World's Journal - LPL Performance and Brussels Experience

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I believe it’s Tuesday, but I had to double check my phone anyway; it’s been a whirlwind of a trip. Europe is wonderful in short. Currently, I’m sitting upstairs in an industrial chic loft on the outskirts of the Brussels tourist district. Brussels is incredible – the streets are narrow and curved with gothic architecture and bright culture.

It’s surreal, like an industrial fairy tale.

Everyone keeps asking me about the games. My favorite was when a guy approached me Cloud9 gear, observing my LGD jersey with a single comment:

“That’s brave.”

“Really? Because that’s just ironic,” I replied, motioning at his jersey. There was an exchange of coy smiles before we posed for a picture together.

In general, the crowds have been pleasant. I’ve always enjoyed attending live events – hard to explain – in OCE every cast we do is offline, save for the OPL finals; which I didn’t attend. In the LPL and International Wild Card you’re a caster behind a desk attempting to engineer an experience.

I’ve only got to cast for an audience once. During the IWC, I got the honor of casting most of the Chief sets. Naturally, because the Chiefs are the domestic team the office would watch upstairs. It was entirely different being able to walk out of the studio and have a group of people directly give feedback to a cast, feeding off their energy and excitement.

So, I don’t have much first-hand experience of feeding off the hype of a moment in a crowded stadium as someone steals the Baron. But I can tell you that the casters, the crowd, and the players feel it. I recommend everyone attend at least one live event in the future.

I suspect most are simply reading this to hear my excuses concerning the LPL’s disappointing performance however.

Firstly, no excuses: the LPL teams did not play well. Not a single one of them. There’s no debating that, and I don’t have the patience (or alcohol) to go through each set and underline the play errors. But this disappointing performance does not translate into: The LPL is bad.

Or overhyped.

For the sake of clarity, I’ve made a fairly simple graphic to explain my mentality:

FNC: http://imgur.com/lxJbQJv
LGD: http://imgur.com/pOa4wnJ
C9: http://imgur.com/TkEekIj
CLG: http://imgur.com/FGk9PKE

I chose those four teams to demonstrate the four iterations of this thought process. Now, “Team Standard” is not relative to the other teams in the Tournament. That black line is not the same placement between LGD and FNC – that black line is only relative to that respective team’s performance over the split. So, FNC has a relatively high Standard Performance across their domestic dominance.

At the World’s Tournament, Fnatic are playing above that Standard Performance, but when you compare that to C9’s graphic it seems to imply that C9 is outperforming FNC, which is false. C9 is vastly outperforming their Split Standard, but I would also argue that their Standard Performance (black line) is much weaker than Fnatic.

Everyone understand?

So, in the case of CLG – CLG is underperforming from their Split Average, likewise, LGD is vastly underperforming in respective to their Standard.

I think there’s little debate on this topic.

The response typically is: a good team shows up when it counts, which also, has very little debate. No one is every going to argue against that.

And the fact that EDG, LGD, and iG underperformed on the international stage will weight against them, but these tournaments are still just that: an underperformance. Much more was expected of them. And much more exists from them.

What was incredible about Cloud9 is that their demonstrated skill ceiling at Worlds, especially Week 1, hadn’t been shown since the organizations roster shuffle. There was no way to predict they could achieve those heights because they’d never been seen.

In the case of EDG – the world saw their Skill ceiling at MSI – EDG beat every iteration of SKT: Easyhoon, Faker, and Kkoma. If SKT and EDG had played another best of five the very next day, would EDG have won again? I’m not entirely confident on that. Mistakes were made on both sides, but in the words above: in the important moment, EDG showed up and won.
LGD was a single Baron Fight away from showing up at MSI in EDG’s place. A single Deft Crit. If you haven’t watched LPL, take not only my word – but the majority of analysts on the broadcast – LGD is not a bad team.

LGD had a terrible performance.

So, why did every single LPL team have a poor performance if the region isn’t inherently weaker than the western audience was led to believe? Countless articles in a much more refined setting have already tackled this topic, I always suggest the work of Kelsey Moser who discusses the scrim culture and preparation for the tournament.

Spawn on the analyst desk also addressed part of his theories on broadcast, identifying that LGD, in three years, have never played a best of one.

Lil Susie had a great interview where she was suspect of the support structure of the LPL teams, that with an abundance of talent available it had to be an internal issue.
I’ve heard multiple things and have my own theories, but have no liberty to translate speculation into fact. And in the end, it really doesn’t matter why they lost (not in this context).

They lost.

The only thing that particularly mattered to me was the idea that this performance was the standard of the attending LPL teams, and in the case of EDG and LGD, that simply isn’t true.
As for iG: abandon all hope.

I Kid.

Not really.

I love the LPL. The players, clubs, and flavor of the scene are incredibly fun. It’s a joy to cast and watch. I have no doubt that the LPL infrastructure in management, coaching, and support staff needs to change to avoid another international failure of this magnitude.
Time will tell.

But like IEM for GE Tigers: Shit happens. A lot of shit happened. Like Thorin said in his epic esports monologue: why do we watch esports?

For these moments. For the taste of a European Crown. For the shadow of Faker’s throne. For the underdogs in Koo that may be able to outsmart their competition. And for the comeback kids and the rookie that might have the performance of his lifetime.
The unbelievable chain of events that might lead to one of the greatest stories in esports history.

Anyway, I’ve been sitting in a Hostel lobby for far too long. I’m hungry for good food and even better company, so I’ll leave this with basic thoughts. But, this is why I love esports – the fact that I’m about to head into the night and be merry till the early hours of the morning with people that, come this weekend, will stand and scream and love what I do.

Cheers!

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