit greatly from this and should look to disturb the current-meta mid laners like Ziggs, Nidalee and Orianna. I predict that Kayle, however, shall remain a highly-contested pick, as the indirect rise of Abyssal Scepter favours her already MR shredding style. With a Wit's End and an Abyssal Scepter under her belt, I don't see how any champion could withstand the huge amounts of MR shred she can dish out without simply bursting her before she gets to you.

But AP items aren’t the only things to change in patch 4.10.

The changes to the BF Sword line of items is a move to ensure that they are all just as equally viable as each other and that will have a huge baring on AD mid laners like Yasuo - who is already a highly-contested pick. With Mercurial Scimitar now providing 80 AD, it cannot be overlooked as a pickup that could benefit any ADC or AD mid laner who is up against a CC-heavy team comp. On top of this, while the loss of stacking upon Bloodthirster will be greatly missed, I believe the overheal shield will be a huge asset to champions like Yasuo, Zed and Talon who look to get into the middle of teamfights, chunk out damage, and live in the process. Yasuo in particular will undoubtedly benefit greatly from the Bloodthirster shield on top of his own passive shield which could only then be enhanced further by a Hexdrinker/Maw of the Malmortius shield, bringing Yasuo’s potential shield count up to three.

Last but not least, another change that will be greatly overlooked is the change to Leblanc’s Q, which will no longer silence, meaning that there is finally counter-play to Leblanc’s high damage output. This change is the best thing for her balance as she still retains her damage like Kassadin but doesn’t leave enemies completely helpless to reply. This leaves Malzahar, Talon and Viktor as the last three mid champs with the ability to silence. 

Runic Tournament: Summer Open

Registration:http://goo.gl/UbvZ95 
Rules: http://goo.gl/1QTTfm
Facebook

July 4th Weekend!

The Runic Summer Open is open to teams of all skill levels. There will be a maximum of 16 teams participating in this tournament. The tournament will have 5 best-of-two qualification rounds played across Friday and Saturday. At the conclusion of qualification round 5, the top 8 teams will advance to the quarter finals. The quarter and semi-finals will be best-of-three starting on Saturday night. Finals will be played in a best-of-five format on Sunday night.

Prizing will be the standard Riot prizing.

• 1st place team will be awarded 3200 RP and Triumphant Ryze
• 2nd place team will be awarded 2400 RP
• 3rd place team will be awarded 1600 RP
• 4th place team will be awarded 800 RP

Starts July 4 at 3pm eastern (8pm GMT)

If you have any questions or concerns, please email Runic Tournaments. 

Esports Memorabilia : The HOT Collectible of the Future.

by Jodi "PunkLit" McClure

Collectors love to imagine a magical scenario where they can go back in time and buy some incredibly rare piece of memorabilia. Baseball card enthusiasts might seek out an original Honus Wagner card. Football fans might purchase an original team jersey or a banner. Star Wars fans would ransack toy stores, buying out Luke Skywalker figures, mint and still in the box. And then, all these collectors would do something extremely important with those items, but I'll get to that in a minute. 

First, let's jump forward in time instead.

It's 2054, and a gray-haired man is sitting in a rocking chair outside his nursing home. Between his stiff, gnarled fingers, he clutches the gilded edges of a framed poster. To his side, his great grandchild stares through the glass in wonder. "It was signed by Reginald," the child says, his voice filled with the kind of reverence we reserve for uttering names like Ruth and DiMaggio. 

"I got that a week before he announced his retirement." The old man smiles at the memory. "It's worth half a million now, and I'm giving it to you." 

Lucky kid. 

Some people buy collectibles as an investment while others buy them for the pleasure of displaying them in their homes. Their value is based purely on what someone else is willing to pay for them, but generally, the rarer and more sought after the item is, the more it is worth. So what makes me think eSports memorabilia will grow in value? Let's take a look at some facts:

1. eSports' popularity is growing at a fantastic rate, and the more fans there are, the more demand there will be for fan items. When eSports explodes into the mainstream, demand for certain items (like early signed posters) will multiply tenfold. Also, the more popular pros become, the less interactive they can be with their fans, which will further limit supply.   

2. Right now, teams are small and there's not many of them. Rosters frequently change and evolve, making many team-signed items extremely unique. Seasons and splits further break up items (Like...Is it signed by the S3 Dignitas or the S4 Dignitas?) Because of player turnovers, oddities like a TSM poster showing Xpecial - but signed by Gleeb - are exactly the kinds of things that collectors love.

