Is it Time for a Ten Team LCS?

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos 

Remember earlier in the year when the possibility of a ten team LCS was hinted at by Riot? I’ve been giving it some more thought now that the regular season is over, and there are a lot of pros and cons to the idea. Based on my own perspective of the scene and what I feel it needs to grow and prosper, I'd like to talk about some aspects I think are important, and examine what it might be like if the LCS were to make this change. 

The first thing I’d like to highlight is that with the current structure, a team that finishes in third place in the regular season standings can find themselves on the receiving end of an unfortunate playoffs run and suddenly end up in the promotion tournament fighting to save their jobs. I personally believe that this is a huge kick in the shins for a team that fought hard for an entire split to reach top three, only to rejected back to the bottom because of two lackluster performances. I saw a lot of talk during the EU LCS's Supa Hot Crew vs Roccat game on how Supa Hot Crew “don’t deserve to be third seed if they lose to the sixth seed," but I believe this to be false. Their position as third seed was decided by a long split of hard work, trials and tribulations, and the possibility of having done all that work and having it overturned by two bad results can be both mentally crippling and simply unfair. This is currently the situation that Millenium faces as they prepare for the promotion tournament off the back of a very hard slide from being a team hell bent on Worlds. 

The LCS in its current format is just too unforgiving. End of split playoffs should be all about pushing forwards to try and grab a spot at Worlds after having a good enough season to qualify, but for the teams who qualify third through sixth, it starts off being about securing your place in the LCS. It doesn't make sense in my mind that the same teams that could go to Worlds could suddenly become teams that lose their jobs within the same tournament. With a ten team LCS, playoffs could still be between the teams in the first to sixth spot, however the tournament could be entirely about progression towards Worlds rather than the double pressure of dropping out the LCS, which could instead be the fate of the teams that simply finish eighth, ninth and tenth, with seventh remaining in the LCS but not in the playoffs bracket. Not only will this ease pressure off the players, but it will make the LCS more stable as a competitive league and less about peaking at the right time. The regular season standings will actually serve more of a purpose in deciding the fates of the teams, which is what it's meant to do in the first place.

On top of changing playoffs and on the topic of making the regular season actually matter, having ten teams in the LCS would also see the end of Super Weeks and bring about a fluid regular season schedule which I believe is more than needed for the LCS players, as well as the staff and the spectators. Super Weeks heavily promote tilting and peaking performances which can greatly affect the standings. Fnatic spent six weeks in fourth place during the Summer Split, and then Week Seven Super Week comes along and suddenly they go 4-0 and remain in second for the rest of the split. The fact that twelve games of the twenty eight are Super Week games can greatly swing the season in your favour or against you if you’re a tilting team or happen to run across unforeseen trouble. Spectator-wise, they’re also very time consuming and taxing on most weekly schedules: six days of consecutive matches following the four from last week provide ten days of LCS streaming with only one day of break in between. It’s just too much in a short amount of time; a normal regular season would be fluid, more consistent and more enjoyable for both players and spectators of the LCS. It would also allow for unavoidable happenings to be less punishing (like Visa issues for a particular player or a sudden loss in confidence for one week.)

One other aspect of the LoL pro scene that will be affected by the change to ten teams is the challenger scene. There is an argument that the challenger scene will greatly diminish in quality if there is space for two more teams in the LCS. The top challengers will have a gateway into the LCS, meaning that the scene in challenger will be less competitive. While this is a fair point, the challenger scene is also a very large pool that could generate great up and coming players at any point and while it will initially become “easier” in a sense due to there being two less top tier teams, other teams will rise to the occasion and take their space at the top. It also makes the challenger scene more attractive as there is more of a chance to actually requalify as many teams that remain in the challenger scene at this current time tend to become unstable and see many roster changes in an attempt to find something that can make it in. A good example of this is Ninjas In Pyjamas, who have yet to find a roster that can make it back into the LCS despite numerous switches and rotations of top level players - at every point having a squad that “should be in the LCS.” The addition of two extra LCS spaces would allow teams like NiP who are stuck in limbo at the top of challenger to have more of a chance to make it in, which in turn also allows for other teams to rise to the top of challenger. We will see more underdogs and rising talent as well as more organisations getting involved in sponsoring teams, which could be beneficial to both the players and the challenger scene in a whole. Teams that “should be in the LCS” will more than likely make it while teams that aren’t quite ready will have more of a chance to improve and grow.

