Showing posts with label Rekkles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rekkles. Show all posts

Saturday, May 30, 2015

What We Learned from EU LCS Summer Week 1


by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos


1. Origen are as good as they were made out to be.

Origen-ally I was sceptical about how xPeke's team would adapt to top tier competition that they haven’t yet been exposed to as a group. I thought that against some of the best EU has to offer, they might have some flaws exposed which they could later build upon. Instead what I received was a 2-0 trash of a week where Origen brushed away the likes of Giants Gaming and then proceeded to steamroll H2k - what I believed to be EU’s second best team and practically guaranteed worlds squad.

While Mithy is no Forgiven and opted against declaring himself as part of the best bottom lane in EU…by far, the duo pair of him and Niels has been crazily effective with the rookie marksman picking up the first MVP award of the summer split. But with so much attention on the oppressive dominance in the bottom lane duo, the good work and Peke, Soaz and Amazing are not to be overlooked. Aside from the occasional positional hiccup from Soaz, the top three members all held down their roles spectacularly showing that they’re still able to exhibit a top level of play. This will be especially warming to the top half trio as they all shouldered their fair share of doubt towards their ability to perform near the end of their last splits on Fnatic and TSM respectively.

I’m now excited to see how Origen fare up against some of the wilder teams in the LCS, as both H2k and Giants are quite tame and telegraphed in their style compared to the likes of UOL or Fnatic who aren’t afraid to shake the table.

2. The Copenhagen Wolves are still consistently inconsistent.

This team is about as consistent as my solo queue MMR, which by the way could be mistaken for an analogue radio wave. On their best days they can pool together a dominating performance and completely clean house against the best teams in EU, the next day or even literally half an hour later, they’re a mess of basic mistakes that can’t retain any control against a team that hardly looked like they knew why they were winning.

Although Freeze’s pure mechanical ability has been a shining point in lost moments along with areas of inspiration from Soren, the team needs heavy focus on regaining their flow and recovering from a loss of tempo if they want to be challenging for any of the spaces in the top half of the table this split.

3. Forgiven ruins the flow of any team he graces.

Although a tad bit harsh, there’s no way to express this without flat out saying it, Forgiven has proven to me that his playstyle appears to be unadaptable for everyone who tries to tame it. While the benefits of his presence are more than evident in having one of the best skilled ADC’s the west has to offer, it seemed like Gambit this week put themselves into a Piglet/Team Liquid situation where they tunneled on the acquisition of a world class talent and tried too hard to pool themselves around making it work. What Gambit need to avoid is the situation that has followed Forgiven like a dark cloud and it’s the internal collapse of teamwork, trust and synergy due to the clash in personalities. While SK Gaming held on for the best part of a split, it was too much for them as was with the Wolves. Personally with the history of how emotional Diamond and Edward can be, I’m a little worried as to how the team will recover if they don’t pull off a momentous upswing like last split.

4. The right Elements may have finally been blended together.

What an upgrade! This team looks to be with the right players in the mix alongside the right mentality. No joke, the KaBuM! incident obliterated the original lineup of Alliance and alongside the embarrassing worlds exit that followed, really tore apart the civil colleague relationship between the team. Only with the purging of the teams members and eventual rebuilding with the return of Tabzz, has the team finally begun to show the spark it showed in the summer of Season 4.

Dexter, Jwaow and PromisQ bring a new fresh feel and dynamic to the playstyle of the team and also seem to mesh with the rest of the team in a much better fashion than the previous trio of Wickd, Shook and Nyph who were simply Mission Impossible, Froggen’s waiter and some guy no one listened to. Rotations were good, the top laner actually looked like a member of the team and Froggen wasn’t giving off the vibe that he believed he was in elo hell.

As to how far this team can go, it’s still unknown as EL’s first game was a stomp over the currently broken Gambit and while they put up a good fight, they were ultimately taken down by the Unicorns. If EL wants to sneak in for a worlds spot, they need to overcome potential rivals for the spaces. Now it looks like they can, and not just on paper.

