Esports

Thanks, Marcus – a Dyrus obituary

Posted by Matt Demers on

Some of you know that eSports is something I came into by accident; it was never supposed to be a career, but more a hobby.

Marcus helped pull me in.

I started playing League of Legends casually in 2010, a little bit before Season 1. Garen has just been released, putting my start date around April of that year; I was garbage at it, and to a certain extent, I still am.

Marcus helped me get better.

I picked his stream out of a lineup of the popular players of the time; I started with Chauster, migrated to TreeEskimo, then finally found a chill stream with a monotone guy who wasn’t above the occasional trolling.

Marcus wasn’t (and isn’t) totally emotionless; you just had to grasp the subtleties of his happiness, frustration and triumph. When he did emote, you knew it was something both serious and worth paying attention to.

Like that stoic dad who never needed to raise his voice, it became easy to respect the guy behind the keyboard because a lot of us could empathize with what someone in his position faced.

That’s particularly what draws me to eSports: seeing how young men and women with a very specific skill set deal with a massive amount of attention and expectation. Marcus did as well as anyone could have hoped, but also seemed to hide his struggle behind a barrier that few of us will ever really pass by.

And that’s fine. He’s entitled to.

This weekend we saw Marcus’ tearful goodbye speech at the 2015 League of Legends World Championships, along with an outpouring of gratitude and memories. While his statement was somber — he thought he had let his fans down — it felt like he didn’t need to apologize. He tried his best, stayed true to himself, and that was enough.

While some might argue that he isn’t worthy of the praise that people might heap on him now that he’s done, I think there’s value in someone who’s performed at a consistently high level during his career, represented his generation of players and stayed loyal to his teammates.

When others stepped to criticize TSM, Marcus was one to defend them. When people thought to speak for him, he realized that people could never see the whole picture. Like I said before, he was stoic until he needed to be otherwise, and even if people disagreed, they tended to listen.

Despite never winning a Worlds, Marcus will be remembered by the League community as a unique personality and voice. However, as he retires, a number of his posts seem to point towards a period of rest and reinvention.

After giving so much of his time to this game and seeing competitive League of Legends evolve from fighting about players streaming weekly online cups to competing in a full-year, unified league, I would not blame anyone for wanting that time.

While the Internet tends to reward those who go “all in” on their passions to make a living, there’s a sad problem where it tends to suck the fun out of it. For a little while it’s been more evident that long-time players are tired, burned out, and that can cause negative feelings to seep into something they once loved.

Trust me, that really sucks.

Despite League being such a unique and vibrant phenomenenon, sometimes you just need to step back and find out who you truly are. We might see Marcus step back to the spotlight soon, or we might see him fade away and be more comfortable watching from the outside.

I don’t think anyone should blame him for taking either route.

Thanks, Marcus. You were different, in a good way. I hope you find the peace you deserve with the people who support and love you. You gave me a personality to empathize with and follow as I waded into the shallow end of eSports, and you were still there while I tread water in the deep.

Matt Demers writes about eSports from Toronto. Follow him on Twitch and Twitter.

The Media

Experiences with the Valve/HTC Vive VR

Posted by Matt Demers on

This past week at The International I managed to get some time with the Valve/HTC virtual reality project, the Vive. I’ve never tried VR before, but tales of friends who have Oculus Rift developer kits and the general progress that the industry has made really got me interested.

The Vive is a combination of a headset/visor and earphones that you wear; it has a “tail” of cables that come out of the back of the visor and really gives the vibe of being plugged into The Matrix; keeping in mind where the cables are when you’re moving around the Vive environment is crucial, not only to break from immersion, but because I wanted to keep from possibly breaking the demo model.

After signing into a desk for the demo, I was taken into a room alone with the presenter; the room had four laser projectors on poles, which I was told were to coat the activity area with something for the headset to reference. In essence, it was like the Wii, where an IR emitter (the Wii bar) was used with a sensor (in the remote) to determine where you are, what you’re facing, and what to show you. After some research, it looks like these emitters will be mounted on walls in a consumer usecase, because I’d imagine setting them up in a house might be awkward.

Articles have stated that these emitters will be able to sense where objects are in a room and plan accordingly, so you won’t need to have a specific blank space to interact in. If you do reach a boundary inside the demonstration, a grid of light lines comes up, signalling that you’re hitting a “wall”.

Putting on the visor, I was taken into a test environment that had a lobby of different scenarios. It was kind of like the Wii’s home screen, but closer to an art gallery. I was given two controllers, and tested some buttons: eventually a ballon blew out of my left controller, and I was able to bat it around, watch it float upward, and blow new ones. The left controller also had a wheel to choose balloon colours, which was responsive and gave enough feedback that you felt you were actually there.

A large concern for me coming into this demo (and VR in general) was the immersiveness of it. Things like me wearing glasses caused worries that I would not be able to kind of lose myself in what was being presented; that ended up not being a factor at all (here’s a photo that I snuck of me wearing it).

All in all, I do not hesitate to say it was a life-changing experience.

Numerous demos showed off different things. I explored a sunken ship’s bow where minnows swam away from my “hands”, assembled a sandwich in a kitchen to show off interactivity between objects, painted with light in a 3D space and explored a Secret Shop, straight out of Dota 2.

