The Death Of A Dream

I tried to help but he said he was just too far from saving
And nothing I could say was gonna change him
I barely recognized him at all
That night I put my youth in a casket
And buried it inside of me
That night I saw through all the magic
Now I’m a witness to the death of a hero

Alec Benjamin, Death Of A Hero

How do you keep on loving something when it hurts? How do you keep on loving something that is dying? Can you pick up the pieces and love the ashes?

I’m not a brave person, I’m a coward. I run from conflict, I run from confrontation, and I spare myself as much pain as possible by never facing it in the first place. That means if the LCS is showing signs of decay, I simply look away and start following the LCK, which at least pretends it’s still thriving. And if OWL is dying a slow death, I can’t let myself fall down that emotional pithole, so I disengage and try not to care.

It’s so hard because I want to be loud about my passions, cheer on my favorite players like crazy, and support each other on this sinking ship. But instead, I jumped first and saved my own skin. And now I can’t figure out how to express that I still care about those left, bailing as hard as they can, fighting for their future.

Will a phoenix rise from the ashes? Probably. Everyone will probably be fine after this wave of death; something will rise up to take its place. I hope with all my heart, truly, that my favorite Overwatch players are able to extend their careers with whatever opportunity comes next. But will I be there when the rebirth happens? I’m not sure.

What’s most important to me is some semblance of stability, a promise that my emotions and heart won’t be toyed with and shattered again. Then maybe I could be a fan with all my energy. But my dream is no longer the same.

I think I must have first dreamed of working in esports in high school. Not seriously, because it ‘wasn’t achievable,’ but as the ideal. However, now that I have experienced it, every emotion the narrator expresses in Death Of A Hero towards his hero, I feel towards my own dream.

It was a very achievable dream. Esports is open for the taking to anybody who is foolish in love enough to dedicate their life and breath to this industry. And then you finally see it up close and it keeps taking from you without any forgiveness. There’s a limit to how much you can sacrifice before there is none of you left, and I’m not the giving tree, I’m 23 years old. It’s too early to die.

Sometimes my dream made me happy, but very rarely. I traded my sleep, my friends and family, my life pattern, and all of my thoughts every waking minute, striving for those few moments when I could feel like I made a difference to a coworker or a fan. Most of the time, I traded all of that for what felt like zero return.

I finally pulled the plug on this losing investment, but after I took months to recover from the burnout, my dream was dead. Which was so hard to stomach, because I still love esports like crazy. And it’s hard to look at it without feeling like I’m staring at death.

So as OWL pulls the plug on its losing investment, I’m left dreamless without a direction to even step in. Now I know that I need a work-life balance job, not a grind job, but every strength and interest I have leads down a grind path. Eventually I’ll be on some path, but not having a clue to where that is right now is agonizing.

Someday, will my wounds be healed and will I be able to be a fan again? Can I recover after I saw through all the magic, after it was barely recognizable at all? Did I ever love if my love didn’t survive the highs and the lows and persevere through everything? Was it real love if I lost belief and betrayed it? Do I have any right to say I loved if I deserted before it died?

The Day Deft Became Champion

As the group stage ended, I was talking with a friend who was a fellow T1 fan, “for the rest of the Korean teams, I have one player I like from each of them: Showmaker, Peanut, and Deft.”

“I think out of those three I would be most happy if Deft made it to finals,” I said, “although it is the least realistic, I think.”

It was actually because I was a fan of Deft that I became a fan of Keria. When Keria became Deft’s support in 2020, that’s when I realized I wanted to support him too. I didn’t follow League of Legends very closely through 2020 or 2021, and I’ve never followed LCK very closely, but through a series of events I got back into LoL Esports this year and was encouraged to cheer for T1. Of course I am a fan of Faker but Keria was my favorite on the team; thanks to those two I ended up falling in love with the remaining three as well. The skills of all five combined into one team seemed like the meeting of five gods to me. Each one is the epitome of the best play in their role, how could you not want to love such a superteam? Their perfect spring split was breathtaking.

And yet, despite the way I held them in perfection, they were mortal. They entered Worlds as the 2nd seed. And I think something about the way they were human made them just even better to root for. The way they stood tall and kept confidence stone cold after week 1 of groups, and delivered on their promises to win in week 2, it was just so trustworthy.

Of course I always want to see Deft succeed, but like many others, I hadn’t followed DRX’s journey until they won their quarterfinal. I still think it will be pointed to as the most pivotal day of Worlds 2022, and it is also the moment when many, including myself, were absolutely sucked into Deft’s story this year. I was already so shocked by their quarterfinal win that I was too numb to feel any more shock when they won their semifinal—it didn’t even feel real, it didn’t register.

But when T1 had risen to the finals as promised, it was time to root for them. DRX had already succeeded, they had already surpassed expectations. They could lose and still have a happy ending. I was there for Faker’s 2015 win, I was there for Faker’s 2016 win, I was there for Faker’s 2017 loss. It had been too long since the promised return. Faker needed to rise back to the top. I wanted to see Keria smile, the best support in the world. Zeus, Oner, Gumayusi all deserved to be called the best, because they are. I doubted DRX all the way, and I believed in T1 to the bank. I didn’t hope or cheer for them to win, I knew T1 would win.

Watching the series in Atlanta I felt a lot of regret for not being able to attend the first Worlds in America since 2016, and I struggled with an immense amount of jealousy and feeling left out, but when I saw that they were playing the final series in theaters, I immediately decided to purchase a ticket to go to my local theater. Faker vs Deft in the finals was the kind of thing that comes out of storybooks and I was going to enjoy it in the most special way possible.

On November 5, a Saturday, I woke up late after watching the greatest Overwatch I had ever seen until nearly 1am (it was the Grand Finals of season 5 and it went to map 7 out of 7 possible maps in the most mindblowing, competitive match that has ever occurred), went for a walk with a friend, and came home to get ready. I showered, picked out an outfit, did my hair and makeup, and prepared the banners I had printed for both T1 and DRX to pass out at the theater. I hooked all my T1 lanyards and keychains to my bag and brought my best friend Pinky with me. I bought a gyro wrap at one of my favorite restaurants, and ate it in a hurry to get to the theater by 6:30. I was first to the room, and I watched the pre-show intently for nearly two hours before the delayed opening ceremony started. It looked incredible, but what moved me to cheer and clap was when those ten players were on the screen standing on stage across from each other. All my adoration was for them.

As the games finally started, I thought I would be squarely on the side of T1, but I realized I was watching the game with eyes for DRX. I was cheering for their advantages and hoping they would find plays. It felt strange. But game 1 was absolute perfection from T1. They surgically removed inhibitors 1, 2, 3 at a clipping pace, and there was no chance for DRX to get out of the ending authored by T1 fifteen minutes before it happened. When I say I want to watch an ideal game of League of Legends, I will point to this game. It wasn’t a stomp, it wasn’t a struggle, it wasn’t messy. It was simply clean.

