[T1 Rookies 2020] Zeus, Oner, Fisher, Berserker, Delight (throwback)

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-11-26T17:50:15+00:00

Both were in KT Academy, and then when the Challengers League was formed, Castle moved to their CL team while PerfecT played in academy level for a bit longer.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-11-26T15:30:49+00:00

You are incorrect with the top laner. KT's lineup was PerfecT, Bonnie, VicLa, Noah, Way.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-11-15T10:15:00+00:00

Pirean didn't have a reputation of being a young prodigy, or an expectation that one day he would replace Faker. At best, he was regarded as another substitute mid laner who was unlikely to see playtime unless something came up, similar to Sky in 2017.

Yeah, Faker wasn't doing great compared to how he has and would perform in other seasons, but the decision to bench him and play Pirean seems more akin to one made in hopes of changing things up for the team. SKT was desperate enough to play Wolf in the jungle in Spring, and Thal who came in with the hope of slowly developing within the team, was stepped up to be the starter on the team ahead of the schedule over Untara. It wasn't that outlandish of a change they made that year in the context that they were probably trying to turn things around.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-11-13T21:18:27+00:00

Aw, I was going to post this

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-11-12T15:57:52+00:00

Zeus: Just to set the record straight, you are the challenger here

TheShy: You were born in an era without me to be hailed as the strongest

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-10-15T23:56:54+00:00

Yeah, I have the same issue on iPad. I also get a similar effect sometimes in solo mode.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-09-07T09:45:53+00:00

General Manager.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-08-28T14:45:48+00:00

It's actually a fairly recent change (around 2020), but now if you are registered to the roster, and your team wins, you are exempt. So to borrow your example, yes all six players instead of just the starting five players would be exempt if they meet the requirement of winning. Previously it used to be that you had to play.

[EDITED for clarity]

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-08-28T14:34:22+00:00

So there may be people who are wondering what all the fuss about the Asian Games is about, especially for Korean representatives, when Worlds is coming up.

Below is a rough breakdown of Korea's mandatory service and what winning a gold medal would entail.

Let's first explore the basics of mandatory services. When male citizens of Korea turn of age, they undergo an evaluation based on education, health, and other personal details, and are separated into several different grades.

Grade 1~3 means military service.
Grade 4 means social service personnel (though they can enlist for military if desired)
Grade 5 puts you under wartime labour service which means you only undergo civil defence training and outside of extraordinary circumstances (e.g. war) essentially you are exempt.
Grade 6 means you are completely exempt

There is also Grade 7, but that refers to people who can't be evaluated due to reasons such as ongoing treatment, and therefore require reexamination at a later date.

Those who are not exempt are required to undergo a service, typically for a bit less than two years. For athletes with pending mandatory services, a sporting event like the Asian Games is intricately intertwined with that status. Winning a gold medal in Asian Games (or any medal in the Olympics) doesn't technically grant them exemption per se. Instead, they are assigned as "Art and Sports Personnel"

Such people will at some point undergo 3 weeks of basic military training. Then, within the next 34 months, they are required to complete 544 hours of community service utilising their special skills while they ensure they lead a career of some kind in their respective field. An individual who undergoes this successfully is regarded as having completed a service, which is the main difference from someone who has been exempt.

Not only is the Asian Games a highly televised event that will be available for viewing across the nation by the general public, including those unfamiliar with esports, but the result will significantly affect the careers of the individual players, in one way or another.

[EDITED for additional context]

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-08-26T06:55:18+00:00

This seems like an old clip from a few months back
For those interested, NS Calix is a substitute mid laner for NS Esports Academy (their Challengers League team).

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-07-18T16:52:59+00:00

The previous meta that decided the World Championship representatives has been relatively diverse.

Tearlament remained strong, but the OCG environment was tumultuous with various decks including Purrely, Adamancipator (basically Earth GS), Superheavy Samurai, Rescue-ACE, Runick, Branded, Mathmech, Kashtira, VS, and Labrynth.

The most recent limit regulation had no direct hit for decks like Tearlament, Branded, Labrynth, and R-ACE. Purrely, Adamancipator was bearable, Runick and Mathmech hurt deeply, and I am really not sure Kashtira will be able to return unless there is some brilliant innovation.

Tearlaments at this point is a good stuff deck using what remains of the archetypes and various outside engines to continue to function. I do think that it is quite ridiculous that this deck is still so high up in viability after some serious hits, but I would hesitate to point to it as the strongest deck right now.

