The season of shot callers

T RexHasTinyArms·Oct 3, 2015·2 votes·483 views

I think this season has been the biggest display of how important team cohesion and shot calling is to League of Legends. It is so amazing and has been a really different game to watch. Think about it, the top teams are all defined by their leadership just as much as they are their star players.

I may get flamed for this, but SKT didn't look as good (although that may just have been samsung having two amazing teams) season 4 as they did season 3 and do season 5. What changed? Their captain. Season 3 they had Poohmandu shot calling and the team came back even from some bad games. Season 4 they lost their captain and didn't seem to fully recover. However, Marin was on the sister team struggling, probably in part bc of the pressure to be the "Faker of top lane" and be the star of his team. He's looked great this season w/ Faker to take the pressure off and let him just be a consistent top laner rather than the star, and Marin as captain seems to have brought a lot to SKT in terms of them bouncing back in cohesion.

Yellowstar rebuilt the entire team and Fnatic has done great two splits in a row. 3 players were LCS rookies 2 splits ago, and Rekkles floundered on Elements. The team has great cohesion though and Yellowstar provides some veteran leadership that helps the raw talent on Fnatic gel and succeed.

Xpeke was though of as one of the weaker links in Origen mechanically, but he built the team from scratch and they have become dominant after on split of experience together. Soaz helps anchor the team for experience, but my guess is Xpeke provides much of the leadership for that team and it wouldn't look the same w/out him.

CLG has fallen apart so many times no thread is safe, but w/ a strong mid laner and perhaps the first split w/ minimal internal drama it seems (lots of external drama to make up for it) the team finally has some cohesion and players can trust each other as a team. The result is a shot at the first time ever an NA team making it out of groups in first place (at least I think it's the first time, but this is also deceiving because past seasons had a team seeded in for bracket so maybe season 2/3 it would have happened if the strongest NA team was in groups.

C9 is perhaps the best case for shot calling and cohesion making the difference ever. W/ a top laner who has been down by a lot in both games so far, and a jungle who hasn't really had a huge impact on the game pre six (plus is relatively new to the role!) they have still been winning games in convincing fashion. This season has looked like a great argument that Hai should have switched to jungle years ago (his champ pool always seemed to limit him slightly in mid, and even if he doesn't have a huge early impact Meteos was always known for being a bit of an herbivore jungle, so Hai being a bit farm focused early would be fine). God I'm scared for C9 when Hai leaves again. Hopefully he can bring in a solid jungle to really learn from him and be like the protege to the master shot caller and make the transition easier, bc NA needs C9 to be strong to keep the competition at the top up and grow the regional strength.

In contrast LGD and IG have had some players do well in lane and have crumbled in team fights and shot calling and really under performed this worlds.

All tribute to the captains/shot callers. They may not be flashy star players, but they certainly have been making the teams this season.

6 Comments

BrascusOct 3, 20151 votes

Yellowstar can't get Huni under control

T RexHasTinyArmsOct 3, 20151 votes

Lol Huni can't get Huni under control. He's like a whole team's worth of up and downs in one player. However, he's also awesome and when he pushes his lead right he's so good for the team.

xJLx MCHammerOct 3, 20151 votes

Well keep in mind nearly every team but c9 has a Korean player FNC has 2 H2k has 2 TSM has one CLG has 1 The Chinese teams also have 1 or more

Along with the game being more balanced and we have this illusion of crazy shot calling. The Koreans haven't had time to learn the best picks hence you see weird comps like bard.

T RexHasTinyArmsOct 3, 20151 votes

CLG doesn't have any Korean players that have started a game, and I know H2K has Ryu, but who is the other? I though Kasing was always an EU player, was I wrong? Also all the Chinese teams have 2 KR players. IG has Rookie and Kakao who moved from KT roster, EDG has Pawn and Deft who moved from SSW and SSB respectively, and LGD has Acorn and Imp who were SSB and SSW players (I think Acorn was SSB and not SSW at least).

Finally, Huni was a solo que player, and reignover was passed over by every team in KR bc he had a bad reputation for doing poorly. Plus Huni and FNC have such a different approach than CN teams it seems. Huni really wanted to travel I think and that's why he ended up in EU, bc he's jumped into the culture a ton and his english is really good (although I bet english is a second language that a lot of FNC is just used to communicating in and more dedicated to learning bc Yellowstar's native language is french, and I'm not sure about Febiven and Rekkles), and casters are always talking about how CN's teams have communication issues due to using a second language to communicate, so they probably only learn to communicate in game and don't want to learn it as well so they end up not being as comfortable w/ the language in game.

It's not just a parity of skill, but team cohesion and shot calling that put the teams on more even playing fields this season. That's why you see teams w/ rookies and players who don't win lane as hard showing up so strong. Also TSM didn't even look good in NA, they definitely aren't in the same class as OG, FNC, C9, CLG, or SKT.

xJLx MCHammerOct 3, 20151 votes

Pobeltor and sing were originally from Korea

But yes, I think team cohesion is the big thing here. Look at lane swaps 2 years ago to today's, compare it. Teams are just better at it, you barely see solo kills now. But players like hai or these other shot caller, they didn't learn over night to get better. It's just that the team is better, more efficient

T RexHasTinyArmsOct 3, 20151 votes

Wasn't pobeltor raise in the U.S. I know he has been NA server since lol started and has never played for a KR team or anything else that would make him a KR player, and I'm pretty sure he was raised in the U.S. since he was fairly little given that he started playing in NA at like 16 or something.