3. People wanting memorabilia of the most popular players will look to acquire their signatures on anything they can get. Players signed a TON of stuff the past four years, between the LCS, tournaments, conventions and personal appearances, so fans will believe these items to be obtainable and actively seek them out. Just like in other sports, a collector might want items from different points in a player's career. Perhaps a rookie card or a stand-out year.   

4. We already know the demographic that follows eSports has money to burn, and they are highly passionate about their teams. When eSports hits the mainstream, they're exactly the kind of guys who'll spend big bucks on these items JUST to have something to show off to their friends. It's not enough to tell all these new fans that you've been a long time CLG supporter. You've got to prove your devotion.

5. Sports memorabilia is the Number One most commonly traded collectible.  

The most important factor, though, is that human fault will be in play, and it's the reason certain items will become ridiculously valuable. Yes, players signed tons of stuff. But what will the average person do with that stuff? They'll take that poster home and stick it up on the wall in their computer room with a  push pin in each corner. And that poster will sit up there for years. Slowly, the paper will grow brittle and crack. Perhaps one corner will tear. The poster will be exposed to dust, smoke, and moisture, and over time it will yellow slightly. It may become creased. It may be folded. It may...eventually...be stowed away in a box and eaten up by mildew. Only a sparse few of those posters will be put in a frame under glass. And those are the ones that will be truly worth the big bucks. 

That Honus Wagner card our collectors went back in time for? That football jersey and the Star Wars figures? They're gonna treat those with kid gloves, ensuring that they are kept in immaculate condition until the future comes. They'll be framed or kept in dust free mylar bags, and they will never see a push pin or a damp basement.

So take care of your eSports memorabilia if you're lucky enough to get it. Time and interest will do the rest. Even now you can do a search on ebay and find people selling signed posters and other eSports items, which is a very good indicator that the interest is already there. Keep it in mint condition for a few dozen years and who knows...maybe someday you'll be that wealthy gray-haired old man!

Marketing & Esports : A Future Fairy Tale?

by Louis "Guichex" Lemeillet

Esports teams do basic marketing, but do they have the future in mind? Esports is gaining in popularity, with a viewership boasting over 70 million people. Gaming structures are faced with a swiftly-growing market and need to adapt very quickly, and that requires planning out their future.

Esports has huge potential because it represents a bridge between traditional sports and high technology. Moreover, a new game-breaking technology is on the verge of being achieved and commercialized and it brings new stakes both for high-tech industries and Esports.

To Infinity and Beyond

Across social media, we've seen teams offer merchandise like clothing and accessories, do giveaways for sponsors, and even participate in commercials. Tech companies and electronics conventions like CES are showing the world what could be the next big step concerning technology and computers. After bringing smartphones and tablets, it is time to bring something which could revolutionize our habits once again: flexible computers.

You can see manufacturers such as Samsung and LG talking about flexible phones like this one and praising their merits. It is a cool innovation, but the best part will come just a bit later. What can you do with a flexible screen and components? You can twist it at will and include it in objects you couldn't before like glasses, clothing and wristbands. With it, you reach the full potential of this new technology. Wearable computers. If you're curious enough, you can see plenty of stuff about Apple having some “secret facility” working on the new iWatch which will basically do what your smartphone is doing: email, music, agenda, etc. You also have Google Glass which does the same but with a little bit more virtual reality included. Maybe the next step is a Wi-Fi hat with a screen inside it. The possibilities are infinite.

Of course, not all of these technologies are available to the masses yet, but Esports is also not fully developed yet. And we can assume that, in some way, those two worlds will reach a new point at almost the same time, creating so many new possibilities for tech companies to advertise their new products.

One of the most effective marketing techniques at the moment is using brand ambassadors: whether they are movie stars, famous bloggers, or from a rich dynasty. It doesn't matter as long as they can wear or consume your products and give a good review; promoting them in whatever way possible. This kind of marketing relationship can bring very good image to the company if their values and personality are matching those of the ambassador. It is also long-lasting and so can bring a lot of profits to both parts.

A Bridge Between Esports and High-Technology

Where is the link with Esports ? Our favorite e-athletes can't really hope for sports companies to support them since they are not committed to any true physical effort; and they don't really need sportswear. What pro-players use daily is top-notch gaming devices which can help them reach a better performance. Nevertheless, they are considered, at least for the moment in some regions, as professional athletes and bring entertainment to millions of people who are also hardcore users of computers, gaming devices and every kind of technology.

