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PhreakRiot



29 Oct

The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

Comment

Originally posted by HighLikeKites

I can't think of a single team eliminated in groups where I was like, "yeah but they should have won worlds." Sorry, FPX, you inted your entire week 2 group stage. You had four shots and missed all of them. Guess you deserve to go home. I really can't imagine anyone reasonable claiming that FPX actually deserved to be in semis right now.

Reminder FPX was on the verge of being eliminated in groups before they went on to win the whole thing in 2019.

Sure. And they’d deserve to be forgotten if that happened. I truly do not care who the conceptual best team in the world is. I care who wins Worlds. If FPX bombed out of groups by playing poorly then they deserved to be forgotten. Such is sport. Just like DL inting into Crown and Licorice stealing Baron on Ornn. The results matter.


28 Oct

The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

Comment

Originally posted by Iliceon

While the constraints imposed on the groups seeding is debatable in an of itself, let's just stay on the format considerations, especially since, as you say, quarter's seeding is definitely an unchangeable effect of how the groups play out.

The thing is, playing more games (and not even 2-3x times more) COULD solve some of these issues. Look at TI and the CS:GO major. The Swiss system for the group stage, for example, basically reseeds the original seeding using information from the tournament itself, correcting for the information lost in the time between the qualification and the tournament start. Similarly, a double elimination playoff bracket corrects for a team that warms up as the tournament progresses or for two strong teams meating each other early in the playoffs because of group stage upsets.

Of course, these formats carry their own downsides and can be corrected. There are other useful formats as well (a GSL-style group runs a similar amount of games as ...

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Fwiw I really like Swiss systems. LoR uses them, too.

The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

Comment

Originally posted by Iliceon

The Gen.G vs T1 and KT vs IG examples show exactly that it IS on the tournament format to salvage the situation. Since there is a time gap between the regionals and groups in which the meta changes and since many teams wind up to be better and better coming from groups to playoffs, there will inevitably be seeding errors that can "ruin" the tournament. It is way better to change the the format than to hope that seeding from regionals into groups and from groups into quarters will just turn out good. The current tournament format just isn't robust enough to account for possible (and arguably very probable) errors in seeding. The double round robin bo1 groups and single elim playoffs is the probably least robust tournament format ever with no methods for internal correction of lopsided groups and bracket matchups.

But how could you possibly fix them? Outside of just saying “nah actually T1 is better we are going to overwrite your seeding” you’re going to get misshapen groups unless the regions seed better. Similar is seeding a 1st place group team vs. 2nd. What, we just say “yeah don’t care, IG is still top seed”? The tournament has to play out.

Playing 2-3x as many games is not the solve for that.

The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

Comment

Originally posted by WoooaahDude

I dont think you are really wrong regarding those points, but I dont think people really think group stage is any better than playoffs honestly. In fact group stage might be a bigger offender than playoffs.

6 Bo1s played is unreasonably volatile. Especially in a situation where all teams are playing each other for the first time. A team might bomb the group stage for any reason as is. Someone ate something that upset their stomach the day before? There goes your worlds run. Someone was just feeling off? No chance of getting out of groups.

Seeding makes very little sense. 2018 TL hard stomped everyone in NA to put into a group with EDG and KT Rolster. They actually managed to even grab a game from EDG, and then couldnt get out because KT dropped a game to EDG.

Also groups are too small. Since very often some team has issues in the group stage, whoever lucked into being in the same group just gets to get out.

KT Rolster arguably got r...

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You should be remembered for what you did. Plenty of TSM fans are still upset that they failed to get out of groups because Doublelift inted into Crown instead of taking Baron. They should have topped their group instead and played Cloud9 in the quarterfinals and then maybe H2k in the semifinals and then maybe made the finals. But they didn't. Because we play the games and what happened is Doublelift threw the game and TSM lost. KT Rolster may have been "actually" the second best team. But they lost in quarterfinals.

