Today, We're All Sad Hamsters.

Xpecial's Benching Rocks the LCS Community.

by Jodi "PunkLit" McClure

Community isn't just a made-up word in eSports. It's part of what drives the scene. Fans have access to players streams, feeds, and vlogs and we're able to communicate with them on a very intimate level. We see them in videos and interviews and in Riot's game day features, and we learn of their struggles and dreams. In short, we don't just casually know the pros....we are given the opportunity to love them. And when we speak of our community, it includes them. They are family to us, and that's what makes it especially hard when we hear of one being cut or benched.

The summer promotion series made this weekend tough enough - losing two entire teams from the NA LCS - but the most difficult news came after the studio lights had been turned off. Late Sunday night, during TSM Xpecial's stream, he quietly mentioned he'd been benched from the team. Fans in his chat room immediately assumed their beloved hamster was joking. TSM had just finished the season in second place after a highly successful split. There was no way this could be possible. And yet something in Xpecial's weak voice and sad eyes insisted his words were all too real.

Within minutes of his announcement, a Reddit thread was started, repeating Xpecial's announcement, and worried fans swarmed his stream looking for confirmation. Twitter started to light with speculation, questions and doubts as more information trickled in.

"They're starting scrims tomorrow and I won't be playing in them, so, head's up. It's not for performance..." Xpecial said, addressing a question in this twitch chat. "It was mainly a management decision. The team didn't have much say in it... I'm not sure what's going to happen in the future. I don't want to speak on it more now."

Towards the end of his stream, Xpecial broke his silence to give further confirmation. "I'm pretty trolly, but I'm not trolling about this. People kept asking why I was home, and I don't like having to lie about it."

Word of the benching traveled fast among the LCS community, and even Chaox made a sudden guest appearance in his ex-teammates chat. Xpecial ended his stream saying, "I got benched because of attitude. It's not something I'm completely against, I would say. I'm not 100% for it, but yeah, I just think there should be an announcement."

Anger spread quickly among TSM's legion of fans, with Reginald being their main target. Known for his occasionally antagonistic manner, posters assumed TSM's manager had to be at the heart of this problem. Twitter chat virtually exploded with an outpouring of love for Xpecial and heart felt expressions of hurt and dismay. "Bench Xpecial? More like bench my fking heart and feelings," one anguished twitter fan wrote. "Xpecial is the sole reason I'm such a huge TSM fan. He's the reason I main support & he's been my favorite pro forever," wrote another.

As the evening progressed, additional tweeters weighed in with some plausible responses. "It's not the communities interest who the team will keep and bench as players. I'm sure that Reginald has his teams interest as #1 priority," CLG's Dexter suggested, and another writer agreed, "People seem to forget that Regi is 3 for 3 on roster swaps improving the team. If he thinks Xpecial needs to go, he probably does."

By 1:00 am, the shocking news had spread throughout the eSports world. Flooded with tweets from impassioned fans, #Xpecial started trending on twitter. "Just goes to show how big TeamSoloMid and lolesports has gotten," someone posted. "When Xpecial out trends Game of Thrones you know it's been a crazy day."

Reginald addressed the community on Facebook in the wee hours of the morning, stating, "Xpecial was benched because of his attitude. After hearing feedback from the entire team, I made the decision to bench him. In this period of time, I hope that he will refocus and review his actions. League of legends is a team game; just because you have the best players on a team does not mean you have the best team. I have always made my roster decisions based on the entire team's feedback and would never make a business decision because of personal reasons."  

While he gave a rational response to a frustrating situation, it doesn't change the fact that we, as a tight knit family of fans, strongly felt the repercussions. We're involved, and we care, and these stirring micro-dramas are part of what has always made eSports so incredibly compelling. Thankfully, with social media, we have the means with which to express our emotions. Xpecial might be going through a rough patch tonight, but at least he knows he's loved. The feels. They're for real. And we're all in this one together.

*Screenshots from MachinimaVS - Chasing the Cup: Split Ends [Season Finale] 

NA SUMMER PROMOTIONS : What to Expect this Weekend :

by Chase Wassenar

We learned a lot of lessons from watching the European Promotion tournaments these last couple of days. First, we learned that series that feature four games that are more than fifty minutes long only work if the teams we’re watching know how to rotate and close out games when opportunities arise. Next, we learned that maybe, just maybe, giving yourself only a couple of weeks to practice with your new jungler when you've only seen him in solo queue previously was a bad idea. And finally, we learned that if a Challenger team has never won a series against a good team at full strength, they’re unlikely to pull that feat off when facing the pressure of a LAN tournament and an actually solid sixth place team.

