IEM Cologne 2013

Whee, we finally get to see the matchups that everyone was expecting from World’s: Cloud 9 vs Gambit and CLG vs Fnatic. I didn’t even know this tournament was happening until yesterday, so it was a very pleasant surprise. After all, there’s been a dry spell in League tournaments for awhile, so it’s great to see these teams playing out.

Cloud 9

Is the #1 NA team as good as everyone expected them to be on the international stage? Sadly, the answer appears to be no (as of now). Game 1, Meteos gets off to a bad start with his blue invaded. Afterwards, he has little impact on the game, since no one fears an underfarmed Nocturne. And while Meteos had a better start in the second game, he wasn’t exactly crushing the opposition. In fact, Diamond’s Lee Sin was even on cs with Meteos the whole time. Hai’s Zed was ok, but Zed falls off late game, especially when his team gets behind. The Riven pick in Game 2 was a little questionable, as Riven is hecka squishy. The most pressing concern of both Games 1 and 2 was Ball’s Rumble. There’s no doubt about him being the best Rumble in NA, with those godly team-winning ults. But he was seriously underfarmed in both games, with less than 100 cs by 30 minutes. I know Rumble is supposed to be good even without farm, but being 100 cs below the enemy lane is just asking for trouble. Cloud 9 is by no means a weak team, but they have a number of weaknesses that get punished against stronger teams. The problem is that there were no stronger teams in NA during season 3. Hopefully the roster changes and amateur teams bring about stronger rivals for Cloud 9 in season 4.

CLG

Once again we see another iteration of CLG, with the support and jungler being upgraded to Aphromoo and TrickZ. So first about Aphromoo as support. He’s a good support, as he knows what the ADC needs in lane, being a former ADC himself. Had a bunch of good Thresh hooks and amazing Leona plays. It looks like he’s meshing very well with Doublelift, who is also doing really well himself. Link is also showing his worth in midlane. Very good Ziggs play, and overall mechanics, as I have come to expect of him. These are the two lanes that CLG really excels at. As for top lane, I’m not too impressed with Nientensoh. He’s not developing into the star top laner that CLG had hoped for him to become, and he gets constantly outlaned by his opponent. And finally the jungler. Trickz appears to be the weakest link of the team at the moment. He does not have much map presence, as seen by him only participating in less that 33% of the kills in the second game against Fnatic. His ganks seem more like the laners calling him over to do so, rather than him doing it himself. As for CLG as a whole, their overall map strategy can be summarized as ‘hesitant’. They start and stop dragon, don’t commit to tower pushes, and are all over the place. They don’t seem to have a clear goal in their actions, which has numerous times caused the enemy teams to take advantage of them. The current CLG team looks like they could be a strong contender for Season 4, but they also have a number of issues that need to be cleared up.

Fnatic

With the end of worlds, Fnatic finally the ADC that they had waited for: Rekkles. Is he better than Puszu? I’d say yes. In the games against CLG, Rekkles was able to win his 2v2 lane against doublelift. And even when he got repeatedly killed in the second game, he still managed to out-cs doublelift. So he’s the real deal alright. Fnatic also looked like they had new comps out, with the poke comp of Karma and Nidalee. xPeke’s escape with Nidalee was glorious, and I can only imagine how frustrated CLG was in chasing him. There’s not really much to say about Fnatic, because it feels as if they are still the same team that appeared at worlds, with the addition of a new ADC. Same strengths, same weaknesses.

Gambit 

Gosh, what can I say. With the return of the prodigal son Edward, Gambit just exploded all over Cologne. May as well just go over each team member one by one. Darien is a monster, whether he’s feeding or winning lane, he just has such a huge presence in teamfights that he draws tons of aggro. Alex Ich is still a star midlaner, though I’m not sure if he ever practiced Ziggs before the tournament, as his Ziggs mechanics paled in comparison to Link’s. Diamond absoluetly owned in the jungle, stealing Meteo’s buffs, appearing in every lane, and then carrying the team as Eve in the final Fnatic game. Genja’s style really fits the new champions Lucian and Jinx, which he performs magnificently on. Finally, Edward shows that he really belongs among the Russian crew, as he is defintely able to carry as support. Their one weakness this tournament may have been their excessive cockiness in a few games, but that’s nothing compared to how they completely swept the tournament. GG Gambit Gaming.

