Ovedius

Originally posted by brother-trick

Oh, both teams played 'badly'. As you would expect with 2 fairly evenly matched opponents. But those mistakes are not actually playing badly, but playing against a well prepared and mentally resilient opponent.

In 2017. EDG in one game had 9-0 in kills and 10k gold advantage and in other game they had 6-0 in kills with 6k gold advantage. In both games obviously they got baron and had total map control and still lost the game.

I do not really recall people or analysts saying that EDG played better League of Legends or making arguments that they'd win with reversed draft. General narrative was 'EDG played so well for so long, but you give SKT and inch and they will take miles.'

Narrative back then was - its because SKT is so good that they can turn a single enemy mistake from 100% loss into a win.

Originally posted by LtSpaceDucK

"But there's no evidence in this series to suggest that they would. If we are in agreement that the early game was weak from G2 in every game. And if we agree that in each game, G2's draft would outscale, then it should make sense that if G2 fails to get an early lead with a comp that is eventually outscaled, the likelihood of them winning is now very much lower, right?"

But the evidence that SKT has a better early game than G2 is flawed the only way we could claim that is if both G2 and SKT picked for the early game, that didn't happen so it does not make sense saying SKT has a better early game because it can just be a by product of the strengths of their compositions.

G2 being better than SKT late game could also be attributed to them having drafts better suited for late game which would be a fair statement.

One thing there is plenty of evidence of is SKT inability to push leads and utilize baron properly.

I would say there is more bases to suppor...

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Originally posted by Additional_Geese

On the topic of compliments: obviously the cast on Sunday was great. I loved the colour-combo of you and Jatt, but after the game on PGL you were talking about something with the camera focused on you and I was suddenly struck by how far you'd come as a caster.

I don't know exactly what it was, there was something about the fact you'd just said how tired you were but were soldiering on, the camera angle, the way you were talking about the game - but I was watching on the sofa and let a little "f**k yeah Vedius" with a mini fist pump lol

Originally posted by Additional_Geese

I've read those replies - to me there's still a leap from your thought process and break down of the game to "they played better"but I understand that it's just a summary of a much larger collection of thoughts. "If they swapped comps" is to me a strange way to evaluate teams, for a multitude of reasons, but I at least see your reasoning. Ironically I feel like because you're a LEC caster and even want G2 to rock, you have to be extra critical to be ensure (to yourself) you're not being biased (or more dangerous online, perceived as being biased haha) but the fans don't really consider that.

I think it's totally fine to oversimplify and totally understand that at the end of a long stream it's more than likely someone would quickly summarise in a way that doesn't adequately describe their thought process. I f**king hate how reactionary people are on social media and wish people applied a little critical thinking and common sense before reacting to this stuff. Especially with...

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Originally posted by brother-trick

I do not disagree with you on game 1. I also think that in game 2 G2 had a better draft. But games 3 and 4, its SKT all the way in my opinion.

If you cannot utilize advantage that Renekton, Rek'sai, Ryze bring - I do not care what enemy drafted and how it works in the late game - you do not deserve worlds finals because you have absolutely every tool to smash enemy team before 25:00.

Originally posted by georgioz

My issue with the current narrative is that fans seem to think that G2 played perfectly and it was all part of their plan

No. The issue of fans is that G2 outplays SKT and you say SKT plays better.

Now this doesn't just excuse SKT. They also did dumb stuff. Their ability to use baron was awful, they played so many teamfights really poorly and they have no idea how to use weak side of the map.

Exactly. SKT made a lot of mistakes and had some fundamental problems with their understanding of some of the most important concepts in the game. But SKT still "played better" according to what you say despite all these glaring flaws. What can we know.

If I take what you say at face value we just witnessed a clown fiesta and the bigger clown of G2 lucked out or just drafted more funny costume and just won. Oh, also obligatory "not to take anything away from G2".

Originally posted by brother-trick

As for game 4, you have Vlad with free lane on top and Qiyana/Elise as a mid/jg duo. G2 still outscales here all things equal and their comp is easier to execute, but again - SKT's comp had many advantages in the early game.

From the fact that before level 6 they should have fairly easy bot lane, stronger mid/jg duo and fairly free laning phase for Vlad on top.

Originally posted by MietschVulka

so, their baron play is bad. and you say they played better then G2 often times, while securing advantages (Baron) that they can't use properly, while G2 does not go for those advantages, but secures advantages (map pressure) that they actually can use very well.

how is SKT better securing useless stuff then G2 getting what they need to then finish games? they did make mistakes, many, but so did SKT. the problem is, Baron, small gold leads, all this doesn't matter because this series was never about that. G2 forced that series into a game of pure map pressure and won under the conditions they set up on their own.

Originally posted by Observing_Everything

Vedius m8. Remember that when you don't give the summary, some people will complain about you not giving a tl;dr at the end of your analysis which makes the video "really hard to watch".

In the end, being a colourcaster for a game like league of legends is such a curse and a blessing i imagine. Because people play the same game as you and because the community is so heavily revolved around the internet, every word you say is interpreted by millions of people in different ways. The blessing is however, that you can actually commit to discussion with fans so easy as the distance between a caster and their audience is much smaller then for instance in traditional sports which us really engaging for the fanbase.

However. The standard you set in this comment is really unrealistic. Leaving things open for interpetation will always happen. I mean look at real life communication(for instance with friends or with a spouse). Even with facial expressions added for clarity, yo...