The question is, will they?

5. Roccat still have many problems that need to be addressed.

Woolite’s positioning has been the cause of many LCS face-desk moments for me and we’re only two games into the split. Whether or not he’s upped his poor positioning game to make up for the loss of his partner in crime, P1noy, is beyond me, but it’s hurting his team’s chances of being anything but relegation zone bound. It’s also apparent that every time Roccat change their top laner, it only seems to make the situation worse. Steve has yet to show why he was worth being selected as Roccat’s new top laner in place of Overpow, who went from the team’s shining star to a quickly ousted unmemorable top laner.

In fact, Steve’s biggest impact upon the LCS so far is the crowd chant of his name which follows a particular pattern of Roccat crowd memes when underperforming, one example being the ward chanting at LCS Wembley last season. On top of this, Jankos and Vander are mere shadows of their former selves and it’s been a very long time since I’ve heard anyone even try and call Jankos the “best jungler in the EU LCS”. Last but not least is Nukeduck, being the one returning Lemondog who isn’t a valuable asset to their new team. Out of the meta and completely out of his depth in most matchups, it’s a surprise Roccat chose only to make a change in the top lane, it’s even more surprising that it doesn’t seem like they’ve made any headway to addressing these issues which have carried on from the last split. In both management and player mentality, something is clearly wrong.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Fnatic gets Rekked - a Fan’s Perspective



by Sandie "Moondove" Gade

So, after months of long drawn out mystery, secrecy and endless Reddit speculation, the announcement was finally made: Rekkles is no longer with Fnatic, but has instead switched to Alliance.

There's been so much drama regarding the whole situation with Rekkles and his alleged (and now confirmed) departure. So what really happened? I guess we will never know for sure; all we know is what we hear, and even with the official statements from Alliance, Fnatic, and Rekkles himself, how can we ever really be sure we're getting the untainted truth? Fact is, we can’t.

This article is the story and the scene of events regarding the mess seen from a fan’s perspective.

The Fnatic Image

The Fnatic image seen from the outsider’s view is one of having a strong internal bond of friendship and extremely close relationships (which has led to many teasing allegations of homosexuality). The word ‘family’ is often used in regard to Fnatic, and when you see the pictures they post on social media and watch their stream and hear what goes on in their house, this is the sense you get: Fnatic is one, big, happy family!

But what do we really know beyond what they tell us? Not a lot, it appears. Rekkles was always spouting phrases like “we are a team, we are a family. We win together and lose together.” But it took no more than one bad World Championship for him to go running to Alliance for talks of transfer. A team, who, by the way, did no better at Worlds than Fnatic did. So where was his family loyalty while making this choice?

The salty part of me wonders, if he ever truly meant any of what he said about being a family, or if he was just trying desperately to make it true by spouting lines about team spirit and familial union to reinforce the Fnatic image of togetherness and brotherly love already manifested in the minds of the fans.

Work Ethics

I am a huge Fnatic fan. I have great love in my heart for these boys and was crushed by Rekkles’ choice. My initial reaction was sadness, disbelief and a feeling of betrayal. I felt like his decision was a knife to the back considering his aforementioned grand declarations of being a family. The fact that he went to Alliance just made it all the worse for me. I kept thinking: “Come on, man, you had just one bad split, you won spring split, give this a chance. Stick together, win or lose and work on improving TOGETHER as a team, like you always said you would!”

Then, as the days went by and the rumors went on and on endlessly, my Fnatic loving mind started racing. I started to take mental stock of every stream I have ever seen from that house, every interview, every picture, every Facebook/Twitter post. And it occurred to me what I personally think went wrong:

Rekkles is a workaholic, he wants to be the best and he is driven by pure ambition to reach this goal. sOAZ, Cyanide and xPeke, while still driven and dedicated to the game (despite what some haters might say), have a more relaxed attitude towards the game and also enjoy just chilling and having fun every once in a while. Yellowstar, to me, appears to be Switzerland in all of this, always the neutral even-tempered one, but still with a strong work ethic.

