![LSXYZ9's tweet photo. So this tweet received an ungodly amount of vitriol and unprecedented amount of hate, and while I understand that deep analytical content is not good to post, I figured I'd make a big post regarding it. This isn't about who is right or wrong, it's about explaining why I made the tweet the way I did (while also acknowledging it's intentionally added hyperbole to stress a point).
While watching a draft live it's possible that one can entertain/think about a lot of different variables, such as assumed recall timers, assumed item purchases, assumed lane phases (based on currently demonstrated understandings at the highest levels). This ties in to being able to (within reason) predict how certain map/game states can often (not always) play out assuming things are going naturally (not 5 kills before 6minutes, or some lane getting FB early, or someone losing 3 waves of CS before minute 4 etc).
So with this in mind let's talk about certain things and also point out the gold of each champ:
Ambessa
13:13 → Eclipse (2900g)
21:22 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 5900 (ambessa also gets to cheat gold because she gets magical boots, so Sion will likely invest 45seconds of game timer into boots)
Wukong
13:13 → Trinity Force (3333g)
Second BlackCleaver (3000g)
Total: 6333g
Ryze
13:13 → Rod of Ages (2600g)
19:57 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
Total: 5600
~ Likely Zhonya → 2800 (450 more if armguard has been broken to reactivate the item, since the components are essentially the entire item)
Corki
13:52 → Trinity Force (3333g)
19:57 → Manamune (2900g)
Total: 6233g
~ likely Shojin → 3100g
Rakan
14:46 → Redemption (2300g)
-------------------
Sion
13:13 → Sunfire Aegis (2700g)
18:06 → Thornmail (2700g)
Total: 5400~
24:10 → Spirit Visage (3000g)
Xin Zhao
13:13 → Sundered Sky (3100g)
22:20 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 6100g
Taliyah
13:13 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
19:04 → Rylai's Crystal Scepter (2600g)
Total: 5600~
21:42 → Mejai's Soulstealer (1600g)
24:22 → Horizon Focus (2750g) (but this is a bad item and shouldn't even be built, it should be cryptbloom which is 3000)
Sivir
10:04 → Yun Tal Wildarrows (3000g)
19:11 → Infinity Edge (3400g)
Total: 6400~
22:06 → Navori Quickblades (2650g)
Alistar
13:13 → Redemption (2300g)
~
24:21 → Frozen Heart (2500g)
Above is the gold cost of the items that we know/assume (minus the mejais) the champions will build. If you follow-up on this, it's also important to note that the champions in question for PSG have an easier time achieving their gold breakpoints than the opponents. Ambessa for instance will often times have CS leads due to the nature of the matchup, and she is able to cheat 300g (which is 3 non-cannon waves, or roughly 110sec in game timer) compared to Sion.
Jungle is often going to be mirrored, and then moving to Taliyah/Ryze, it reaches a point where Ryze becomes "Faster" than Taliyah at doing the things he wants to do, due to him having to commit less. These are just things surrounding the champions without any regards to the players. Obviously later on in the game Taliyah can have her R, yes, but that has to have some kind of merit, and in this game the only merit it should practically have is at dragon fights.
Corki/Sivir build relatively similar items, Corki does self-stunt himself often with the purchase of a tear, but the issue is that Corki's first item spike is a lot stronger than Sivir's. TriForce/Tear vs Yuntal/XX favors Corki in early situations (1st through 3rd drake).
Moving on from this the whole reason to bring up early item things is because we have to ask ourselves what is most practical for the early game - and if you both understand item completion speeds and then also match-up dynamics, you get a picture that early should be favorable for PSG across the board. Both with laning and decisions that become available to them (surrounding drakes/voidgrubs). It's also further important to note that while powering into each champions second items, the recipe components are also more favorable for PSG champions, this can matter when discussing things like 2nd or 3rd dragon, where besides the innate base power of the champions being stronger, they're more likely to have better on-field combat stats. Again this is assuming the game goes naturally, and we know many games do.
Eventually the game reaches a point where Taliyah going Rylai's significantly stunts herself as she begins to power into the 3rd item. Sivir also has to make a decision on her 3rd item, and even in this game perhaps the IE was due to the way the game was going (she was extremely accelerated), but if she doesn't have pen items and taliyah is also building utility, they're trying to hit/damage damage as combo-centric champions into targets with 3~4000health not including eHP.
The other reason to bring up item completions and what that can mean is because of the way gold works in league of legends and gold accumulation. For the first 10 minutes of the game, minion movement speed is at 325, but at 10:01 it changes to 350, and then at 15minutes (in addition to flipping cannons spawning every other wave) it becomes 375. at 20minutes this becomes 400 and then lastly 425 at 25minutes
The reason for this detail importance is because the first item you ever purchase typically takes the most time to complete. This is oddly not the same for junglers however as they begin to give up camps, and depending on their champion actually stay static as they're confined to the static spawn timers of their camps. So while minion speed increases and thus causes things to run at each other quicker for faster consumption, in addition to cannons spawning more frequently and cannons increasing constantly in gold until 17:15 (at which point it caps at 90gold), Junglers witness an opposite effect take place. This is why notorious carry-junglers like Karthus, Shyvana, Tryndamere, Zyra, etc will actually sometimes start taking waves depending on who their lane champions are.
So when we are assessing certain jungle match-ups, we can know that certain jungle champions eventually become pretty static/forever stay the same post 2 items (minus getting t3 boots or GA, which is what a lot of the bruiser junglers do now). Some tank junglers can break this mold either by building enchanter items (due to less resource accumulation) outright or from the get go due to their kits innate value. This is why I believe even junglers like Ornn/Malphite/etc ought to exist but still currently don't due to social conformity bias in pro play.
Fast-forwarding this to why this matters for this specific game - It's because through the lane matchups, items, and team comps and how they blend together, it's A LOT easier for PSG to play. Their champions are innately stronger at various points of the game, and the things they're attempting to do allow them to "send it" at key targets on VKS while harboring less risk. We actually saw this at several points in the game despite the massive deficits.
"But taliyah/sivir have a frontline". No they don't, because we're talking about 2/3/4th dragon. Sivir is extremely weak vs wukong/rakan engage and ambessa can confirm reach her. It's not that Xin/etc aren't doing anything, it's that they practically shouldn't be able to do anything fast enough compared to their counterparts, because the DPS output from the opponents is significantly higher and thus their "joust" is superior. There is no discussing a frontline when PSG can just commit several things at the start of every fight to just eviscerating taliyah or sivir and then playing the remaining fight out from there.
In this comp people seem to think it's a front-to-back for VKS but it REALLY ISN'T. Sivir has absolutely no. Wukong R also cancels any alistar engages and Rakan can always just E to Wukong and break any spellshield always making it so Sivir needs a flash. Wukong/Ambessa engages are also equally death-sentenceable and extremely hard to play vs for VKS comp. Sivir is extremely hard to play in this game in normal circumstances and w/o being accelerated. Always being dependant on flash, and even that isn't a sure-fire way to survive because of how much 'reach' is in PSG comp. Taliyah / Xin can't dish out enough DPS fast enough at these stages of the game, which is the main problem.
I've attached some screenshots from the game and will briefly touch on each one:
#1 - Woody walks melee range into two spellcasters for 0 reason, allowing Trymbi to simply combo and get summoner advantages and firstblood for sivir. This puts her ahead of her curve by almost 2minutes in game timer, and this should never logically happen.
#2 - Sion is about to TP to the ward, and if that happens (PSG who have 3 voidgrubs) can choose to just back off and let ambessa get a cannon wave + 3 plates in top lane. Instead they opt to have Ambessa chase the TP and take a teamfight under variance and it results in them losing things that should never happen. Even in this freezeframe despite several early-advantages happening for VKS under unnatural conditions, the game state was still favorable for PSG and yet they continued to punt it.
#3 PSG teleport up Ryze to fight a rift herald they should never be fighting, instead of letting him stay bottom and just farm waves/deal damage to turrets and farm their jungle camps. VKS have moved everyone to the herald and again PSG opt into a volatile fight with variance because they want to contest a rift herald which won't alter the game in any dramatic way if it's just taken and then crashed normally. Riftherald gives 309exp and 100g, upon death it also gives the same exp and then 25g back to the opponents. This has been of the most biggest bastard objectives that has been grossly misunderstood for almost 6 years now that pro teams continue to overvalue and grossly exagerrate it's importance without contextualizing it. Ryze would get an equal amount of exp and more gold by staying bottom lol. This reminds me of how no one froze waves from 2018~2024 but now in a season which riot nerfed freezing and atakhan exists people freeze more often and will simultaneously claim atakhan exp is important (4head). PSG lose this fight horribly because they're out of position and have to do way more than VKS to have a chance in the fight. It's an example of a team taking a low%-big% swing fight instead of allowing rift to just be taken/crashed which would move the % winchance probability needle barely for VKS.
#4 PSG with no objective up, a teleportless ryze, aand almost having completed items for major champions elects to take a fight in red side. Truthfully however this is an example on how Sivir was almost blown out completely but Azhi is too slow on the trigger. While macro wise this is a horrendous decision for PSG to even be "looking" for it, it does go to show how quickly/instantly PSG despite a deficit could still find ways to just delete a major point of contention away from VKS. Alistar/Xin/Sion are hardpressed to stop things like this, because the very nature of the comps means PSG has faster jousts. The other thing this screenshot shows is that despite all the absolute tragedies for PSG this entire game, most of the cs scores across the entire board remain either even or even in favor of PSG - and this points back to the general nature of the matchups, so imagine what happens in an "even" game or one which PSG hadn't continuously opted into unfavorable fights and lost them several times leading up to this.
There are more screenshots I'd love to include but unfortunately twitter caps at 4.