Overall, I believe the switch to ten teams will be a great change to the LCS and I hope it goes through in time for the Season Five Spring Split. The positive effects that the switch will have are more than worth the change and will be a big step towards making the LCS and LoL Esports a better experience for everyone involved. 

MonteCristo Criticism : Legitimate or Schadenfreude?

By Jodi 'PunkLit' McClure

The first time I saw MonteCristo, I was surprised by how fragile he appeared. He was tissue thin, like if someone sneezed on him, he would instantly crumble into a tiny pile of bone and ash. He knew League though, and he was beautiful, and those two things quickly off-set any preconceived notions I had about his size. From regular appearances on the LCS, I grew acquainted with his smoldering bedroom eyes, his perfectly chiseled features, and, more importantly...his notoriously imperious attitude. Being American (and a stalwart TSM fan,) I was quickly perturbed by his continuous bashing of NA and EU teams. Who cared about the Koreans and how much better they allegedly were than us? How dare he come into our house and run his fancy white-gloved finger across the dust. But, unfortunately, time and again, Worlds proved him right. And eventually I had to admit it was true. Somehow, we were lacking.

I don't recall at what point I stopped hating MonteCristo and starting hanging onto his words like he was Jesus, but it was probably somewhere around the start of Season Four. I found myself valuing his keen, experienced insight. He never failed in his predictions. Clearly, he was all-knowing. And even when he was delivering venomous swipes of his knife, he always remained so angelically calm and soft-spoken that the poison was practically negated. But he did like to swing that knife, frequently and sometimes cruelly, at every kid who played in the LCS. It's a habit that has caused him to have a fair share of haters, (with many a pro player among them).

So it was with a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction that his many adversaries watched CLG go down to Curse in a fast 3-0 during Playoffs, and the german term, schadenfreude, applied. Lord, they were quick to swarm social media sites and jump on Monte's ass, thrusting fingers in his face, gleefully cackling, "You said everyone else was bad, and yet, your team has failed. Where are your Korean Gods now?"

For MonteCristo, whose skin is as thick as his ego, these words have little effect. He is a consummate professional, and is fully capable of taking what he dishes out. Having bullets fired at him comes with his job and like Superman, he stands there smirking while they bounce off his chest. But for his team, whose hopes and dreams rode on his wisdom and guidance, it's was hard not to feel the sting, and I don't doubt Doublelift wasn't the only person on the team who considered retirement in the uncomfortable days that followed. So, we can't help but ponder the possibility...did MonteCristo actually fail them? 

A coach must be equal parts teacher, mentor and drill instructor, trying to find a way to bring out the best performance in each and every one of his pupils, and I don't double Monte tried to be those things. According to him, he spends hours and hours each day watching films and working with his team over Skype. But I have a quote from him that's sat on the left sidebar of this site forever. "'Potential' is bullshit. Results are the only thing that matters."   

Monte focused his coaching on changing how the team communicated and having them understand strategy at a very high level. He felt he had a better grasp of what champions were coming up and what strats were being used. Big picture tactics, as he called it. But he probably sees a much different scene gazing out his big picture window in Korea than one might see from Manhattan Beach, and it's possible that by asking his team to look out his window, he took them too far from the reality of their own. 

  

Opinions on Reddit and Twitter seem to vary. There is the more base, raw emotion of 'He talked shit about other teams, he deserves it,' to the reasoned, 'He's not a bad coach but he needs to spend more time with his team,' to the extremely forgiving, 'He can only do so much. It's up to the players to perform.' But the truth probably lies somewhere between all these. Dexter admitted stress was an issue, and expressed nothing but relief when their playoff game was over. It's possible that by taking the team to Korea, Monte put his boys too far into the center of our cross hairs at a time when they needed less stress, not more.

At the end of the day, at least for now, we can only speculate. MonteCristo once said, "There's nothing that effects me in eSports more than whether CLG wins or loses," but the repercussions from this - their most devastating loss - still remain to be seen.