Game 2 was also somewhat the same, I was happy to see DRX get their best picks and I was cheering for their fights as much as I was cheering for T1, but it was a lot closer all the way through and it went so long. Keria’s Lux play in the bot lane will probably be seared into my memory forever. After DRX won a game though, I felt relieved that they had shown themselves in the scoreline. I realized that I had a small fear in the back of my mind that it would be a dominant, unexciting 3-0 series and something in me didn’t want to see Deft get shut out.

But once they had their game, I left all my cheering for DRX behind. T1 had to win. I focused on Faker, I focused on Keria. The early game made me so anxious, I felt scared because we couldn’t afford to lose. It hurt, but I had to try to ignore watching Deft’s Kalista on screen. I reminded myself of how much Gumayusi was ahead of him. Oner made me scared because it felt like he was making mistakes. But then Oner performed a miracle and stole baron from rend AND smite. He restored my faith. And when Gumayusi performed a repeat miracle, I felt so much relief. On series point, I knew we were about to win.

At this point, it was getting very late. I had roughly guessed I was going to get home somewhat on time because I thought T1 wouldn’t take too long to win. But now I was starting to struggle to focus. As Kingen slowly wrested game 4 away, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. T1 would surely take it in game 5, right?

I know everyone lost their minds at the fact that we were getting Silver Scrapes and a 5-game series, but again, I was unable to feel the full force of shock I should have because of how the Overwatch League Grand Finals had already made the unrealistic real merely one day before. All I could do was watch and trust in T1. (Before the last game started, another fan in the theater asked who was cheering for DRX to win, and it was completely silent. We all wanted T1 to win.)

The 20-minute fight that gave DRX the baron absolutely shattered my heart into a million pieces and then Gumayusi picked every piece up and put it all back together when he stole that baron right back, the 3rd miracle steal of the series. The theater was the loudest it had been all evening despite it being past midnight. (Actually astonished at Pyosik missing so many smites.) I believed and believed and even denied what I was seeing as DRX slowly macroed their way to securing mountain soul. At that point I should have known it was ending, but my utter faith would not let me think that for a second. Only when Faker and Zeus died in a vain attempt to backdoor the base did I realize, it was really over. I could feel the break in Keria as he tried to flash to kill minions in the last moments.

And when Deft won, I stood up and applauded. I had been cheering for T1 until two minutes before, so it took me a few more to readjust to be happy for Deft. When I saw Keria crying, it reminded me of Faker in 2017. But this year, Faker was five years older and accepted defeat. Keria was younger than Faker was then and was absolutely devastated. I was sad for him but I didn’t cry, until Deft hugged Keria.

When Deft hugged Keria, I couldn’t take it. I burst into the ugliest cry I’ve ever heard myself cry, and when Pyosik hugged him I was wailing in pain. I don’t think I’ve ever felt something like that for someone who I’ve never met and only seen through the screen. My heart was absolutely broken for him and to see him embrace Deft and Pyosik made me discover a new emotion.

But the reality was that T1 had lost and Deft had just won. A real-life fairytale, it was absolutely incredible that DRX were the World Champions. Deft, who had endured 10 long years. Deft, who had constantly been in the shadow of Faker for all that time. He had overcome it all. I first heard of Deft in 2015, during Worlds when he was on EDG, and I (not an artist) even chose to draw his portrait in early 2016 as one of my first attempts at art in pencil. He was part of my esports story from the beginning and he will always be, until now and in the future.

To see him come up short so many times, never give up, and finally achieve the goal that every League pro holds as the ultimate achievement, what can I say? Jacob worked 7 years to marry Rachel, but it seemed like a few days to him because there was promise of a reward at the end. Deft endured 10 without any guarantee that he would ever succeed. Is there any greater inspiration? I must also work 10 years, enduring the hardest moments, without knowing if anything good will come. Because he did.

The only words I could find for the way I want to express my congratulations to Deft are, 고생했다. There’s no direct translation for this Korean phrase to English; it’s often translated as “you have worked hard,” but more literally it means “you have suffered,” “you have had hardship,” and at the same time it means “you have endured, well done.” What better payoff is there to great suffering than great reward? 김혁규, 고생했다.

As for Keria, I know he will get his chance. I know I will be there cheering for him on the day he lifts the Summoner’s Cup.

The only reason it wasn’t past 2am when I left the theater was because it was 1am. The last daylight savings time reversal in America had just happened.

Having No Alternative But To Succeed

On International Women’s Day, a video I worked on for Cloud9 came out on YouTube, receiving thousands of views and a lot of positive feedback. If I could tell myself from six and a half years ago that I would get to work on something for Cloud9, I wouldn’t believe me, and I would also freak out. Today was supposed to be a really happy day for me and something I could celebrate. Instead, I had a breakdown.

It came with the whole package–crying in front of one of my professors, eating carbs until I couldn’t eat anymore, drowning myself in TFT and League of Legends, typing too many words to friends I barely made, sabotaging my sleep on finals week, and raising hormone levels enough to break out. After the video came out, I thought I’d be bragging all day to everybody I knew, in every way I could. Instead, I barely was holding myself together until I could scream and cry alone.

I realized while talking to my professor that I have a lot of pent-up anxiety about graduating. I’m so worried that I’ll lose the resources and community I have here to get my career started after I’m gone. Everyone says to get an internship while you’re in college, because finding them gets much harder after college, and all those internships will turn into jobs, or at least the next opportunity. With one quarter left to go, I don’t think I have enough time left to get started before I go. I didn’t try to start junior year, because it was my first year at this university and I needed time to adjust, and now that I’m a senior, it feels too late.

I shouldn’t be worried. At every major transition point in my short life so far, I failed to plan the next step and the perfect opportunity comes flying into my lap anyway. I’ve turned out fine so far. And I know that even if something isn’t perfect you can make it into the right path. But maybe it’s because my luck has been so good so far, that I imagine there has to be some bad luck coming my way at some point too. (This is like some sort of fallacious probability reasoning that you are supposed to avoid in the AMC8 or something.)

It doesn’t help that all my friends are doing wildly amazing recently, landing a lot of jobs that I am frankly quite jealous of. I am genuinely happy for their success, but I am also envious and anxious. What are they doing that I’m not? Are they finding these opportunities because they’re students? What if I am soon no longer a student? Do I have to work harder? And I know cerebrally that pace doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether you start anything when you’re 17 or when you’re 28. There’s no use in comparing to others, especially based on age. I really don’t mind being later than my peers. But what I get from watching them is discovering what is possible, which makes me wonder, why is that not possible for me? What am I doing wrong? Where am I misdirecting my effort? How could they be possibly doing better than me, when I’m trying as hard as I can? What makes me not good enough?