Despite the environments not looking completely photorealistic, everything just kind of sucked me in. The audio and the resolution of the eyepieces were at such high quality that eventually I kind of forgot what I was doing; I was largely pre-occupied with the demos, but I remember having the biggest grin on my face because one of the most attractive tropes of science fiction was actually here.

The controllers have thumb pads for things like menu selection and fine manipulation, as well as side and bottom triggers for things like grip. There was never any virtualization of arms or legs, but sometimes the implements made a big deal, since menus and options were projected onto them.

With the light painting, I could spin menus on my left implement with my right, dabbing as if I was choosing paint off a palette. In the Secret Shop, I got my own light source, and moving it around the environment cast dynamic shadows and could cause reactions from simulated characters.

These moments just felt… amazing. Discovering new things and fighting the conditioning that you’ve learned from “normal” video games was exhilarating: simple things like reaching into a giant soup pot and realizing that there was no awkward collision mechanics just blew my mind.

In that cooking mini-game, I noticed how much I relied on games to fill in complicated blanks, which I actually had to do here. Reaching deep into a pot instead of waiting for an ingredient to snap to my hand, or just not having a “press A to pick up” prompt just felt alien; this is a good thing, because it signals that this medium will actively change how we approach interaction in a digital space, and from a futurism perspective, it’s crazy to think that it will be available now, instead of twenty years.

I know they were just tech demos, but I couldn’t help but think about the possibilities of using a Google Sketchup open-source marketplace to design and publish models that could be brought into a VR environment and then manipulated, annotated, or studied. I thought about the blue whale I saw on the ship’s deck, and how we could simulate an aquarium without the need to house animals.

I thought about the implications of a virtual reality-influenced existence, where people may get addicted to an ideal, controlled environment.

That last point is obviously a job for more accomplished philosophers than me, and is kind of scary to delve into.

This demo instantly made me a believer that VR could be done right, and has kickstarted a little bit of a fire in me. I want to see where this medium goes, and I want to grow up alongside it, so to speak; depending on the price, I might just be an early adopter, but I can’t wait to see what five or ten years will do for it.

Until then, it’s just a matter of waiting.

I’m Matt Demers, and I write about tech, eSports and more. Follow me on Twitter, Twitch and Instagram for more like the post you just read. Subscribe to Matt dot 808, my weekly newsletter, for recommended reading, streaming schedule and mini-thoughts that don’t make it to my blog.

Esports/Video Games

Dota Reborn is out! Here’s things I like so far

Posted by Matt Demers on

I recently had the chance to play around with the Dota 2 Reborn beta after it launched earlier this week. Obviously, being a beta, there’s a bunch of stuff that needs to be improved — things like connectivity issues during custom games, spectating and Hero MMR are all kind of struggling.

However, I thought I’d write a bit about what I did like, which was quite a lot; as I said before, in my previous blog post, the main enjoyment I’m getting out of this is knowing that Valve are implementing and improving Reborn so quickly that it doesn’t feel like I have to just deal with the crap for the foreseeable future.

The Interface


The interface for Reborn is smooth as hell, and that’s something that really makes me grin. With some games you just feel good going through the menus, and this is one of those times.

There’s less of a loading time going from tab to tab. Things load quickly, and assets rarely “snap in” unless there’s some kind of model to load. For screens like the hero select or the armory, you have an easy-to-navigate set of buttons that click, snap and shift with awesome effects.

Things like the “ready to play” button moving from “accept” to a list of icons to show who’s ready just look awesome.

The Friend Feed


These kind of features tend to be a little cyclical: if no one uses them, they fall by the wayside. However, I’ve made a habit of checking and commenting on friends’ stuff from time to time, just to give a bit of light-hearted ribbing or just see if it works.

Knowing that my friends are playing and progressing gives me an idea of where I stack up against them, and that’s always a motivator to get better. I’ve been playing more Dota over the last two weeks than I have in months, and having incentives like streaming, the Compendium and friends to play/compete with are really helping me get more out of the game.

It also helps to see who’s queuing up for custom games, and I’ve already found myself grabbing lobbies with people I haven’t talked to in years because “hey, what’s one game?”

The Game Itself


Reborn made a bunch of changes to the map, both aesthetically and functionally, and from the few games I’ve played on it I really enjoy it. It’s not something so huge that I’m sitting there saying “Damn, never again am I going back to Source 1,” but at the same time things feel snappier: I played a Viper game where killing creeps seemed simpler. I played a Keeper of the Light game where I was a bit let scatterbrained than normal. I had more awareness. I was more clutch.

Completely subjective, obviously, but that’s the whole point of this article – for all I know, playing on Reborn with the mentality of trying something new out could’ve given me a huge placebo effect.

I mean, that’s at least better than hating it, right?

I really can’t wait for Reborn to get to the point where the things I love about Dota 2 1.0 (heh) are implemented: I play a lot of Compendium Challenge games, and not having those count for heroes and challenges kind of sucks.

Like I said, though, I’m amazed that there’s been a wealth of changes already from Valve to fix things that players are noticing: this isn’t something that’s released as a novelty in order to sit on the shelf and rot. This is the next life of Dota 2, and hopefully one that will last as long as possible.

In short, it’s pretty awesome from the get-go, but what’s really great is that this is only the foundation from where things get better.