You can still be proud of your results. Maybe TSM fans are happy they got 3 wins. Maybe Fnatic fans are happy they made the finals. Maybe G2 fans are happy that they beat RNG in a nail-biting series. Maybe Misfits are happy they went to 5 games against T1. That's for them to decide. KT Rolster fans may still play that series back in their head. That's fine. But they didn't come close to winning Worlds that year.

I also don't think groups are unreasonabl...

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The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

Comment

Originally posted by Jandromon

Good points regarding fairness of the format, but another issue with this format (or its schedule) is that after groups, there's 1 week dead gaps in between stages with literally no Worlds material at all, other than some tweets and content creators predictions. So the hype kinda dries out a bit. 2-3 day breaks feel right, but 6-7 is maybe a bit too much for the average viewer. Perhaps a more condensed tournament and with more Bo5s would be preferable?

There are never 6-7 day breaks, at least not until world finals.

For reference, groups ended on a Monday and QF began on Friday. QF ended on Monday and SF start on Saturday. So the break is 3 (G -> QF), then 4 (QF -> SF), then 5 days (SF -> F).

I feel the downtime for sure. I'm sitting here in my hotel room and the only direct work I've done since casting C9 vs Gen.G (outside of prep) is a 1 hour story meeting and then I'm back to having tomorrow off as well.

That said, weekends are pretty prime. This is an event that the entire world watches and that means someone's got the games at 5am and someone's got the games at noon and someone's got the games at 8pm, or thereabouts. You miss out on a lot of people if you don't let people have a weird schedule for a day or two to catch the games.

The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

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Originally posted by idontevencarewutever

I wouldn't agree with the term "top-heavy" at all, but more of a clear difference in regional development styles.

LPL and LCK has Bo3s.

LEC and LCS has Bo1s.

External scrims or ping issue be damned, I think if the west at least TRIED to emulate this, maybe they'd get somewhere. Metas aren't developed in just a single game; especially in a game like League where the draft can sway in its own meta over the course of a series.

And again, I'm only sticking to League as an example. I probably watch Dota a lot more, but I want to lean on something that can agree with gbay's points, at its surface. Currently, the weaker teams clearly don't stand a chance, even with a format shift. The Bo5s will be a straight 3-0 when the problems aren't addressed at the root.

The 2016 and 2017 world championships already showed us that isn't true. Compare the results of either region to the following year, 2018, where they went back to best of 1, and they both improved.

In 2015, with best of 1, LEC had two teams in semis. They failed to replicate that during the bo2/bo3 era. They went back to bo1 and made finals in back to back years, including an MSI championship.

LCS's first and only worlds semifinal was that same year of coming back into bo1s.

The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

Comment

Originally posted by WoooaahDude

One thing you are not mentioning is that the feeling of worlds being a clown tournament because of how much RNG is involved in who scores what.

We have teams celebrating their draw because the competition is not even. Is 100T a worse team for not being able to get out of a group that had 2 semifinalists than the current quarter finalists?

Is whoever wins GenG vs EDG better than loser of DWG vs T1?

Playing the bracket from GenGs side, it is actually much easier for GenG to win worlds than for them to win LCK. How does this make any sense? Isnt worlds supposed to be the most prestigious tournament of the year? In reality the bad format of worlds make it so world championship is 30% luck 70% skill which is ridiculous. People want winning or placing well in worlds to mean the team deserved what they did, not that they were lucky.

We have teams celebrating their draw because the competition is not even. Is 100T a worse team for not being able to get out of a group that had 2 semifinalists than the current quarter finalists?

Is whoever wins GenG vs EDG better than loser of DWG vs T1?

Playing the bracket from GenGs side, it is actually much easier for GenG to win worlds than for them to win LCK

Here's what's interesting though: This isn't the fault of Worlds seeding or of the quarterfinal bracket. This is the fault of regional seeding. The fault (in my estimation) lies with the LCK. Gen.G is LCK #2 and T1 is LCK #3. By all rights, the way that teams were seeded, 100 Thieves are supposed to have an "easy" Korean opponent when they draw LCK 3. The reason C9 and Rogue were in the group of death is because they faced actual top teams: LPL #2 and LCK #1. Such is your life when you're LEC #3 and LCS #3. That's rightly deserved.

