[2021] Caedrel explains why chemtech soul is a problem for pro play

It's certainly possible it could be true. However, this is something that happens every time there is a rework: It's viewed through exactly one lens and all other considerations are ignored.

No matter how smart Caedrel is, he can't just draw on a map for 5 minutes and go, "Yep, I've solved season 2022."

"Will RUIN." Yeah. That's not overstated or anything. It obviously COULD happen. Hell, we've seen a whole season of players who ignored how good Yuumi was (2021) or how broken Ardent Censer was (2017) so who knows what kind of failings we'll see out of pro play this year?

Yeah you're right. I have no reason to flame Caedrel. He's entitled to his opinion and analysis. However, the call-out applies to literally anyone. I'd have the same reaction to the video title if it was Kubz, LS, Kkoma, or anyone else. The part I take issue with is how definitively it's worded.

It's literally impossible to say definitely what this is going to be like in actual pro play. I think that's a problem when you want to be taken seriously as an analyst. This is how any serious analytical undertaking works. Both the "will" because you don't know how players will adapt, and "ruin" because you don't know how players will adapt. At worst, everything is true and snowballing is slightly easier.

But that's what being intellectually honest is for: This is someone, as smart as he is, who is not currently playing pro on this patch. He cannot actually know how this will play out. It's disingenuous to assert otherwise.

The community tends to believe lots of things that aren't accurate. Aftershock is still roughly 3x the pickrate of Glacial Augment on tank supports despite being definitively overshadowed by Glacial, and that's even in Masters+.

It doesn't matter that I'm not a former pro. I'm not the one claiming I know how the next season's going to play out. It's very easy to sit here and say, "Hey bro, you definitely don't have enough info to make such a definitive statement yet."

It's not about the rank. Caedrel is an excellent player. He's just not clairvoyant. There's no way you can definitively know how pro play will work next year unless you're actively doing it.

And even then, not this early.

Of course it's debatable. The winning team has much less room to deep ward the enemy jungle. By default the red/blue buff areas are just fully fog and offensive wards do nothing until they're placed far deeper into the jungle, making that experience more difficult and riskier.

It's truly disingenuous to only take the negatives of one side of the argument. Oh the losing team can't play this one control ward play. OK yeah, I agree. The winning team also can't deep ward that entire area. The losing team arguably has better access to warding the river (seeing enemy champions go in) than the winning team has access to the opposite side of the chemfog. Every invade is immediately risky until you can get wards down even deeper. And even then, did they cover every single entrance? No. OK, then good luck invading red buff. You literally can't know if Leona and Olaf are waiting for you. I don't believe you can just dismiss this out of hand. You can believe one factor is stronger than another, and that's great. Let's have a discussion. But absolutely no one can definitively claim they're irrefutably right.

And I think it's disingenuous to say the champs/runes examples are irrelevant. I'm making the point that even expert players make mistakes. They don't see the full picture. They experience the game and try their hardest and still believe incorrect things. Something as simple as a Keystone choice is a great example of that. Doinb went Q max on Malzahar at Worlds. Just because people are very good at the game doesn't mean they know everything. So you just cannot say, "Oh yeah, we're two weeks in, we definitely know how macro is going to shake out."

I agree seeing snowball win rates or game time changes in Chemtech Rift would be a reasonable approximation. You still have to do all the caveats for direction based on MMR and accounting for players learning (e.g. champion win rate changes as players get experienced, so winning/losing team power could do the same here), but it's be a lot better than, "Well you can't do this one exact control ward play."

The game analysis team is all D1-GM afaik.

I don’t think they’re doing a bunch of “what-if” analysis. So I don’t think they’re trying to crunch through data for the next big break. But they absolutely know things that players don’t seem to have caught onto.

For example, Glacial Augment is superior to Aftershock on tank supports, yet has 1/3 the pick rate on that cohort. So that’s freelo for anyone paying attention. I’d argue it should stay OP until players catch on, but Riot is preemptively nerfing it in 11.24.

As another, Dragon Soul is somewhat overrated in the esports scene. I remember several casts throughout the year where respected analysts called Ocean Soul a “free/guaranteed win” and then the team lost because it’s not.

By mid-late 2021 we finally saw pro teams ubiquitously give up the first few drakes for advantages elsewhere. But that adaptation was maybe a full year late since we’re a full two years into elemental drakes now.

So there are small things but I’m not sure how much they’d stack up.

I find the chemfog to be far more interesting than any of the old terrain modifications. I have to use my brain again when figuring out where to ward effectively.

I don’t know how other players feel. I think for those who like novel experiences they’ll enjoy it like I do.

In general dissatisfied players are the more vocal ones, so it’s hard to actually gauge that from Reddit posts, for example.

Rengar has changes in internal testing. No guarantee that changes will ship if it ends up very degenerate, but they're trying.