Well, I guess I don’t have to really wonder that–I don’t think I’m good enough. It’s a fact (in my perspective), and that is something I am really wrestling with. If I want to be hired to make videos in the area I want to, I’m not at the level where they would hire me yet. I watch a lot of professionally done stuff, and I look at other freelancers’ work all the time, and I just can’t do it. I can’t do it yet, and I don’t know how to get there. I see the guy doing the amazing edits that are funny and impressive and visually stunning and I just can’t believe I’m not him. I know because he exists I can’t market myself. I can’t be confident in myself and tell anyone to pay me. Because I wouldn’t pay me. Maybe it’s as simple as some razzle dazzle, and the art of the presentation. I tell myself it’s about the razzle dazzle every day, and yet I don’t do anything to fix it. Maybe that’s because I am too honest and can’t spin a good story for my own sake.

This is where I pull in an idea that I read in some Twitter thread ages ago somewhere that obviously stuck in the recesses in my mind, and resurfaced today–that women in gaming and esports have no choice but to be perfect and to succeed. We have no choice but to be good enough, because we won’t be taken seriously. Women are fighting for their place in this industry, and we have to start by being exemplary so there’s nothing they can point out to disqualify us. A male silver ranked player can be included and have fun in gaming, but a female silver ranked player is a joke and has no place at the table. If men are the ones doing the best jobs and making the best videos right now, even if that’s purely because of a numbers imbalance, who’s to say a woman can even ask to enter that circle unless she’s as good?

I won’t lie and say I don’t judge women in gaming as well. I wish I could say I am supportive of everyone no matter what, but that’s just not true. I’m very judgmental, a character trait I don’t think is the best, but I am fully aware of, and I continually sort everyone and everything I see into categories of good enough and not good enough. (I’m trying to learn to give the grace of letting people be learning to be good enough, but that typically only extends to people I personally know.) And I don’t know if it’s just learned from the environment of gaming or not, but I judge women worse for no reason other than they’re women, probably the worst sin a woman could commit against other women.

If there’s any twisted benefit to that, I understand how others might judge me as well, which is why I avoid even indicating I might be alternate to the default assumption of male when I’m in the gaming world. It’s the cowardly way out. But all that stuff I judge as good and not good? It’s like a game of me trying to become what is good and avoiding what is not good. And if ever, I don’t think I could confidently claim my womanhood in this space until I know I couldn’t be judged for it. I need to be able to knock their socks off so that they couldn’t say a word about me.

And that’s what is tearing me apart right now, is that I know that I am not good enough. My skills are just insufficient. My speed is too slow. I’m horrified and embarrassed at how few of the ideas in my head I executed this quarter, because I wasted my time playing TFT instead. I could claim that I don’t have enough time to improve my editing because of school, but I had no school last year and I made minimal progress. Maybe I just don’t want it enough. I’m not willing to kill my happiness and murder my sleep to get what I want.

And what is this paradox of school, where I don’t learn a single thing in these classes that adds to the hard skills I need for the job I want, but I have to be in here taking these classes in order to have access to the resources and connections, but if I’m taking the classes I can’t focus on these skills unless I want to tank my grades (something I am scarily incapable of knowing how to do), and once I’m gone I’ll lose the resources but gain the time back I had to use on studying–to study what I need. Everyone else seems to have a next step ready. Even if the next thing is hard, they don’t have the anxiety of not knowing what it is. And even if I say I want my next step to be videos, I can’t take it yet because I don’t have the skills to. Instead of feeling all equipped by my education, I feel like it doesn’t help me. I’m not even sure what I learned. To erect fake relationships with peers who only care about getting As and nothing about learning?

I never would like to label myself as someone with a fear of failure or needing to succeed to be happy. But after today, I realized I put all this pressure on myself to succeed because I wouldn’t even accept me if I didn’t. I would judge me and deem me worthless and unfit to be around if I didn’t contribute anything that truly impacted people and was actually uniquely useful. And I guess that translates to needing to succeed, the last label I would ever want to identify myself with.

Why do we say League of Legends is a bad game if we play it?

I was talking with a friend today who started playing League of Legends this year. She asked me a question today which was very interesting to me. “Why do people act upset or surprised when I tell them I started playing League?”

I immediately understood what she was talking about. People constantly act like League is a terrible game, and that they don’t like it. But as I tried to explain this to her, I realized that people just act like that because it’s cool to.

I believe League is one of the most played video games of all time, and if not, it has one of the most stable worldwide playerbases that has lasted over time. Whether or not it is a good or bad game, or whether it is loved or hated, the fact is that there are many, many people who play it. And what I believe is a reasonable conclusion following that, is that a very large number of people do enjoy playing the game.

However, there is a constant narrative about League being a terrible game. The uninstall joke has been running for years at this point, people constantly quip that they hate it although they play it, and even I draw laughs from time to time with cancer jokes. Of course, like any online multiplayer game, League can be toxic and trolls with negative attitudes can ruin games. However, if League is so terrible, then why do we play it?

I know that there can be some people who struggle with an addictive relationship to League, and there are some people who genuinely don’t like League. But I don’t know why we continue to spread the narrative that playing League is a negative thing or for people who would like to ruin their mental health. Assuming you don’t have a literally addictive relationship with a video game, there is nothing wrong with enjoying a game. It’s just somehow…uncool to enjoy the things you enjoy. It’s just not very cool to say you like something that you like. I don’t know why.

I feel like just by sheer proof of the health of the size of the playerbase, the large numbers have to point to many people enjoying the game. And I think we should say we like something if we do. There’s no reason to ruin a game for someone new, who may be enjoying the game, just because you don’t. You’ve got to be supportive as they tackle the learning curve, not discouraging. Who knows, they could like it a lot.

In the end, if you like a game, play it. And if you don’t, don’t play it. And there’s nothing wrong with liking something, and even saying that you like it, even if everyone else is saying they don’t. Mindlessly, because it seems to be the cool thing to say.

At the end, she said, “Well, they act surprised like, ‘why are you playing that?’ and then they ask for my username.”

GOATS is Good (OWL Season 2)

I’ve been thinking about it a bit, and from my own amateur, non-expert, unpopular opinion, GOATS is actually a good meta from a spectator standpoint, especially this non-Ana version that we’ve been seeing in OWL. Here’s why.

First of all, I am not a ranked player, or very knowledgeable about what playing Overwatch is like in a detailed, firsthand sense. I only know what I see in the Overwatch League and on streams. I know that GOATS has been meta for a long time now, and that people are bored out of their minds playing it. But from a spectator standpoint, it’s kind of good. It’s true that there are less highlight reel-caliber plays, but it improves the quality of the team strategy part of Overwatch, in my opinion.

Damage is meaningful in this meta–if you take a lot of damage, you only have a Lucio, Brigitte, or Zenyatta to heal you back, and all of them do relatively slow healing. This means that if you make a mistake or step out of position, it matters.