I think it is very, very reaso...

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Jankos gives his honest opinion on the gap between EU and LCK/LPL

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Originally posted by SeizeTheKills

Just out of curiosity, does that mean that the LEC could switch to another format even if NA stuck to Bo1? I'm aware there were different formats in the past, but since they switched back to Bo1 at the same time I got the impression that was a single decision taken for both regions in conjunction. Was that the case (maybe due to LEC and LCS being more intertwined at the time)?

I don't see why not. As you noted, we already saw that the first split went separately: LCS went to bo3 while LEC went to bo2.

For what it's worth North America and western Europe are relatively similar culturally. Heck, the primary broadcast language for both leagues is even English. I'm certainly not an expert in league operations but it appears that viewers had similar reactions and so the experiments got shut down for both leagues in relatively short time frames.

Jankos gives his honest opinion on the gap between EU and LCK/LPL

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Originally posted by CLGHSGG4Lyfe

What I fail to understand is, why a game like League of Legends with the infrastructure that Riot has built for it as the premier E-sports has leagues that have different rules. I am not saying this as an argument for or against a reason as to why someone is underperforming or not. Just why isn't there a global rule that formats are even across the board for everyone. Doesn't that make it inherently a fairer system?

Because territories are different and have distinct needs. I’d much rather Americans Make decisions for an American league and Koreans make choices for a Korean league. The countries, continents, territories, etc. are not the same.

Jankos gives his honest opinion on the gap between EU and LCK/LPL

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Originally posted by TrixieH

I'd argue that game count isn't the reason but on-stage experience. As Jankos said, there are many factors and Bo1 are one of them. There is even a point to argue that China caught up with LCK after switching from Bo2 to Bo3 - at least from a viewer perspective. Imo, the best format for EU was still the Bo2 format and it was really sad to see it back to Bo1. Riot should for sure consider to uniformize League systems across the globe.

What's odd about using bo2 as the landmark is that it's not actually different from best of 1: Every game matters. Every game directly results in more points for qualification into playoffs. Best of 3/5 is the only one where losing an individual game basically means nothing. Sure, sometimes you're tiebroken on game score (LPL did that this year for like five teams) but you can just 18-0 your season and not have to worry about it.

Either way, my comment was more about directly stating how Armut should clearly be able to have a larger champion pool than he does. I agree there are a plethora of reasons why the LCK and LPL have consistently outperformed the LCS and LEC (two years of Caps notwithstanding). It's clearly happening. It's definitely true.

I just take offense to the mudslinging at how it's all just Riot's fault because the league structure makes it so hard to improve. That's simply a lie. For reference, in 2016 summer and all of 2017 the LCS played best of 3 ...

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Jankos gives his honest opinion on the gap between EU and LCK/LPL

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Originally posted by CoolManyehyeh

MAD played 60 games in the LEC but yes I agree.

How can someone like Armut expand his champ pool when every game is best of 1 (and so matters more)? IF we had best of 3 he could have experimented on stage more and teams could experiment on stage with more strategies.

It just pisses me off to think about it. We are destined to get worse at worlds until this changes.

Yes how could a professional player who plays League of Legends full time possibly expand his champion pool? I mean he's only played 271 games over the course of his career, not the mention scrims. It's literally impossible. There's no time to play solo queue, no time to play scrims, it's just impossible. You have to play your 18th Gnar game against Vitality otherwise you'll never make Worlds!

Oner's played a total of 55 pro games. By the metric of who played more stage games, Oner should be 1/5 the player that Armut is.

Guess who believes that? No one.

For reference, Cloud9 played more stage games this year than Gen.G did. And yet Cloud9 got clapped. They also played more bo5s than Gen.G did. Yet they got clapped.

Hmm maybe game count isn't actually the reason.