There are usually a few common things people will say to me and claim I'm doing things too "theoretical", but that isn't what's happening in an instance like this, because these things have been demonstrated and can be, and it's about what is more 'practical'. If we use pragmatic reasoning to reach conclusions on what ought to/could/should happen, then you advance and push things. If you can try to make something 60% instead of 55%, you should. If you can make something 70% or 80% simply by waiting, you should.
"Human error" or "Players make mistakes" - Yes absolutely, but you, nor I, nor anyone can ever predict where/when/and how those mistakes will occur, so it is pointless to try to both predict them and concern ourselves with them. It's more likely than Ryze can/will play 10minutes without a death than to worry about the scenarios in which he does due to human error or something else. One side attempts to play on the probability side of things, without concern about the very obvious reality that mistakes/errors could unfold.
Most players should be able to empathize with the idea of a very favored match-up they enjoy playing. One they might think "I'm so favored" or "This is how the lane will go". And yet, we know, sometimes they die early. A gank might happen, or they miss a skill shot or just minion RNG or osmething. But that would never, and should never change what they know to be true about the matchup. We know this about something like Cassiopeia vs Sylas ; or Sett vs Cho'Gath. These are extremely brutal lanes, but it is wrong to say that Cassio wins 100% of the time, or that Cho'Gath loses 100% of the time - Because sometimes mistakes and human error do occur and even such brutal matchups are lost. But that has [NOTHING TO DO] with the baseline thoughts and what [does] happen in the mass majority of cases. And that's how situations should be approached.
Regardless, generally whenever I'm streaming or making tweets etc - there is a degree of added hyperbole for spectacle and effect. Everyone does this, it's normal. Obviously with me I'm a bit more extreme with it because I think it's frustrating people don't stress things enough that are demonstrable and as a scene people are oddly content with things being 60/40 when you can just get 70/30 or 80/20's by deploying a little bit more thought and effort.
Regarding the tweet - The above things about Wu/Rakan become true on almost any ADC that you can pick in R5, hence the comment about R4 Alistar condemning their draft to be disadvantaged (70/30 still means the 30 wins in 30 scenarios, it does not mean PSG win 100% of the time. And when discussing what happens in the 30% scenarios, you realize it's not through the autonomy of the VKS draft, rather playing off unaccounted for variables).
I think professional LoL teams and players especially (even doing this thought-experiment w/ some pros on my costream the last week) has an obsession with voluntarily opting into 60/40 or 55-45 scenarios, when they can simply create 70/30 or 80/20 scenarios by simply *waiting* or doing nothing. The game whether people like it or not does still have human error and mistakes, and thus there are probability questions that pros should be asking themselves, but you can't blame them for not doing so because this kind of skill and thought process isn't one the game stresses as a means to get an edge (such as TCG or an RTS game would). Getting herald for example and crashing it into a turret upon no-contest in a stable game state likely does something like moving the probability win% up by 1 or 2%. However taking a 55-45 or 60/40 herald fight and LOSING it will cause you to swing 10~20% in likelihood. These numbers are obviously made up currently, but the point remains. Perhaps my frustration from these types of things stems from my history in pro starcraft or playing poker and even tcgs at the pro level.
To wrap up the above point and a way that also drove discussion on a different instance that occurred at worlds - There was a instance where Inspired on J4 on the left side of the map tried to dodge a ton of skillshots instead of using his flash and it resulted in him dying, but both drake and herald were in 1minute. What is more likely - That his flash creates a higher probability chance to win the dragon or him using flash to survive? Obviously most people would be able to agree the summoner spell is going to produce a higher likelihood to win, and thus we can determine he should never use the flash. Yet people criticized him for not flashing - A misunderstanding on probability.
Bad ideas that work out fine do not turn to good ideas simply on the basis that they worked. Nor ideas that can be ignored; or in this instance "VKS can win with a bad draft, but it doesn't mean the draft was irrelevant or even good. A mistake remains a mistake and should be pointed out, especially when you have the full ability to prevent it.
Also to wrap this up, there is an entire chance I'm wrong on my belief of what is 'more likely' (thus creating numbers like 70/30 ; 80/20 ; 60/40 etc) based on the variables at play regarding the champions and their lanes. And if that is the case it should be demonstrated or explained as such in ways that haven't already been demonstrated at a high volume, but also in addition to asking what the alternatives are even when watching still-frames in isolation.
As a closing point (and because the unfortunate sad reality of how many people form their opinions within the scene) I also actively reached out to over a dozen different pro players including some playing at the tournament to ask their thoughts on the draft. Everyone seemed to have PSG favored for the same reasons and lack of VKS champs ability to do damage rather than being forced to respond/run. This IS NOT meant to be an argument to support myself or anything, rather I sought out people who would actively argue for the other side in a meaningful conversation and I couldn't find one. People claimed some costreamers also favored VKS draft, but I didn't find anything to support that. The only things I saw were unfortunately lower tier pros or high mmr soloq people echoing the same mindless sentiment about bUt SiOn Th0. Or saying Taliyah deals a lot of damage because she often can have high damage charts (which doesn't mean she deals a lot of damage in isolated scenarios, rather it can be a build up over the entire course of the game).
The other thing is twitter/even videos is never a medium for long discussions or anything (unless the person wants to), and due to all the vitriol over past years I also don't even really enjoy discussions like this much anymore w/ the public (see the hexplate thing for instance). Not even just myself, but I see other fellow edu people receive flame/etc as well and it ultimately all comes down to one thing - The people reacting/reading/etc either have decided they like you = you're right, or they don't like you = you're wrong. Rarely does analytical things get met analytical reasoning, or if it does it's extremely surface level and the conversation often ends up at a standstill of surface level exchanges.
You probably didn't read to this point or you skipped to it. Hello.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G3yxnmdXIAAL4eV.jpg)
![LSXYZ9's tweet photo. So this tweet received an ungodly amount of vitriol and unprecedented amount of hate, and while I understand that deep analytical content is not good to post, I figured I'd make a big post regarding it. This isn't about who is right or wrong, it's about explaining why I made the tweet the way I did (while also acknowledging it's intentionally added hyperbole to stress a point).
While watching a draft live it's possible that one can entertain/think about a lot of different variables, such as assumed recall timers, assumed item purchases, assumed lane phases (based on currently demonstrated understandings at the highest levels). This ties in to being able to (within reason) predict how certain map/game states can often (not always) play out assuming things are going naturally (not 5 kills before 6minutes, or some lane getting FB early, or someone losing 3 waves of CS before minute 4 etc).
So with this in mind let's talk about certain things and also point out the gold of each champ:
Ambessa
13:13 → Eclipse (2900g)
21:22 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 5900 (ambessa also gets to cheat gold because she gets magical boots, so Sion will likely invest 45seconds of game timer into boots)
Wukong
13:13 → Trinity Force (3333g)
Second BlackCleaver (3000g)
Total: 6333g
Ryze
13:13 → Rod of Ages (2600g)
19:57 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
Total: 5600
~ Likely Zhonya → 2800 (450 more if armguard has been broken to reactivate the item, since the components are essentially the entire item)
Corki
13:52 → Trinity Force (3333g)
19:57 → Manamune (2900g)
Total: 6233g
~ likely Shojin → 3100g
Rakan
14:46 → Redemption (2300g)
-------------------
Sion
13:13 → Sunfire Aegis (2700g)
18:06 → Thornmail (2700g)
Total: 5400~
24:10 → Spirit Visage (3000g)
Xin Zhao
13:13 → Sundered Sky (3100g)
22:20 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 6100g
Taliyah
13:13 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
19:04 → Rylai's Crystal Scepter (2600g)
Total: 5600~
21:42 → Mejai's Soulstealer (1600g)
24:22 → Horizon Focus (2750g) (but this is a bad item and shouldn't even be built, it should be cryptbloom which is 3000)
Sivir
10:04 → Yun Tal Wildarrows (3000g)
19:11 → Infinity Edge (3400g)
Total: 6400~
22:06 → Navori Quickblades (2650g)
Alistar
13:13 → Redemption (2300g)
~
24:21 → Frozen Heart (2500g)
Above is the gold cost of the items that we know/assume (minus the mejais) the champions will build. If you follow-up on this, it's also important to note that the champions in question for PSG have an easier time achieving their gold breakpoints than the opponents. Ambessa for instance will often times have CS leads due to the nature of the matchup, and she is able to cheat 300g (which is 3 non-cannon waves, or roughly 110sec in game timer) compared to Sion.
Jungle is often going to be mirrored, and then moving to Taliyah/Ryze, it reaches a point where Ryze becomes "Faster" than Taliyah at doing the things he wants to do, due to him having to commit less. These are just things surrounding the champions without any regards to the players. Obviously later on in the game Taliyah can have her R, yes, but that has to have some kind of merit, and in this game the only merit it should practically have is at dragon fights.
Corki/Sivir build relatively similar items, Corki does self-stunt himself often with the purchase of a tear, but the issue is that Corki's first item spike is a lot stronger than Sivir's. TriForce/Tear vs Yuntal/XX favors Corki in early situations (1st through 3rd drake).
Moving on from this the whole reason to bring up early item things is because we have to ask ourselves what is most practical for the early game - and if you both understand item completion speeds and then also match-up dynamics, you get a picture that early should be favorable for PSG across the board. Both with laning and decisions that become available to them (surrounding drakes/voidgrubs). It's also further important to note that while powering into each champions second items, the recipe components are also more favorable for PSG champions, this can matter when discussing things like 2nd or 3rd dragon, where besides the innate base power of the champions being stronger, they're more likely to have better on-field combat stats. Again this is assuming the game goes naturally, and we know many games do.
Eventually the game reaches a point where Taliyah going Rylai's significantly stunts herself as she begins to power into the 3rd item. Sivir also has to make a decision on her 3rd item, and even in this game perhaps the IE was due to the way the game was going (she was extremely accelerated), but if she doesn't have pen items and taliyah is also building utility, they're trying to hit/damage damage as combo-centric champions into targets with 3~4000health not including eHP.