Underestimated Items Part 2:

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos 

Sword of the Occult

In this meta, it's becoming a lot more common to see hyper-carries snowball their games out of control while having the hard protection of the new breed of top laners like Alistar and Maokai. So in such a meta where snowballing AD Carries are seemingly more important than ever, why do most choose to ignore the basic snowballing item? Simply put, most people choose to ignore the benefits of Sword of the Occult because of the drawback of losing stacks when you die, but also because the item choices for an AD carry are typically very rigid. Statistically speaking, if you come back to lane with a fresh Sword of the Occult, you will be coming back with less power than you could have had building up to another item. Sword of the Occult will always remain a situational pick, a buy that is made when the user has complete confidence in their ability to wait out its low power period and build up the stacks. A typical time where I would purchase the item myself is when you know your jungler is coming for a gank while you are still at base or in the build up to the first dragon fight as both provide easy opportunities to gather assists and kills immediately from purchase, thus voiding the period of low power that the item has while unstacked. With a correctly timed purchase, you can change the game with Sword of the Occult, but with a badly timed purchase you could also do the same. The item is only as efficient as its user. 110 AD and 15% movement speed at full stacks is a prize that shouldn't be overlooked if attainable and right now it’s more attainable than it’s ever been before.

Wit's End

I myself am very surprised at how underestimated Wit's End is as an item. In my opinion, ranged auto attackers with magic damage in their kit like Nidalee, Tristana and Teemo could greatly benefit from both the 50% attack speed boost and 25% magic resistance, but on top of that; the way these champs are played allows for frequent and efficient use of the passive which both adds 42 magic damage per hit onto basic attacks as well as stealing 5 magic resist from the enemy, stacking 5 times while adding 5 to your own. These are not light statistics. A typical Nidalee player could see an even greater burst potential from fully stacking Wit's End, applying the hunted debuff and finishing off with an even stronger Takedown. Similarly, a Tristana might choose to build Wit's End as their attack speed item to further boost the potential of her Explosive Shot and Buster Shot while stacking to be more resistant against a magic damage team. Wit's End also sees benefit on tanky melee auto attacking champs like Volibear and Warwick, both stacking well with their ultimates and the latter being able to fully stack the passive immediately with the 5 hits of Infinite Duress.  Another seemingly unknown benefit of Wit's End is its ability to counter the passive of Thornmail. The on-hit effect of Wit's End not only ignores Thornmail’s passive, but slowly reduces the damage of the reflected damage with each stack while making Wit's End’s passive damage stronger, allowing for a champion, who initially took more damage than they dealt against Thornmail, to negate the item and deal more than Thornmail can reflect.

Ardent Censer

Ardent Censer is an item that got immediately glossed over upon its release; it isn't built on many champions and is generally ignored in favour of other support items most likely because of the specificity of its passive’s benefits and the seemingly low stats it provides the owner. However, it should certainly be considered as a first or second item on any AP support like Nami, Morgana and Janna. In lane trades, you cannot afford to ignore a benefit such as 25% extra attack speed onto your AD Carry for a whole 6 seconds which can be refreshed by another heal or shield; making Janna by far the biggest benefactor of this item by applying the passive with every tick of Monsoon as well as Eye of the Storm. In addition to being proc’d off of champion abilities, Ardent Censer can also be activated through the use of items that heal and shield such as Mikael's Crucible and Locket of the Iron Solari. A powerful combo of items on heavily AD teams is Ardent Censer and Locket because activating the latter provides the attack speed boost of the former to all allies affected by the shield. This item also allows for champions like Tristana with Attack Speed steroids already implemented into their kit to further excel while allowing other AD Carries that lack an Attack Speed boost to try and keep up without being out DPS’d. Lucian particularly benefits from the extra Attack Speed as it provides a more satisfying Culling. This also stacks with Youmuu’s Ghostblade, which could greatly increase the DPS of Lucian’s ultimate as well as any ADC’s DPS in general.