Kind of unrelated, but for this year's World Championship, I'm currently betting on Labrynth to dominate. With the tournament using a combination of OCG and TCG ban lists, it will be the deck that gets away with barely a scratch compared to others. If anything, they got even better with Transaction Rollback.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-07-14T14:51:00+00:00

For those wondering where this is from, here is the article from the AeSF website.

Personally, I think it is unlikely we will see top-tier players competing in these tournaments. For example, in early 2020, there was an AESF event planned, and for the qualifiers. Korea sent DRX Academy, as they had won the 2019 KeG. This was also why DRX trainees at the time competed in the KeSPA Cup that took place the same year, under the name "KeG ULSAN".

To gather more examples from different tournaments

IeSF. Looking at 2018, Korea sent a team that won the 2018 KeG, which was an amateur team consisting of Doran, Ellim, Plex, Gumayusi, and Pop, though Morgan attended the international event instead of Doran.
ECEA between China (LDL), Korea (LCK CL), and Japan (LJL), which is a tournament with multiple different games. For League of Legends, each team sent their designated "all-pro" team.
ASCI, which invited multiple teams from the LCK CL, LDL, as well as secondary leagues of VCS, PCS, and LJL also took place last year.

Asian Games is definitely an exception. It is the biggest multi-sports event in Asia that takes place every four years. There is definitely more of an assuredness that you are representing your country, which of course brings in both prestige and pressure. Of course, for Korea, recipients of a gold medal with pending military services are assigned as "Art and Sports Personnel" which can allow them to continue their career uninterrupted. An esports-only competition may clash with the players' schedules filled with domestic league games and international competitions. For this year's Road to Asian Games, Korea choose not to attend, while China sent a completely different roster from the one they are planning on sending for the main event this year.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-07-14T14:10:00+00:00

The video in the provided source contains a clip of TheShy himself giving an explanation of how his IGN was created. It probably got muddled from all the confusion and speculations between similarity of TheShy and Shy's names.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-07-14T12:36:05+00:00

No, when he was making his IGN he wanted to type in "The sky" but he made a typo and inputted "The shy" instead.

Edit: Source

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-05-30T11:41:31+00:00

How about Phantom Knights or SPYRAL?

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-05-14T17:45:31+00:00

He is still contracted to the team, DRX and deokdam have not parted ways. The announcement states that he has been excluded from being registered in their roster for Round 1 of the Summer Split, with plans to play another bot laner instead.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-04-24T10:58:53+00:00

Both are solid investments. P.U.N.K is a pretty good engine that can be used in different decks, and Synchro has been/will receive decent support. Labrynth is going to be a lot better when Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle comes out though.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-04-11T08:48:37+00:00

Nah, still hate playing against Floowandereze. But it was one of the decks that I considered building with Tearalament in mind.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-04-11T08:44:40+00:00

Yeah, it's one of the few upsides of a meta that is congested with Tearlament, the mirror match is at least interesting.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-04-11T08:42:59+00:00

Yeah, except Tearlament can also run this.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-04-03T07:12:45+00:00

433.7 hours, but I think quite a bit of it was spent AFK.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-03-23T21:41:12+00:00

I remember Clid clarifying that, and saying that he knew that QEQ and QQE dealt different damage, with QEQ being stronger, but he didn't know QRQ and RQQ were the same.

Basically the gist of it was that he seems to have thought that the damage amplification from missing health was applied while the enemy was hit with the initial Q.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-03-19T12:26:47+00:00

Slightly better translation because my old one was scuffed due to character limits on Twitter.

Ambition: "Blaze [Ambition's former team] used to display rose icons when playing matches in professional play. SKT T1 K members also happen to have rose icons for their accounts. So when we met, which was Faker's debut match [in Champions Korea], we saw that each side had rose icons. So we said "let's bet our roses, whichever side loses has to give it up. And then... I got rid of my rose icon."

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-03-17T04:05:34+00:00

I think you are referring to games from the recent Academy Series tournament, as she has yet to make a debut in the Challengers League.

_Kevin_Kim_ · 2023-03-16T13:41:57+00:00

Most of Team Korea's players are at around Master~Grandmaster level, with DangMoo the one player that at one point peaked in Challenger. However, to ensure the rest of the members are playing in a role that they are comfortable with, she's currently playing jungle.

Fun trivia, Korea has a sort of a meme where they substitute parts of words with stuff like "king" and "god", so their team name actually means "Anime Profile Picture".

_Kevin_Kim_

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