and i don't even mean the championship game, i'm talking the whole shabang. i have to say, i am thoroughly satisfied with the mid season invitational. yea, TSM shit the bed, yea Fnatic got a bit screwed by a wonky bug, but whatever, things like that happen. all sports/games/activities/hobbies, have quirks. shit happens, things go wrong or not as they were intended to go...it sucks, but we move passed it, just as these teams did. i can say, the fans are WAY worse than the players are, because the players understand that there is always a tomorrow, and a next time.
congrats to EDG, they made me look stupid. i put all my eggs in the SKT basket, and while they looked like the best team over the course of the 4 days, they lost when it mattered most. but we got to see Faker's LeBlanc, we got to see a shining example of a team, baiting a super star into playing into their trap. it was beautiful. there was legit excitement around all these games. we had trash talking, blown opportunities, surprises...MSI was the best thing we've had in competitive league in quite some time.
all this gilding the lily though, brings me to the "underbelly" of it all. the fans. while most were pretty great, on reddit, things got a little out of hand. the TSM/Fnatic apologists were out in full force. the haters, hating on Dyrus but making excuses for Bjergsen were relentless. the pissing contest between na and eu reached a fever pitch and stopped being about who's better, but who's the bigger asshole. it even spilled over into insulting casters! joshua "jatt" leesman was called out because of things he said about TSM and Fnatic, Jatt...who is incredible at calling things right down the middle, with an honest and unbiased eye. its things like that, that give this community a black eye. i'm not saying we all need to hold hands and sing songs while hugging and loving one another, but i do think we need to really look at how we handle "fandom" and stop being such colossal assholes about who we like, who we don't like, and why everyone is a dick. we the real fan of the game, who would rather see the best of the best, going toe to toe on the grandest of stage, whether they be korean, american, european, taiwanese, chinese, etc, we want to be entertained and given a great show...and that's exactly what MSI was, a great show. in a few months, when worlds rolls around, there might be new teams in the conversation, it's probably unlikely, but there's a chance, because that's what this game gives us, unpredictability. lets just all enjoy it, and let ourselves enjoy it, before getting too wrapped up in the bullshit that surrounds it.
have fun, and i'll see you on the rift!
-Hooks
Tower Dive Podcast
@Cptn_Hooks
Cptn_Hooks on Twitch
Monday, May 11, 2015
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Cptn's Log - i told you so
if any of you listen to my podcast (well, mine and Pan's podcast, but that's neither here nor there), you would know that i thought pretty highly of this AHQ team. maybe not highly enough to think they'd win, but i definitely thought they could compete...and look at that, i was right.
my "buying and selling" segment on this weeks show couldn't have been more spot on...i mean...all except my TSM prediction. what a letdown. this team. they just slipped back into old ways, being big fish in a small pond. Fnatic dominated them, SKT dominated them, EDG, AHQ, both dominated them, the only team they beat was the lowly turkish team that went 0-5. you can chalk up one or 2 games to being nervous, but going 1-4 was unacceptable for this squad coming into MSI after such a strong showing in the NALCS and IEM. TSM apologists will make excuses for Bjergsen not playing well, they'll blame Dyrus, who, while not the problem, was certainly not the solution, being banned out in most games and left to flounder on carry tops that he, simply, doesn't carry on. Turtle and Lustboy seemed overmatched most games in bot lane, and i don't want to blame it on Turtle, but i have to assume he had far more jitters than Lustboy, although the latter didn't look very impressive either. Santorin looked lost for most of the games, not much more can be said about him, but you have to assume he'd struggle, he's, by far, the most green member of TSM and has almost no big stage experience. all in all, they came out flat and looked intimidated. other teams brought THEIR game to the bigger, better teams, all TSM did was react to the way the other teams were playing. instead of taking the other teams to task, they were made to look like a little kid in the mall, who lost his parents, afraid and lost.
today we have the top 4 teams: EDG, Fnatic, AHQ and SKT1 all vying for a shot at the finals. SKT dodged a bullet against Fnatic potentially because of a strange bug, other than that, they've looked like the strongest team here. EDG looks good, but something about them seems to be missing, maybe they'll find it today, but maybe not. Fnatic plays a messy style, but it seems to work...on occasion, they'll have some trouble today, but they can surprise someone today. the real wildcard is AHQ. their good games have been very good, their bad, very bad. it depends on which team shows up to the stage today to see where they can go, they definitely have the talent to win, but can they?
i'm sure i can wax poetic on this for much longer, but i'd rather let the games do the talking. i'll be back here tomorrow, before the next docket of games to reflect on today's match ups. other than that, i'll see you on the rift.
-Hooks
Tower Dive Podcast
@Cptn_Hooks
Cptn_Hooks on Twitch
my "buying and selling" segment on this weeks show couldn't have been more spot on...i mean...all except my TSM prediction. what a letdown. this team. they just slipped back into old ways, being big fish in a small pond. Fnatic dominated them, SKT dominated them, EDG, AHQ, both dominated them, the only team they beat was the lowly turkish team that went 0-5. you can chalk up one or 2 games to being nervous, but going 1-4 was unacceptable for this squad coming into MSI after such a strong showing in the NALCS and IEM. TSM apologists will make excuses for Bjergsen not playing well, they'll blame Dyrus, who, while not the problem, was certainly not the solution, being banned out in most games and left to flounder on carry tops that he, simply, doesn't carry on. Turtle and Lustboy seemed overmatched most games in bot lane, and i don't want to blame it on Turtle, but i have to assume he had far more jitters than Lustboy, although the latter didn't look very impressive either. Santorin looked lost for most of the games, not much more can be said about him, but you have to assume he'd struggle, he's, by far, the most green member of TSM and has almost no big stage experience. all in all, they came out flat and looked intimidated. other teams brought THEIR game to the bigger, better teams, all TSM did was react to the way the other teams were playing. instead of taking the other teams to task, they were made to look like a little kid in the mall, who lost his parents, afraid and lost.
today we have the top 4 teams: EDG, Fnatic, AHQ and SKT1 all vying for a shot at the finals. SKT dodged a bullet against Fnatic potentially because of a strange bug, other than that, they've looked like the strongest team here. EDG looks good, but something about them seems to be missing, maybe they'll find it today, but maybe not. Fnatic plays a messy style, but it seems to work...on occasion, they'll have some trouble today, but they can surprise someone today. the real wildcard is AHQ. their good games have been very good, their bad, very bad. it depends on which team shows up to the stage today to see where they can go, they definitely have the talent to win, but can they?
i'm sure i can wax poetic on this for much longer, but i'd rather let the games do the talking. i'll be back here tomorrow, before the next docket of games to reflect on today's match ups. other than that, i'll see you on the rift.
-Hooks
Tower Dive Podcast
@Cptn_Hooks
Cptn_Hooks on Twitch
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