Matt Demers writes about eSports. He lives in Toronto, and works as a Supervising Editor for theScore eSports. Follow him on Twitter or Twitch.tv, where he streams Dota.

Esports/Video Games

Dota Reborn: Three things I’m excited about

Posted by Matt Demers on

A couple days ago Dota 2 fans were treated to the launch of Reborn, a web page devoted to the updating of… a lot of things.

The first part focused on the out-of-game experience, which includes the client and the way we can watch matches from within it. This is really important, as it serves as a foundation for how we experience Dota: it’s like a city that needs good logistics, because otherwise it becomes a convoluted mess.

As someone who’s played League of Legends since beta, one of my main gripes is that its client is pretty much held together with duct tape. It also lacks certain features that other games — well, let’s be real here, Dota — do really really well. This update reminded me how much I value a good infrastructure and how much I love little bells and whistles.

Here’s three things I like about what the first part of Reborn brings to the table:

1. Improved Viewing Experience

Let’s look at this image. Real time graphs. Minimap. Chat. Ad space for tournaments. Side UI elements that (hopefully) can be hidden. Third-party streams. Hopefully real-time item build/timing information. I’m pretty biased because all this stuff really makes my job easier, but it also makes it easier to step inside the mind of the pro as they’re playing.

Knowing when/how pros get their timings make emulating them easier; obviously I’m not going to be able to be like them completely, but suddenly you have a concrete idea of what’s slow, fast or in-line with how the good people are playing.

2. Hero Tinkering

I’m going to confess that sometimes I play Dota 2 like a dress-up game. I like to see cool combinations of cosmetics, and if I want to test a hero I rarely play, it can be a pain to load up a custom game, make sure cheats are enabled, only to disconnect and recreate because I want to try something else.

It looks like Dota’s going to make it easier to tinker with heroes, and I’m definitely all for that. I’m a huge fan of guides built in to the client (sometimes to a fault) and reading them before I’m in game and under a time pressure will be awesome. I’m also really curious about there being “more information to help you determine if a hero is right for you,” because a question I commonly ask my stacks is “what should I play?”

Sometimes you just need to be nudged in the right direction, and hopefully with the new information the game is going to be tracking on you (see below), it’ll be able to be accurate.

3. Playstyle Analytics

This is the big one for me. I’m not exactly a hardcore data geek, but I love looking at numbers and seeing my performance quantified — even if I suck, tell me where I’m sucking and where I can get better. Even if I don’t end up trying to fix things, at least I know where my strengths lie.

I think that’s why I’m kind of enjoying the 10 Hero Challenge in this year’s Compendium and the associated Coin Challenges; they give me a reason to step outside my comfort zone, and when I accomplish them, I almost always have a moment where I mentally remind myself that it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Sometimes it’s really easy to take those challenges and be self-defeating. With the integration of deeper stats and visualizations, players might at least be able to gain confidence to where they excel so that their shortcomings don’t hit as hard.

It’s this kind of information that helps me invest in playing the game for a longer span of time because I won’t hit roadblocks as hard; if I want to stay and play Dota 2 (which I do), I will have more tools to get more out of the game and learn from mistakes.

In the end, I’m happy to see Dota 2 getting a massive upgrade because it makes me feel that Valve cares about their player base; sometimes it’s easy to just feel like you’re funneling money into the game, but at least large, sweeping improvements like this show that complaints aren’t being ignored.

In the Reddit reaction thread to this update, someone said that this literally took concerns from the past two years and fixed them all at once. Then someone else reminded people that this was the first of three parts to Reborn. I legitimately felt like a game I enjoy was both secure for the future and in good hands.

That’s something I’m really not used to.

Matt Demers is a Toronto writer who is a Supervising Editor for theScore eSports. He’s also still waiting for replays in League of Legends. Follow him on Twitter and Twitch, where he streams Dota 2.

Uncategorized

This hurts to write

Posted by Matt Demers on

Like many people my age, I got hooked on computers early on in my life. I remember playing games like Dangerous Dave, Monster Bash and Commander Keen, which led to Dota 2, League of Legends and others today.

I also was a pretty big journal kid. My parents divorced early, and I spent a lot of time writing out feelings because the privacy was attractive. Something secret, safe and secure meant that I could just vent. I felt like a spy, carrying important thoughts and information with me in a book.

The two combined, and here I am, writing. The problem, through, is that the last year has spawned issues with my hands. I sit down at a desk, start working or playing, then realize that pain is an inevitability. The back of my hands burn. My joints ache. My fingertips get numb.

Coming from someone who sees my grandma’s arthritic fingers stick out at odd angles, this is terrifying.

The easy thing (and what most people suggest) is breaks, but it feels like I cannot afford them. I have no complaints about my job, as they have been accommodating — what sucks is just a feeling of helplessness.

Silent keys means you’re not writing. Silent keys means you’re not playing. Silent keys means you’re not improving. Silent keys mean that other people are getting ahead.

Again: terrifying.

As a tall guy at six-foot-three, it’s hard to make things comfortable . Chairs, desks and monitors are all too short. I’ve had to improvise with phone books, exercise balls or jury-rigged shelving. It reminds me that my body is weird, non-standard, and clumsy. I don’t fit. Breaks exacerbate this.