Banner of Command

Banner of Command is the product of reworking the old Summoner Spell: Promote, which showed promise but was simply outclassed by other Summoner Spells in usefulness. As an item, the active is now far more accessible and a great way to affect map pressure while picking up CS from across the map. An effective use of a siege minion promotion can easily turn map pressure against your opponent for being out of position. A typical time to use the active would be in the bottom lane when a baron dance is occurring, this way while minutes are passed battling for the objective you are still gaining map pressure through effective split pushing. To opposite effect, you could have the active promoted minion pushing the top lane while you dance around the Dragon. This item also allows for a double split push in the sense that you could be pushing a lane yourself and providing 15% extra damage to your nearby minions while using the active in another lane to keep pressure on another side of the map. If you even desire to take the minion siege party act further, you can build the Captain enhancement on your boots and provide 20% movement speed to nearby minions as well as the extra damage from Banner of Command. While Banner of Command won’t help infamous Tryndamere’s push out even harder, it can be an enormous asset to AP champions that wish to split push or gain more control. 80 AP and 20% CDR aren’t even laughable stats either; they’re both very helpful and high stats that put the item on par with most others in terms of usefulness. The real key to building Banner of Command is how often and actively you utilize the active and passive. If you plan to spend a lot of time creating map pressure as an AP champion, this is a must buy in my opinion. Another overlooked effect of this item is that the passive increasing minion damage also affects the pets of certain champions such as Elise’s Spiderlings, Heimerdinger’s turrets and Zyra’s plants, but unfortunately doesn't affect Annie’s Tibbers. 

*If you haven't already seen it, be sure to check out Underestimated Items Part 1.  

Rift of Representation?

By Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis 

League of Legends is home to a diverse set of creatures. There’s normal run of the mill human warriors, sure. But there’s also yordles, who differ greatly from male to female. Then you’ve got people who were regular humans that obtained amazing abilities, like Annie or Brand. Finally, there’s a lot of champions who are the only one of their kind that are in the League (Here’s looking at you Skarner). One thing that pops into my head every now and again though, is how under-represented a lot of real-world groups of people are, or maybe even worse, how some are stereotyped and myths are perpetuated. Maybe this is just because of my great exposure to how these groups have fought for their rights, but there’s some obvious and some less than obvious stereotypes and media perpetuation going on in League.

First off, let me preface everything here with this. I’m not saying we have to or should go back to change anything about these champs design wise or lore wise. I just am trying to point out some patterns I’ve seen in Riot’s design strategy. I love most of Riot’s ideas for champions, and they have put out some really unique characters. I feel that Riot could really be the company to break some molds that gaming has been keeping set in stone though. They have the talent and the willingness to take those kinds of risks, and they've proven before that they want to break though a lot of previous barriers that have been held by the gaming market as a whole. This is not a bashing on Riot, every media outlet is guilty of a lot of these issues, it’s a request more than anything.

I guess the first thing we could look at is one that is pretty easily agreed upon by most people. There are almost no black champions in the game. Of the 65 or so human(depending on how determine human) champions, we have a total of 2 distinctive black champions, about 3%. To be honest, this is pretty humbling when you look at the numbers. Compare this to world numbers which are about 15%. To get that same number in League champs, you’d have to change eight champions from whatever they identify as to black. What’s even funnier is that Karma’s ethnicity was argued about for a long time until Riot officially came out and said she was black.  And remember, that is before we even look at other identities, like Asian, Indian, etc. Plus the entirety of the LGBT community and their representation that they deserve, which is a whole other topic to cover. I’ve focused on one race, but that isn't to say that the same logic can’t be applied to all demographics. When Lucian was about to be released, everyone was rejoicing that there would finally be a black champ in LoL, but I found it was about 50-50 on who was aware of Karma’s race and who wasn't.

League is supposed to take place in a fantasy world, and I get that. However, it’s pretty apparent that in this world the dominant (in numbers) ethnicity is still caucasian, even despite all of these new species that exist like yordles. A great argument against this, I’ve heard, is that we don’t know about a lot of champs. I’ll admit that some champs that we either don’t know or can’t identify could fall into more unique racial categories, but at that point if they aren’t immediately recognizable, we fall into the same issue as Karma, but worse. At least with Karma it was somewhat noticeable that her skin was darker, not to say that dark skin is the end all-be all for identifying as black. If, for some reason, there is no way, besides Riot coming out and stating that we have a champion from a non-caucasian race, it almost seems like it’s being hidden from us. I think Karma and Lucian are awesome steps, but if/when a new champ is announced and the biggest impact that it has on the player base is the fact that they’re black, there’s a bigger core issue to address.

