Last Man Standing – Invictus Gaming
Riot·3/29/2014, 12:34:21 AM·0 votes·623 views
LPL Summer standing: No. 5
LPL Summer record: 10-11
World Championship standing: N/A
World Championship record: N/A
It's been a long, wild ride for Invictus Gaming, and it's gonna be longer yet. The team is now the last LPL team with a majority roster pre-dating the circuit itself: except for the retired XiaoXiao, the squad has remained unchanged since all the way back in Season 2. They were the silver challengers to World Elite's golden rule: one of the two undisputed top teams of the entire country, and fellow representatives upon the world stage.
That said, the road's been bumpy. Though the team's never been out of the spotlights for very long, and have plenty of tournament titles to their name, they've often been accused of wild inconsistency. Their record is speckled with quarterfinal defeats and disappointing third-place finishes, and though the majority of their defeats (and victories) were by the hands of eternal rivals WE, they're sometimes interrupted by teams considered inconsequential to the scene.
Take, for instance, the difference between their spring and summer splits last year, and their performances in the subsequent play-offs. Invictus Gaming was actually the top performer over spring, and only ever had problems versus OMG or WE. Then Positive Energy, a team they had no prior difficulties with over a four-game span, knocked them out cleanly.
Summer was, if anything, worse. They lost to near every team in the league, including those with losing records like Young Glory and EP.HK. They failed to advance to the playoffs, and their only bright spot was a winning record against OMG.
They regained some glory in a showdown against WE at the Demacia Cup invitational, securing first place in the last hurrah before the preseason changes kicked in. But there are already signs of their old instabilities coming back in play for spring. Not only were they soundly defeated by newcomers Edward Gaming, but Energy Pacemaker – not exactly a traditional medalist on the Chinese circuit – traded extremely one-sided games with Invictus Gaming for a tied series. While the latter series at least proves that IG is no team to discount, their continued inconsistencies may outweigh the two years of accumulated synergy.
At their worst, their aggressive instincts are channeled into world-class mistakes: deep, early dives that let teams reverse the tables on them and pick them off and leaps of faith into disadvantageous positions, overestimating their ability to survive the retaliatory damage.
In other words, IG's strengths and weaknesses are sometimes indistinguishable. Before OMG pulled ahead in the summer split, before Royal brawled their way into an overall Worlds second place, IG was teaching a nation of players how to fight. When to fight, however, is equally important, and is something they've yet to fully master.
Originally, there was hope that new support player Kitties would offer a tempering voice to IG's avolatile performances. Retired support XiaoXiao was very much an orthodox proponent of Invictus's play style, but even he admitted, prior to All-Stars Shanghai, that there were more reliable supports in the Chinese scene. Thus far, IG's newest player has proven a fitting replacement for him in both skill and fury.
It doesn't help, of course, that the support role is trending towards trigger-happy playmaking. But with supports now playing such a prominent role, Kitties' maturity into the team could pay dividends in the long run.
| Invictus Gaming | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lineup | |||||
| Top | Liu "PDD" Mou | ||||
| Jungler | Chen "illuSioN" Xin-Lin | ||||
| Mid | Liu "Zzitai" Zhi-Hao | ||||
| AD | Ge "Kid" Yan | ||||
| Support | Liu "Kitties" Hong-Jun | ||||
| Substitute | Fan "Do" Mo-Chen | ||||
JUXTAPOSITION
It's been a long, wild ride for Invictus Gaming, and it's gonna be longer yet. The team is now the last LPL team with a majority roster pre-dating the circuit itself: except for the retired XiaoXiao, the squad has remained unchanged since all the way back in Season 2. They were the silver challengers to World Elite's golden rule: one of the two undisputed top teams of the entire country, and fellow representatives upon the world stage.
That said, the road's been bumpy. Though the team's never been out of the spotlights for very long, and have plenty of tournament titles to their name, they've often been accused of wild inconsistency. Their record is speckled with quarterfinal defeats and disappointing third-place finishes, and though the majority of their defeats (and victories) were by the hands of eternal rivals WE, they're sometimes interrupted by teams considered inconsequential to the scene.
Take, for instance, the difference between their spring and summer splits last year, and their performances in the subsequent play-offs. Invictus Gaming was actually the top performer over spring, and only ever had problems versus OMG or WE. Then Positive Energy, a team they had no prior difficulties with over a four-game span, knocked them out cleanly.
Summer was, if anything, worse. They lost to near every team in the league, including those with losing records like Young Glory and EP.HK. They failed to advance to the playoffs, and their only bright spot was a winning record against OMG.
They regained some glory in a showdown against WE at the Demacia Cup invitational, securing first place in the last hurrah before the preseason changes kicked in. But there are already signs of their old instabilities coming back in play for spring. Not only were they soundly defeated by newcomers Edward Gaming, but Energy Pacemaker – not exactly a traditional medalist on the Chinese circuit – traded extremely one-sided games with Invictus Gaming for a tied series. While the latter series at least proves that IG is no team to discount, their continued inconsistencies may outweigh the two years of accumulated synergy.
HAYMAKERS
At their best, Invictus Gaming is one of the most exciting teams in the world to spectate. Their aggressive instincts are channeled into world-class plays: deep, early dives under the turret with carefully timed turret aggro switches which allow them to dish out the maximum amount of damage, and spot-on coordination of burst engagements that leave teams reeling from the blow.
At their worst, their aggressive instincts are channeled into world-class mistakes: deep, early dives that let teams reverse the tables on them and pick them off and leaps of faith into disadvantageous positions, overestimating their ability to survive the retaliatory damage.
In other words, IG's strengths and weaknesses are sometimes indistinguishable. Before OMG pulled ahead in the summer split, before Royal brawled their way into an overall Worlds second place, IG was teaching a nation of players how to fight. When to fight, however, is equally important, and is something they've yet to fully master.
PLAYER TO WATCH: KITTIES
Originally, there was hope that new support player Kitties would offer a tempering voice to IG's avolatile performances. Retired support XiaoXiao was very much an orthodox proponent of Invictus's play style, but even he admitted, prior to All-Stars Shanghai, that there were more reliable supports in the Chinese scene. Thus far, IG's newest player has proven a fitting replacement for him in both skill and fury.
It doesn't help, of course, that the support role is trending towards trigger-happy playmaking. But with supports now playing such a prominent role, Kitties' maturity into the team could pay dividends in the long run.