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One Outs

Can you really call this a baseball manga? Maybe in the same way that Cross Game can be considered a baseball manga. I’d say this is more a gambling/psychological manga, which is totally ok. Actually, it’s more than ok; it’s brilliant. Seriously, the way Tokuchi gets out out of more and more desperate situations is just ridiculously entertaining to watch. I really like the premise of this series. Basically, Tokuchi signs a contract where he earns 5,000,000 yen for every out he gets, but loses 50,000,000 yen for ever run he gives up. And then he busts out his low speed high spin balls, his psychological tricks, and much more to utterly defeat all of his opponents. It’s just glorious to watch him outsmart the opposition every time. Now I just need Liar Game to finish its latest round so that I can enjoy it all at once. Hurry up with the chapters, Kaitana!

 

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Kingdom (manga)

 

Or How Every Guy I Encounter Is A Trap. I picked up Kingdom because it was long (200+ chapters), and it was getting quick translations. It’s also much different that what I expected (as expected), perhaps because I’m bad at judging things at first glance. It’s a totally different type of battle manga that your typical shonen battle series, defined by a powerful protagonist with lots of one-on-one fights. Emphasis on the one-on-one part. Kingdom’s all about large scale ancient Chinese battles, numbering in the tens of thousands. The scale is just mind-bogling, and a refreshingly different. Of course Shin does his fair share of one-on-one’s, but those aren’t the sole focal points. A lot of it is about armies moving around, grunt soldiers dying, and a magical sword girl. Wait, one of these feels like it doesn’t belong here. Anyways, the current plot point has the Qin Kingdom completely screwed with all of China up against it. I’m curious as to how this will turn out, especially since the ending is already written into history. Which might mean a bad ending for our hero Shin…

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The Legend of Korra, Season 2

So the second season of Korra has ended, and it’s been quite a series. What I’m most surprised about this season is the massive amount of plot points that have occurred. Like how we found out about the Avatar’s origin, how a massive war was started and finished, and how the ending totally changed the future of the world. I’d almost say that more happened in this season than in two or three of the first Avatar series. Not that it’s a bad thing or anything, though I do kind of miss those episodes where the characters just mess around without having to contribute to an overarching plot. Which reminds me, I’m not sure how much I like the ending. It’s filled with a bunch of inexplicable stuff that just happens with no forewarning, no explanation, and a questionable resolution. I mean, how did Korra become a giant blue spirit thing? And what did Jinora do to single-handily stop Vahtu? And what did Korra do to Vahtu in the end? After all, it was mentioned that neither could truly destroy each other, and so Vahtu must still be around somewhere, right? On a side note, I didn’t think Rava needed to fuse with Korra again, as there really was no point after defeating Vahtu. There’s just so much unexplained about the ending that it’s frustrating to think about. I really am not a fan of these sudden-mysterious-powers-to-defeat-the-bad-guy-in-the-last-episode thing. If I remember correctly, the final fight between Ang and Ozai relied solely on  Aang’s own power to win, and not some deux ex power.

I’ve ranted a lot of how crummy I felt about the ending, but this shouldn’t be taken as how I feel about the whole season. It really was well done, especially the characters. How Tenzen has a father complex, or how Korra has a superhero complex, or how the characters are all full of faults makes it entertaining to watch. Actually, that makes it sound like I’m looking down on them. What I mean is these faults make them human, and it really makes you want to cheer them on when they overcome their issues. Plus, the fight scenes were really well done. That second-to-last episode with Korra vs Vahtu was an awesome fight. They really needed more of these fights rather than having Korra mope around, which she did a lot of this season. I think it went something like: angry at Tenzen, to angry at her father, to angry at Unalak, to angry at Mako, etc. I guess this season was one where she was growing up and stuff. Well, I wonder what next season will bring, and whether it will take another two years for it to come out.

 

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