E-Sports is a humongous passion of mine. This is going to be a spot on the website dedicated it. I will talk about League of Legends and Pokemon mainly. I don’t feel passions to write that often. When I do, I’ll post it here with a date.
I will mainly only talk about it from the NA perspective, but the other regions will be minorly brought up for the last section. Player’s Cup 3 just took place. Before the tournament, former 2016 World Champion Wolfe tweeted out, “whichever pokemon suggestion has the most likes, will be the one I use in the PC3 regional qualifier.” The most liked Pokemon was Stonjourner. He then emerged in top 16 of the winner’s side with that Pokemon. Mind you, that Pokemon has had 0 significant tournament results since it was released in Sword and Shield.
Outside of that, sun teams were the most dominant archetype in the format. Over half of the teams in the North American top 16 are using Groudon/Torkoal along with Venusaur and/or Charizard. Three non-sun teams are running Charizard, Rotom-H, and Entei as sun counters. Special shoutout to my friend TheBattleRoom, I hope he moves on to the next phase of Player’s Cup 3.
The last thing to note is Coalossal. This Pokemon has won every single Player’s Cup. It is on 2 teams in Winner’s side of NA, 1 Winner’s side and 1 Loser’s side in EU, 2 Winner’s side and 1 Loser’s side in Latin America, and 1 Winner’s side in Oceania. The important question is, will Coalossal sneak out another win in a format that nobody thought it could? I personally don’t think it will, but it has a lot of chances to pull it off.
Player’s Cup 4 was just announced. Thankfully, TPCi has listened to the community’s suggestion and switched the regional qualifier to a Swiss style tournament. Earlier this year, I personally entered a tournament called The BattleRoom Brawl in March 2021. I plan on trying to qualify for Player’s Cup 4 as well.
Currently. The LEC and LCS playoffs are underway.
It is arguable that Rekkles has made this roster stronger than they were before. The church of Rekkles has saved a lot of games for G2 and helped them clinch several wins this split. With the meta trending towards tankier playmaking junglers, Jankos could keep the amazing consistent form that the former player of the split has done before. This team also arguably has the best players in every role. They are my favorites to clinch their 5th split title in a row.
Easily the second best team in the LEC right now. Inspired can be argued as the best jungler in the LEC over Jankos when he has a good day, but he is incredibly consistent as well. Odoamne was a strong upgrade over Finn, and Trymbi has shown that he should not be underestimated as a strong support. This team has the strength to finally let the LEC not have a G2 vs Fnatic finals. They look like the second strongest team in the league, putting them and G2 in a league of their own.
In the LEC the meme still stands “It’s always G2 and Fnatic in the Finals”. Even though Rekkles is missing from the team, Fnatic is looking like a more aggressive team than they have in years. This has caused them to lose several games, but I think they’re a dark horse to make it into the finals this split yet again. We’re still looking for the Nisqy that we saw in the LCS during the 2020 split, but once he finds his confidence, he’ll pop off in a huge way.
The Mad Lions don’t look like as good as they did last summer. The team looks overall stronger, but when they play it seems like a highly advanced soloq game. Their team cohesiveness just isn’t at the same level as every other team in the playoffs. If they can pull their act together, then they will be a force to be reckoned with. They still seem like the 4th best team in the LEC playoffs this split. Hopefully they can pleasantly surprise us.
The miracle makers. At one point, they were the second best team in the LEC. Then they went on a 7 game loss streak and had to pull off a small miracle run to clinch the 4th seed this split in the LEC. BrokenBlade looks stronger than he was when he was on TSM, but it looks like he has his similar tendencies for getting caught out. Limit and Neon look like an incredibly strong duo in the bot lane. Whether Schalke wins or not will most likely hinge on whether God Gilius and Fakerdage show up in their matches or not.
Treatz and Jenax are this team. If a good play has happened for SK Gaming, then Treatz has been at the forefront for it, and Jenax has made an amazing flank. The rest of the roster has yet to show the same amount of potential, but upsetting Fnatic is a tall ask. I don’t think they’ll be able to pull it off unless we see a huge step up in the playmaking from Blue and Tynx.
To not many people’s surprise, this looks like the strongest team in the LCS. Playoff Perkz seemed to show up a little bit in their match against 100 Thieves, but it seems he may still be hiding his true form. Fudge has been a pleasant surprise as he has gotten better and better as the split has progressed. It also looks like this team is at it’s best in the Best of 5 series. Saying this team isn’t the favorite to clinch their “second” MSI seat is a hard statement to get behind at the moment.
According to Oracle’s Elixir, this is statistically the best team in the LCS. The team also has two MVP candidates in Alphari and CoreJJ. The only reason the majority of fans don’t think this team will win is because of the “Tactical is the best Malphite Ult user” meme. We did see it happen in their set against TSM, and we did see some shakiness overall in that set. The closing in game 4 wasn’t the prettiest to see. If this team cleans up their mistakes, then they’ll be the favorites for sure. However, the team seems a little shaky. Still easily at least top 2 in the LCS.
What TSM will we see? The hyper aggressive coin flippy TSM, or the methodical best team in the LCS TSM. During their set against Team Liquid, we saw a mix of both. The side laning looked really weak in that set, but it should be an easy fix. If TSM cleans up their play, then we may hear the TSM chants ring out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the iconic TSM chants will sound for the defending split champions.
Every interview Peter Dunn has had is phenomenal. The charisma and wiseness of this coach has started showing in the team’s gameplay towards the end of the split. Jiizuke is also starting to look more consistent, which is a great sign for this team. I look at this team as the secret dark horse of the playoffs.
Unfortunately, it looks like the star studded roster has lost their identity as a team. It’s hard to say what this team wants to do in every game they play since week 5 of the split. A lot of people attribute this to Ryoma, but it seems like there are more internal problems than we as fans get to see. Hopefully this team can refind their lost cohesion, and can challenge the top 3 teams like they did in the Lock-In tournament once again.
This team is a statisticians nightmare. When they have a gold lead, they throw. When they have a gold deficit, “they’re losing until they win”. Neo and Aphromoo are the rocks in this team. Neither of these players have had a bad game all split. Even Doublelift said, “I’d put Neo as the All Pro Ad Carry.” This week they verse off against 100 Thieves, and I can’t wait to see how they do. This might be the mechanically best team fighting team in the League. If they clean up their macro, then nobody can tell how far this team will go.