While identity is an issue that was surprisingly pretty well agreed upon, I want to move on to a topic that I’m sure I’ll get a lot of flak for. Oversexualization of the women in the game. Look, I get it, I’m a guy, beautiful women are great! But if every female champion that comes out has to be gorgeous, do you really think there isn't a problem? There’s definite tropes to be filled here. Ahri is a good example of one that I am 100% perfectly okay with. Her lore is that she charms men and lures them. She is “supposed” to be attractive and sexy. If she didn't have revealing clothing and stereotypical attractive traits, there’d be a big disconnect with her character. Ahri is fine to me, but then you look at a champion like Katarina or Janna. They have even MORE revealing clothing, but how does that fit their character? Maybe I’ll buy Katarina needing to be mobile, but in that case why not give her something more flexible than armor elsewhere. Of course there’s the one everyone knows and jokes about, Sona. Her breasts are huge, and because of that it’s a big point to her visual identity, but they have literally no reason to be lore-wise or for gameplay readability. Then when you put some skins on top of that, you mess with some characters that weren't sexualised, Leona and Riven are the first examples that come to mind.

Speaking of Leona, I will give Riot credit. A lot of credit actually. While they could have just gone the route any other company would and made every girl attractive and “hot,” they took time to make deep characters that didn't rely on that as an attention grabber. Leona is a strong, armored warrior that just dives deep on to you. None of her armor is overly accentuated to bring out her breasts unnecessarily. Another great example is Kayle. She’s an awesome angel that wrecks you with her sword and she’s covered in armor from head to toe. Nothing about her screams “Hey I’m a woman, look at me I’m female!” I’d really love to see Riot designers explore this idea more so we can get a more diverse champion pool in terms of female looks.

However, there’s a  bit of a back-peddle because while Leona was one of the only champs to not get sexualized, they gave her a skin that put her in a bikini. I don’t think the issue here is that they gave her a skin that is revealing, but more that she was one of the only female who they had left be as an individual strong woman with no strings attached. Compare this to the male demographic of League. You have your manly, strong, and handsome knights in Garen, J4, etc. Your scary insane people like Ziggs and Shaco. Even your ugly champs (Urgot). The body types that males have differ from big and beefy, to chubby, and everything in between. Almost all of the non-Yordle women have the same body type. Athletic to thin build and accentuated breasts. Skin showing is usually the case as well, but not necessary.

Imagine if some of the guys would have overly huge junk and it was accentuated in their armor. It’d look ridiculous. (Although a Draven skin with that would be great) It’s just a fact that almost all of the women in the game have some kind of skin, whether it’s classic or not, that makes their body and the fact that they’re women overly obvious just for eye candy. Meanwhile, there are few guys in the same situation. Varus, Lee Sin, and Tryndamere are shirtless, and there are a few skins that do this like Pool Party Graves. However, the vast majority of males are untouched as far as revealing skins. Meanwhile, some female champs only have “sexy” skins. There’s no fair representation. Sometimes, the best skins are the ones that don’t do this. One of my personal favorites is Redeemed Riven. She looks badass and ready kill and she’s completely covered in armor. I personally dislike Battle Bunny because it makes Riven into something she’s not meant to be. It takes away from her strength and resolve.

Once again, I’m not saying that we need to go back and try and “fix” champions that are overly sexy. Sometimes it’s a role that needs filling. Champs like Ahri and Miss Fortune are good examples, but they almost get washed out by the sheer amount of sexualization that is going on. I’m just asking for some even distribution. Make some “sexy” and revealing male skins and champs, and make some nasty scary looking females. Make a champion with a deep and definitive background that doesn't follow the same guidelines every other media outlet has set out. Create a multitude of genders, races, etc. The possibility is there and some champions have proven it. Leona and Kayle are great and they don’t need to have revealing skins because on their own they’re deep enough characters as is. Break the mold more Riot, because you’ve done a great job so far, but you can do so much more.

Alliance Calls Top in the EU LCS

There was a time we all snicked at the alleged 'Super Team,' who looked good on paper but got off to a rough start. Then came the their learning to play together, followed by a steady stream of improvement that culminated in a winning Summer Split. They worked hard to prove they were worthy of their 'Super Team' moniker, and they're deserving of all the hype that comes with it. Great job Alliance, and good luck at Worlds!