26 Oct

[FULL] C9 press conference: Mithy says Korean teams have more scrim partners "It will be very hard, long term, for a Western team to do well unless the tournament system changes and we can be able to travel the world so we can have teams learn from, practise against each other for more time."

Comment

Originally posted by hallowilliam

Based on this year's group stage yes, LPL isn't far better than LEC/LCS.

But remember that LPL/LCK is usually better in BO5s because that's how they run their league (a lot of BO3s). the west instead plays bo1 all years which I believe gives them some advantage in groups.

Counter-point: LEC/LCS play far more bo5s. For example, Cloud9 played more bo5s in this year than GenG did over the last two.

Also missing from this analysis is the MSI championship and two world finals from LEC. Yet this year they generally failed. Is this because their source of scrim partners dried up? Or are we overreacting to one year of results?

The LCS is a consistent weak performer. The LEC is not. Yet they have similar access to CN/KR practice.


25 Oct

Item discussion: The Collector as a second item against LDR

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Super cool and well done thorough analysis! I very much appreciate you making this post!


22 Oct

2021 World Championship - Who's getting the early ganks? (improved version)

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Originally posted by KindredChokoBons

Hey! Thanks a lot!

Yeah, I was unsure about the wording. Helped means "ganked by his teammates" and I used ganked as "ganked by the opposite team".

So basically the amount of time that his team invested in him vs. the amount of time invested in his rival in lane.

Got it. Thanks!

2021 World Championship - Who's getting the early ganks? (improved version)

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This is awesome, thanks!

Could you clarify what "Helped" and "Ganked" mean? The wording feels ambiguous to me.


20 Oct

Why are pickems group D not calculated yet?

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Originally posted by triple_u

Hi Phreak!

Can't see you in the Celebrities Tab, would have loved to see your picks. (Although I wouldn't have been able to even if you were there, since you can't click on this year's Celebrities' picks)

Oh I've got almost zero points. I bet on the wrong 2 LCS teams getting out and heavily overrated the LPL.

The only teams I got exactly right were RNG, Fnatic, and DFM.

Bracket Draw / 2021 World Championship - Knockout Stage / Post-Draw Discussion

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Originally posted by aircarone

You realize that we are saying this because we think it lowers the entertainment value of your tournament right? It's not a question of who is better, but a question of we would like to see more hype matches.

I don't mind if all LPL teams get eliminated in quarters if we get to see more cross region matches.

Personally I'd love there to never be an EU-EU or LCK-LCK final again. I think entertainment is way up in those cases. Like we already saw DK vs. T1. It wasn't very long ago. Revenge for RNG vs. DK is way cooler.

So it's more a shift of when are the hype matchups? Certainly I'm sad that IG vs. KT was only the quarterfinal back in 2018, but that's IG's fault for tanking groups. That wasn't same-region.

The best teams are meant to dodge each other. That's a hard fact. If the best teams really are four LCK teams, then they could all top their groups and guarantee that they don't meet until semis. Too bad Hanwha Life isn't actually that good and thus had a literal guarantee to draw another LCK opponent.

RNG EDG, sure, that's a 1/3 draw. If EDG would just top their group, this could have been avoided. But even outside that, I think you get huge problems if you start force-seeding cross-region matchups.

As one final paragraph to make my position very clear...

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There is some fundamental champion design flaws if most of analysts, casters, pros and fans truly despise the un-interactive gameplay with Yuumi.

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Originally posted by MorphHu

This is a pretty roundabout, corporate way to use buzzwords to completely disregard all the criticism in the thread.

Ah yes, the corporate buzzwords of yasuo 0/10 power spike lmao.

I have opinions. I shared them. Deal with it lmao.

Why are pickems group D not calculated yet?

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Haha joke's on you they've been calculated and the quarterfinal pickems are ready. Don't you look stupid now 20 hours in the future?

Phreak Patch 11.21 Rundown

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Originally posted by GwenIsImmune

Ok but what's his opinion on the most important part of the patch, the all chat removal?

I'm not too worried about it. Could be good for the game. Could not be. Good thing Riot isn't shy about reverting changes.