If you’re trying to correct years of bad posture, the pain on back, wrists and neck can be a bit of a shock. You make these changes and tell yourself that it’ll pay off in the long run, but it’s easy to fall back into comfortable habits to stop pain.

But if you’re in my position, where your hands are your life, there can’t be a compromise. It’s either fix this, or shorten your time doing what you enjoy. It’s a tough choice, but a necessary one: I cannot afford to give up now, or leave the game early. I have a responsibility to myself to keep living this dream I’ve earned for myself while still having a (relatively) pain-free future.

It’s time to sit up straight.

Matt Demers is a Supervising Editor for theScore eSports. He enjoys tea and hip hop. Follow him on Twitter.

The Media

On comics, and evolving tastes

Posted by Matt Demers on

Today I went to TCAF 2015. Usually, it’s a pretty big event during my calendar year; I really love comics, and seeing a lot of independent voices always felt really good.

However, this year it didn’t do a lot for me. It felt weird. I felt a little more detached than I usually do. I wasn’t as excited to experience new things; I found that there was less of the feeling that I was looking forward to.

It’s hard to explain, but my enjoyment of comics has shrank so much in the past year. Choices made by Marvel and DC have pretty much alienated me from anything superhero-related, and I don’t find myself hooked by anything new in the wide-open land of creator owned, or tier 2 publishers like Image, Dark Horse, etc.

Lauded series (Saga, East of West, Sex Criminals) don’t really hold my attention enough to look forward to new issues, and I rarely find myself wanting to binge-read in order to catch up. I’m finding that I only feel a need to keep up in order to be “with it” with current “good” books, but instead of wanting to take part in a community I’m feeling increasingly insular.

The comics I have enjoyed in the last year tend to be “classics”; I read the entirety of Usagi Yojimbo and Akira, and damn, those are some good books. They remind me of good experiences I had in the past, and the lovely release you get when you close the back cover, exhale, and think “that was some shit.”

With modern comics, I’m feeling that less and less.

I’m at the point where I am content to have comics being something I am completely selfish about. No blogging, no discussion, no speculation, no work. No reading blogs about the latest outrage, no worrying whether if it’s my “fault” when a book I’m not interested in fails.

Instead, I’m content to just read what I want, enjoy it how I want, then not talk about it with anyone. While I still like comics, they are no longer a consuming passion that I want to experience in its entirety.

For now, there are parts that I want to keep and cherish, and I’m content doing just that.

Matt Demers is a Toronto writer who works in eSports. You can follow him on Twitter.

Esports

Games in Motion: Dignitas vs Cloud 9 HyperX

Posted by Matt Demers on

Up until this week, I was noting a very worrying trend for LCS matches; I was getting bored. Games lacked a certain competition that usually glues me to the screen; while players can do some wonderful plays in one-sided stomps, I’m a lot more engaged when I’m on the edge of my seat, knowing that the balance of power can shift at any time.

Perhaps that’s what made this match between Dignitas and Cloud 9 HyperX awesome. Dignitas’ run up until that point was rough, as they were thoroughly trounced at the Battle of the Atlantic and ended their first three LCS games with a 1-2 record. Cloud 9, on the other hand, are regarded as the strongest North American team, winning the Season 3 Summer Split and avenging their World Championship loss against Fnatic at BotA.

All predictions pointed to a pretty one-sided match, and a Cloud 9 victory.

But that didn’t happen.

Week 1: North American League Championship Series

Dignitas Cloud 9
Zed (1) Kassadin (2)
Kha’Zix (3) Kayle (4)
Yasuo (5) Annie (6)
Jinx Shyvana
Thresh Elise
Dr. Mundo Riven
Gragas Leona
Vi Lucian

The pick and ban phase told a big story in terms of what each team was looking to do; Dignitas spent all three of their bans on mid-lane champions, denying C9’s Hai any comfort picks. Cloud 9 answered in kind, taking Kayle and Kassadin away from Scarra, and keeping an Annie support from disrupting the diving composition they wanted to build.

With Hai cut off from many of his regular champions, Cloud 9 made the call to choose Riven in order to fit with their theme; each of their picks had abilities to chase and lock down their opponent with crowd-control, letting Cloud 9 outlast engagement and kill those trying to escape.

I don’t want to say that either team lost the game within the pick phase, since no one was forced onto champions they were particularly uncomfortable with. I don’t doubt Hai’s ability to play Riven, but what we’ve seen from these LeBlanc/Zed/Riven mid choices is that they need to snowball quite hard in order to survive.

The game started with a familiar “line of scrimmage” set up, transitioning into a traditional 2v2 bottom lane. From there, the early game progressed pretty evenly; each side got their initial farm without much incident. Early aggression was deflected by supports in the bottom lane, while mid and top traded when they could.

Things picked up at the five-minute mark with a timely gank by Crumbzz’ Vi on Balls’ Shyvana. CruzerTheBruzer’s Dr. Mundo got a great first blood, which gave him a little boost to fend off the Dragon Lady’s relentless push.

The commentators pointed out two things that were extremely relevant: Balls’ goal in the early game was to bully Mundo and take the top tower. He was unable to do so because of Cruzer’s under-tower last-hitting and Vi’s gank killing his momentum. The First Blood gold also let Mundo start building tanky right away, which kept him from getting forced out of lane.