Along that line, support ults have a massive amount of value and their use is just as important as not having them ready to go. Deciding on when they will be used and whether certain fights or ults need to be avoided based on if they’re up is critical. (Something something ult tracking but that’s always important.)

Team coordination is also more important than ever. I mean, it has always been important, but the micro-coordination of when to be using Zarya bubbles and D.Va defense matrix is a precise timing that must be mastered. Teams that take time to perfect this are easily going to do better than ones that don’t, and it’s a clear line between who’s doing well and who’s not.

Fights are more interesting, in my opinion, because they are front-to-back and are so grindy either way. A good ult can completely flip the course of a fight, even if it’s going one way at first. As I mentioned before, taking damage matters, so there is less forgiveness.

I say all of this in comparison to the feelings I had watching OWL at the beginning of the season last year, which was primarily Mercy meta. Yes, DPS was a role then, but even if you hit a stellar headshot on opposing squishies, Mercy is there to resurrect, completely nullifying how amazing or impactful that play is. Taking damage barely mattered at all, main support was so strong that a skilled support could work with a coordinated team to make sure no one sustained poke damage. I really do like this non-main support meta for that reason–there’s no burst healing.

Yes, there are some disadvantages to GOATS, namely that we see less snipers and big hype plays or flanks, but I think the precisely strategic play that “three-three” brings out requires more skill and coordination in my opinion.

Not to mention that the patch that OWL is currently on still allows for flexibility–yes, GOATS is definitely one of the strongest comps, but there are other strategies that we have seen pop out, such as single-tank Wrecking Ball, snipers, Sombra, and Pharmercy. It’s not as if there is absolutely no variance in strategy.

I’m going to enjoy watching OWL right now.

The Only Games I’m Good At Are TD (and osu!)

Hmm, I happen to be good at a lot of things, but video games are ironically not one of them. I wish I could be good at League or OW or CS or something like that, but unfortunately I’m not, and also I don’t have time to practice. But I do happen to love the games I am somewhat good at, even if they’re not as impressive as the aforementioned titles. Today I just felt like talking a lot about tower defense games and osu!, so I’m going to.

Technically I’m not that good at osu! because I’m still struggling to improve to maps more challenging than high 3 and low 4 star maps, but I still enjoy it a lot. Just the satisfaction of clicking the circles and scoring virtual points. Understanding and learning new patterns, and marveling at my automatic ability to recognize and execute rhythms as I see them for the first time. Long combos tense me up and the fail sound triggers me. Add in the element of aim and I feel like I’m actually doing something skillful. (For some reason my mouse is on insanely high sens and I’m good at it and it’s fun.) (Also I have access to a tablet but I can’t be bothered. I’ll bother some day and see whether tablet aiming is fun too.)

Half of my plays are probably offline, as it is a game I can play any time. It’s just satisfying to play, easy to open and close, easy to commit to playing a map really quick. I can enjoy nice music (most of the time) and try to enjoy the circles when I don’t enjoy the music. I honestly don’t understand the ranking system and I don’t want to, because I don’t want to be entrapped in an obsession with pp and full combos. That can make you unnecessarily emotionally entangled and rather angry. I get satisfaction out of simply beating my own high score. That’s another thing I like about osu!, is that it’s a largely individual journey based on your own self-improvement, and the comparison to other players out there is too swimmy to matter on a micro level (a characteristic that running shares, roughly).

Moving on to tower defense games, if there’s any games that I’m familiar with, it’s flash games. There are so many genres of games encapsulated within flash games and they’re easy to access and switch between, since they are based on the web. There are some really good platformers, there are some awesome meta-gaming achievement games, and I’m a huge sucker for a good puzzle game (usually with a side of horror). Flash games also have RTS games of their own, one kind of which is tower defense.

I hope I do not err or leave anything out when I say that the three most famous TD flash games are Bloons, Kingdom Rush, and GemCraft. I rather dislike Bloons, so I’m not going to talk about that one. Balloons aren’t satisfying to pop, monkeys aren’t very amusing or cool, and the approach and defeat of balloon enemies is not comprehensible to the point that it feels neither strategic nor satisfying.

GemCraft is a wonderful series, currently containing four games. The game that I have spent the most time on is GemCraft Labyrinth (The Lost Chapter). I believe the game’s story is interesting but weak, but I appreciate the tone that it and the graphics lend to the game. However, the game itself is a delight–it is a wonderful balance of mechanics and difficulty (you know how game developers tend to complicate the later games in a series with wonderful, but more complex mechanics, which are cool and fun but just make the game more…complex). However, more than anything, it is an extremely long game. The game doesn’t get old, even though the difficulty increases at a slow rate. Each time you feel as if you are using all the resources you have to thwart the monsters, and you feel in control of everything strategically. You learn the battle amulets and make sure you achieve every easily-obtained battle amulet every battle. Every field you clear feels satisfying, as if you have won a hard-fought struggle. And of course, there are long-term achievements to work towards as well. Every so often, there is a boss battle with a pylon, in which you have to choose the best intersection of ramping up power by letting the battle go long, and cutting it short because your scaling has fallen off. I am proud to say I have actually completely beaten GemCraft Labyrinth once to the extent of not having the paid pass, so excluding two fields. It was so much fun and so satisfying when I finished, because the game is truly a marathon of time committed. Check it out.

 

I have barely ever touched either Chapter 1 or Chapter 0, but on my recent re-attachment to Kongregate, I have begun Chasing Shadows (Chapter 2). According to some of the Kongregate comments, etc. it seems as if there are more complicated mechanics to come, but it promises to be a very long game as well with a lot to unlock. So far, I have gotten through about six or so hextiles and most things are still similar to Labyrinth, so I having fun owning the game as the GemCraft expert I am. 😛 Hopefully as the game gets increasingly complex I don’t get frustrated with the amount of things that are going on at once. I prefer to focus on the management of towers for one task, killing monsters, rather than a diverse set of tasks to be completed. One interesting thing so far in this game is that walls are 1/4 the size that they used to be. I think it’s an improvement.

Kingdom Rush is another fantastic tower defense series, currently with two games, Kingdom Rush and Kingdom Rush Frontiers. Compared to Labyrinth, the mechanics hedge you in a little bit. You have less options for your decisions (there are only four tower types and the points at which you may build your towers are predetermined, as compared to GemCraft where you can pick virtually anywhere to build). However, this doesn’t reduce the strategic satisfaction of the game at all, in my opinion. Each tower has a clear purpose: archers are high dps and irrelevant to magic armor, and mages are slower and more powerful and irrelevant to physical armor. Barracks can not only stop enemies so they can be shot at, but can help bunch them up for area attacks from the bomber. Determining the best arrangement of these still feels like it matters a lot despite the limited options. The bright and lined art matches the character of meticulously designed very well, I think. Each level is carefully and exactly programmed and designed for a precise and specific challenge. There is more room for easter eggs and themed bosses and levels. Your journey through the kingdom feels progressional; as the enemies get more difficult, you also become more powerful. There is also the very simple element of reinforcements and fire rain powers, which keep you engaged at all times, and give you opportunities to shut down the one or two enemies that squeak by.

