Secret pocket picks

Mysticman89·10/30/2016, 7:32:00 PM·1 votes·647 views

How do pro players/teams actually get to have secret pocket picks practiced up (e.g. support MF)?

The casters seem to indicate that pro player accounts are all known, so it seems to me if they were practicing them on the regular ranked ladder then people would be able to look them up and see what they're up to, and prepare accordingly.

Additionally if they're using the regular ranked ladder on ultra secret smurf accounts, I feel like most of the time they'd simply be outclassing their opponents, and so something they might dominate diamond/master/challenger players on might actually be trash against worlds tier players.

If they address that by playing other pro teams, wouldn't those pro teams know about their picks in advance?

It seems to me like it'd be really hard to get experience playing at the highest levels on any unconventional champion without it being known, so how is this managed?

2 Comments

GeminiRune10/30/2016, 7:54:22 PM2 votes

Realistically, a pocket pick in professional play is normally capable of the same aspects as a high elo game: meets expectations and casts awareness, shines as a one and done or is completely shut down and never attempted again. Most pocket picks are known but not expected for a particular meta.

In the MF pick case, it was practiced by the player who brought it to light, yet it wasn't expected to be played on stage whatsoever. It takes a sense of extended thought and knowing what a player is capable of playing. It's like "Okay. You're ballsy enough to play this" and the way it gets managed is by adding it to the pool of notes for that team. The MF was off guard, but when you think about what her kit and what it brought to the table, it was understandable once it was picked.

Rewinding a bit: Splyce had an expected comp mid summer based off of their accounts/scrims in the form of Taliyah and Jhin/Sion bot lane. Once that week of games came around, Taliyah and Sion were immediately banned against them to stop the comp from being run. Example of an expected pocket pick. "We know you can play it. But we aren't letting you."

Rewind further: UOL was on the verge of failing to promote into the LCS. In came Poppy out of nowhere and that began their reverse sweep. That was more of unexpected like the MF pick was. "We know you can play it, but are you really going to?"

Those are two that came to mind the most. There are plenty in the season that actually happened as well.

TurquoiseYoshi10/30/2016, 11:20:36 PM1 votes

Often, it's in scrims. For example, the Support MF was practiced by ROX against SSG in scrims. That means that SKT had no idea of the pick when it was used, because neither team had publicly shown use of it.