While this was going on, however, Cloud 9 equalized the momentary advantage by taking Dragon immediately and sending Riven to keep their top tower from taking too much damage. Both of these actions kept a snowball from forming, and almost reset the tension of the match.

This game had a very distinct ebb and flow. When Scarra swung momentum in Dignitas’ favour with a solo kill on Riven, it was hard to celebrate; fans know how good Cloud 9 is, and that they could take that power back whenever they wanted.

To their effort, LemonNation’s Leona and Sneaky’s Lucian tried to do just that soon after in the bottom lane with the help of Meteos’ Elise, but great positioning by KiWiKiD’s Thresh allowed Imaqtpie’s Jinx to escape despite her Flash being down. The Box took up such a large portion of the bottom lane that Sneaky was kept on the other side of it; without any major source of damage, the gank was called off.

Moments later, a counter-engage by Vi left both teams with little health, but no kills; even a roaming Gragas couldn’t find anything due to Sneaky’s timely Flash. Opinion on the roam was a bit split, as the commentators lamented that Scarra couldn’t pick up any kills; however, as Coast Gaming’s Alex Penn pointed out:

Cloud 9 took the second dragon of the game with a bit of a Cold War standoff; no one from Dignitas engaged, which is almost a little strange. For those of us who’ve followed the team for a while, this kind of restraint is a marked improvement; losing multiple members at that dragon fight could have easily meant a revitalized Cloud 9.

It was clear, however, that Dignitas wanted to take advantage of a trend we’ve seen emerge from Cloud 9; the latter is successful because all of their lanes are individually strong. However, when placed in a situation when they’re working from behind, or when one lane loses convincingly, it may be difficult for them to catch back up.

Hai’s Riven had an especially difficult game, with Dignitas punishing him repeatedly to the point where he was a non-factor in later team fights. While I don’t want to single this out as the chief reason they won, a Riven without any items is like a LeBlanc without items: significantly less scary.

On the other hand, Scarra’s Gragas getting fed was exactly what Dignitas needed. It was clear by the mid-game that he was out-damaging Riven with only a couple of Doran’s Rings and a partially completed Zhonya’s Hourglass. He was also instrumental in dispersing her dives with Explosive Cask, leaving Hai on the outside of most melees.

By the fifteen minute mark, Dignitas stood with a five to zero kill score, but less than a 1,000 gold advantage. Checking the gold totals, many matches were even despite C9 lacking in kills.

The scoreboard also told another interesting story: Crumbzz’ Vi had been involved in all but one of those kills, and it was clear that he was a key reason they had a lead at all. Vi was able to close gaps or immobilize key targets at just the right time; despite Cloud 9’s champions being suited to the chase, they had to burn these gap-closers to avoid Vi’s wrath, putting them on cooldown.

While the small lead in gold was a testament to Cloud 9’s game sense and farming ability, I feel like there was a point where they got frustrated and tried to force some team fights without the necessary vision. A 6-1 lead crept to 10-3 in Dignitas’ favour after an engagement lead to the deaths of Vi and Thresh, but allowed Dignitas’ Jinx and Gragas to mop up.

The important thing to note here is that Dignitas made a concerted effort to peel for Imaqtpie, letting him get crucial ramp-up auto-attacks on Jinx‘s minigun. QT’s always been a slippery character (usually on Ezreal), but playing an escape-less Jinx seems to have put those senses into overdrive. There was no hesitation or over-commitment; it was a nice, pleasant balance that netted him a big lead over his lane opponent.

The rest of the game felt a bit surreal, as I’m not used to Dignitas playing consistently enough to avoid heartbreak. They traveled as team, focused down appropriate targets, warded competently and genuinely out-fought Cloud 9.

All these little advantages came together quite nicely: Imaqtpie’s Jinx was a damage source and focal point for Cloud 9, allowing Scarra’s Gragas to focus on laying down AOE damage and disperse dive attempts with his Explosive Cask. By this time, CruzerTheBruzer’s Dr. Mundo had three tank items of his own, adding considerable bulk to their frontline, while both KiWiKiD’s Thresh and Crumbzz Vi provided engage and disengage.

It’s like someone basically injected Dignitas with a steroid that allowed them to play these champions and their composition’s function to the best of their ability.

They also somehow were able to siphon Cloud 9’s brainpower, as Dignitas didn’t panic when they were suddenly faced with a huge lead. There was no Dignitoss at Baron, costly tower dives, lengthy chases or unnecessary lonely roams. When they took down an inhibitor, they accessed their ability to get another one; when they were turned away from a push, they picked another lane and shoved safely.

Their eventual gold lead gave them a cushion of damage and tankiness that Cloud 9 just didn’t have; Ball’s Shyvana couldn’t provide a necessary front line and LemonNation’s Leona was not an equivalent substitute. Their victory was not flashy, but systematic; they put themselves in a position where victory was the only option, and executed.

I’m proud of Dignitas in this match because they did not win with a crazy level one fight, nor did they play some outlandish composition that Cloud 9 had trouble countering. You could see each individual player shining in their own way – especially KiWiKiD, who has been steadily improving his Thresh. In the end, they made better choices than they usually do and simply outplayed the North American champions.

It’s not every day that you can say you did that; I just hope that this isn’t some one-time greatness that we’ll never see again.