I believe that I have beat both of these games before, but I’m guessing that I first beat Kingdom Rush on ArmorGames, because I do not have the Kongregate achievement to show it. As for Frontiers, I think I beat it when it came out on Kong, but there is no completion achievement, only one for also completing all the extra challenges. I have recently begun both of these games at once and I have been switching between the two at random to keep them fresh. I’m slowly but steadily going to be aiming for full completion on both, hopefully with all challenge levels and as many achievements as reasonable within obtainment of all stars.

Well that went long. Anyways, I love tower defense, clearly. Real-time strategy that is slow enough not to stress you too hard yet engaging enough to press you enough. Thank you for coming to my word dump about almost nothing at all. Gotta love me some good ol’ unoriginal ideas.

My Analyst Hat Is On (C9 vs TSM 2018 Summer Playoffs)

I’ve always refrained from participating in making judgments on the holistic goodness or badness of drafts, plays, and overall games in LCS, because I don’t feel qualified. I mean, I suck at the game. Whatever they say on the desk always seems too cerebral for me. Players and coaches themselves are way smarter than me, just another silver 5 scrub. So why should I get to say anything about what they do?

However, I have been watching LCS for like 3 years now, and I’m not a beginner. No, I’ve never been on the front of the meta, or vigilant about patches, or anything, but I want to give this a try. I’m aware this doesn’t make me much better than the Reddit analysts, because honestly what do I know, but I have thoughts, and I feel like saying them. Feel free to completely discredit what I say based on my ethos, because there are no good reasons for you to listen to me.

Anyways, the topic at hand is the C9 vs TSM semifinal matchup that went down last Saturday, September 1, specifically, the draft from C9. While watching the series, I was rooting for C9. As the series started off 1-2 for them, with the opposing team at match point after 3, it started to make me sweat. Even though they did eventually pull it out in the end, at that point in the series, my mind did wander to what was going wrong for them and what they needed to change—hopefully decisions that Reapered would make.

When I thought about play, I didn’t feel like anyone on Cloud9 was playing badly. It just felt like their team comp was not doing anything.

In the first game, once it got to mid game, they took 5v5 after 5v5, when they had a near-useless Nocturne and a Quinn (who just isn’t built for teamfighting). The comp was built for early, and there wasn’t a lot of early playing, and when it came to later teamfighting, Cloud9’s comp loses most of the time. After too many teamfight losses, they lose the first game.

I really liked the adjustment to Varus for Sneaky in the second game, who automatically is a more reliable DPS than Quinn. I also was more optimistic about Blaber’s pick of Camille, which felt like it could have more impact potential. However, while it was good, it wasn’t great, because it didn’t have as much impact as I felt it could have. Fortunately, he didn’t feel quite as useless as he was on the Nocturne. Luckily, this results in a game 2 win.

I have to admit, while this analysis focuses on C9’s draft, I didn’t pay that much attention to TSM’s draft (which I should have), but one thing that helped out in this game was that TSM wasn’t as tanky. Some people, after game 1, were wondering why they didn’t ban Akali away from Bjergsen. From my personal opinion, the Akali wasn’t ban-worthy. It was good, but not a trump card.

At this point, I’m already thinking about Svenskeren and Goldenglue and how it would be really good for them to be subbed in. This is because Blaber has such a one-dimensional playstyle and champion pool—it’s only hyper-aggro. He’s also getting banned out in champion select, and it’s working, because his pool isn’t very big. The closest thing to a tanky jungle he’s played all season is Trundle, and C9 is banning that themselves. And this forces Jensen on to supportive save-Blaber mids (Zilean, Galio), which he’s good at, but is limiting and lacking in damage. The fact that Svenskeren can play different style junglers, such as tanks, seems very inviting to me, and that would enable Goldenglue to choose a higher damage champion mid.

For the third game, once it got to late again, TSM was just overall too tanky and C9 had no DPS. You just look at the teamfighting situation and can’t imagine C9 winning. I have no idea what Leona is for, and Zven’s Swain is scaring me after the quadra kill. I also have Irelia trauma from watching soloq highlight videos recently. Eventually, the tanks get too tanky, it’s very one-dimensional to itemize against C9’s mostly AD comp, and Swain isn’t easily killed. Although it’s been a valiant effort from Blaber, he just hasn’t had the impact expected, and C9 need a switch up in team comp style. This is when Sven and Goldenglue come in, which as I said before, I was very ready for and excited for.

Overall, the switch in mid/jg enables C9 to pick different style team comps, with Graves and Malzahar. I really like that Goldenglue admits in the post-game interview that coming in at match point was a lot of pressure, which is very honest and real. Fortunately, they did great, and closed out the series. Although TSM continued to try to adapt, even stealing the Ornn in game 5, they couldn’t overcome the substitution.

I have to say that it almost seems unfair for TSM, or, for that matter, any team that will go up against this edition of Cloud9. The way Reapered has got it set up, Cloud9 flawlessly switches between two different lineups, something not many other teams could even begin to practice and match in terms of both lineups working. For the enemy team, now they’re forced to somehow prepare to play against virtually two different teams and playstyles—which may even be impossible depending on how Cloud9 does scrims. Also, the traditional virtue of being able to adapt in a best of 5 is disrupted when you’re basically forced to start over in your adaptation halfway through the series.

I want to throw a shoutout to Licorice, who played Ornn for 4 games, and despite “tank only” being a “new” thing for him, he was stellar in my opinion (players are so hard on themselves when asked about their play in interviews, they can’t be perfect all the time). As the only real tank on the team, he created a lot of space for his team to fight, and had good ults all series. There were multiple fights throughout the series where he was basically zoning and handling 1v3s while his team was fighting on a different front, which is just—that’s my hero right there. Unfortunately, all the time and space he bought weren’t enough when C9 didn’t have enough damage.

Although Zeyzal showed confidence in his Leona pick in the post-game-interview, I do have to question it. I’m not sure what that pick brings, specifically, and he wasn’t crazy good on it (missed a lot of ults). I’m not smart enough or informed enough to tell him what would have been better, but I feel like a lot of picks could have been more impactful than Leona was. There’s a reason she’s not seen, and that’s because if her [counterable] combo doesn’t work out, your health is expended on going in, and you’re dead.

When I watched the highlights video to review what happened, so I could write this post better, I was really impressed with C9 comms. Even though Blaber was going a bit too far in, he was communicating that. My favorite highlights were “I’m dead” from Licorice and “no you’re not” from Zeyzal in game 4, and also “I’m looking at Irelia, 3, 2, 1, she’s stunned” from Licorice in game 5. Just really entertaining, clean comms.