Since that audience is most likely to adopt these new products, we represent, as Esports lovers, a great target for those companies. With the rise of Esports, they might have found the faces of the ones who will represent their company on the field.

If we project ourselves three or four years into the future, I truly believe Esports will have grown a lot more and every company will be taking a closer look at "this new thing.” Also, tech industries will release the first projects of their new “flexible devices” and they will want to boast them as much as possible. Trying to sign sponsorship contracts with some great multi-gaming company can bring fame and profits to both parts.

As a matter of fact, you can see that in Korea, where Esports is kind of a national thing, it is technology companies which sponsor the teams: SK Telecom and Samsung among others. I think at some point in the future, when Esports are acknowledged by everyone, we might see the same deal in our occidental countries. Imagine “Google Solo Mid” vs “Microsoft Cloud 9”. (I really hope we won't have those team names though.)

Whether or not Google and Apple would buy pro-gaming teams is a different matter. But what we can be sure of is: Esports powerhouses will be sponsored by one specific brand and they'll build long-lasting relationships by advertising their new products on the players while obtaining fame from the team results, in exchange for money.

Beware of Fairy Tales

Bringing tech companies, which represent a lot of devices every one of us is using on a daily basis and which represent what kids will consider “normal” in a near future, can bring further fame and importance to the Esports world. If you mix this with the “international future” of Esports, and by that I mean that they are shared worldwide and not only popular in one region, it could become something bigger we could ever imagine.

I may be over-reacting, but I think bringing such companies into the Esports market will at least bring our virtual sports onto the same level as big traditional sports such as soccer, football or baseball. Traditional sports will have sports companies more than Esports, but Esports can claim sponsorships from bigger companies. Such deals would bring further development to the Esports world and help gaming structures improve their infrastructures, their team salaries, their staff and their power.

On the other hand, such deals can bring tons of money to a quite new sector, and with it some disappointments. With an industry growing that fast and that big, everyone is playing with the balance between investments and rewards. For the moment, gaming structures are trying to court any advertising possible to upgrade their financial possibilities, but many problems could come arise from that. For example, you can see with the last Dr. Pepper marketing campaign with the European LCS teams, that they're selecting only one player to represent them, and not the whole team. So where does the money go? Towards the team or towards the player?

Lots of teams might try to take advantage of their players by “selling” them to whichever company offers money while not paying attention to the overall image of the person. Or players' egos might get in the way as they want to claim part of the money for their own personal benefit. Such moves would potentially slow down the industry as a whole and discourage big companies from investing as they could.

Esports is growing at an explosive rate. Technology companies are on the brink of unveiling cool, innovative stuff. This may be destiny. The two industries will find a lot of common interest if they manage to create sponsorship contracts. The most important part of all this being: the first to hit is the first to win. Pro-gaming structures need to be aware of that fact, and need to decide on a precise marketing strategy oriented towards the future.

What are your feelings towards all of this ? Do you also think sponsorships between high-tech industries and pro-gaming structures might exist someday ? Feel free to leave your comments, everything is open to discussion! 

The Evolution of the Meta

by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

So let’s talk about how the meta has evolved from the “standard” lane match-ups. We've seen a huge change from what we started with. The game has grown into a much more strategic, albeit predictable early phase until mid game. This is actually really limiting picks in some aspects. We’re going to look at everything from mid S3 until the most recent popular strategies. Following that I’ll give a bit of an opinion on each.

Originally, the pro scene followed what is usually seen in solo-queue. Top laners and bottom laners matching up against each other. The strengths of this rely almost solely on your ability to lane. If you had a strong lane ability you loved it, if you lost lane every game you were screwed. If we go way back, sustain lanes were really popular. They were safe and let teams focus on farming and getting champs that needed farm to their insane late game status. In this meta we saw the likes of Anivia, Ryze, Jax, Singed, Tristana and Vayne. All of these champs had insane late game scaling.

In the jungle and support, however, we had the exact opposite. In order to try and counter these champs you had to strike early and hard. Lee sin, Xin Zhao, and Jarvan IV were popular at the time. They could gank easily level 2, which was so popular it became routine to do. They hit lanes early and gave their laner an advantage that they could use to snowball faster and once one of the lanes got ahead they were usually able to take control and bully the other lanes out.