So maybe placing Rekkles on Fnatic was a mistake from the beginning, maybe it was just a bad match in both personality and work ethics.

Fnatic's Struggles

A lot of people have been wondering: What happened to Fnatic during the past season? At spring split, they had some really dramatic spikes of ups and downs, but they managed to pull through and come out on top. At summer split, things somehow looked even grimmer. They looked off in some way and were far from consistent, just not at all like the Fnatic fans were used to. They still did really well in a lot of games, and second place in the split is nothing to sneeze at, but something seemed off.

So what was it? Was it simply that Alliance was doing better? Was it lack of motivation from some of the players? Or was it something else?

A few of the core players from Fnatic have been taking a lot of heat for inconsistent or downright bad play.

Some of the rumors that floated around said that Rekkles had been having these talks of a possible transfer since the end of spring split, or at least that he has had the desire to leave since then. If this is true, could this explain the shaky summer split? If Rekkles was already unhappy with being on the team back then, wouldn’t that rub off on the game play of the team? Even if nothing was said aloud at that point, I imagine it would have affected them all on a subconscious level.

The Finer Points of Fandom – Team or Individual

While I am officially and openly a Fnatic fan, I have always explained to people that I am not a fan of the name/organization, I am a fan of the players as people. I am a fan of these boys for their personalities and who they are as people, not (only) their skills as players. This probably sets me apart from a lot of fans of this game, but I also feel like there are some of you out there nodding your heads and going: “Yeah, I get what’s she’s saying, I feel the same.”

This game is so unique in its fandom. We get a different “relationship” with these players than you would if you were a fan of a football player, for instance. We follow them on Facebook and Twitter, they share stuff with us and will answer questions if we are lucky. We also have the streams: A place to come and hang out with them, chilling, learning from them and sometimes watching them feed and make idiots of themselves. While many fans do tend to place their idols high up on an unreachable pedestal, this special form of “getting to know them” that e-sports offers us does bring them down to a more human and accessible level.

What Now?

So now that Rekkles made his statement and we have that all cleared up, the question remains: What happens to Fnatic now?

In Danish, we have a saying: “Equal children play better together” and I think the sentiment holds true here. If this was indeed a matter of different work ethics then, like I said, perhaps Rekkles was just never the right fit for Fnatic no matter how much they wanted him to be.

Maybe Rekkles will thrive with Alliance, or maybe he will fall flat on his face and realize he made the biggest mistake of his life. Only time will tell.

Also, we still have another unconfirmed rumor floating around. One saying that xPeke, being fed up with the way the Rekkles situation was handled, is leaving to start his own team, and is taking Cyanide and sOAZ with him. That would leave Fnatic with nothing but the aforementioned neutral Yellowstar, and the organization would have to build a new team from scratch around him.

As mentioned earlier, I am a fan of players, not the organization. And as it happens, my biggest fan love lies with the trio of xPeke, Cyanide and sOAZ. So if these rumors do indeed turn out to be true, I will cease being a Fnatic fan the minute they leave, and instead be a fan of the new team they make, and count my lucky stars that they, at least, stuck together.

But like I said, these are still only unconfirmed rumors, so let’s see what happens. One thing is for sure: With everything that has been going on this off-season, and not just in Fnatic and Alliance, we are in for one hell of a spring split. I can’t wait, how about you?

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Saturday, November 22, 2014

THE TOP TEN DEADLIEST ADCS

by Tristan "verlashcaster" Jakobsen

Perhaps they aren't the Best ADCs, but they certainly are the most dangerous as far as your healthbar is concerned. Between their kill count, KDA and pure potential, these are the guys you're most likely to see just before your screen losses its color.  

