Rengar patch

So, i've just bought this dude, who looks like Warwick. I played him two times. One time top and one time jungle.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I don't like him. Sure, his double Q is amazing and deals tons of damage. BUT he lacks at gap closing in my opinion. Ye ye you can say "oh he has his ult plus passive" true that. He has. But in the end his movement speed gets overwhelmed by a lot of other champions. E.g. I played as jungle and ganked top early to kill of pantheon. Yet, since there is no range on Q I had to use flash and then wasn't able to follow up afterwards. Thats sad isnt it ? At the very moment im not entirely sure how to play him but im pretty sure, that he is not that op as Diana was. Or still is.

Rengar looks stronger as a jungler FOR NOW. But who knows, time will tell until we see his full potencial. However Im not convinced by him as for now.

IEM wrap up day 3 & 4

Hey there guys,

at the very second of writing this stuff Violet plays against Nerchio in the semi finals of Starcraft 2, while M5 plays against SK Gaming in the finals of the LoL tournament on IEM Cologne 2012.

In my last blog entry I promised you to make some exclusive pics of the day and so I did.

But first of all, lets wrap up the games of yesterday, since I didn't find time for that after coming back home.

The games:

Starcraft 2:

elfi vs. viOlet. My prediction was 3-1 for violet (http://keeperde.blogspot.de/2012/08/iem-cologne-day-2.html) and as it turns out I seem to be a boss.... nah just kidding that was actually the only match I predicted totally right. However it was quite predictable.

Kas vs. MC. My prediction was 3-2 for Kas. As it turns out MC won 3-1 in close games however, but still winning. Well played boss toss.

Vortix vs. fOrGG. My prediction was 3-2 for Vortix. In the end Vortix took it down 3-0. Pretty convincing no?

sLivko vs. SortOf. My prediction was 3-2 for SortOf, but it turned out to go 3-0 for sLivko. Didn't expect that to be honest. Well played sLivko. You have shown your potencial for ZvZ over there !

Matches continued with Bomber vs. Violet. I wouldn't have quite given an edge for any of those two players, but viOlet won the series pretty damn convincingly with 3-0. WOW!

MC vs. Nerchio. Another upset for some, for others not quite. Nerchio is known to have a sick ZvP. I would have predicted that Nerchio would win the series, but not that obvious with a 3-0 score. That polish guy ... hes definitely making his way into the very hot spot of the EU scene.

Supernova vs. Vortix. Hell yeah, I told you to not underrate Vortix. He won this badass terran player Supernova now 3-2, even after losing 2-1 in the groupstage. Sick...

sLivko vs. MVP. I think none would have predicted otherwise. Yet sLivko was able to take one map, in the end it was not enough though. But honestly - MVP is still one level ahead of you sLivko, I am sorry


I think in the end the biggest upsets of that day were Violet winning so heavily against bomber, but especially Vortix win over Supernova, who performed so well in the groupstage, Now lets see if Vortix can pull the trigger against MVP - or is the Terran emperor still too big? We will find out soon.

League of Legends:

SK vs. CLG:

My prediction was 2-1 for CLG, but as it turned out ... wow SK - you have just defeated one of the best teams in the world 2-0. Now can you do the same vs M5 in the finals ? We will see...

M5 vs. fnatic:

My prediction: 2-0 for M5. Fnatic was really on a run and able to take one map from M5, which none else did before in this tournamet. Well played fnatic, yet M5 are beasts, as I said already.

Game for place 3:

This match has already been played at the moment of writing. CLG won fnatic 2-0. I thought that fnatic would have a pretty good chance actually. Sadly CLG took down the games pretty convincingly. Especially the 2nd game was not really fun to watch, since CLG dominated really heavily... now its time for M5 vs. CLG !!

Updates:

Obviously M5 winning vs SK gaming reaaaaaally heavily. What kind of games. While the first one was still pretty nice to watch with much tension, the 2nd game was just ... humilating. Seriously M5 took down SK so hard... Congrantulations M5 - you deserve this

Little talks:

I talked to Alex_Ich for a few minutes after one of his interviews, where he told me that some of his team mates are not really motivated to play lately and can not enjoy to play as much as they did before. Will that effect M5 in the final game? We will see ... However Alex is a very nice guy and really cool to talk to. Thumbs up for you dude, you and your boys totally deserve to win this! 

 Miscellaneous

1. It looks like the Starcraft 2 area is shrinking and shrinking. Last time on IEM (in hannover) there still was enough place in the players area to bring your chair and sit behind the guys you like most and want to see. This time ... well ... god it was soooooooo small. I dont know, but I think the players must feel really cramped. They had like less then a meter behind their backs to the crowd, who would have actually been able to touch the players during games. Thats pretty sad in my opinion and I hope IEM will bring that topic up and try to enlarge that area for next time again. We will see...

2. The crowd was amazing. Wow I really havent seen such a big crowd really often. Especially in League of Legends there were like billions of guys, watching the games and cheering for their favourite team. I really loved that. Keep it up guys, you make these event special !