So that’s my thoughts on the draft for that semifinal series, with an emphasis on Cloud9’s decisions and substitution. Jensen overcomes his Ekko trauma, and TSM misses finals again this year. I’m personally super excited for the finals against Team Liquid, it should be a good one. I would really like to see Cloud9 win, not only because they’re my favorite team, but because they’ve been given bottom of the barrel treatment for years now, being NA’s savior at Worlds again and again, yet having to make the hard and long journey through Gauntlet, Play-Ins, and whatever else you can think of. It’s been a while since Cloud9 has been at the top of NA LCS. Now would be a great time.

I would really appreciate any feedback anyone has on this post—quality of my thoughts, whether you disagree or agree with them, how I can improve my analysis, further thoughts you have on the topic; just whatever you may have to say. I hope to ascend someday to a respected voice in judgement/opinion.

Gifting subs on Twitch (Journal 8/31/18)

Editor’s note: This is a pretty unpolished, more stream-of-consciousness kind of post rather than some of the other “journal” entries on this blog, which are more argumentative and organized and meant to send a message/ponder a question. This one is just kind of middle of the night thoughts.

It’s midnight, Eastern time. I’m brainstorming questions for interviews and answers for applications. I have work tomorrow.

I’m also watching Seagull’s stream. Broadcasting to approximately 16K viewers at the minute.

For the past hour and a half, he has played 6 placement matches for season 11 of Overwatch, W-W-L-L-W-L. He has also not stopped saying “thank you,” “wtf,” and “holy *.” Because he has received over 1600 subs in that time.

Now, I’ve experienced crazy nights on Twitch like this before, but not as many on regular, no-occasion nights like this one (well, admittedly, it’s Nano Cola event and Seagull is one of the featured streamers, but it’s not really a special occasion). And I will wager this is the biggest magnitude I have witnessed.

A super large number of people are subbing and donating, but in large part, there are a ton of people gifting subs. And as I see it, the biggest part of the inflated number of subs tonight are due to a particular hustle_ow who has gifted well over–maybe over 1000 subs at this point, everyone’s lost track. And he uses $100 donations to provide commentary on his campaign to push this stream over 2000 subs. Seagull can’t stop thanking him and others who keep on subbing. Needless to say, the sub alerts have been going continuously and Seagull has lost track. They’re probably behind, too.

My mind wonders other things. If Twitch charges the same amount for gift subs as regular, then hasn’t this hustle guy spent like $5000 at least, at this point? $500 every time he does another 100 random gift subs? Makes you wonder if Twitch priced this differently. (Editor’s note: I checked the next day and no, the price for gift subs is the same, even in 100 packages).

Also, like Seagull said, “Why me?” What are you supposed to say?

If I were Seagull, I’d be concerned for this guy. Why does he have $5000 to blow? Does he actually have that kind of money? If so, is he using it wisely? Is it actually excess? If so, why is spending it on Seagull’s community his choice? Is there something in it for him? Although recipients will be grateful, it’s not like you’ll gain cred over this. Are you trying to get to Seagull somehow? He was already out of his mind at three hundred subs, why did you go to like, more than a thousand? That is what I’d be asking. In fact, I’d be pleading with this guy to stop. Yes, it’s free money and community building, but it can’t possibly be wise from this guy.

By the way, impressed at how Seagull can read chat, twitch alerts, and play OW placements at the same time. Not to say he isn’t completely trolling.

Also, as I heard it once, the streamer only gets half of the $5 from a sub. $2.50 earned per sub. And Twitch gets the rest. (On a tangent, Tier 2 and Tier 3 subs get worse. Can’t remember exactly, but I think it’s something like you pay $25 for a Tier 3 and the streamer only gets like $7.50. All you get is an extra emote, so if you want to support the streamer, much better through a direct donation.)

Seagull just now said that he has gotten over 2000 subs in 2 hours and 21 minutes. He also talks about how 3 days ago he had a >100K viewer stream, somewhat randomly through the ebbs and forces of Twitch. I wonder what wills Twitch to move in the ways it does.

And of course, insane amounts of gifting inspires more gifting, etc. It isn’t slowing down. I’ve basically got to go to bed now. I’ve entirely bored of this stream over an hour ago, but I’m working, so I haven’t bothered to change it. Seagull has said nothing but “thank you” this whole time. I just hope every gifter is being wise with their money. Please goodness.

(Editor’s note: The next day, he said he ended on over 3000 subs in 5 hours, 2500 of which were gifted. Obviously it slowed down after I went to sleep, but still crazy.)

Cloud9’s 2018 Summer Split Roster Decisions (LoL)

After week 1 (in which there isn’t a very clear difference in standings due to the number of different record possibilities (3)), Cloud9 found itself struggling in 9th and 10th place for four weeks straight. In Week 6, however, four teams from the middle of the pack went 0-2, and Cloud9 took their first 2-0 of the season, hopping out to 6th place. The next week, they got to 4th, and now are three-way tied for 3rd. Going into week 9, I want to look at what made this odyssey possible, and why I wasn’t worried about all the things Reapered had been doing since week 1.

First of all, however, we need to lay out what exactly happened (something that the LoLesports website doesn’t have: a good records section). Here’s a graphic I made (it’s bad I know):

Reapered started out with a shocking decision: taking Jensen, Sneaky, and Smoothie off the starting roster for week 1. This enraged most C9 fans, as benching the three longtime players didn’t make much sense from the outside. In interviews, Jack revealed that Reapered had come to him, asking to make the moves that would get the team to Worlds, saying that the current roster simply wasn’t going to make it. Undoubtedly, Goldenglue, Keith, and Zeyzal are by no means bad players, but to most, they seemed like a downgrade. The roster went 1-3 over the first two weeks.

An quick sidenote: It’s really hard to judge whether something is working based on only the record. The fact that there are only two games a week simply isn’t a large enough sample size to know if something is working or broken–it could be unlucky, or maybe lucky. Yet, teams still have to be able to win those two games week to week. That’s why, in my opinion, Reapered’s decisions will be wiser than any of ours will ever be–he has the advantage of working personally with the players, and knowing and seeing performance in scrims every day.

By the way, I am saying Reapered here because I believe he holds the main responsibility for making team decisions. I know everyone always throws Jack in there (“I can’t believe Reapered and Jack are doing this to my team”) but I really doubt Jack is involved at all in deciding who is going on stage or not. I am not personally aware of any other coaching staff that would be sharing authority with Reapered, so I’m simply attributing it all to Reapered.

Whatever the reason, whether it be unsatisfactory record or something more internal that we outside fans cannot understand, Reapered decides to switch it up in Week 3. He brings back Jensen and Smoothie–not completely what everyone expected, since Sneaky is still out and now there are two midlaners playing at the same time. However, the meta lends itself to mages in the bottom lane, so it seems okay. Unfortunately, C9 goes 0-2 this week.