Will any of those lessons rear their heads once more as we look to North America to see which of the six teams participating will find their way into the LCS? I suppose we’ll know soon enough, but that’s not nearly as fun as making predictions about it. It’s time to go through these games one by one and test my burgeoning powers of clairvoyance (5-0 in my picks so far this week from this podcast that you should totally listen to like the wonderful person you are) once more.

LMQ v. XDG

The Challenger: LMQ is one of those teams that’s been dominant in the Challenger Scene for so long that people are already starting to root against them just to stop the hype train from completely consuming the League of Legends subreddit. Luckily for Team Lomo, the majority of the hype is warranted…as long as you put it into perspective. LMQ’s five game series against Cloud 9 Tempest made it clear that they are not invincible, but they are a talented group of players with a great top laner in Ackerman, a surprisingly underrated jungler in NoName, and a play-making mid laner in XiaoWeiXiao. Are they a perfect team? Far from it. Vasilli is still way too aggressive in the bot lane for this particular meta, and I get the feeling that LMQ tend to underestimate their opponents early in the series, as their worst losses have occurred in the opening games of a series. That said, they've got a lot of talent, and they know how to adjust on the fly. They’re a scary team, especially when compared to…

The Incumbent: While I think all the links I share are valuable and important enough to earn your attention, I really want anyone reading this to pay special attention to this one. That’s the best guy on XDG’s roster explaining the stress and fear he is facing just from the thought of having to play against LMQ with his job on the line. That’s…not a great sign. Sure, he’s the least experienced guy on the team, but given the train wreck that was XDG’s season this year, I doubt those who have been with the team from the beginning are feeling more optimistic right now. I stand by everything I wrote in that article on XDG’s mismanagement, and things have only gone downhill from there. Benny has been a nonfactor in the top lane, and mandatorycloud’s play has fallen off dramatically from where he was when he led the LCS in kills last summer. It would take a complete rejuvenation and a return to Team Vulcun form for XDG to win this series; I just don’t see it happening. Prediction: LMQ 3-1.

Cloud 9 Tempest v. Evil Geniuses

The Challenger: After hearing approximately five thousand different explanations as to how the age rule works for the Promotion matches, I believe Altec is going to be allowed to play in this series. Assuming that’s the case, this is probably the most improved Challenger team I’ve seen in North America, going from being knocked out in the first round by Skyline (now CompLexity Red) to being second only to LMQ in every series thereafter. While Altec deserves every ounce of the credit he gets, this is far from a one man squad. Yazuki has grown into this new meta to become a very solid top laner, and both Kez and Bischu have pocket champions that can be quite deadly when they get the chance to play them. My biggest concern is that Kez and Bischu’s champion pools appear quite small. Kez isn’t nearly as efficient when not playing Elise, and Bischu hasn’t consistently impressed me outside of his Nidalee play for a while now. If they get banned out, those lanes could struggle…but Altec would be free to choose what he wants. Which means…

The Incumbent: So much of this series is going to rely on the picks and bans phase. Luckily, the Evil Geniuses are a very experienced organization that has been in these high pressure situations before and tend to know exactly what to do. While his aggressive play doesn’t always work, one can’t deny Krepo has an incredible feel for the game, and his ability to strategize against Cloud 9 Tempest could be the difference here. Of course, there are big concerns with this team; they did finish seventh after all. Snoopeh has struggle to adjust to the new meta of jungle champions to the detriment of his team, and Yellowpete was probably the worst ADC in North America last split. For EG to win, InnoX and Pobelter need to carry their lanes to victory and hope that Krepo can keep the bot lane competitive enough to not burn them badly on team fights later in the game. Given one can’t expect too much from Snoopeh these days, that’s about one too many variables for me. Prediction: C9T 3-2.