In short, Dignitas:

  1. Defused Shyvana and kept her from taking an early tower; this kept her from finishing Blade of the Ruined King quickly in order to progress to tank items
  2. Killed Hai repeatedly, and kept Riven from farming an advantage back
  3. Forced attention onto QTPie’s Jinx, allowing Scarra to remain relatively untouched.
  4. Chose smart engagements with Vi and withheld skills (Flash and Explosive Cask, notably) until they were absolutely needed
  5. Remained calm and took objectives when the necessary vision groundwork had been laid. No knee-jerk reactions to equalize Cloud 9’s progress

Thanks for reading this recap. If you liked it, consider following me on Twitter Facebook, Twitch and Youtube.

Esports/Video Games

Chasing Champions – An eSports Travelogue

Posted by Matt Demers on

Hell is being trapped in a window seat on a fifteen hour flight to Korea with a full bladder and the Canadian need to be polite. My legs crumple into the seat in front of me, two sleeping Korean men prevents me from the freedom of the aisle.

The last five days had been hectic: I received a press pass to cover the OnGameNet OLYMPUS Champions Winter grand final in Seoul, South Korea, then spent the time in between frantically preparing to leave my time zone for the first time. Despite writing about competitive League of Legends for six months at this point, Champions Winter was my first live tournament; after watching numerous American and European events from my Toronto bedroom via stream, I couldn’t help but feel a bit nauseous from my nerves. Or maybe that was the in-flight beverages.

For many eSports fans, Korea is the holy grail of professional gaming. Although it has piqued considerable interest both stateside and in Europe, Asian fans have been able to enjoy their favorite players compete for salaries, prizes and superstardom for almost a decade. OnGameNet – often abbreviated OGN – has hosted several seasons of StarCraft and branched into League of Legends after its swell in popularity, going so far to furnish a studio that enabled fans to watch competitors free of charge. While OGN’s live show operated on a first-come, first-serve basis, this event offered a notable departure with the introduction of paid tickets: OGN felt it wasn’t fair that fans who had paying jobs would be unable to line up for the hours needed to secure space.

The venue, Hanyang University’s gymnasium, was built to house volleyball during Seoul’s hosting of the summer Olympics in 1988. Two days after my arrival, the gym was converted to allow 8,000 eSports fans watch two powerhouse teams – NaJin Sword and Azubu Frost – compete for an ₩ 80,000,000 (~$73,556 USD) grand prize. This was a culmination of a season beginning in November, with Champions Spring and Summer to follow in 2013; like many other conventional sports, teams experience a regular season of group play before seeding into a playoff for the grand prize.

Up until recently, League of Legends eSports has followed a different format in America, largely due to the lack of infrastructure in place to support the same level of play. Points earned at tournaments held at conventions like Major League Gaming or Penny Arcade eXpo, determined a leaderboard, with the line between a professional, financially stable athlete and an amateur clearly drawn. While this has changed recently with the introduction of Riot Games’ League Championship series – offering salaries to players and weekly, organized league play to spectate – Korea has been doing it much longer, and constructed enough of a business in the process to sustain eSports as both a viable hobby and a career path to hopefuls who want to compete.

Until the LCS, players unable to win tournaments to sustain their career needed to split time between playing and earning a living. Sadly, this led to the creation of teams with the ability to practice dominating those without, stagnating competition in the process. In Seoul and other parts of Asia, players live together in team houses, have enough money to sustain themselves and have a social status nearing that of sex symbols. The existence of these highly competitive teams account for the dominance of Asian countries at these tournaments.

Travelling to Korea was a unique experience: not only did I not speak a word of Korean, but aside from the occasional family vacation to Florida and solo jaunt to New York City, I’d never really left home. Like an amateur, I failed to get my International roaming package working after emerging from the Seoul subway from the airport. I was at the right stop, but I was stuck in the misting rain with no idea where to go, and no tools to help get me there.

Despite my technological disconnect, I noticed that Seoul is an extremely modern city. The subways have signage in both English and Hangul, making travelling extremely easy for foreigners other services also seem geared towards travelers, including a mapping service that helps you find your station and calculate your fares, printing out a rechargeable card. There is full cellphone reception and wireless internet on the subway, but I was unable to use it: a Korean mobile number is usually needed to access free options or the possibility of purchasing.

This emphasis on mobility reflects a general acceptance of technology as a facet of everyday life. While my grandmother can barely use a prepaid flip-phone back home, there were numerous elderly playing games on touchscreens – and as I was informed later, often with each other. This worked to my advantage, as after I found some friendly Wi-Fi (ironically at one of the only Canadian restaurants in Seoul), I contacted my host for the weekend.

Christopher “Montecristo” Mykles (that’s him, on the left) has been working in eSports for nearly a decade, managing a Warcraft III team and commentating on League of Legends. Currently, he works for OGN as an English-speaking commentator for their broadcasts, and along with William “Chobra” Cho, was my connections to the inner workings of the broadcast. I worked with both men in the past on a volunteer basis for a community news site; their involvement in the scene landed them jobs in Korea as OGN expanded their audience worldwide. Cho is an extremely valuable asset in eSports due to his ability to speak both English and Korean fluently; due to his status as Press Coordinator for the event and my inability to speak the language, I largely relied on him for translations.