Reapered’s next move is to take Smoothie off again, and change out Goldenglue for Sneaky. Everyone is happy. Nobody really cares about anything else; Sneaky is back. With Sneaky, C9 finally ends the losing streak. However, the week ends in a 1-1 after a disappointing game against CLG.

At this point, fans are not too shaken up yet. Reapered tried what was received as a bad idea, and now has re-evaluated and essentially “reverted” to something more previously proven. He sees something not working, and makes the changes. Seems okay so far.

What is interesting, is that Reapered is trying many combinations of the same players. A couple years ago, the analysts’ talk would be all about synergy, and who has been playing together the longest. For a while, CLG got bonus points for being the longest-intact roster, which must mean that they work better together, no? When new rosters struggled to find wins, analysts would attribute it to the fact that they need a couple weeks to re-synergize. Either Reapered is throwing out the ideas of synergy out the window with these frequent changes, or maybe he has a master plan to build synergy between all 10 Cloud9 players.

After week 4, Cloud9 is 2-6. Pretty abysmal. Sharing 9th and 10th place. However, looking beyond the record, Cloud9 has actually looked not too bad in games, usually stretching out to an early lead before losing in the late game. Players from other teams said in interviews that they were still scared of Cloud9, despite their losing record. Their record didn’t betray their strength.

After their Week 4 Day 1 win, Sneaky says in his interview with Ovilee that Cloud9 can really only afford three more losses before being locked out of playoffs. Casters and analysts lock onto his words and repeat them. I’m not certain this is a hard and fast condition, but it is true that nobody has really gone into playoffs before with that many losses. However, the standings are remarkably very close, and jumping a couple places any which way for any team is still possible within a couple of wins or losses. (Notably, if you look ahead a bit, Cloud9 has actually only lost two games after that interview.)

At this point, I’m personally sad that my favorite player, Smoothie, hasn’t been playing, but I know that Reapered must know more than me. I know some of my fellow C9 fans have been very salty, but I think it’s clear that all 10 players on C9 are good enough and deserve to start in LCS–there just aren’t enough spots for all the talented people. Yes, I’m sad that Smoothie isn’t playing, but I’m also glad that other talent is getting a chance. I’m not too nervous because the standings are still close. It does suck, watching the games every week, getting out to a lead and then ultimately losing. But we don’t look un-redeemable.

Nobody is ready for what happens next: Smoothie is traded away. Easily one of the best supports in NA is no longer part of the organization. This basically means that Zeyzal is going to be starting for the rest of the season (the only other option is Feng; well, I won’t say Reapered won’t do it, but I don’t think he will).

On the same week, Blaber is put in from Academy, swapped for Svenskeren. For some reason I hear some fans glad that Sven is out? Which I don’t get. Sven has always been good and I don’t know why you would not like him, but I guess some people do. What is interesting is that Blaber (previously known as blaberfish2), who was talent recruited from the 2017 Scouting Grounds, is doing pretty well with the team. He has a typical super-aggro carry jungle style, reminiscent of how Dardoch and MikeYeung were when they first entered LCS.

Finally, Cloud9 stabilizes into a string of wins, and Reapered also stops switching the roster around. Svenskeren is hanging out in Academy. In Week 8, Reapered makes a mid-week switch out of the mid-jungle duo to face Team Liquid specifically. He says that as a team, they have been working on putting Blaber and Jensen together as well as Sven and Goldenglue. The subbed-in duo specifically helps Cloud9 blast Team Liquid out of the water.

Again, many fans are in an outrage. Reapered goes into many interviews, goes on Twitter, explaining his moves. He seems apologetic that he hasn’t explained more. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I see it in another way. I don’t really need explanations from Reapered. I think that all the players that he has put in thus far are talented and strong enough to play in LCS, and no player corresponds or anti-corresponds to wins or losses. In fact, if anybody, Blaber is easily the most volatile, but it’s been working out for him.

If you throw the old ideas of synergy out the window, it all makes good sense. I’ve been comparing it to a baseball team: if you take out one fielder and put in another, the team still works seamlessly, simply because of how everyone plays near-perfect in roughly the same way. Of course, there isn’t as much room for variation in playstyle in baseball as there is in League of Legends, but I feel like the overall principle should be similar. At the highest level of League of Legends, you should be able to make micro-adjustments by putting in or taking out players. On The Dive this week, Jatt compared Jensen vs. Goldenglue to “switching pitchers in a baseball game,” but gave the caveat that it was only in a perfect world and probably isn’t the same.

Honestly, it’s too big brain for me. I am just content to cheer for Cloud9, no matter who is playing, and hope they make playoffs. Lucky for them, it’s been on a steady upswing in a tight horserace, and other teams have been on the down. I’ll leave the big brain stuff to Reapered, because I love all the Cloud9 boys, and it doesn’t matter who’s playing.

As Cloud9 goes into Week 9 in a three-way tie for 3rd place, it’ll be important for them to win the last two games–especially against Flyquest, who they are 1-0 against, but are also tied with. If they can take the 2-0 against Flyquest, it would make ties a lot less stressful. The 100 Thieves match is also important just for record, but not so much for ties. We’ll see if NA’s last hope will reappear again.

What Echo Fox Didn’t Tell Anybody

On July 24, the Tuesday before Week 6 of NA LCS, the news hit the racks: Smoothie had been traded from C9 to Echo Fox. (In return, Echo Fox traded Feng to C9.) Big news, because although Smoothie had been on the bench (a.k.a. Academy League) for 4 out of 5 weeks in the split so far, he had also been on Cloud9 for a little over 2 years. Easily an oldie on the team. As a personal fan of Smoothie, that gave me a lot of emotions.

However, some other things went down on July 24th as well. July 24th happened to be the NA LCS roster lock, which occurred at 5pm PT. After this time, all rosters would be locked for the rest of the year.

What didn’t get discussed was how Echo Fox handled the situation, and what else went down. That demands inspection.

How do we know what happened happened?

