IEM Katowice Report Card

One. More. Time. Despite the painfully long day for finals yesterday, that just provided me a bit of extra time to really think about how well these teams here actually performed. The tournament itself was far from what I expected. Is it because of Europe? Yes. Definitely because of Europe. Then again, Katowice always has some kind of bizarre upset or outcome at some point during the tournament (that and some unusually "out-of-their-power" long delay) so what am I to be surprised about? Anyway, back to this. I'll start out with the obviously best performing team:

Flash Wolves (S): So FW heard that the EULCS does cross group play. And clearly, they wanted in. What does this mean besides them toppling 3 of the 4 best EU has to offer at the current moment? Well Misfits could sneak a grudge scrim and make it live for the world to see but that would just potentially make fans go from about 12 feet under to burning at the core; or migrating to China...wait do any want to devote to better? 7-1 record only facing the European teams; their only loss being against H2K in what could have been a Jin Air fashion win. Thinking back to Oakland, it's pretty evident that their cohesion had improved with the swap from NL to Betty as the analyst desk humbly stated. Thy were by far the only team at the tournament with a consistent identity to what their team needed to do to win. They were good enough to be top 4 and winning it was not out of the question either. The way they climbed to the top is the surprising (and tragic) part.

ROX Tigers (A-): In a tournament where bottom table Korean teams compete and still look better than the rest of their competition. Either the world is potentially screwed or will just move on like this never happened. Prior to the tournament when I made the ever changing rundown I said for them to give me at least one convincing win in the LCK and maybe I'll believe in them. They got one convincing win. And with that my faith in them did not get thrown out. Heck they almost channeled the World Elite upset they took 2 years ago and pulled it off again (sort of). ROX deserves to be rated highly for simply showing they can play a macro game that doesn't get punished every moment they blink and because probably every other team who was rated highly prior to the event performed so poorly. Not to mention they couldn't flex Shy; if they could then potentially we could've seen them in the finals instead.

Here's the unfortunate part about this tournament for them though. They got the wins. They got the confidence to say "Hey we can do this!" But now you go back to the LCK. Luckily their opponent this week is Jin Air twice. I'll be on the safe side and predict them to go 1-1 but there are still heavy killers there in the region. Being a ROX fan will still be tough.

G2 eSports (B+): This is a case where I found myself wanting to slowly and hesitantly raise my thumb up and say in a weird questionable tone "Good job? (insert zombie brand clap here)" because that's all I can make out of the so called top European team for this tournament. Their macro was edgy, at least one player per losing game was a vast liability, and the drafting just never needed to happen at points. It's almost a pity that of the EU teams I have to put them above the other two; partially influenced by the domestic bout with UOL. That's all they got going for them though: domestic knowledge and success. Stomped into losers by FW > nearly lost to Kongdoo > beats UOL decisively > nearly lost to ROX > threw both leads to FW. That was their entire tournament summary on eye level. And the further heartbreaking part about this: they're probably going back to Berlin and continue to dominate. Don't get me wrong; reaching finals is good. G2 had nowhere to go but up internationally. But don't look like a Lyon or even a TSM in those future events.

Unicorns of Love (B): Probably the only European team with a consistent identity this tournament. It's a shame that identity was pretty much outmatched by the smarter and better teams. Two things I drew from their performance though: they can play the patient macro style and Xerxe needs improvement on the international level. They were definitely in the heavier group though and the results were all but expected barring an upset showing by the teams who did make it out. Nothing really more for me to say. The mark wasn't on their back like that of the other two teams.

H2K Gaming (B): Forever top 4 with the natural performance line of a frantic roller coaster. This is no different. Their major weakness with this IEM was basically their overall synergy and not knowing where their key to win lies. Nothing different from the EU LCS so far with some of their losses. It was that first loss to HKES that made me really feel that their tournament was going to end at FW, and it did. They also lost their undefeated Game 2 record. All together though, I'm still not sold on the Nuclear/Chei duo on a player analysis and like G2, their freaking drafts.

I'll take this moment to express my opinion on EU. This was far from what I was expecting out of them. I can brush off UOL but with the other two being on the Worlds stage, that's a bit unforgivable to come in and play as anonymously as teams with players who haven't experienced the international feeling. Last season I rated them deservedly low on the performance level (4th or 5th - I forget which I chose). With the region already having developed a clear cut top, middle, and bottom table, it's concerning to see the top of the table play like what they did here. Consider this a second wake up call: MSI should be a different story.

Hong Kong eSports (C+): HKES fought for their region and achieved a reputation worth recognition in my opinion. They may not have been the most classy of games but they sure weren't complete stomps in that of their losses, once again going back to the shakiness of H2K to make them look as good as they could. Heading back to the LMS though, they're currently tied for 4th by match record (6th by game record). Their competition for that honorary Dark Horse title is against Machi and Fireball. It's likely that we may see them again at Worlds if they can cement that top 4 in the LMS and J Team chokes the qualifier again.

Kongdoo Monster (C): And now we get to the remaining teams who didn't necessarily have anything going for them. Entering the tournament Kongdoo didn't have much of anything going for them other than a hope similar to ROX. At this point, I can say that they are without a doubt the near splitting image of ESC Ever last year in terms of preseason and the spring split so far: incredible preseason play to bottom of the table with a beatable strategy by those better. It's hard to see them getting any better after this as well given the LCK competition. Their only hope would be to survive relegation against what's looking like CJ and Ever8.

M19 Team (D): Well the hype's dead again. IWC tournaments are dead. But on the bright side, this wasn't even the best team in the LCL at the current moment and their best team will be competing at MSI to see where hey potentially stand in the 13 region table that fans will probably construct afterwards. It was a hard stretch to see this team doing better than expected with what is somehow still being called an upgrade in their bot lane in VincentVega. I do fear though that this may be the last we see of Likkrit or this team in particular for a while. Then again there is all stars.

Conclusion, far from the best possible tournament and not the best performance by those that were expected to do well. But those tournaments happen....remember IWCQ where everything you knew about power ranking the regions was wrong and in the end the better regions still qualified for worlds? This is how this felt. Everything I knew felt wrong and in the end I was still wrong. But imagine if the tournament had the original lineup. It may have been a more attractive tournament but the results may have been written in stone from the very first round. Oh well. At least there's none of this for a couple of months.

Thank you for once again bearing through my totally not professional analysis if you read this far. How are your expectations molded now that the event is past, especially with Europe's somewhat disappointing results? Think they'll rise again or fall some more? We'll know in about 2 months.