The other reason to bring up item completions and what that can mean is because of the way gold works in league of legends and gold accumulation. For the first 10 minutes of the game, minion movement speed is at 325, but at 10:01 it changes to 350, and then at 15minutes (in addition to flipping cannons spawning every other wave) it becomes 375. at 20minutes this becomes 400 and then lastly 425 at 25minutes
The reason for this detail importance is because the first item you ever purchase typically takes the most time to complete. This is oddly not the same for junglers however as they begin to give up camps, and depending on their champion actually stay static as they're confined to the static spawn timers of their camps. So while minion speed increases and thus causes things to run at each other quicker for faster consumption, in addition to cannons spawning more frequently and cannons increasing constantly in gold until 17:15 (at which point it caps at 90gold), Junglers witness an opposite effect take place. This is why notorious carry-junglers like Karthus, Shyvana, Tryndamere, Zyra, etc will actually sometimes start taking waves depending on who their lane champions are.
So when we are assessing certain jungle match-ups, we can know that certain jungle champions eventually become pretty static/forever stay the same post 2 items (minus getting t3 boots or GA, which is what a lot of the bruiser junglers do now). Some tank junglers can break this mold either by building enchanter items (due to less resource accumulation) outright or from the get go due to their kits innate value. This is why I believe even junglers like Ornn/Malphite/etc ought to exist but still currently don't due to social conformity bias in pro play.
Fast-forwarding this to why this matters for this specific game - It's because through the lane matchups, items, and team comps and how they blend together, it's A LOT easier for PSG to play. Their champions are innately stronger at various points of the game, and the things they're attempting to do allow them to "send it" at key targets on VKS while harboring less risk. We actually saw this at several points in the game despite the massive deficits.
"But taliyah/sivir have a frontline". No they don't, because we're talking about 2/3/4th dragon. Sivir is extremely weak vs wukong/rakan engage and ambessa can confirm reach her. It's not that Xin/etc aren't doing anything, it's that they practically shouldn't be able to do anything fast enough compared to their counterparts, because the DPS output from the opponents is significantly higher and thus their "joust" is superior. There is no discussing a frontline when PSG can just commit several things at the start of every fight to just eviscerating taliyah or sivir and then playing the remaining fight out from there.
In this comp people seem to think it's a front-to-back for VKS but it REALLY ISN'T. Sivir has absolutely no. Wukong R also cancels any alistar engages and Rakan can always just E to Wukong and break any spellshield always making it so Sivir needs a flash. Wukong/Ambessa engages are also equally death-sentenceable and extremely hard to play vs for VKS comp. Sivir is extremely hard to play in this game in normal circumstances and w/o being accelerated. Always being dependant on flash, and even that isn't a sure-fire way to survive because of how much 'reach' is in PSG comp. Taliyah / Xin can't dish out enough DPS fast enough at these stages of the game, which is the main problem.
I've attached some screenshots from the game and will briefly touch on each one:
#1 - Woody walks melee range into two spellcasters for 0 reason, allowing Trymbi to simply combo and get summoner advantages and firstblood for sivir. This puts her ahead of her curve by almost 2minutes in game timer, and this should never logically happen.
#2 - Sion is about to TP to the ward, and if that happens (PSG who have 3 voidgrubs) can choose to just back off and let ambessa get a cannon wave + 3 plates in top lane. Instead they opt to have Ambessa chase the TP and take a teamfight under variance and it results in them losing things that should never happen. Even in this freezeframe despite several early-advantages happening for VKS under unnatural conditions, the game state was still favorable for PSG and yet they continued to punt it.
#3 PSG teleport up Ryze to fight a rift herald they should never be fighting, instead of letting him stay bottom and just farm waves/deal damage to turrets and farm their jungle camps. VKS have moved everyone to the herald and again PSG opt into a volatile fight with variance because they want to contest a rift herald which won't alter the game in any dramatic way if it's just taken and then crashed normally. Riftherald gives 309exp and 100g, upon death it also gives the same exp and then 25g back to the opponents. This has been of the most biggest bastard objectives that has been grossly misunderstood for almost 6 years now that pro teams continue to overvalue and grossly exagerrate it's importance without contextualizing it. Ryze would get an equal amount of exp and more gold by staying bottom lol. This reminds me of how no one froze waves from 2018~2024 but now in a season which riot nerfed freezing and atakhan exists people freeze more often and will simultaneously claim atakhan exp is important (4head). PSG lose this fight horribly because they're out of position and have to do way more than VKS to have a chance in the fight. It's an example of a team taking a low%-big% swing fight instead of allowing rift to just be taken/crashed which would move the % winchance probability needle barely for VKS.
#4 PSG with no objective up, a teleportless ryze, aand almost having completed items for major champions elects to take a fight in red side. Truthfully however this is an example on how Sivir was almost blown out completely but Azhi is too slow on the trigger. While macro wise this is a horrendous decision for PSG to even be "looking" for it, it does go to show how quickly/instantly PSG despite a deficit could still find ways to just delete a major point of contention away from VKS. Alistar/Xin/Sion are hardpressed to stop things like this, because the very nature of the comps means PSG has faster jousts. The other thing this screenshot shows is that despite all the absolute tragedies for PSG this entire game, most of the cs scores across the entire board remain either even or even in favor of PSG - and this points back to the general nature of the matchups, so imagine what happens in an "even" game or one which PSG hadn't continuously opted into unfavorable fights and lost them several times leading up to this.
There are more screenshots I'd love to include but unfortunately twitter caps at 4.
There are usually a few common things people will say to me and claim I'm doing things too "theoretical", but that isn't what's happening in an instance like this, because these things have been demonstrated and can be, and it's about what is more 'practical'. If we use pragmatic reasoning to reach conclusions on what ought to/could/should happen, then you advance and push things. If you can try to make something 60% instead of 55%, you should. If you can make something 70% or 80% simply by waiting, you should.
"Human error" or "Players make mistakes" - Yes absolutely, but you, nor I, nor anyone can ever predict where/when/and how those mistakes will occur, so it is pointless to try to both predict them and concern ourselves with them. It's more likely than Ryze can/will play 10minutes without a death than to worry about the scenarios in which he does due to human error or something else. One side attempts to play on the probability side of things, without concern about the very obvious reality that mistakes/errors could unfold.
Most players should be able to empathize with the idea of a very favored match-up they enjoy playing. One they might think "I'm so favored" or "This is how the lane will go". And yet, we know, sometimes they die early. A gank might happen, or they miss a skill shot or just minion RNG or osmething. But that would never, and should never change what they know to be true about the matchup. We know this about something like Cassiopeia vs Sylas ; or Sett vs Cho'Gath. These are extremely brutal lanes, but it is wrong to say that Cassio wins 100% of the time, or that Cho'Gath loses 100% of the time - Because sometimes mistakes and human error do occur and even such brutal matchups are lost. But that has [NOTHING TO DO] with the baseline thoughts and what [does] happen in the mass majority of cases. And that's how situations should be approached.
Regardless, generally whenever I'm streaming or making tweets etc - there is a degree of added hyperbole for spectacle and effect. Everyone does this, it's normal. Obviously with me I'm a bit more extreme with it because I think it's frustrating people don't stress things enough that are demonstrable and as a scene people are oddly content with things being 60/40 when you can just get 70/30 or 80/20's by deploying a little bit more thought and effort.
Regarding the tweet - The above things about Wu/Rakan become true on almost any ADC that you can pick in R5, hence the comment about R4 Alistar condemning their draft to be disadvantaged (70/30 still means the 30 wins in 30 scenarios, it does not mean PSG win 100% of the time. And when discussing what happens in the 30% scenarios, you realize it's not through the autonomy of the VKS draft, rather playing off unaccounted for variables).
I think professional LoL teams and players especially (even doing this thought-experiment w/ some pros on my costream the last week) has an obsession with voluntarily opting into 60/40 or 55-45 scenarios, when they can simply create 70/30 or 80/20 scenarios by simply *waiting* or doing nothing. The game whether people like it or not does still have human error and mistakes, and thus there are probability questions that pros should be asking themselves, but you can't blame them for not doing so because this kind of skill and thought process isn't one the game stresses as a means to get an edge (such as TCG or an RTS game would). Getting herald for example and crashing it into a turret upon no-contest in a stable game state likely does something like moving the probability win% up by 1 or 2%. However taking a 55-45 or 60/40 herald fight and LOSING it will cause you to swing 10~20% in likelihood. These numbers are obviously made up currently, but the point remains. Perhaps my frustration from these types of things stems from my history in pro starcraft or playing poker and even tcgs at the pro level.
To wrap up the above point and a way that also drove discussion on a different instance that occurred at worlds - There was a instance where Inspired on J4 on the left side of the map tried to dodge a ton of skillshots instead of using his flash and it resulted in him dying, but both drake and herald were in 1minute. What is more likely - That his flash creates a higher probability chance to win the dragon or him using flash to survive? Obviously most people would be able to agree the summoner spell is going to produce a higher likelihood to win, and thus we can determine he should never use the flash. Yet people criticized him for not flashing - A misunderstanding on probability.
Bad ideas that work out fine do not turn to good ideas simply on the basis that they worked. Nor ideas that can be ignored; or in this instance "VKS can win with a bad draft, but it doesn't mean the draft was irrelevant or even good. A mistake remains a mistake and should be pointed out, especially when you have the full ability to prevent it.
Also to wrap this up, there is an entire chance I'm wrong on my belief of what is 'more likely' (thus creating numbers like 70/30 ; 80/20 ; 60/40 etc) based on the variables at play regarding the champions and their lanes. And if that is the case it should be demonstrated or explained as such in ways that haven't already been demonstrated at a high volume, but also in addition to asking what the alternatives are even when watching still-frames in isolation.