• Smoothie is traded for Feng, the former goes to Echo Fox and the latter goes to C9. We know this because Cloud9 published an article on the news section of their website and tweeted it out. This constituted an official announcement of the trade, and included a statement from their owner, Jack. (Later, Cloud9 also publishes a video narrating what Smoothie had accomplished in his time with the team and thanking him.)
  • On the other hand, the only thing that Echo Fox publishes is this video, which, while stupid-funny, seems like a very brief way to announce such a change. There is no article in the news section of the Echo Fox website, the owner makes no statement on Twitter, and neither the @EchoFoxGG or @EchoFoxLoL Twitter accounts make any statement. The latter only tweets the aforementioned half-a-minute video. This is how their herald their newly traded player.
• Fenix is dropped from the Echo Fox roster. We know this because he tweets at 11:13am PT, out of the blue, that he is no longer with Echo Fox. Rumors circulate that Altec and Adrian have also been dropped. (Out of these three, Altec had been starting for the LCS roster, while Fenix and Adrian were on the Academy team.) What makes this roster change extraordinary is the timing: the three players were allegedly given notice that they were cut from the team the morning of the roster lock. There are mere hours (about 6, by Fenix’s tweet and Altec’s report) for these players to secure new jobs for the rest of the year.
  • Echo Fox gives NO sign that this has happened. Not a word from their social media. Not a single thing on their website. Kyle Fox, the owner’s son, responds to an angered fan.
• The word is that the young Oceanic ADC Lost will be replacing Altec in the starting LCS position. He had been the Echo Fox Academy ADC up until this point. Once again, Echo Fox makes no official announcement on their website or through their social media. The only sign they show that this has happened is through the quote-retweeting of a news website’s article. (What the heck??!?)

https://twitter.com/EchoFoxLol/status/1022135725519589376

• Eventually, Smoothie speaks up on Twitter about the trade. “The most important message I want to get across is that I was NEVER unmotivated,” he said. He says that although his he will miss Cloud9 and his teammates a lot, “it hurt a lot to not be competing with my teammates who I’ve played with almost everyday for two years.” He acknowledged that his benching was likely due to his communication style not working out for Cloud9 at that moment, and that his shotcalling had become less decisive. Additionally, he clarifies that “it was ultimately my choice in the end” to be traded.
  • One of my personal friends, who had gone to spectate Week 5 of LCS, had been admitted to the players’ lounge, and happened to witness Smoothie talking to managers and people who appeared to be of that nature. A foreboding.
  • On interviews on broadcast for LCS during the weekend, Smoothie provides more details. He also speaks to Inven Global in an interview published July 29th. He mentions that more than one team was in the talks: “I actually had about two more options. At the end of the day, I wanted a team that had the potential to get to Worlds, first and foremost.”
• Altec is a guest on Beyond the Rift, a talk show hosted by imaqtpie and scarra. The VOD is here. In his live interview with them, he confirms that he got “completely dropped and his contract was voided” by Echo Fox, and that he was only notified the morning of. There were no warning signs. “It was just like a regular day,” he said. “It was just unexpected…the situation was pretty doomed.” Altec said that the reason he was given for being cut was that his contract was “too heavy” and that they “couldn’t keep up with it anymore.”
  He also mentions that keeping him wasn’t in the question. “If they still had interest in keeping me, they would negotiate it down. But it wasn’t the case.” He speaks in his usual mellow matter and does not seem incredibly upset, compared to imaqtpie and scarra, who react at the shocking nature of the incident. However, he acknowledges the unfairness of the situation. It seems as if he has come to terms with what has happened to him, and that he can’t do anything about it.

That is just the on-record stuff (or lack thereof) from the week of this incident.

One other thing that happened is that Aria (Altec’s girlfriend) streamed a short talk-rant, which she deleted the VOD to directly after the stream. I wasn’t there for it, but witnesses are reporting that she talked about how orgs that she has worked for have taken advantage of her in the past, and often make selfish moves without the interest of their employees (e.g. players) in priority. She didn’t name any org names, but it was clear that at least part of her discussion was about how Echo Fox had screwed Altec over and left him without income for the rest of the year, due to not only completely cutting him, but the timing of notifying him.

So, orgs can just rip up players’ contracts, you ask? Well, unfortunately, they can. Even though players are supposedly getting agents these days, I hear that they really aren’t doing much for their players so far. Getting them legal counsel that would confirm these contracts have clauses in them that protect them would be a good start. In the cases of Altec and Fenix, who have talked to interviewers about it, their contracts didn’t protect them very well, and they did not have much of a chance to change them, since their contracts had been previously sold straight from their old teams to Echo Fox for the new franchise season.

Scarra notes in Beyond the Rift that the difference between this situation and traditional sports, is that there are usually protections in place to make sure that if a player gets dropped, he is still being paid through the rest of the season. These three players are completely no longer being paid.

Adrian, who has never been super big on social media, has not released a single thing concerning this incident. There has been no reporting on him. The only things coming from him are completely unrelated photos and such.

Notice how Echo Fox has swept the whole thing under the rug, because they did screw over their players, but they’re not going to come out and say this. (This is what I began to be concerned about for Smoothie–he seemed so happy on his new team and he seemed to be treated well, but after thinking about the whole situation to Fenix/Altec/Adrian, I question whether Echo Fox is really going to be a good place for him.)

Now, on August 10th, Fenix speaks to Inven Global about the whole incident. Only now does everyone inflame about the player drop. Fenix really just burns and toasts Echo Fox throughout the interview, exposing their lack of care and his own wretched situation. “What’s really funny is…they said they’re an organization that exists for the players, unlike other organizations…after what happened, that’s just hilarious,” he said. He lacked mere minutes to secure a new team before the roster lock (not that it would have helped him review a new contract in time, though), and nobody was able to help him–not Riot, or the Players’ Association.

For me personally, the two biggest hits that this article delivered were that 1. Fenix was just about to become an NA player (i.e., not taking an import slot anymore) after this split. Now that he has not completed this split and is teamless, this split does not count and he cannot be converted until the end of next Spring split, and 2. that Fenix, in his 5-year career (very long!!), has not competed internationally yet. “The last Rift Rivals was the first international competition I could have participated in my whole 5-year career,” he said. “But they suddenly wanted to play Damonte, so I wasn’t happy.”

In the end, if you boil this down and zoom out, it’s just a few more player trades. Smoothie (my #1 favorite player) is now on a team with Dardoch (my #2 favorite player), so that’s cool for me, and cool for Smoothie. But maybe it’s also not just more player trades. “I know how LCS used to be,” imaqtpie said during Beyond the Rift with Altec, “it used to be the Wild West, where people like, did this s*** all the time, f****** over their players.” The question is, does it have to continue to be unfair like this?

Altec, Fenix, and Adrian were completely screwed over and swept under the rug by Echo Fox’s (in my opinion) unprofessional lack of official announcements. You could say these three players just failed to get good contracts for themselves, but then you are also saying that Echo Fox got away with taking advantage of and screwing over players, and that is not something that I think we want to let orgs continue to get away with.

As a journalist, I have this desire to provide the solutions and change something. But I don’t have the solutions, and maybe the best I can do is tell everybody and hope the truth prevails. As fans and sideline watchers, it’s not as if we can get in there and make sure these 20-year old boys don’t sign contracts to a team in a heartbeat before making sure that they are protected by them. But we can talk about it and show orgs that they can’t keep getting away with selfish moves. Not just things that put players in financially insecure places, but in places that jeopardize important parts of their career.

“Before the meeting,” Fenix said to Inven, “Altec told me that he bought coffee and bread so that he can do his best during practice. You know, Altec didn’t know anything either.”