However, with a day still to go between my arrival and the tournament, Mykles and I spent time preparing for the upcoming event. While maintaining a physical presence in Seoul, he continued to commentate for an online stream in the United States, powering through the time difference; while lacking the spectacle of an offline event, playing and commentating online is often how players and personalities gain experience. While performance well could lead to invitations to live play, English-speaking audiences are only starting to see a regular League format with the production values of “real” sports.

Mykles and Cho’s apartment was located in Itaewon, one of the more international-friendly areas in Seoul. Between mandatory Korean barbeque, we picked up Caribbean chicken and odd takes on hamburgers, and fried, sugared pastries identical to the ones my Ukranian grandmother used to make for me. The mash up of cultures let me ease my way into my new surroundings while still having recognizable elements to latch on to, though hearing a cover band butcher a Nickelback song triggered a large amount of Canadian shame.

On the day of the tournament, those training wheels slowly came off. Despite a fairly Western-style brunch after meeting up with Mykles’ broadcast partner, stepping outside the Hanyang subway station all three of us were aware of how conspicuously foreign we looked. It was clear that fans had been congregating across the university grounds long before we got there.; we attracted our share of looks while walking to the gymnasium, and while we were able to enter, there was a little bit of waiting to be done while getting verification that we could enter.

Business infrastructure is not the only type that’s important to the Korean model of eSports; a large advantage that companies like OGN enjoy is the ease of transit for residents of Seoul. This venue, for instance had a station within a five minutes’ walk, and the OGN studio held similar advantages. For younger fans that may not have their own cars, public transit is key to minimizing investment for a night eSports. Like many sports fans in the United States can attest, it’s infinitely easier to attend a stadium/arena game without having to navigate through gridlock traffic or pay for costly parking.

The American system also works very differently in terms of frequency and spectacle; though Riot Games have their own studio in Los Angeles for League broadcasts, it currently does not host an audience. Instead, “convention” events like MLG or PAX are larger, flashier, and attendance can come with a greater degree of planning. Especially when considering travel, food and accommodations, those not living in within common cities (Los Angeles, Dallas, Raleigh, Boston) have a considerable investment to make; a tournament will often play out in its entirety over the course of a weekend, pairing League of Legends with other games to maximize the usage of a large venue. If there was any start to the spectacle of Champions Winter, it was that I was not used to seeing so much production value solely for one game.

In Korea, the passion for this one game was enthralling, as the pockets of excited fans waiting reminded me of tailgating parties I had seen back in the West. While an afternoon of going downtown to grab a baseball or hockey game seemed commonplace for those of us living near large cities, the fact that this was for video games – a hobby still struggling to find acceptance in adult audiences – was a bit surreal. After all, there was no reason why it shouldn’t be treated similarly, but I simply could not imagine telling my parents, friends, or co-workers that I was going to be sitting at home and watching a gaming tournament for most of the weekend.

Attempts in the past drew skepticism and even a little teasing: letting my parents know that I would be leaving the country for what I thought was a logical extension of sports journalism perplexed them. For all the progress that video games have made to invade mainstream audiences, the hobby still has trouble divorcing itself from the stigma it suffered for a long time prior – however, some of the most apt comparisons between the “nerd” and “jock” stereotypes point out that the latter just happen to be as passionate about baseball stats as eSports fans are about kill:death ratios.

In Korea, eSports have the benefit of seeing a more widespread audience, and therefore a better chance to normalize as part of everyday life. OnGameNet and other companies form partnerships with TV stations, allowing them to broadcast their matches as if they were any other sport. When Riot Games’ Season Two World Championship occurred this past October, the 1,154,000 unique viewer figures were considered amazing – that is, until it we found out that an additional 2,402,225 people watched the event through Korean and Chinese televisions. By normalizing the act of watching eSports, OGN’s first ticketed event was a resounding success: all 8,000 tickets for today’s tournament, priced at less than twenty dollars US, sold out in less than an hour.

While waiting for our staff and press passes, I was introduced to some familiar faces from that same World Championship; Azubu Frost, the team that eventually took second place and half a million dollars in prize money, wandered in behind us and sat down on some couches. I was caught off-guard, as my only experience with professional League of Legends players up to this point had been voice interviews through Skype and broadcast cameras at tournaments. It was hard not to be star-struck, as this was the team that steamrolled the top American squad on their way to victory. However, the feeling subsided extremely quickly as I was introduced and shook their hands. Some seemed put off by me, perhaps by my choice to wear a suit. Meeting them in person faded the view of them as unstoppable juggernauts and replaced it with the realization that these guys were, at their core, gamers. They just happened to be waiting to play the biggest game of their lives.

Eventually Frost was ushered out of the room and I was left tethered to Cho, who had taken on a jack of all trades role for Champions Winter. Translating, coordinating press and speaking on the English broadcast, we stayed with him as he ran a few errands. This paid off, though, when we stepped inside the Hanyang gym and got to see the stage.

In order to give the spectators an adequate view of the game, OGN rigged multiple projector towers along the back wall of the ground floor, shining images up onto the main screen. As the production staff went through a dry run of the lights, sound and pre-show pageantry, it was evident at how much work had been put into the establishing of a storyline for this season’s conclusion. There were recaps of the previous Spring and Summer tournaments, video packages of the teams facing off on superimposed backgrounds, and head-to-head introductions for players along with their counterpart on the opposing side. It felt like the Super Bowl, only with less pyrotechnics, combining a flash of showmanship with the competitive spirit of the championship.