As a closing point (and because the unfortunate sad reality of how many people form their opinions within the scene) I also actively reached out to over a dozen different pro players including some playing at the tournament to ask their thoughts on the draft. Everyone seemed to have PSG favored for the same reasons and lack of VKS champs ability to do damage rather than being forced to respond/run. This IS NOT meant to be an argument to support myself or anything, rather I sought out people who would actively argue for the other side in a meaningful conversation and I couldn't find one. People claimed some costreamers also favored VKS draft, but I didn't find anything to support that. The only things I saw were unfortunately lower tier pros or high mmr soloq people echoing the same mindless sentiment about bUt SiOn Th0. Or saying Taliyah deals a lot of damage because she often can have high damage charts (which doesn't mean she deals a lot of damage in isolated scenarios, rather it can be a build up over the entire course of the game).
The other thing is twitter/even videos is never a medium for long discussions or anything (unless the person wants to), and due to all the vitriol over past years I also don't even really enjoy discussions like this much anymore w/ the public (see the hexplate thing for instance). Not even just myself, but I see other fellow edu people receive flame/etc as well and it ultimately all comes down to one thing - The people reacting/reading/etc either have decided they like you = you're right, or they don't like you = you're wrong. Rarely does analytical things get met analytical reasoning, or if it does it's extremely surface level and the conversation often ends up at a standstill of surface level exchanges.
You probably didn't read to this point or you skipped to it. Hello.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G3yw2vcWAAAbLC6.jpg)
![LSXYZ9's tweet photo. So this tweet received an ungodly amount of vitriol and unprecedented amount of hate, and while I understand that deep analytical content is not good to post, I figured I'd make a big post regarding it. This isn't about who is right or wrong, it's about explaining why I made the tweet the way I did (while also acknowledging it's intentionally added hyperbole to stress a point).
While watching a draft live it's possible that one can entertain/think about a lot of different variables, such as assumed recall timers, assumed item purchases, assumed lane phases (based on currently demonstrated understandings at the highest levels). This ties in to being able to (within reason) predict how certain map/game states can often (not always) play out assuming things are going naturally (not 5 kills before 6minutes, or some lane getting FB early, or someone losing 3 waves of CS before minute 4 etc).
So with this in mind let's talk about certain things and also point out the gold of each champ:
Ambessa
13:13 → Eclipse (2900g)
21:22 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 5900 (ambessa also gets to cheat gold because she gets magical boots, so Sion will likely invest 45seconds of game timer into boots)
Wukong
13:13 → Trinity Force (3333g)
Second BlackCleaver (3000g)
Total: 6333g
Ryze
13:13 → Rod of Ages (2600g)
19:57 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
Total: 5600
~ Likely Zhonya → 2800 (450 more if armguard has been broken to reactivate the item, since the components are essentially the entire item)
Corki
13:52 → Trinity Force (3333g)
19:57 → Manamune (2900g)
Total: 6233g
~ likely Shojin → 3100g
Rakan
14:46 → Redemption (2300g)
-------------------
Sion
13:13 → Sunfire Aegis (2700g)
18:06 → Thornmail (2700g)
Total: 5400~
24:10 → Spirit Visage (3000g)
Xin Zhao
13:13 → Sundered Sky (3100g)
22:20 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 6100g
Taliyah
13:13 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
19:04 → Rylai's Crystal Scepter (2600g)
Total: 5600~
21:42 → Mejai's Soulstealer (1600g)
24:22 → Horizon Focus (2750g) (but this is a bad item and shouldn't even be built, it should be cryptbloom which is 3000)
Sivir
10:04 → Yun Tal Wildarrows (3000g)
19:11 → Infinity Edge (3400g)
Total: 6400~
22:06 → Navori Quickblades (2650g)
Alistar
13:13 → Redemption (2300g)
~
24:21 → Frozen Heart (2500g)
Above is the gold cost of the items that we know/assume (minus the mejais) the champions will build. If you follow-up on this, it's also important to note that the champions in question for PSG have an easier time achieving their gold breakpoints than the opponents. Ambessa for instance will often times have CS leads due to the nature of the matchup, and she is able to cheat 300g (which is 3 non-cannon waves, or roughly 110sec in game timer) compared to Sion.
Jungle is often going to be mirrored, and then moving to Taliyah/Ryze, it reaches a point where Ryze becomes "Faster" than Taliyah at doing the things he wants to do, due to him having to commit less. These are just things surrounding the champions without any regards to the players. Obviously later on in the game Taliyah can have her R, yes, but that has to have some kind of merit, and in this game the only merit it should practically have is at dragon fights.
Corki/Sivir build relatively similar items, Corki does self-stunt himself often with the purchase of a tear, but the issue is that Corki's first item spike is a lot stronger than Sivir's. TriForce/Tear vs Yuntal/XX favors Corki in early situations (1st through 3rd drake).
Moving on from this the whole reason to bring up early item things is because we have to ask ourselves what is most practical for the early game - and if you both understand item completion speeds and then also match-up dynamics, you get a picture that early should be favorable for PSG across the board. Both with laning and decisions that become available to them (surrounding drakes/voidgrubs). It's also further important to note that while powering into each champions second items, the recipe components are also more favorable for PSG champions, this can matter when discussing things like 2nd or 3rd dragon, where besides the innate base power of the champions being stronger, they're more likely to have better on-field combat stats. Again this is assuming the game goes naturally, and we know many games do.
Eventually the game reaches a point where Taliyah going Rylai's significantly stunts herself as she begins to power into the 3rd item. Sivir also has to make a decision on her 3rd item, and even in this game perhaps the IE was due to the way the game was going (she was extremely accelerated), but if she doesn't have pen items and taliyah is also building utility, they're trying to hit/damage damage as combo-centric champions into targets with 3~4000health not including eHP.
The other reason to bring up item completions and what that can mean is because of the way gold works in league of legends and gold accumulation. For the first 10 minutes of the game, minion movement speed is at 325, but at 10:01 it changes to 350, and then at 15minutes (in addition to flipping cannons spawning every other wave) it becomes 375. at 20minutes this becomes 400 and then lastly 425 at 25minutes
The reason for this detail importance is because the first item you ever purchase typically takes the most time to complete. This is oddly not the same for junglers however as they begin to give up camps, and depending on their champion actually stay static as they're confined to the static spawn timers of their camps. So while minion speed increases and thus causes things to run at each other quicker for faster consumption, in addition to cannons spawning more frequently and cannons increasing constantly in gold until 17:15 (at which point it caps at 90gold), Junglers witness an opposite effect take place. This is why notorious carry-junglers like Karthus, Shyvana, Tryndamere, Zyra, etc will actually sometimes start taking waves depending on who their lane champions are.
So when we are assessing certain jungle match-ups, we can know that certain jungle champions eventually become pretty static/forever stay the same post 2 items (minus getting t3 boots or GA, which is what a lot of the bruiser junglers do now). Some tank junglers can break this mold either by building enchanter items (due to less resource accumulation) outright or from the get go due to their kits innate value. This is why I believe even junglers like Ornn/Malphite/etc ought to exist but still currently don't due to social conformity bias in pro play.
Fast-forwarding this to why this matters for this specific game - It's because through the lane matchups, items, and team comps and how they blend together, it's A LOT easier for PSG to play. Their champions are innately stronger at various points of the game, and the things they're attempting to do allow them to "send it" at key targets on VKS while harboring less risk. We actually saw this at several points in the game despite the massive deficits.
"But taliyah/sivir have a frontline". No they don't, because we're talking about 2/3/4th dragon. Sivir is extremely weak vs wukong/rakan engage and ambessa can confirm reach her. It's not that Xin/etc aren't doing anything, it's that they practically shouldn't be able to do anything fast enough compared to their counterparts, because the DPS output from the opponents is significantly higher and thus their "joust" is superior. There is no discussing a frontline when PSG can just commit several things at the start of every fight to just eviscerating taliyah or sivir and then playing the remaining fight out from there.
In this comp people seem to think it's a front-to-back for VKS but it REALLY ISN'T. Sivir has absolutely no. Wukong R also cancels any alistar engages and Rakan can always just E to Wukong and break any spellshield always making it so Sivir needs a flash. Wukong/Ambessa engages are also equally death-sentenceable and extremely hard to play vs for VKS comp. Sivir is extremely hard to play in this game in normal circumstances and w/o being accelerated. Always being dependant on flash, and even that isn't a sure-fire way to survive because of how much 'reach' is in PSG comp. Taliyah / Xin can't dish out enough DPS fast enough at these stages of the game, which is the main problem.
I've attached some screenshots from the game and will briefly touch on each one:
#1 - Woody walks melee range into two spellcasters for 0 reason, allowing Trymbi to simply combo and get summoner advantages and firstblood for sivir. This puts her ahead of her curve by almost 2minutes in game timer, and this should never logically happen.
#2 - Sion is about to TP to the ward, and if that happens (PSG who have 3 voidgrubs) can choose to just back off and let ambessa get a cannon wave + 3 plates in top lane. Instead they opt to have Ambessa chase the TP and take a teamfight under variance and it results in them losing things that should never happen. Even in this freezeframe despite several early-advantages happening for VKS under unnatural conditions, the game state was still favorable for PSG and yet they continued to punt it.