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Originally posted by Insab

So what you're saying is that G2 had better early and late game comps. Mid game was better for SKT but if G2 had executed early properly, SKT wouldn't have a chance to utilize their mid game strength. However, the window for SKT was so narrow, even though they could grow their mid game lead, it was hard for them to close. However they executed the mid game better than G2 executed the early (SKT played better). If the comps were switched, you would expect that SKT to have done better early and G2 to have done worse in the mid game so either SKT would have never given G2 a chance due to a strong early game or would have outscaled and won.

Is that a correct interpretation of your argument?

Originally posted by MoxZenyte

I get that you're saying that SKT didn't give themselves enough options to punish G2 early before getting outscaled.

I guess game 3 is the game where I'm most inclined to agree (even thought they also made their own early games mistakes, such as Khan getting Wunder back into the game by unnecessarily dying), but I feel like for game 4 SKT had good ways to win the game. If they had punished Caps better, which to me seems very possible from the draft, or if Teddy/Effort didn't fall that far behind early, then they would have won that game, in my opinion. But both teams made early game mistakes, then G2 made less late game mistakes, and we have a G2 victory.

And then in game 1 I disagree that G2 played worse earlier on, and in game 2, the gold was very even 22 minutes in, and it was actually later game plays from SKT that won them the game. Idk, it just feels like saying SKT outplayed G2 left and right in the earlygame was a bit overblown.

I guess overall we j...

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Originally posted by brother-trick

The point of that comparison was to show a team can play better and still lose. The other important thing to note is how I defined what playing better league was, which is fine to debate. Kobe made a great argument which is the gravity of decisions at different points weigh more, and the problem with my initial statement was that it was an over simplification of what I actually meant.

So would you agree that in 2017. worlds EDG played better League than SKT? They snowballed every game early, but then lost late to SKT with some ridiculous advantages.

Originally posted by LtSpaceDucK

G2 showed a weak early game with late game compositions if they picked early game like SKT they would probably have a good early game as well.

Why is SKT having a good early game with a early game composition and a bad late game a positive and a sign they played better, but G2 having a bad early but a good late game while playing a late game composition not perceive as equal, it's exactly the same scenario.

But it seems you don't think they had strong early game composition when they had renekton almost everygame, elise, lee sin, le blanc picks that are amazing in lane and perfect to be played around.

Originally posted by Hannig4n

This is a really insightful comment, thank you. Do you think that there was a similar issue for SKT with their game 4 draft? I was surprised to see them throw a lead like that.

Originally posted by brother-trick

Well, if you want to talk about game 1 - I'd agree there isn't a snowballing advantage to SKT, but also there isn't any scaling advantage to G2. The tradeoff here is Ryze as a realiable splitpusher on G2 vs slightly better teamfighting comp for SKT.

In the end, SKT dared G2 and lost the teamfight. SKT has won historically dozens of times by being only better at that one, lategame teamfight and I've never heard that an analysis that would point at SKT winning because of drafts or because the enemy team made mistakes.

Overall, drafts in game 1 are evenly matched and I do not see how SKT would win this game if drafts were reversed. It came down to execution.

The only game where I feel G2 had a clearly better draft is game 2. And they lost that one.

Originally posted by HighLikeKites

What makes you think if the drafts were swapped SKT would be able to accumulate the same early game leads and G2 would make the same early game mistakes when the comps and winconditions would be different? That doesn't make any sense.

Originally posted by ragtagofgoons

I just wanted to stop by and say it's awesome that you are taking the time to type out such in-depth responses to each of these comments and on top of that engaging in discussion. You're a cool dude.

Originally posted by LtSpaceDucK

I'm not ignoring their mistakes.

The discussion around their draft revolves around the idea that if G2 picked similar compositions to what SKT did, and SKT picked similar compositions to what G2 did, G2 would lose the series because they would make more mistakes than SKT.

Based on what is this assertion correct, , G2 almost always makes mistakes early game and they manage to stabilize the game and start playing smart in the mid game.

G2 is a lot better than SKT at pushing their advantages, utilizing baron and closing out games, G2 is a lot better than SKT at playing the compositions SKT picked, so I think the notion that G2 would lose with a role reversal is not fair at all.

How can anyone know how SKT or G2 would have played with different drafts.

I'm pretty sure G2 opted for these late game compositions because they recognise the inability of SKT to push their leads and utilize baron, I think I remember Grabbz and G2 members discussing thi...

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Originally posted by brother-trick

You do realize that SKT had champs that were better suited to win early game? Maybe with those champs G2 would actually snowball properly which SKT failed to do.

Not sure how much SKT in LCK you watched, but I always claimed from their regular season that SKT is not that great. At their best - and yes, this was their best - they are a really good statcheck team. G2 is just able to surpass that in most of the games, therefore 8-3 this season.

GRF and DWG are generally much more dangerous teams for G2, but with big bo5 problems.

Originally posted by Additional_Geese

but I believe that if the comps were swapped and G2 made the same early game mistakes that they did

Vedius I love your casting and content, and am totally against the way people just ignore the arguments and attack the statement (especially when most people don't understand the game at all), but this is a really strange position to take.

If comps are swapped G2 have a stronger early/mid spike, there's nothing to suggest they would make 'the same mistakes'. There's nothing to even suggest they would approach the game in the same way,

I also think the phrase 'played better' is silly and just creates an entire argument based largely on semantics. You put more emphasis on certain parts of the game than others, maybe you're right to do so maybe you're not, but to claim a team played better because if you moved around a ton of variables it would look different is, well, ridiculous.

It's my biggest problem with League analysis i...

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