Number 10: The Adorable CandyPanda 


With the help of long-time pro, nRated, CandyPanda took to the botlane for SK Gaming in the European LCS. This lad from Germany is a player that mostly lies in the middle of the pack when it comes to AD Carrys. His KDA rests on a rather unimpressive 3.8 and his GPM lies dull steady at 380. In fact, per stats, he wouldn't even have made it on this top ten list if it wasn't for his tendency to play passively throughout almost the whole split and then explode into a killing machine that eats champions for breakfast - kind of like Gnar, but with more arrows and less boomerangs. His Vayne at worlds is a perfect example of when the Panda goes all hulk and actually shows up. In his match vs TSM, he played the whole game according to what needed to be done, and when TSM made the decision to rush and scatter into SK’s base, that’s when the game was decided.  

Here’s some of CandyPandas' Vayne mechanics. Even though he goes in recklessly and dies, he still manages to wreak enough havoc for SK to win the fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sbd204IUC4&feature=youtu.be&t=40m26s

So what about next split?
Whilst CandyPanda left SK Gaming and is now a free agent, it would be interesting to see him in the LCS again. He’s a major sleeper (and boy does he sleep for long hours) but, when you wake the panda up, he’s not all that cute and cuddly anymore. 

Average KDA: 3.8
GPM: 380 
Support: nRated
Most Played Champion: Lucian.


Number 9: The Lawful Cop 
























Cop has the fifth lowest GPM (377) of all AD carries in the LCS. He’s a rather passive player and often relies on the rest of the team to win the game, but even though he’s shaky in many areas, you cannot deny his KDA is monstrous. Showing up with an impressive 5.8 average, you know that he and Xpecial made a really good team. Do you remember the game vs Complexity that went on forever? (You know, that game where there was so much chaos and back-and-forths your eyes got exhausted being in the same room as your monitor?) It was here Cop probably made his biggest play of the summer split. His Kog’Maw kites here are just amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iysBJ2jSubI

What about next split?
Cop was replaced this season by none other than ex-SKT T1 K’s Piglet, which is almost unarguably an upgrade. Still, you should expect Cop to show up and be one of the best players in the NA Expansion tournament as part of Curse Academy. 

Average KDA: 5.8
GPM: 377
Support: Xpecial
Most Played Champion: Corki.


Number 8: The Wild Turtle 

Although not so ‘yung’ anymore, WildTurtle is still one of the most famous League of Legends players in the world. Known to be an incredible solo queue player, he will sometimes do reckless things without thinking. It's a habit he brings to the LCS, and while it doesn't always work out the way he thought, it still works.

Most people assume Turtle would place higher on this list but, in all honesty, even though TSM won the NA LCS Summer Split, his performance wasn't top notch. However, you cannot deny the fact that he’s a motivated player that has sick mechanics, even though he sometimes has problems translating them into team oriented plays (which might have to do more with him switching support two times during the season.) There’s a significant point when you look at Turtles' stats, and it’s obvious they improved when Lustboy replaced Gleeb in the TSM starting roster.

And, of course, let's not forget the very last teamfight of the summer season, when he secured a triple kill and the cup for TSM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE2qfZ9Z8rA&feature=youtu.be&t=49m14s

What about next split?
WildTurtle is still part of TSM and has kept practicing and improving with Lustboy. Predictions are he’s going to improve his stats during the next split.

Average KDA: 4.6
GPM: 381 
Support: Gleeb / Lustboy.
Most Played Champion: Lucian.


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by Tristan "verlashcaster" Jakobsen

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Adaptation – Change is good


by Reece "Sabrewolf" Dos-Santos

Once upon a time, Fnatic and Gambit were the two hardcore powerhouses of the European scene. There was competition from CLG.EU and SK, but ultimately, those two were the front runners. The difference in skill between them and their competition was clear, but as time has begun to pass the level of competition has grown stronger, to the extent where, in Europe, there are at least five teams within reach of the top at any one time. Adaptation is a must to be able to keep up with such a heavily demanding league and the concern that has risen in the camps of Europe’s two biggest teams is a lack of that adaptation. Read More.