#3 PSG teleport up Ryze to fight a rift herald they should never be fighting, instead of letting him stay bottom and just farm waves/deal damage to turrets and farm their jungle camps. VKS have moved everyone to the herald and again PSG opt into a volatile fight with variance because they want to contest a rift herald which won't alter the game in any dramatic way if it's just taken and then crashed normally. Riftherald gives 309exp and 100g, upon death it also gives the same exp and then 25g back to the opponents. This has been of the most biggest bastard objectives that has been grossly misunderstood for almost 6 years now that pro teams continue to overvalue and grossly exagerrate it's importance without contextualizing it. Ryze would get an equal amount of exp and more gold by staying bottom lol. This reminds me of how no one froze waves from 2018~2024 but now in a season which riot nerfed freezing and atakhan exists people freeze more often and will simultaneously claim atakhan exp is important (4head). PSG lose this fight horribly because they're out of position and have to do way more than VKS to have a chance in the fight. It's an example of a team taking a low%-big% swing fight instead of allowing rift to just be taken/crashed which would move the % winchance probability needle barely for VKS.
#4 PSG with no objective up, a teleportless ryze, aand almost having completed items for major champions elects to take a fight in red side. Truthfully however this is an example on how Sivir was almost blown out completely but Azhi is too slow on the trigger. While macro wise this is a horrendous decision for PSG to even be "looking" for it, it does go to show how quickly/instantly PSG despite a deficit could still find ways to just delete a major point of contention away from VKS. Alistar/Xin/Sion are hardpressed to stop things like this, because the very nature of the comps means PSG has faster jousts. The other thing this screenshot shows is that despite all the absolute tragedies for PSG this entire game, most of the cs scores across the entire board remain either even or even in favor of PSG - and this points back to the general nature of the matchups, so imagine what happens in an "even" game or one which PSG hadn't continuously opted into unfavorable fights and lost them several times leading up to this.
There are more screenshots I'd love to include but unfortunately twitter caps at 4.
There are usually a few common things people will say to me and claim I'm doing things too "theoretical", but that isn't what's happening in an instance like this, because these things have been demonstrated and can be, and it's about what is more 'practical'. If we use pragmatic reasoning to reach conclusions on what ought to/could/should happen, then you advance and push things. If you can try to make something 60% instead of 55%, you should. If you can make something 70% or 80% simply by waiting, you should.
"Human error" or "Players make mistakes" - Yes absolutely, but you, nor I, nor anyone can ever predict where/when/and how those mistakes will occur, so it is pointless to try to both predict them and concern ourselves with them. It's more likely than Ryze can/will play 10minutes without a death than to worry about the scenarios in which he does due to human error or something else. One side attempts to play on the probability side of things, without concern about the very obvious reality that mistakes/errors could unfold.
Most players should be able to empathize with the idea of a very favored match-up they enjoy playing. One they might think "I'm so favored" or "This is how the lane will go". And yet, we know, sometimes they die early. A gank might happen, or they miss a skill shot or just minion RNG or osmething. But that would never, and should never change what they know to be true about the matchup. We know this about something like Cassiopeia vs Sylas ; or Sett vs Cho'Gath. These are extremely brutal lanes, but it is wrong to say that Cassio wins 100% of the time, or that Cho'Gath loses 100% of the time - Because sometimes mistakes and human error do occur and even such brutal matchups are lost. But that has [NOTHING TO DO] with the baseline thoughts and what [does] happen in the mass majority of cases. And that's how situations should be approached.
Regardless, generally whenever I'm streaming or making tweets etc - there is a degree of added hyperbole for spectacle and effect. Everyone does this, it's normal. Obviously with me I'm a bit more extreme with it because I think it's frustrating people don't stress things enough that are demonstrable and as a scene people are oddly content with things being 60/40 when you can just get 70/30 or 80/20's by deploying a little bit more thought and effort.
Regarding the tweet - The above things about Wu/Rakan become true on almost any ADC that you can pick in R5, hence the comment about R4 Alistar condemning their draft to be disadvantaged (70/30 still means the 30 wins in 30 scenarios, it does not mean PSG win 100% of the time. And when discussing what happens in the 30% scenarios, you realize it's not through the autonomy of the VKS draft, rather playing off unaccounted for variables).
I think professional LoL teams and players especially (even doing this thought-experiment w/ some pros on my costream the last week) has an obsession with voluntarily opting into 60/40 or 55-45 scenarios, when they can simply create 70/30 or 80/20 scenarios by simply *waiting* or doing nothing. The game whether people like it or not does still have human error and mistakes, and thus there are probability questions that pros should be asking themselves, but you can't blame them for not doing so because this kind of skill and thought process isn't one the game stresses as a means to get an edge (such as TCG or an RTS game would). Getting herald for example and crashing it into a turret upon no-contest in a stable game state likely does something like moving the probability win% up by 1 or 2%. However taking a 55-45 or 60/40 herald fight and LOSING it will cause you to swing 10~20% in likelihood. These numbers are obviously made up currently, but the point remains. Perhaps my frustration from these types of things stems from my history in pro starcraft or playing poker and even tcgs at the pro level.
To wrap up the above point and a way that also drove discussion on a different instance that occurred at worlds - There was a instance where Inspired on J4 on the left side of the map tried to dodge a ton of skillshots instead of using his flash and it resulted in him dying, but both drake and herald were in 1minute. What is more likely - That his flash creates a higher probability chance to win the dragon or him using flash to survive? Obviously most people would be able to agree the summoner spell is going to produce a higher likelihood to win, and thus we can determine he should never use the flash. Yet people criticized him for not flashing - A misunderstanding on probability.
Bad ideas that work out fine do not turn to good ideas simply on the basis that they worked. Nor ideas that can be ignored; or in this instance "VKS can win with a bad draft, but it doesn't mean the draft was irrelevant or even good. A mistake remains a mistake and should be pointed out, especially when you have the full ability to prevent it.
Also to wrap this up, there is an entire chance I'm wrong on my belief of what is 'more likely' (thus creating numbers like 70/30 ; 80/20 ; 60/40 etc) based on the variables at play regarding the champions and their lanes. And if that is the case it should be demonstrated or explained as such in ways that haven't already been demonstrated at a high volume, but also in addition to asking what the alternatives are even when watching still-frames in isolation.
As a closing point (and because the unfortunate sad reality of how many people form their opinions within the scene) I also actively reached out to over a dozen different pro players including some playing at the tournament to ask their thoughts on the draft. Everyone seemed to have PSG favored for the same reasons and lack of VKS champs ability to do damage rather than being forced to respond/run. This IS NOT meant to be an argument to support myself or anything, rather I sought out people who would actively argue for the other side in a meaningful conversation and I couldn't find one. People claimed some costreamers also favored VKS draft, but I didn't find anything to support that. The only things I saw were unfortunately lower tier pros or high mmr soloq people echoing the same mindless sentiment about bUt SiOn Th0. Or saying Taliyah deals a lot of damage because she often can have high damage charts (which doesn't mean she deals a lot of damage in isolated scenarios, rather it can be a build up over the entire course of the game).
The other thing is twitter/even videos is never a medium for long discussions or anything (unless the person wants to), and due to all the vitriol over past years I also don't even really enjoy discussions like this much anymore w/ the public (see the hexplate thing for instance). Not even just myself, but I see other fellow edu people receive flame/etc as well and it ultimately all comes down to one thing - The people reacting/reading/etc either have decided they like you = you're right, or they don't like you = you're wrong. Rarely does analytical things get met analytical reasoning, or if it does it's extremely surface level and the conversation often ends up at a standstill of surface level exchanges.
You probably didn't read to this point or you skipped to it. Hello.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G3yw0OfXEAAFRYS.jpg)
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Is like making information in a presentable way a foreign concept for this dude, or he just wants to write 100k words so noone would argue with him ?
So this tweet received an ungodly amount of vitriol and unprecedented amount of hate, and while I understand that deep analytical content is not good to post, I figured I'd make a big post regarding it. This isn't about who is right or wrong, it's about explaining why I made the tweet the way I did (while also acknowledging it's intentionally added hyperbole to stress a point).
While watching a draft live it's possible that one can entertain/think about a lot of different variables, such as assumed recall timers, assumed item purchases, assumed lane phases (based on currently demonstrated understandings at the highest levels). This ties in to being able to (within reason) predict how certain map/game states can often (not always) play out assuming things are going naturally (not 5 kills before 6minutes, or some lane getting FB early, or someone losing 3 waves of CS before minute 4 etc).
So with this in mind let's talk about certain things and also point out the gold of each champ:
Ambessa
13:13 → Eclipse (2900g)
21:22 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 5900 (ambessa also gets to cheat gold because she gets magical boots, so Sion will likely invest 45seconds of game timer into boots)
Wukong
13:13 → Trinity Force (3333g)
Second BlackCleaver (3000g)
Total: 6333g
Ryze
13:13 → Rod of Ages (2600g)
19:57 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
Total: 5600
~ Likely Zhonya → 2800 (450 more if armguard has been broken to reactivate the item, since the components are essentially the entire item)
Corki
13:52 → Trinity Force (3333g)
19:57 → Manamune (2900g)
Total: 6233g
~ likely Shojin → 3100g
Rakan
14:46 → Redemption (2300g)
-------------------
Sion
13:13 → Sunfire Aegis (2700g)
18:06 → Thornmail (2700g)
Total: 5400~
24:10 → Spirit Visage (3000g)
Xin Zhao
13:13 → Sundered Sky (3100g)
22:20 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 6100g
Taliyah
13:13 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
19:04 → Rylai's Crystal Scepter (2600g)
Total: 5600~
21:42 → Mejai's Soulstealer (1600g)
24:22 → Horizon Focus (2750g) (but this is a bad item and shouldn't even be built, it should be cryptbloom which is 3000)
Sivir
10:04 → Yun Tal Wildarrows (3000g)
19:11 → Infinity Edge (3400g)
Total: 6400~
22:06 → Navori Quickblades (2650g)
Alistar
13:13 → Redemption (2300g)
~
24:21 → Frozen Heart (2500g)
Above is the gold cost of the items that we know/assume (minus the mejais) the champions will build. If you follow-up on this, it's also important to note that the champions in question for PSG have an easier time achieving their gold breakpoints than the opponents. Ambessa for instance will often times have CS leads due to the nature of the matchup, and she is able to cheat 300g (which is 3 non-cannon waves, or roughly 110sec in game timer) compared to Sion.