If we look at bottom lane synergy, we had supports who were usually champs with great utility and bad scaling, i.e. Sona, Thresh, Lulu (who had bad scaling at the time), Alistar. These champs had great base damage skills and little to no ability to scale. They were used to protect the late game scaling ADC. Late game these guys usually turned into CC bots, and because there were no support specific items at this time they usually built cheap tanky items that had some kind of active in order to help their team. And wards. Pretty much all of their income was spent on wards.

Pros/Cons

So what are the pros and cons of this meta? Let's look at a few different areas of it. The game usually started off with everyone going to their respective lanes. We had actual match-ups, and in-lane play was extremely important. Your ability to duel was key and usually determined how far ahead you were or how much you had to come back from. This was great for rewarding you, but it was a bit too steep, to the point that any small advantage you gave was almost impossible to come back from - and don't even start on a successful invade and what that would give you. 

Next, the meta was very team fight oriented. This made awesome dragon fights, and a lot of strategy focused around forcing the enemy into fighting for objectives. There seemed to be a lot of strategic positioning that had to be done here to compete.

Finally, late game saw some awesome plays because we saw a clear transition from early game power champs to champs that scale. We saw huge emphasis on protecting carries like Vayne and Tristana. This basically meant late game was a test of who could kill the other team's ADC first. ADC was the end-all be-all once they had two or three items and they became almost impossible to stop. For an ADC main, this was awesome. Anyone that played a tank usually hated this and teams came up with two ways to fight this. Assassins, and early-engage burst supports. Enter late Season 3 and Worlds.

Worlds 

When we got to later in Season 3 we saw a huge change in the picks of support and mid lane. Zed and Ahri were hotly contested picks because of their ability to bypass bulky tanks and deal huge burst damage to ADCs. Supports started swapping as well. From motherly protection supports that healed and buffed ADCs until they got items, to engage heavy CC machines that punished the enemy at any wrong step. This brought a more action packed early game as we saw kill lanes become the norm. Leona, Annie, and Thresh were the holy trio of supports all through Worlds.

A small note to make as well is that the increase in aggressive laning and assassins forced ADC players on to more mobile carries. This, in addition to buffs to Trinity Force, made Ezreal and Corki go-to picks. They had reliable abilities to reposition themselves and could still put out damage while they moved. All throughout this time the top lane meta shifted marginally. Jax and Singed were still notable picks with more late game carry types being favored over tanks, but this change was much more gradual.

Now let's look at the game health at this time. In my opinion, the most notable thing of this meta was the power assassins and ADCs. The mid to late game team fights still revolved around killing the other team's carry, but now it was all about bursting them down before a fight really broke out or when they moved to a favorable position. Battles were won and lost based on single missteps. Even some supports had potential to knock people out of fights. This combined with how wards and gold income worked. As soon as a team got first blood or first dragon it was transitioned into complete vision control and instant burst kills on any team member that attempted to get it back.

Teams that knew how to play aggressive early waltzed over traditional late game teams. While games could last over forty minutes, you could easily see who was going to win as early as ten minutes in. Unless the team made massive mistakes, they just had to sit on their lead as soon as they earned it. Riot realized they had a lot of changes to make during the off-season.

Offseason/Vision Changes

Off-season started after Worlds ended, and Riot decided to take this time to make sweeping changes to vision and supports, as well as take a hit on the amount of damage ADCs could put out. Ever since it became part of the meta to have a player that relied on no definite gold income, they were immediately relegated to spending almost any money they earned on warding the map. Support was basically ward duty with some CC protection late game. Sightstone was a welcome change, but that alone wasn't enough. As long as it was possible, teams would funnel all warding onto whoever functioned best with little to no gold (read support).

Finally we get huge vision changes. Each champion can now only have up to three regular wards on the map at one time and one pink ward. Pink wards were no longer stealthed and took five hits to take out as opposed to three. Oracle's also was removed from the game. Riot just had no way to balance it. If they made it last until death, supports just played a bit safer or bought an extra one with their money. If it lasted for a specified amount of time they just fell straight back to buying an extra. With Oracle's in the game, there was no way to keep one team from completely controlling vision and, consequently, the game.

