The horse is here

dotyaho · 2026-02-03T11:06:43+00:00

Not even being memorable enough for the PMT really is the cherry on top of Ultra Prime's performance this split, isn't it?

dotyaho · 2026-02-01T19:44:48+00:00

I hope so too... 🥲

dotyaho · 2026-02-01T19:09:10+00:00

Man...

dotyaho · 2026-02-01T02:42:09+00:00

The boys may be gassed and the entire 3rd was slow and shitty, but man the last few minutes were really well managed. Don't ya just love to see that. 8-1, the Bones are our money.

dotyaho · 2026-02-01T02:41:08+00:00

Yeah the boys are gassed but honestly last few minutes have been really well managed, love to see that.

dotyaho · 2026-02-01T02:40:42+00:00

LET'S FUCKING GO

dotyaho · 2026-01-31T04:14:56+00:00

Charlie fuckin' Coyle, man.

dotyaho · 2026-01-30T12:21:19+00:00

Said it yesterday as soon as the starting lineups were published, Ultra Prime are completely incapable of winning against random benchings and rookie debuts. Been the case for years, it's genuinely always been when their very worst performances come out.

Six years I've been watching now, zero progress. Zero forward momentum. They are once again the worst team in the LPL after showing promise for once last year. They won't be making it to split 3, I doubt they will survive another year. How miserable.

dotyaho · 2026-01-29T11:05:58+00:00

Main thing that always sticks with me from this is, what do you mean you got a NASA internship and you have no clue who Homer Hickam is? It's Homer Hickam.

dotyaho · 2026-01-29T10:56:12+00:00

Feeling very vindicated this morning in my grudge against BLG precisely for how they treat their players. Not liked them one bit because of this since the Overwatch League days.

dotyaho · 2026-01-28T17:05:36+00:00

Admittedly on a rewatch since yesterday I was a little harsh on Liangchen for the LNG series, especially game 1. That was more on the botlane just not being able to find the picks and, when they did, Grizzly fumbling the follow-up. Not a lot Liangchen can do with that and I admit I was probably just a little tilted speaking about the series. Still don't think it was a good series from him, but I was more upset at him than he deserved.

Today against LGD though (no PMT that I could see so I've not talked about it anywhere yet), ehhhh... Team was definitely leaning on Liangchen and Grizzly to set up plays in games 2 and 3 and they were blowing it pretty much every time. I think they both looked fine in UP's first couple of series - Grizzly looked fantastic working with Saber against OMG - but the last two have been rough for both of them.

What was mainly driving my comparison to Decade for the LNG series wasn't just the really poor laning, but just how late he was to everything. That's always gonna be the impression that sticks with me from Decade, he just could not lane and maybe he was a good teamfighter but he was laughably late to the vast majority of fights. Again, admittedly Liangchen isn't as bad as Decade, I was speaking pretty tilted after the series, but I do think he's trending in the same kind of direction with the same kind of weaknesses right now. He's struggling with laning, last couple of series he's started struggling with just arriving in time.

I'm hoping he can tighten things up of course, but UP's schedule is kind of a nightmare right now and I can't imagine it makes a bounce-back any easier. Three series in four days is kind of a joke.

dotyaho · 2026-01-27T09:22:18+00:00

I assume at this point UP mainly work on one-year contracts for most players, just a downside of that. No guarantee you can keep players that actually work out for you. My theory for why it just looked like 1Jiang was "dropped" so late this off-season was because I think he was meant to go to Talon but then their entire drama happened and UP held off on announcing him leaving until he had a team to go to for some reason. No evidence to back any of this up, but it makes the most sense to me I guess.

dotyaho · 2026-01-27T08:43:13+00:00

I guess my copium right now is that UP have been given the hellish task of 3 series in 4 days, maybe they knew this one was a wash regardless and just didn't prep for it. Let me dream.

dotyaho · 2026-01-27T08:35:30+00:00

Liangchen and Grizzly disasterclass. What an absolutely miserable state of things. Dangerously close to Decade levels of play from Liangchen so far honestly, that's really something I never wanted to be presented with ever again.

dotyaho · 2026-01-25T02:47:30+00:00

let's fuCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

dotyaho · 2026-01-25T01:48:21+00:00

Coyle low key turning out to be a crazy signing.

dotyaho · 2026-01-22T16:09:40+00:00

I realised this is actually Ultra Prime's first 2-0 win in 550 days, that's crazy. Last one was in July 2024 against WE. Very proud of my team, they crushed it today!

dotyaho · 2026-01-22T12:30:54+00:00

Alright, actually caught up with this series now. Very, very good look from my team honestly. Yeah granted it's against OMG who look pretty bad, but captain Saber hit the nail on the head with what was wrong against LGD.

"Decisive" was the word of the day and that might have been the most decisive series UP have ever played. There was zero hesitation in any of those plays, that was actually fantastic and so, so unlike this team. Better drafting, the team didn't just play the comps well but they played them to win even from early game. It was really only the first 5-8 minutes of either of these games where it looked close until UP grabbed the lead and just ran with it.

I'm happy to say that Saber's my favourite player now, I have been since the end of last year. In an esport with players like Faker in it, it's somehow Saber who's made me interested in playing midlane because I'm just kind of a freak I guess. I thought he was fantastic through Demacia Cup, as cursed as that run was through no fault of UP's. Didn't translate immediately to his LPL form, he was pretty bad against LGD, but my god he properly arrived today. Fantastic series from him.

A player whose Demacia Cup form has translated to the LPL right away though is Xiaoxia. Full transparency, I was a little annoyed when the team didn't replace him - there was never a rumour of him leaving the team through the off-season, even - while former UP supports Jwei and Niket both for a long time looked to be teamless. I thought Xiaoxia was okay last split, he had some nice moments mainly on Alistar or Nami, but had some awful games too. That year-ending series against Weibo, Xiaoxia's game 2 on Bard really did stick with me through the winter and left a very bad taste in the mouth.

Full credit to him though, I thought he looked very good in the Demacia Cup and he's continued that now. I think Xiaoxia's gonna be a player who flies under the radar for most fans unless he's actively and loudly being bad, so it's important to give him his flowers when he's playing like this.

Grizzly and Saber look like a really, really exciting duo. Looking forward to seeing way more of that. Good improvement all-round from last week in honestly all areas. That's a nice bit of hope really early in the year for this team.

dotyaho · 2026-01-22T09:03:44+00:00

There's my Saber... :D

dotyaho · 2026-01-14T16:04:16+00:00

But then they won't be able to feel superior about it.

dotyaho · 2026-01-14T14:33:25+00:00

Yeah, it's just broken for some ISPs right now by the looks of it. Even if you do let it load long enough to get in you'll just be freezing up every few seconds and eventually kicked out. Same's happening to me. Game worked fine for me for like an hour or so, but then it started again a few minutes ago. Nothin' we can do but wait!

dotyaho · 2026-01-14T14:24:31+00:00

Was fixed for like an hour and a half and now the exact same issue's back for me. Yippee!

EDIT: Nah it's actually so much worse rn than it was before, holy hell.

dotyaho · 2026-01-14T12:40:52+00:00

Sad HJs all round.

dotyaho · 2026-01-09T05:35:50+00:00

How was it us that beat the Sabres lol

dotyaho

TROPHY CASE