OG Amazing says diverse meta could undo Korea

Worlds 2015 is shaping up to be one of the most diverse, closest tournaments we've yet seen. It feels like new champs are popping up in the pick and ban phase in almost every game and Origen's bout against Team SoloMid was no exception. Mid laner Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño Martínez pulled out an unexpected Anivia, which TSM's Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg countered with Viktor. 

Origen's jungler Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider sees this diversity as a great thing for Western teams in particular. "What I've picked up on is that the Asian scene is mostly good at playing a certain meta and being really proficient with it. Capitalising on every little thing that you do wrong in that meta." Amazing believes this could spell the end of Korea's reign as king of Worlds, stating that, "a more diverse meta leaves more options. Every team may perceive the game differently, so the Koreans mindset or perception of the meta itself may just not be right. Therefore, they can never become the grandmasters as they have in the past two years."

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A bold statement! Origen will be doing its best to make sure that becomes a reality as they take advantage of the breadth of the team's champion pool. Including this game's surprise Anivia pick, which Amazing says the team is well practiced with in scrims. So much so that, "people started banning it against us, because Anivia is just such a good pick if you are able to get through laning phase. Her zoning potential, her damage output, and her wall positioning is just really broken if you manage to use it right. She needs a bit of time to scale up, but in the right team comp you can help her."

This early game weakness wasn't a huge risk in the eyes of the team, however. "[TSM's] team comp was not really able to group up mid and take turrets in xPeke's face. So I wasn't necessarily worried about him being weak early," Amazing told us. "Obviously I'm not going to force a lot of team fights or skirmishes around mid lane, I'm just going to wait until he thinks he's strong enough to compete with Viktor. It can be capitalised on by some teams, but it may not. We'll have to see."

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Today marks the first time Amazing has played a professional game against his old teammates in TSM. An experience that he can only describe as, "Weird! Weird. I don't know how to put it but, it's… You sometimes notice things that people do or don't do when you play against your old teammates. You pick up things that you didn't really put emphasis on when you were their team mate." Despite being on opposing sides, he still only had good things to say about his old mid laner. "Bjergsen's team fight ability as well as his positioning is just so good. That's something I noticed throughout the game, it was surprising to me. I didn't really notice that as a player on the same team, but I noticed it now playing against him."

But it's his synergy with his current team that's the focus right now. Particularly as part of a growing trend we're seeing here at Worlds 2015, with strong duo partnerships between supports and junglers. We already discussed it with Edward Gaming's meiko and ClearLove, and we've seen other teams adopt this buddy system elsewhere at Worlds. Amazing thinks it is, "good for our team. It can be bad for other teams, where the communication may not be as good as it is for our team. EDG is not a good example, because Tian "meiko" Ye and Ming "ClearLove" Kai are both Chinese speakers, they can communicate with each other, but for example if you have Lustboy and Santorin. These kind of examples show that it can be really good for teams and really bad. I personally enjoy it because there's a lot more action on the map."

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After KT's victory against LGD Gaming today, they're the team Origen still needs to beat in Group D. "I think KT played really well. They managed to capitalise on every mistake that LGD was making and they seemed quite creative in the way they were playing. It's not worrying for us, but it's not comforting either."

As for the battle against TSM, Origen went in expecting to win, but getting the victory was a big relief. "This was a must-win game for us, you know? We don't consider TSM favourites to get out of the Group, so therefore we have to beat them to rack up wins. We basically had to [mess up] in order to make a loss happen, because we are so confident in ourselves right now and our aspirations are definitely higher than we expected them to be going into the tournament."

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So what's the plan? "First we have to get out of Groups! I'd say we just keep the expectations as low as we can, because if you get too high on yourself you may get too disappointed after a loss. So I just say for now, take it step by step. Even though we're confident, we think that other teams could potentially be better and could beat us. Especially KT, now. So, take one game at a time. Beat KT, hopefully get out of Groups. And if we get out of Groups, I think we can beat everyone out of Groups A and B. Group C may be quite an issue."

In case you need reminding, Group C contains Korean favourites SKTelecom T1 and Chinese favourite Edward Gaming. Still, Origen is now 2-0 and sitting pretty at the top of their Group alongside KT Rolster. All that changes tomorrow when the pair face off against each other for the first time. Ahead of the game, catch all the action from Worlds 2015 over on the spoiler-free VODs page.