Eventually, I received a press badge that gave me access to the backstage of the facility and the multiple levels of seating above the ground floor. Different utility rooms were set up in the building’s classrooms, such as locker rooms for each team and a wardrobe and makeup room. This is where I caught up with Mykles, immersed in conversation with NaJin Sword’s Yoon “MakNooN” Ha-woon; MakNooN is a favourite among foreigners due to his aggressive play, trash talk and workable grasp of the English language.

Surrounded by both teams and support staff, it was in this room where introductions were made and the naturalization between “players on a pedestal” and “normal people” were completed. Though the mood was light and sociable, I could see the determination etched into the player’s faces. For Azubu Frost, Champions Winter was a chance to become multiple-time OGN champions, and NaJin Sword was poised to usurp the throne.

Within the hour, the venue’s doors opened and people began flooding in. This process was exactly the same any other sporting event, with some of the crowd writing signs on their cellphones in hopes of being caught by the numerous boom cameras sweeping the gym. Some fans reveled in the attention of seeing themselves on-screen, while others (usually ladies) hid their faces; I found out this was partly a holdover from earlier days of eSports, where students skipping school to watch matches didn’t want to be identified.

Eventually, the crowd settled, the lights dimmed, and the production began. The light show that I witnessed earlier sprang to life, this time with a cheering crowd to give the presentation a fuller effect. Naturally, the point of all this was to hype the crowd, and it worked marvelously; you could hear random shouts of players’ names, gasps of amazement when they appeared on the screen, and the din of pure, unadulterated passion. I got to experience this from all angles while running around to get photos, and by the time I was able to slow down and watch the match itself, Azubu Frost was already down two games in a best-of-five series, facing elimination.

Leaning against a production box near one of the projection towers, I put down my camera. It was ironic that it had taken me this long to actually witness a game I enjoyed watching, because I was preoccupied with capturing others, instead. Finally settled in, the experience felt truly different from anything prior in my gaming career.

In that moment, it felt like instead of being just one person in a random spot in the crowd, I was absorbed into the game as part of a miraculous wave. Every fan in that gym was invested into the game, and when something happened during the match, the entire air changed. It would often start slow, as the most experienced eyes would catch a player out of position, or two other moving to flank him. The noise grew louder as more people caught on, swelling like the ocean before a wave’s crest; either the gambit would dissipate harmlessly, or a team would gain the advantage to thunderous applause and cheering.

It’s a pity that both teams sat in sound-proof booths on-stage: I can imagine no greater reward for a successful play.

NaJin Sword toppled Azubu Frost in that game, sweeping the match and seizing the prize money in a shower of confetti and champagne. MakNooN netted himself a check for match MVP, breaking down in tears as his team clutched the Champions Winter Cup. The closing ceremonies were emotional not only for the victors, but for the rest of the league teams in attendance; it was a nod to a successful season, not only for the players, but for OGN as well.

It was around this time that I figured out where I had felt like this before.

As a proud Canadian, I know that one of the few occasions we rally around sports is the Winter Olympic Games, where our hockey team are perennial favorites. People pause normal NHL team allegiances in favor of supporting the greater cause, where the pride of the entire country seems on the line; there was a similar feeling here despite the lack of national pride. It was every bit as intense as the Super Bowl, game seven of the World Series or the final of the World Cup; after all, it should.

This tournament was markedly different from what I had experienced because it was less of a “gaming occasion” and more of fully-developed sports event. Every person in attendance was there to watch League of Legends because he or she was deeply passionate about the teams playing and the game itself. Instead of splitting their attention between a convention around them or other games being played at the same time, they were able to invest their excitement fully towards the task at hand. Both the players and OGN were rewarded for their commitment to quality with fans that left happy, carrying the growth of eSports with them.

After requisite celebration and tying up loose ends, I was back on a plane to Toronto the next day; it was sadly a quick trip, and I would’ve loved to spend a bit more time around Seoul.  Since my trip, I’ve been enjoying Riot Games’ League Championship Series on a weekly basis, but have been chasing the same level of hype that I experienced in Korea. My sleep schedule has sadly led me to miss most of Champions Spring, which will be culminating this coming weekend; neither NaJin Sword nor Azubu Frost (now named CJ Entus Frost) will be returning. It’s been nearly five months since the conclusion of Champions Winter, and that can be an eternity in an eSports fan’s memory. More teams will rise, others will fall, and the best can build legacies.

While waiting on the plane in my empty row – no fidgeting this time – the passion surrounding the championship left me hopeful that someday I could experience a tournament like that on my native soil. Something sparked inside me, as I wanted nothing more to play, watch, feel the game. Sports can inspire positive emotions, like joy, pride and camaraderie; I want gamers to be able to feel them in such an intense way, just as I had.

And with eSports’ momentum building at an immense rate, this may happen sooner, rather than later.

Matt Demers is a 23 year old writer who hopes to make a living out of his passions. He writes about gaming, League of Legends, comic books and other nerdy things. You can follow him on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. If you’d like to read or watch more in-depth eSports coverage, consider donating to help with associated costs.