CompLexity Black v. Team Coast

The Challenger: Man, remember when everyone was excited about CompLexity Black back when they were Determined Gaming last December? I certainly do. Everyone was so excited to see Westrice on a successful team that we all completely ignored the fact that he was struggling to keep up in the top lane and relying far too heavily on a streaky mid laner (Arthelon), a temperamental jungler (Brokenshard), and an above average bot lane that was hyped way beyond their actual means (ROBERTxLEE and Bubbadub). We all thought that loss to EG would be the best thing that happened to them, as Pr0lly was a sizeable upgrade on paper, but as the great Yahtzee Croshaw once told us, “Paper is a flimsy thing that turns clear when you rub grease on it,” and that’s certainly been the case this split. It took this team five games to beat a Curse Academy team that could adequately be described as ‘DontMashMe and four guys who would have been brought up to the LCS like Sheep months ago if they had that level of talent.’ I don’t think they stand much of a chance against…

The Incumbent: Call me a fanboy if you wish (I’ve been a fan since they were Team Dynamic back in early 2012), but this is pretty much the perfect match-up for this Coast team. ZionSpartan practically lives for the moment he can hard carry against a top laner that’s way out of his depth, and as arguably the second best mid laner in North America, Shiphtur shouldn’t have a problem against Pr0lly, who’s been CompLexity Black’s most consistent player. Coast isn’t perfect: Wizfuijin and Daydreamin haven’t lived up to their potential, and NintendudeX tends to do more damage than good nowadays. But hasn’t Coast’s path to success this split been based on the ability of their two best carries to, well, carry? In the long run, Coast will have to make some changes to the roster if they want to be relevant on the World Stage once more, but what they have already should be enough for now. Prediction: Coast 3-1.

Chase Wassenar is the Lead Editor and Founder of the Red Shirt Crew Blog and Podcast Network. He’s excited to find out if all of his Challenger Series scouting has paid off. You can read his other work at Less Than Legends, subscribe to his weekly podcast, and contact him by email at theredshirtcrew@gmail.com, on Twitter at @RedShirtKing or in the comments below.

Moms' Support Carries Wolves

Copenhagen Wolves' Top Laner, Joey "YoungBuck" Steltenpool admits he was depressed after his team failed to avoid relegation. In fact, he felt physically ill. Needing a little old-fashioned comfort, Joey reached out to his mother and invited her to join him in Cologne.

"She just gave me a hug and a kiss and made me some good dutch food," Joey told interviewers after surviving the summer promotions. His glossy eyes spoke the rest of his sentence. Her presence had lifted his spirits, and that extra boost of confidence was just what the Copenhagen Wolves needed. After a hard fought victory against Denial eSports, YoungBuck and his teammate Amazing embraced their families, doing what every great team should do - thanking their supports. The touching picture quickly went viral among the LCS watching fans on twitter, because we all know...the feels! <3    

From our friends at You Can't Milk Those

Dreams can come true : EU Promotion Tournament

by Jeremy Heimann

NIP vs Millenium - NIP is a team with three players who were on the Season 3 Worlds' stage with expectations to do well from the start, and up to this point they have failed to meet those expectations. Once again they are heavy favorites to win a series for a chance to play in the LCS. They tend to play very safe in laning phase and prefer to stay in lanes as long as possible. Zorozero will usually split top while Nukeduck goes bot. This strategy is called 1-3-1 and is the plan they almost always go with. This style was used very much in the EU LCS spring split to mixed success.

Millenium is just one split removed from being a playoff team and this last split has to be a major disappointment for them. Creaton was able to keep a 4.0 KDA even though his team lost the most games. Kottenx has helped the team play better towards the end of the split. He also seems to like the early gank junglers that should be used against a team like NIP. Lane swaps would favor Millenium and if they can make the game about rotations and taking objectives instead of farming for the first twenty minutes I like their chances.  Prediction Millenium 3-2 over NIP

Cloud 9 Eclipse vs Supa Hot Crew - Cloud 9 Eclipse, the winners of the Coke League playoffs, should be considered the strongest challenger team. Supa Hot Crew don't care how they finished and decided that C9E was a better match-up for them then NIP, and that decision will either be great or a bad call on their end. C9E is without their star jungler, Kou, because of the age requirement.

The match-up to watch is in the mid lane. Febiven versus Selfie - a mid laner that joined the SHC late in the season and came out on fire, but since then he hasn't made many sparks. Febiven could really control the mid lane and that spells bad news for the SHC. I expect bot lane to go even - with the edge going to the SHC. Prediction C9E 3-1 over Supa Hot Crew

Denial Esports vs Copenhagen Wolves-Denial Esports, formerly known as Departed, is among the better teams in Europe and should be considered one of the best. The Polish comparison with Roccat has to be made which won their way in defeating the best of the worst LCS teams. Denial had trouble defeating NIP or C9E so it's hard to give them much chance against the Wolves. Prediction 3-0 Wolves over Denial