Jungle is often going to be mirrored, and then moving to Taliyah/Ryze, it reaches a point where Ryze becomes "Faster" than Taliyah at doing the things he wants to do, due to him having to commit less. These are just things surrounding the champions without any regards to the players. Obviously later on in the game Taliyah can have her R, yes, but that has to have some kind of merit, and in this game the only merit it should practically have is at dragon fights.
Corki/Sivir build relatively similar items, Corki does self-stunt himself often with the purchase of a tear, but the issue is that Corki's first item spike is a lot stronger than Sivir's. TriForce/Tear vs Yuntal/XX favors Corki in early situations (1st through 3rd drake).
Moving on from this the whole reason to bring up early item things is because we have to ask ourselves what is most practical for the early game - and if you both understand item completion speeds and then also match-up dynamics, you get a picture that early should be favorable for PSG across the board. Both with laning and decisions that become available to them (surrounding drakes/voidgrubs). It's also further important to note that while powering into each champions second items, the recipe components are also more favorable for PSG champions, this can matter when discussing things like 2nd or 3rd dragon, where besides the innate base power of the champions being stronger, they're more likely to have better on-field combat stats. Again this is assuming the game goes naturally, and we know many games do.
Eventually the game reaches a point where Taliyah going Rylai's significantly stunts herself as she begins to power into the 3rd item. Sivir also has to make a decision on her 3rd item, and even in this game perhaps the IE was due to the way the game was going (she was extremely accelerated), but if she doesn't have pen items and taliyah is also building utility, they're trying to hit/damage damage as combo-centric champions into targets with 3~4000health not including eHP.
The other reason to bring up item completions and what that can mean is because of the way gold works in league of legends and gold accumulation. For the first 10 minutes of the game, minion movement speed is at 325, but at 10:01 it changes to 350, and then at 15minutes (in addition to flipping cannons spawning every other wave) it becomes 375. at 20minutes this becomes 400 and then lastly 425 at 25minutes
The reason for this detail importance is because the first item you ever purchase typically takes the most time to complete. This is oddly not the same for junglers however as they begin to give up camps, and depending on their champion actually stay static as they're confined to the static spawn timers of their camps. So while minion speed increases and thus causes things to run at each other quicker for faster consumption, in addition to cannons spawning more frequently and cannons increasing constantly in gold until 17:15 (at which point it caps at 90gold), Junglers witness an opposite effect take place. This is why notorious carry-junglers like Karthus, Shyvana, Tryndamere, Zyra, etc will actually sometimes start taking waves depending on who their lane champions are.
So when we are assessing certain jungle match-ups, we can know that certain jungle champions eventually become pretty static/forever stay the same post 2 items (minus getting t3 boots or GA, which is what a lot of the bruiser junglers do now). Some tank junglers can break this mold either by building enchanter items (due to less resource accumulation) outright or from the get go due to their kits innate value. This is why I believe even junglers like Ornn/Malphite/etc ought to exist but still currently don't due to social conformity bias in pro play.
Fast-forwarding this to why this matters for this specific game - It's because through the lane matchups, items, and team comps and how they blend together, it's A LOT easier for PSG to play. Their champions are innately stronger at various points of the game, and the things they're attempting to do allow them to "send it" at key targets on VKS while harboring less risk. We actually saw this at several points in the game despite the massive deficits.
"But taliyah/sivir have a frontline". No they don't, because we're talking about 2/3/4th dragon. Sivir is extremely weak vs wukong/rakan engage and ambessa can confirm reach her. It's not that Xin/etc aren't doing anything, it's that they practically shouldn't be able to do anything fast enough compared to their counterparts, because the DPS output from the opponents is significantly higher and thus their "joust" is superior. There is no discussing a frontline when PSG can just commit several things at the start of every fight to just eviscerating taliyah or sivir and then playing the remaining fight out from there.
In this comp people seem to think it's a front-to-back for VKS but it REALLY ISN'T. Sivir has absolutely no. Wukong R also cancels any alistar engages and Rakan can always just E to Wukong and break any spellshield always making it so Sivir needs a flash. Wukong/Ambessa engages are also equally death-sentenceable and extremely hard to play vs for VKS comp. Sivir is extremely hard to play in this game in normal circumstances and w/o being accelerated. Always being dependant on flash, and even that isn't a sure-fire way to survive because of how much 'reach' is in PSG comp. Taliyah / Xin can't dish out enough DPS fast enough at these stages of the game, which is the main problem.
I've attached some screenshots from the game and will briefly touch on each one:
#1 - Woody walks melee range into two spellcasters for 0 reason, allowing Trymbi to simply combo and get summoner advantages and firstblood for sivir. This puts her ahead of her curve by almost 2minutes in game timer, and this should never logically happen.
#2 - Sion is about to TP to the ward, and if that happens (PSG who have 3 voidgrubs) can choose to just back off and let ambessa get a cannon wave + 3 plates in top lane. Instead they opt to have Ambessa chase the TP and take a teamfight under variance and it results in them losing things that should never happen. Even in this freezeframe despite several early-advantages happening for VKS under unnatural conditions, the game state was still favorable for PSG and yet they continued to punt it.
#3 PSG teleport up Ryze to fight a rift herald they should never be fighting, instead of letting him stay bottom and just farm waves/deal damage to turrets and farm their jungle camps. VKS have moved everyone to the herald and again PSG opt into a volatile fight with variance because they want to contest a rift herald which won't alter the game in any dramatic way if it's just taken and then crashed normally. Riftherald gives 309exp and 100g, upon death it also gives the same exp and then 25g back to the opponents. This has been of the most biggest bastard objectives that has been grossly misunderstood for almost 6 years now that pro teams continue to overvalue and grossly exagerrate it's importance without contextualizing it. Ryze would get an equal amount of exp and more gold by staying bottom lol. This reminds me of how no one froze waves from 2018~2024 but now in a season which riot nerfed freezing and atakhan exists people freeze more often and will simultaneously claim atakhan exp is important (4head). PSG lose this fight horribly because they're out of position and have to do way more than VKS to have a chance in the fight. It's an example of a team taking a low%-big% swing fight instead of allowing rift to just be taken/crashed which would move the % winchance probability needle barely for VKS.
#4 PSG with no objective up, a teleportless ryze, aand almost having completed items for major champions elects to take a fight in red side. Truthfully however this is an example on how Sivir was almost blown out completely but Azhi is too slow on the trigger. While macro wise this is a horrendous decision for PSG to even be "looking" for it, it does go to show how quickly/instantly PSG despite a deficit could still find ways to just delete a major point of contention away from VKS. Alistar/Xin/Sion are hardpressed to stop things like this, because the very nature of the comps means PSG has faster jousts. The other thing this screenshot shows is that despite all the absolute tragedies for PSG this entire game, most of the cs scores across the entire board remain either even or even in favor of PSG - and this points back to the general nature of the matchups, so imagine what happens in an "even" game or one which PSG hadn't continuously opted into unfavorable fights and lost them several times leading up to this.
There are more screenshots I'd love to include but unfortunately twitter caps at 4.
There are usually a few common things people will say to me and claim I'm doing things too "theoretical", but that isn't what's happening in an instance like this, because these things have been demonstrated and can be, and it's about what is more 'practical'. If we use pragmatic reasoning to reach conclusions on what ought to/could/should happen, then you advance and push things. If you can try to make something 60% instead of 55%, you should. If you can make something 70% or 80% simply by waiting, you should.
"Human error" or "Players make mistakes" - Yes absolutely, but you, nor I, nor anyone can ever predict where/when/and how those mistakes will occur, so it is pointless to try to both predict them and concern ourselves with them. It's more likely than Ryze can/will play 10minutes without a death than to worry about the scenarios in which he does due to human error or something else. One side attempts to play on the probability side of things, without concern about the very obvious reality that mistakes/errors could unfold.
Most players should be able to empathize with the idea of a very favored match-up they enjoy playing. One they might think "I'm so favored" or "This is how the lane will go". And yet, we know, sometimes they die early. A gank might happen, or they miss a skill shot or just minion RNG or osmething. But that would never, and should never change what they know to be true about the matchup. We know this about something like Cassiopeia vs Sylas ; or Sett vs Cho'Gath. These are extremely brutal lanes, but it is wrong to say that Cassio wins 100% of the time, or that Cho'Gath loses 100% of the time - Because sometimes mistakes and human error do occur and even such brutal matchups are lost. But that has [NOTHING TO DO] with the baseline thoughts and what [does] happen in the mass majority of cases. And that's how situations should be approached.
Regardless, generally whenever I'm streaming or making tweets etc - there is a degree of added hyperbole for spectacle and effect. Everyone does this, it's normal. Obviously with me I'm a bit more extreme with it because I think it's frustrating people don't stress things enough that are demonstrable and as a scene people are oddly content with things being 60/40 when you can just get 70/30 or 80/20's by deploying a little bit more thought and effort.
Regarding the tweet - The above things about Wu/Rakan become true on almost any ADC that you can pick in R5, hence the comment about R4 Alistar condemning their draft to be disadvantaged (70/30 still means the 30 wins in 30 scenarios, it does not mean PSG win 100% of the time. And when discussing what happens in the 30% scenarios, you realize it's not through the autonomy of the VKS draft, rather playing off unaccounted for variables).