With this change, they also gave every summoner a specified slot for a trinket which was free and could be swapped at any point invoking a cooldown on the activated ability. The three trinkets made vision a bit easier for the team to spread out. There was no point in not using a free ward when it was up. This is huge because it was an indirect nerf to early gankers and assassins. Everyone had the ability to protect themselves now with some extra vision. Junglers were forced to stay in the jungle for a little longer, as was the intention. Masteries were also reworked to make penetration and other offensive-oriented abilities much further down the tree and considerably weaker, and defense got huge buffs.

Tower Pushing

For a little while things worked out as intended. Soon enough though players realized that with extra safety, they could play more aggressive. The best person to funnel gold into was still the ADC because they had more item dependency than any other position, and teams realized that with champions that could push early the best way to get a big spike of gold was to take towers fast.

What's the best way to shove? Run your ADC and support into the tanky melee champ that has no way to take on a ranged character at the start of the game. It forced them to try and get as much farm and experience under the tower as they could while trying not to die. The teams that prepared best for this had a top laner that was innately tanky with the new masteries, and could either sustain a lot of harass or clear waves quickly at early levels. Shyvana, Renekton and Dr. Mundo topped this list because of AoE damage early on and the ability to put out damage without building a lot of damage items. Sunfire Cape and Spirit Visage were extremely gold-efficient items that were key on these champs and were almost always first and second buys. Since hyper-tanks gained popularity, a new champ grew with them as well. Trundle.

Trundle has a kit that is made to counter tanks. Rushing a Blade of the Ruined King on him made his increased attack speed from his Frozen Domain insanely good at shredding HP-stacking top laners. Throw this on top of his Ultimate skill, Subjugate, which stole a percentage of health, armor and magic resist, and you had a perfect tank-buster to counter and split push any hyper-tank.

Riot saw the huge strength in the two previously mentioned items and nerfed them appropriately. Sunfire Cape had its passive scale with level rather than do a flat amount of damage, weakening its power spike when bought, and Spirit Visage had part of its cooldown reduction taken off and its price was increased. Sunfire fell out of favor in exchange for Randuin's Omen, and Spirit Visage became the niche item it was supposed to be on people who had a lot of self heal.

Mid lane saw new picks as well, since vision was no longer dominated by who was ahead. Players had to dominate the map rather than their opponent in order to get vision. Champs like Nidalee and Ziggs started seeing more play now. They used their immense range and damage to control minion waves and force the enemy away from objectives. Anyone who was seen making a rotation was poked out as they roamed.

Junglers realized that the only actual gank that was open because of the lane swaps was mid. Mid laners started warding harder and just generally playing safer. Jungling didn't gain enough gold to warrant just trying to farm, so the next best decision was to join their ADC and support and force the other team’s tower down as fast as possible. Eventually, the top laners joined in on this as well. They'd force down two towers and then back off.

After this, the top laner would go back to the lane that was shoved and freeze the wave while they caught up, after giving up their farm to shove. This stagnated the game for about 10 minutes or so and the team that had stayed bot lane would usually get a free dragon at this time. It’s important to note that dragon’s gold value was changed from a static value to a growing value as the game progressed, relative to the average level of each player. So an early dragon’s value dropped significantly from its previous value, but it was still worth grabbing.

Carry Top Laners

Riot attempted to fix the lane swaps that were happening at the pro level. In fact, they were only happening at the pro level. They gave buffs to the defenses of the top turrets. This is the first time that they really enforced a meta. Before they had always claimed that any team strategy was viable and never claimed that one way was the correct way to play. But this was a direct attempt to force ADCs back into the bottom lane. It took Riot a few patches before they were able to get a number that they were comfortable with. Even now it’s pretty easy to say that they were unsuccessful in their attempts to fix the problem because while they may have stopped fast pushes on towers, teams still lane swap almost every game.

Since lanes were getting frozen deep in enemy territory, champions had the ability to free farm for an extended time. Any team that tried to still pressure that deep into their enemies lane would be promptly taken out as soon as they showed themselves. This was actually the end of Dr.Mundo as a meta champion. He was played mostly because of his decent wave clear and ability to scale off the strength of the strong items of the time. With nerfs to his items and the strength of his early wave clear no longer needed, he faded out of picks.

Since top laners could free farm for a long time, top lane players started picking up champions that scaled well with gold. Shyvana still worked well, but some new picks were Jax, Ryze, etc. Defensive masteries were still substantial at this point, so anyone who could put at least nine points into defense was strong. Plus, getting free farm to scale meant later on in the game they’d be more impactful in objective fights. Also, mobility was usually a must on these champs to get in and get out of sticky situations.

