Summer promotion tournaments, Afterthoughts

The summer promotion tournament provided a lot of excitement for the fans who were treated to great games from all the teams competing. Although this idea is really awesome there is one thing that does worry me. It was hinted at by some of the teams that if they were knocked out of the LCS they might disband. I couldn’t think of a world without teams like CLG, Dignitas, Evil Geniuses, or really any of the teams the LoL Community has become to accustomed too. Although this is a result of a system like this I hope that any team who gets knocked out of the LCS sticks with it and continues to play together. The amateur scene is slowly gaining more and more traction and hopefully falling out of the LCS will not end the careers of these teams. 

Although nothing official has been announced in a blog written by team owner Martin Pham Team MRN is over. The players will be splitting up the members will either find new teams, become full time streamers, or even go back to school. The team had very solid players but never seemed to be able to close games out consistently, although they had some epic comebacks as well as some games where they just dominated. MRNs problem was consistency, they started rough but by the end of the season they seemed to slowly be putting it together. Hopefully team MRN will continue if not all of these players have bright futures and most likely will be picked up by a team. They might not be picked up as a full time player but at least as a sub is pretty likely.

Yamotocannon and Malunoo announced in a post they will be leaving Dragonborns saying the team just isn’t working out. There are issues that make them feel like hinder the team’s longterm viability and they just aren’t willing to take that chance. The post also said they will be starting their own team with the two other members being Extinkt and Freeze with the support role currently undecided. For those unfamiliar with the other two names they both played on Samurai in Jeans during the Promotion tournament. Extinkt is the mid for the team as well as a sub for Dragonborns. Freeze is the AD player and will most likely be the one choosing the support.

This also leaves a question of what is the future of Dragonborns? They can’t just switch to their subs one of them is Extinkt, who will be going to the team mentioned above, and the other is dexter1 who just was signed by Mousesports. The future for Dragonborns looks very hazy and the community will have the wait for an official announcement. 

It’s really hard to see this happen to teams and is one of the issues with Esports right now. The amateur scene is still growing and the money just isn’t there for these teams who are without big time sponsors. Teams like Complexity, Against All Authority, and Giants will most likely survive, although might have roster changes, to compete again in a future LCS season.  But what about these smaller teams, Dragonborns is now three fifths of a team and the future of MRN at this time doesn’t exist, not to mention these other teams who didn’t make it in. Many of these teams went all in to become professional gamers and now what are they going to do?

LCS 2013 Summer Promotion Tournament Recap

With the end of the end of the first LCS split we also saw the beginning of the first LCS promotion tournament. For anyone that’s not familiar with the structure it’s commonly used in European sports with multiple levels of divisions where depending on a team’s performance they can move up or down a division. This structure provides a really great way to all the teams to experience some sort of postseason excitement. Since all the teams are taking part in either the championship playoffs or the promotion relegation tournaments all the fans have something exciting to watch. This creates the feeling of ultimate joy for those teams who manage to make it into the top division and ultimate disappointment for those who don’t. 

We saw four of the LCS Spring teams enter the European tournament with only the Copenhagen Wolves holding their spot to continue into LCS Summer. Although we say goodbye to Ozone Giants, Against All Authority, and Dragonborns we are privileged to see what newcomers Team Alternate, Against All Authority, and Meet Your Makers will bring to the LCS. The games were all very interesting but showed truly how close the European LCS scene really is. 

On the North American Side of things we saw as Complexity, Team MRN, Counter Logic Gaming, and Dignitas all entered the tournament. Two of these teams weren’t expected to be here at all and two were expected by the fans to lose their spot. Those expectations came true as CLG and Dignitas both made it out successfully with decisive series victories over the challenger teams. Complexity was swept out by Quantic, who was actually a heavy favorite coming in, and Velocity eSports taking out Team MRN in a close series that went all five games.