I think professional LoL teams and players especially (even doing this thought-experiment w/ some pros on my costream the last week) has an obsession with voluntarily opting into 60/40 or 55-45 scenarios, when they can simply create 70/30 or 80/20 scenarios by simply *waiting* or doing nothing. The game whether people like it or not does still have human error and mistakes, and thus there are probability questions that pros should be asking themselves, but you can't blame them for not doing so because this kind of skill and thought process isn't one the game stresses as a means to get an edge (such as TCG or an RTS game would). Getting herald for example and crashing it into a turret upon no-contest in a stable game state likely does something like moving the probability win% up by 1 or 2%. However taking a 55-45 or 60/40 herald fight and LOSING it will cause you to swing 10~20% in likelihood. These numbers are obviously made up currently, but the point remains. Perhaps my frustration from these types of things stems from my history in pro starcraft or playing poker and even tcgs at the pro level.
To wrap up the above point and a way that also drove discussion on a different instance that occurred at worlds - There was a instance where Inspired on J4 on the left side of the map tried to dodge a ton of skillshots instead of using his flash and it resulted in him dying, but both drake and herald were in 1minute. What is more likely - That his flash creates a higher probability chance to win the dragon or him using flash to survive? Obviously most people would be able to agree the summoner spell is going to produce a higher likelihood to win, and thus we can determine he should never use the flash. Yet people criticized him for not flashing - A misunderstanding on probability.
Bad ideas that work out fine do not turn to good ideas simply on the basis that they worked. Nor ideas that can be ignored; or in this instance "VKS can win with a bad draft, but it doesn't mean the draft was irrelevant or even good. A mistake remains a mistake and should be pointed out, especially when you have the full ability to prevent it.
Also to wrap this up, there is an entire chance I'm wrong on my belief of what is 'more likely' (thus creating numbers like 70/30 ; 80/20 ; 60/40 etc) based on the variables at play regarding the champions and their lanes. And if that is the case it should be demonstrated or explained as such in ways that haven't already been demonstrated at a high volume, but also in addition to asking what the alternatives are even when watching still-frames in isolation.
As a closing point (and because the unfortunate sad reality of how many people form their opinions within the scene) I also actively reached out to over a dozen different pro players including some playing at the tournament to ask their thoughts on the draft. Everyone seemed to have PSG favored for the same reasons and lack of VKS champs ability to do damage rather than being forced to respond/run. This IS NOT meant to be an argument to support myself or anything, rather I sought out people who would actively argue for the other side in a meaningful conversation and I couldn't find one. People claimed some costreamers also favored VKS draft, but I didn't find anything to support that. The only things I saw were unfortunately lower tier pros or high mmr soloq people echoing the same mindless sentiment about bUt SiOn Th0. Or saying Taliyah deals a lot of damage because she often can have high damage charts (which doesn't mean she deals a lot of damage in isolated scenarios, rather it can be a build up over the entire course of the game).
The other thing is twitter/even videos is never a medium for long discussions or anything (unless the person wants to), and due to all the vitriol over past years I also don't even really enjoy discussions like this much anymore w/ the public (see the hexplate thing for instance). Not even just myself, but I see other fellow edu people receive flame/etc as well and it ultimately all comes down to one thing - The people reacting/reading/etc either have decided they like you = you're right, or they don't like you = you're wrong. Rarely does analytical things get met analytical reasoning, or if it does it's extremely surface level and the conversation often ends up at a standstill of surface level exchanges.
You probably didn't read to this point or you skipped to it. Hello.
![LSXYZ9's tweet photo. So this tweet received an ungodly amount of vitriol and unprecedented amount of hate, and while I understand that deep analytical content is not good to post, I figured I'd make a big post regarding it. This isn't about who is right or wrong, it's about explaining why I made the tweet the way I did (while also acknowledging it's intentionally added hyperbole to stress a point).
While watching a draft live it's possible that one can entertain/think about a lot of different variables, such as assumed recall timers, assumed item purchases, assumed lane phases (based on currently demonstrated understandings at the highest levels). This ties in to being able to (within reason) predict how certain map/game states can often (not always) play out assuming things are going naturally (not 5 kills before 6minutes, or some lane getting FB early, or someone losing 3 waves of CS before minute 4 etc).
So with this in mind let's talk about certain things and also point out the gold of each champ:
Ambessa
13:13 → Eclipse (2900g)
21:22 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 5900 (ambessa also gets to cheat gold because she gets magical boots, so Sion will likely invest 45seconds of game timer into boots)
Wukong
13:13 → Trinity Force (3333g)
Second BlackCleaver (3000g)
Total: 6333g
Ryze
13:13 → Rod of Ages (2600g)
19:57 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
Total: 5600
~ Likely Zhonya → 2800 (450 more if armguard has been broken to reactivate the item, since the components are essentially the entire item)
Corki
13:52 → Trinity Force (3333g)
19:57 → Manamune (2900g)
Total: 6233g
~ likely Shojin → 3100g
Rakan
14:46 → Redemption (2300g)
-------------------
Sion
13:13 → Sunfire Aegis (2700g)
18:06 → Thornmail (2700g)
Total: 5400~
24:10 → Spirit Visage (3000g)
Xin Zhao
13:13 → Sundered Sky (3100g)
22:20 → Black Cleaver (3000g)
Total: 6100g
Taliyah
13:13 → Archangel's Staff (3000g)
19:04 → Rylai's Crystal Scepter (2600g)
Total: 5600~
21:42 → Mejai's Soulstealer (1600g)
24:22 → Horizon Focus (2750g) (but this is a bad item and shouldn't even be built, it should be cryptbloom which is 3000)
Sivir
10:04 → Yun Tal Wildarrows (3000g)
19:11 → Infinity Edge (3400g)
Total: 6400~
22:06 → Navori Quickblades (2650g)
Alistar
13:13 → Redemption (2300g)
~
24:21 → Frozen Heart (2500g)
Above is the gold cost of the items that we know/assume (minus the mejais) the champions will build. If you follow-up on this, it's also important to note that the champions in question for PSG have an easier time achieving their gold breakpoints than the opponents. Ambessa for instance will often times have CS leads due to the nature of the matchup, and she is able to cheat 300g (which is 3 non-cannon waves, or roughly 110sec in game timer) compared to Sion.
Jungle is often going to be mirrored, and then moving to Taliyah/Ryze, it reaches a point where Ryze becomes "Faster" than Taliyah at doing the things he wants to do, due to him having to commit less. These are just things surrounding the champions without any regards to the players. Obviously later on in the game Taliyah can have her R, yes, but that has to have some kind of merit, and in this game the only merit it should practically have is at dragon fights.
Corki/Sivir build relatively similar items, Corki does self-stunt himself often with the purchase of a tear, but the issue is that Corki's first item spike is a lot stronger than Sivir's. TriForce/Tear vs Yuntal/XX favors Corki in early situations (1st through 3rd drake).
Moving on from this the whole reason to bring up early item things is because we have to ask ourselves what is most practical for the early game - and if you both understand item completion speeds and then also match-up dynamics, you get a picture that early should be favorable for PSG across the board. Both with laning and decisions that become available to them (surrounding drakes/voidgrubs). It's also further important to note that while powering into each champions second items, the recipe components are also more favorable for PSG champions, this can matter when discussing things like 2nd or 3rd dragon, where besides the innate base power of the champions being stronger, they're more likely to have better on-field combat stats. Again this is assuming the game goes naturally, and we know many games do.
Eventually the game reaches a point where Taliyah going Rylai's significantly stunts herself as she begins to power into the 3rd item. Sivir also has to make a decision on her 3rd item, and even in this game perhaps the IE was due to the way the game was going (she was extremely accelerated), but if she doesn't have pen items and taliyah is also building utility, they're trying to hit/damage damage as combo-centric champions into targets with 3~4000health not including eHP.
The other reason to bring up item completions and what that can mean is because of the way gold works in league of legends and gold accumulation. For the first 10 minutes of the game, minion movement speed is at 325, but at 10:01 it changes to 350, and then at 15minutes (in addition to flipping cannons spawning every other wave) it becomes 375. at 20minutes this becomes 400 and then lastly 425 at 25minutes
The reason for this detail importance is because the first item you ever purchase typically takes the most time to complete. This is oddly not the same for junglers however as they begin to give up camps, and depending on their champion actually stay static as they're confined to the static spawn timers of their camps. So while minion speed increases and thus causes things to run at each other quicker for faster consumption, in addition to cannons spawning more frequently and cannons increasing constantly in gold until 17:15 (at which point it caps at 90gold), Junglers witness an opposite effect take place. This is why notorious carry-junglers like Karthus, Shyvana, Tryndamere, Zyra, etc will actually sometimes start taking waves depending on who their lane champions are.
So when we are assessing certain jungle match-ups, we can know that certain jungle champions eventually become pretty static/forever stay the same post 2 items (minus getting t3 boots or GA, which is what a lot of the bruiser junglers do now). Some tank junglers can break this mold either by building enchanter items (due to less resource accumulation) outright or from the get go due to their kits innate value. This is why I believe even junglers like Ornn/Malphite/etc ought to exist but still currently don't due to social conformity bias in pro play.
Fast-forwarding this to why this matters for this specific game - It's because through the lane matchups, items, and team comps and how they blend together, it's A LOT easier for PSG to play. Their champions are innately stronger at various points of the game, and the things they're attempting to do allow them to "send it" at key targets on VKS while harboring less risk. We actually saw this at several points in the game despite the massive deficits.
"But taliyah/sivir have a frontline". No they don't, because we're talking about 2/3/4th dragon. Sivir is extremely weak vs wukong/rakan engage and ambessa can confirm reach her. It's not that Xin/etc aren't doing anything, it's that they practically shouldn't be able to do anything fast enough compared to their counterparts, because the DPS output from the opponents is significantly higher and thus their "joust" is superior. There is no discussing a frontline when PSG can just commit several things at the start of every fight to just eviscerating taliyah or sivir and then playing the remaining fight out from there.