Summoner Spell Changes

Amidst all of this, the summoner spell Heal was bolstered to give more health and a move speed buff. This became the preferred summoner spell of safe mid lane players and ADCs over Barrier, because of the ability to reposition in addition to the extra effective health it brought. It was also a nerf to assassins because they no longer had an easy way to burst down ADCs. Barrier was already starting this and heal buffs were a final nail in the coffin. Since assassins fell off, ADCs that had fewer escapes but consequently more damage could be played. Twitch saw a rise to popularity due to his hard carry team fight role and the strength and synergy he had with Blade of the Ruined King. After Twitch, we saw Kog'Maw start being selected as well.

Alongside the heal buffs was a buff to Teleport - lowering the cooldown significantly when it was used on turrets. This meant weak, early laners now had a way to handle their weakest point in the game. If you got chunked out, you could just back to base, buy and teleport back. For a little while we went back to a standard meta. Then teams began trying to funnel whatever gold they could into their ADC because of how hard these popular ADCs would scale. Lane swaps were back, and there was little to no reason not to do them. Dragon wasn't worth as much gold, and that was the reason that you kept your bottom lane near it - so you could have more players to contest it.

ADCs started freezing the lanes rather than pushing early because of the changes to how towers took damage. They took as long as possible to take the tower in order to keep the top laner starved for farm. Top laners started roaming with the jungler in order to actually gain experience until they could safely farm. This led to three-man ganks on mid laners because of supports roaming as well. Since the early game has become so much less intense and more strategic, we've seen much more late game oriented compositions, including many "protect the carry" teams. Mids are choosing higher utility champions that can give their team buffs and either peel or put out sustained damage. 

Conclusion

In a way, we've come full circle back to early to mid Season 3. In all honesty, this is the kind of meta that I prefer - mages and late game tanks and ADCs. It’s a very strategic game compared to mid Season 3 though. Rather than trying to get ahead and snowball, you take your time to get guaranteed gold by farming. Once you’re able to get some gold onto your carrys, you move down to force objectives and use your sieging-power or team fight potential to take them or force them off. The game has evolved in ways, but it’s always been somewhat related to the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Squishy constant damage beats tanks who beat assassins who beat squishy constant damage. This isn't an end-all be-all, but it’s a great way to try and predict counters and how the meta will evolve. I think eventually we’ll see more assassins come back that can take out ADCs like Kog'Maw and Twitch, or maybe a way to counter their freeze in the top lane with another ranged character like Kennen. Teams will always find ways to counter what’s popular and that, in turn, will become popular. That’s how metas work.

Do Transfers Create an Identity Crisis?

by Reece "Sabrewolf" Dos-Santos

We've begun to see an increase in international transfers and signings between the pro teams which is something we all should have come to expect with so many different teams and leagues. The most noticeable trend at this moment is the movement of Korean players to leagues across the world. In recent times, we've seen Seraph move to CLG, MakNooN, Winged, SuNo, Lactea and Olleh move to Brazil and Helios may be the latest addition to Evil Geniuses.

A rising concern is the identity crisis that could occur from teams heavily populated by other regions performing at international events. Fans will obviously want to cheer for their nation’s talent at international events the same way it is in events like the World Cup for football/soccer. Inevitably the mixture of Korean players, Chinese players and European players in the NA LCS basically voids the discussion on “which region is better” as relative nations could claim that “Bjergsen is still Danish” (as Deficio often likes to reminds us). But what we really need to do is accept that once you enter a different league, you represent that league no matter what your background is. Each region should still be represented in the majority by their own players, but there shouldn't be a hostility towards transfers from other regions.

I believe that true integration between teams worldwide will help to create a healthy international community within the LoL pro scene and will gradually help to make each league more exciting and diverse. The NA scene on a whole has benefited immensely in terms of popularity and competition since the introduction of key European players, LMQ, and Seraph from Korea. Competition is fiercer and this overall provides a better experience for the viewers as well as the players who work harder to produce upsets and exciting brawls. With more international representation across the leagues the community will find more incentive to watch leagues aside from their own. I myself have found more reason to watch the NA scene since the movement of Evil Geniuses and I’m sure that LMQ have Chinese fans that watch their NA LCS games in the same regard.