Every team put up a good fight and in the post-game interviews the new teams were both excited and confident that they will be able to perform at the highest level week by week. The chance to see their dreams fulfilled was truly awesome and exciting to watch, on the flipside it was heart wrenching to see dreams also being shattered. To all the teams that are no longer in the LCS I hope you all continue competing and see you back in the LCS someday, and to all the new teams welcome and enjoy the ride!

Series Stats – NA                                                                             Series Stats –EU

Complexity: 0                                                                                     Copenhagen Wolves: 3
Quantic Gaming: 3                                                                            Samurai in Jeans: 1

Team MRN: 2                                                                                    Dragonborns: 2
Velocity eSports: 3                                                                           Meet Your Makers: 3

Dignitas: 3                                                                                         Against All Authority: 0
Team Summon: 1                                                                              Sinners Never Sleep: 3

Counter Logic Gaming: 3                                                                 Ozone GIANTS: 2
Azure Cats: 0                                                                                     Team Alternate: 3

Could the msytery of runeterra be forshadowing something more?

Yesterday we were treated, or terrified depending how you want to look at it, to learn about an ancient being that appears during times of war across many different eras in many different locations. Does this mean we will be seeing a new champion soon? Probably, although it may not be the recently leaked Gun Templar but someone else. This new champion from what has been released has a winged humanoid figure, wields a jagged blade, and always appears to help the underdogs. Relics noting his presence have been seen in Demacia, Noxus, Ionia, and the Freljord with books noting him in the libraries of Piltover. The most interesting fact about him so far is that he always comes to help the underdog fight to victory and vanishing right after.

Although I don’t know who he is I can say he sounds really cool. After reading his story it got me thinking about this new figure and why he would be so exciting. Either we have an immortal being or a time traveler on our hands who shows up to help those in need. By the look of the pictures seen in the teaser this being might love chaos and that’s his motivation. Until we find out more about him in the future we can’t be sure who he is or even where he’s from. 

The announcement of this new champion was really cool not just because “OMGNEWTHINGS” but because it shows a cool view into how all the new champions might be released. This was a pretty cool teaser to watch unfold from start to where we are now. Riot is creating a great buzz on all forms of social media as well as the forums with this announcement. I hope we are in for more lore behind the champions and the areas of Runeterra. Looking at the map the southeast area of the map is largely unexplored and not extremely fleshed out so it could be in for some love. Although continuing with Riot creating these stories behind all the champions it may make champion releases slow down a bit at this point in the game with over one-hundred champions that’s not a big deal. The ability to create these complex stories behind the upcoming champions and features just shows how deep the stories can become so much deeper. 

All I know is I’m pretty excited for whatever secrets Riot has in store!

Why the Freljord event is so cool and how could Riot Expand upon it.

With the release of the Lissandra patch we also saw the remakes of Trundle and Sejuani and the Freljord event. With the Freljord event we saw many lore additions relating to all of the champions relating to the region. This was a first time where riot picked out a region and really fleshed it out and exposed the “shadows” that people might’ve seen in the lore. In a recent AMA about the patch IronStylus was quoted as saying “Fun stuff is in the works” when asked if bigger themed patches would be coming in the future, he also said he would love to deeply explore all the territories. 

What this means for the players is that in the future we could see cool themed patches looking at the other areas and how they interact on a deeper level. We all know how Demacia and Noxus hate each other but how about we really explain the war in detail. Not to mention we have places like The Void that really aren’t explained too well and could really have a cool backstory. Although we have all these cool areas to explain there are other directions they could take this that would be really cool.

Looking at the themes they have been coming up with and going beyond just giving other areas this treatment Riot could take this in some interesting directions. Riot could come out with short stories to really flesh out the relationships between champions, think of a story really going into the background of Draven and Darius growing up or something looking at the intense rivalry between Leona and Diana. As a lore fanatic it could be so cool to see the stories behind the champions really come out and let the lore team have some fun with it. If Riot wanted to go much deeper with the idea we might be able to see full length books similar as to what was seen in the World of Warcraft novels. 

At the end of the day the Freljord event is a great step and if Riot continues in the direction the community is in for many more treats!