In this comp people seem to think it's a front-to-back for VKS but it REALLY ISN'T. Sivir has absolutely no. Wukong R also cancels any alistar engages and Rakan can always just E to Wukong and break any spellshield always making it so Sivir needs a flash. Wukong/Ambessa engages are also equally death-sentenceable and extremely hard to play vs for VKS comp. Sivir is extremely hard to play in this game in normal circumstances and w/o being accelerated. Always being dependant on flash, and even that isn't a sure-fire way to survive because of how much 'reach' is in PSG comp. Taliyah / Xin can't dish out enough DPS fast enough at these stages of the game, which is the main problem.
I've attached some screenshots from the game and will briefly touch on each one:
#1 - Woody walks melee range into two spellcasters for 0 reason, allowing Trymbi to simply combo and get summoner advantages and firstblood for sivir. This puts her ahead of her curve by almost 2minutes in game timer, and this should never logically happen.
#2 - Sion is about to TP to the ward, and if that happens (PSG who have 3 voidgrubs) can choose to just back off and let ambessa get a cannon wave + 3 plates in top lane. Instead they opt to have Ambessa chase the TP and take a teamfight under variance and it results in them losing things that should never happen. Even in this freezeframe despite several early-advantages happening for VKS under unnatural conditions, the game state was still favorable for PSG and yet they continued to punt it.
#3 PSG teleport up Ryze to fight a rift herald they should never be fighting, instead of letting him stay bottom and just farm waves/deal damage to turrets and farm their jungle camps. VKS have moved everyone to the herald and again PSG opt into a volatile fight with variance because they want to contest a rift herald which won't alter the game in any dramatic way if it's just taken and then crashed normally. Riftherald gives 309exp and 100g, upon death it also gives the same exp and then 25g back to the opponents. This has been of the most biggest bastard objectives that has been grossly misunderstood for almost 6 years now that pro teams continue to overvalue and grossly exagerrate it's importance without contextualizing it. Ryze would get an equal amount of exp and more gold by staying bottom lol. This reminds me of how no one froze waves from 2018~2024 but now in a season which riot nerfed freezing and atakhan exists people freeze more often and will simultaneously claim atakhan exp is important (4head). PSG lose this fight horribly because they're out of position and have to do way more than VKS to have a chance in the fight. It's an example of a team taking a low%-big% swing fight instead of allowing rift to just be taken/crashed which would move the % winchance probability needle barely for VKS.
#4 PSG with no objective up, a teleportless ryze, aand almost having completed items for major champions elects to take a fight in red side. Truthfully however this is an example on how Sivir was almost blown out completely but Azhi is too slow on the trigger. While macro wise this is a horrendous decision for PSG to even be "looking" for it, it does go to show how quickly/instantly PSG despite a deficit could still find ways to just delete a major point of contention away from VKS. Alistar/Xin/Sion are hardpressed to stop things like this, because the very nature of the comps means PSG has faster jousts. The other thing this screenshot shows is that despite all the absolute tragedies for PSG this entire game, most of the cs scores across the entire board remain either even or even in favor of PSG - and this points back to the general nature of the matchups, so imagine what happens in an "even" game or one which PSG hadn't continuously opted into unfavorable fights and lost them several times leading up to this.
There are more screenshots I'd love to include but unfortunately twitter caps at 4.
There are usually a few common things people will say to me and claim I'm doing things too "theoretical", but that isn't what's happening in an instance like this, because these things have been demonstrated and can be, and it's about what is more 'practical'. If we use pragmatic reasoning to reach conclusions on what ought to/could/should happen, then you advance and push things. If you can try to make something 60% instead of 55%, you should. If you can make something 70% or 80% simply by waiting, you should.
"Human error" or "Players make mistakes" - Yes absolutely, but you, nor I, nor anyone can ever predict where/when/and how those mistakes will occur, so it is pointless to try to both predict them and concern ourselves with them. It's more likely than Ryze can/will play 10minutes without a death than to worry about the scenarios in which he does due to human error or something else. One side attempts to play on the probability side of things, without concern about the very obvious reality that mistakes/errors could unfold.
Most players should be able to empathize with the idea of a very favored match-up they enjoy playing. One they might think "I'm so favored" or "This is how the lane will go". And yet, we know, sometimes they die early. A gank might happen, or they miss a skill shot or just minion RNG or osmething. But that would never, and should never change what they know to be true about the matchup. We know this about something like Cassiopeia vs Sylas ; or Sett vs Cho'Gath. These are extremely brutal lanes, but it is wrong to say that Cassio wins 100% of the time, or that Cho'Gath loses 100% of the time - Because sometimes mistakes and human error do occur and even such brutal matchups are lost. But that has [NOTHING TO DO] with the baseline thoughts and what [does] happen in the mass majority of cases. And that's how situations should be approached.
Regardless, generally whenever I'm streaming or making tweets etc - there is a degree of added hyperbole for spectacle and effect. Everyone does this, it's normal. Obviously with me I'm a bit more extreme with it because I think it's frustrating people don't stress things enough that are demonstrable and as a scene people are oddly content with things being 60/40 when you can just get 70/30 or 80/20's by deploying a little bit more thought and effort.
Regarding the tweet - The above things about Wu/Rakan become true on almost any ADC that you can pick in R5, hence the comment about R4 Alistar condemning their draft to be disadvantaged (70/30 still means the 30 wins in 30 scenarios, it does not mean PSG win 100% of the time. And when discussing what happens in the 30% scenarios, you realize it's not through the autonomy of the VKS draft, rather playing off unaccounted for variables).
I think professional LoL teams and players especially (even doing this thought-experiment w/ some pros on my costream the last week) has an obsession with voluntarily opting into 60/40 or 55-45 scenarios, when they can simply create 70/30 or 80/20 scenarios by simply *waiting* or doing nothing. The game whether people like it or not does still have human error and mistakes, and thus there are probability questions that pros should be asking themselves, but you can't blame them for not doing so because this kind of skill and thought process isn't one the game stresses as a means to get an edge (such as TCG or an RTS game would). Getting herald for example and crashing it into a turret upon no-contest in a stable game state likely does something like moving the probability win% up by 1 or 2%. However taking a 55-45 or 60/40 herald fight and LOSING it will cause you to swing 10~20% in likelihood. These numbers are obviously made up currently, but the point remains. Perhaps my frustration from these types of things stems from my history in pro starcraft or playing poker and even tcgs at the pro level.
To wrap up the above point and a way that also drove discussion on a different instance that occurred at worlds - There was a instance where Inspired on J4 on the left side of the map tried to dodge a ton of skillshots instead of using his flash and it resulted in him dying, but both drake and herald were in 1minute. What is more likely - That his flash creates a higher probability chance to win the dragon or him using flash to survive? Obviously most people would be able to agree the summoner spell is going to produce a higher likelihood to win, and thus we can determine he should never use the flash. Yet people criticized him for not flashing - A misunderstanding on probability.
Bad ideas that work out fine do not turn to good ideas simply on the basis that they worked. Nor ideas that can be ignored; or in this instance "VKS can win with a bad draft, but it doesn't mean the draft was irrelevant or even good. A mistake remains a mistake and should be pointed out, especially when you have the full ability to prevent it.
Also to wrap this up, there is an entire chance I'm wrong on my belief of what is 'more likely' (thus creating numbers like 70/30 ; 80/20 ; 60/40 etc) based on the variables at play regarding the champions and their lanes. And if that is the case it should be demonstrated or explained as such in ways that haven't already been demonstrated at a high volume, but also in addition to asking what the alternatives are even when watching still-frames in isolation.
As a closing point (and because the unfortunate sad reality of how many people form their opinions within the scene) I also actively reached out to over a dozen different pro players including some playing at the tournament to ask their thoughts on the draft. Everyone seemed to have PSG favored for the same reasons and lack of VKS champs ability to do damage rather than being forced to respond/run. This IS NOT meant to be an argument to support myself or anything, rather I sought out people who would actively argue for the other side in a meaningful conversation and I couldn't find one. People claimed some costreamers also favored VKS draft, but I didn't find anything to support that. The only things I saw were unfortunately lower tier pros or high mmr soloq people echoing the same mindless sentiment about bUt SiOn Th0. Or saying Taliyah deals a lot of damage because she often can have high damage charts (which doesn't mean she deals a lot of damage in isolated scenarios, rather it can be a build up over the entire course of the game).
The other thing is twitter/even videos is never a medium for long discussions or anything (unless the person wants to), and due to all the vitriol over past years I also don't even really enjoy discussions like this much anymore w/ the public (see the hexplate thing for instance). Not even just myself, but I see other fellow edu people receive flame/etc as well and it ultimately all comes down to one thing - The people reacting/reading/etc either have decided they like you = you're right, or they don't like you = you're wrong. Rarely does analytical things get met analytical reasoning, or if it does it's extremely surface level and the conversation often ends up at a standstill of surface level exchanges.
You probably didn't read to this point or you skipped to it. Hello.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G3yyo7lXUAAk7pL.jpg)
hahahaha the bed sends 16gb of data a month oh god
@_InMyRemains @QuestionCT3 @Greedyszn1 @DiscussingFilm it was kinda goofy and not like game of thrones at all
@Jeff91160094 @YamatoMebdi I guess not exactly tryouts but looking for replacement yeah https://t.co/Pf5EFNeeJX
@abbhishrek @TheCinesthetic As far as I understood It's how Cliff remembers it not how it actually happened
https://t.co/Ku080U0fB4
@Rickpar76182677 @RedditIsACancer @reddit_lies @DAKKADAKKA1 Battlefield is a videogame bruh that's not how it works
@Sykko_xo If the game was balanced better then maybe(?), but otherwise no. Just look at last patch with gwen/naafiri being perma picked
@PatriotEric21 @AzaelOfficial They got negative value from jax last pick and imo viktor blind is also debatable
@lolesports @CTBC_cfo @TOP_Esports_ CFO should get honorary french citizenship for this or some other award no?
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