There is however a risk of domino effect that comes along with an expanding transfer market in that when one team invests in the aid of a Korean player, others will gradually do the same in order to keep up. In a professional scene like LoL’s where stability is essential for players, the last thing they need is the threat in the back of their mind that they may be eventually axed in favour of an international alternative. Perhaps stability of job is a main reason why we've seen an increase in movement of Korean players abroad as the scene in Korea is very fast paced and demanding. There is much less room for error, let alone continuous error, and under-performers are almost certainly dropped in favour of fresh hungrier blood.

There is a fine balance that needs to be considered with the LCS when it comes to transfers - the balance between stability and over-complacency. To create a stable environment, teams shouldn't really encourage dropping players midway through a split, as this harms both the team and the players. Evidence of this would be Selfie and KottenX for the Supa Hot Crew and Millenium, who needed time to grow into their new teams and develop into the crucial players they are now. Players should be entitled to play the whole split they are contracted for, or at least be rotated out for the substitutes that exist within the team already rather than axing them for someone new completely. Otherwise, what’s the point of having those subs in the first place? Rotating and battling for your spot on a team with a sub provides incentive to improve and develop as it did with EG in summer split of EU and certainly gave Snoopeh a new lease on life in terms of his performance when he was re-introduced into the starting line-up. I know if I was a player knowing that somewhere on Reddit there was a huge thread discussing my “replacement,” my performance would suffer. But what’s also important is knowing when a certain team structure just isn't working. Gambit’s failure to see this is partially what has led to their gradual season by season decay while Froggen’s realization lead to the new super team that is Alliance.

As long as players can find stability within their teams, and not every problem is solved by bringing in a Korean player, transfers should never be a problem for the LoL pro scene.

Do you know your Champion Abilities? Take this LCS FanZone Quiz and Find out!

(*Note..Question 3 should read Yorick's "W," not "E".. and Question 8's choice 'C' should read Frost Armor, so you have been warned!)

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

LCS FanZone Question of the Day

We asked: If you could add a new game mode to LoL..what would it be?

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- Each team picks which 5 champs the other team will play. (You can trade with other players on your team). Nuggetsauce ‏@nuggetsauce

- Capture the flag Jose ‏@SporadicJ

- I would like a mode that emphasises the 1v1 aspect of the game. Not sure if you could do anything more creative than showdown. Arron Dempsey ‏@ArronDempers

- One where everyone is normal, but I am slightly buffed so I don't get frustrated as I can't die :p David Fletcher ‏@djfletcherer

- Hide and Seek would be awesome... people already do it in customs, but a mode of it would be so much fun! And the seeking team would be able to have 1 Rengar in the team xD Hopping all over! Monstro ‏@PokeBoobies

- Something similar to Dota's Ability Draft. Jesse Raen-Saunders ‏@VocalTerrorist

- Ability draft! It's a game mode from Dota 2. Pretty fun! But I didn't know how to play the game so it was really confusing too. Judar ‏@PikaJudar

- A mode where you pick any champion and any 4 abilities. Lucian with wish for his ult for example. Adam Cowley ‏@adz250

- Death match. 10 champs in an arena start at lvl 18 full items. NE0 Jets ‏@Jetslove81

- Free for all, every man for himself. SabreTilt ‏@SabrewoIf

- I was thinking of something like a normal mode but with minions spawning faster and faster throughout the game. Minions invasion. Jhyrar Baenre @Jhyrar

- I think would be nice to chose (to play) every minion from the map.. hmm ..baron drake minions wraths =)) donno sounds stupid?  Summer ‏@summmeryy

- That is an easy one, make a map, sword and shield style. 4v4v4!! :) three teams In a minion spawn point capture style. Mod bro ‏@Aust_Modbro

- Faction wars would be fun. Branch ‏@ThatGuyBranch

- 3v3 arena with everyone at max level, pillars etc to block skill shots and buffs that appear in specific places.  Amber ‏@kikuzLoL

- 6 player FFA arena last man standing, with an evolving map with randomized effects such as firebreathing statues and pitfalls. Lullaby ‏@LullabyGaming

- a story mode maybe. Chaz ‏@xheshire

- I have 2 ideas. Make all ults global, or instead of the nexus, there is a Baron Nashor at each base you need to kill. Accio Pwns ‏@AccioPwns

- Some mini games with skill shots or stuff like that. Token ‏@Fayetoken

- Somewhat of a tower defense game. Zack | 달 ‏@ChubsLoL