3. I havent had enough time for more than 2 points... isnt that sad? Yep it is. But those two points were most important to list for me :)

Pictures:

Starcraft 2 Audience

                                                      Empire.Kas :) 

Kas and cloud

Twitchtv Lounge - free massage :o

Someone exhausted right?!

interview with alex_ich

Blizzards camera - integrated email function to email pictures. cool stuff 

Kas is tired

look at this cutiepie.. no not the guy ... amazing costumes

supernova and slivko

IEM banner - yo

Video of the players area for starcraft 2

Updates:

MVP takes down the first map from Vortix. Must see game. Really lots of brood lords corrupters, thors, ravens and so on .... nice game ! :)

Small update

Hey there,

I promised you pics of Gamescom and they will come...but not today as I am pretty tired right now, riding the train for 9 hours total today (one train even without air conditioning... fuck me right?). So I will update everything tomorrow, no worries :)

Btw: I got pictures of Kas and Alex_Ich which probably none else has - good job me !

Cheers,
Keeper

IEM Cologne Day 2

Since there was not anything too far from the ordinary yesterday, lets take a closer look on todays matches from the IEM cologne (I know you want it)

Starcraft 2

Groups C and D have been played today and we saw some more or less interesting results. But lets take a closer look at the groups first!

Group C: moonglade, slivko, Grubby, Minigun, elfi, Bomber

Favourites: Bomber, Grubby and elfi/slivko

I was quite surprised to see Grubby only finishing 5th, after he had shown such a great performance in the qualifier grid on wednesday, where he defeated Ace , Oz and Targa to qualify together with MVP.

Therefore its quite surprising to me to see him falling against Slivko whom I didn't consider a better player then Grubby before. I gave him a 50/50 percentage vs. Elfi, though Elfis PvP is really really good and it turned out into a 2-1 for Elfi in the end.

Bomber finishing 1st? Yea that was excepted, BUT he lost his game to mOOnglade 0-2, which was one of the greatest upsets for today. In my opinion at least...

In the end Elfi finished 3rd with a 3-2 score and minigun, the only american of the tournament last with 0-5, only able to take 3 maps in different matches.

Group D: Vortix, Killer, MC, Hasuobs, Real, Supernova

Favourites: MC, Supernova - everything else was incalculable, but Vortix is meant to be one of the up-and                                coming zergs

So heres the thing. After losing to Violet in IEM Brazil, where he gave a pretty bad performance, I lost sight of Supernova. I probably underestimated him before he took down his ENTIRE group, by only losing 1 MAP ! ! ! (to vortix. as I said he is up and coming).

This was probably the greatest surprise of the day to me to see a Supernova of old strength, who is worse his Code S level. 

Flop of the day: Real... I know this guy pretty good and I was sure he would perform better, after he went through the qualifiers. It looks like Lan events are always a tough thing for this korean guy, when you compare online games with his offline experiences. In the end he has to overcome this in order to be places better. Sad but true: he was only able to take 1 single map out of all games. Pretty sad...

Only hope for Germany Hasuobs, didnt make it into the top 3 of his group and fell to Supernova, Killer and Vortix, yet able to defeat MC 2-1, who took down the 2nd position of his group after all.

The spanish player Vortix was however able to take down silver of the groups, going out 3rd after beating Hasuobs, Killer and Real convincingly and even taking one map from the group winner himself. Well played sir! Lets see how you can do tomorrow in the playoffs.

Preview for the playoffs:

Bomber, Nerchio, Supernova and MVP who all finished their groups 1st will instantly put into the quarter final and don't have to play the ro 16 therefore. 

Meanwhile our matches are scheduled like this:

elfi vs. Violet | Prediction: even if elfis PvP is really good, I dont thin he has what it takes to take down the power Zerg Violet, who has a pretty solid ZvP. 3-1 Violet.

MC vs. Kas | Really hard to predict in my opinion. Kas TvP is really strong lately, but will it be enough to take down the bosstoss? We haven't seen his PvT often in this tournament. Only the one vs. Supernova, where he was defeated 0-2. I think it will go down 3-2 or 2-3 in either way, but I think Kas might have a little edge, if he hits a good day (yea he is sometimes a little unstable)

Vortix vs. ForGG | As much as I like Vortix, who made it pretty fast into the top-tiert scene in europe, I was pretty impressed with ForGG's results in this tournament so far. Yet he lost 0-2 to nerchio in the groupstages and also to inori 1-2 (who is no zerg .. i know i know) Lets see if our foreigner can pull the trigger and beat another korean. I say 3-2 Vortix

Slivko vs. Sortoff | Two foreigner against each other. Well thats sad, but avoidable. It's ZvZ, but anything can happen I guess. Sortoff has shown quite nice results the last days, but so has Slivko. I dont like to pick one here, but I go with Sortoff 3-2.

League of Legends:

Well I haven't really seen the matches, but it seems to be outdated to ban Urgot anymore. I really didn't see him getting banned for a single time in the whole tournament (note: he got banned in every game in the last major LoL tournament. The only time he didn't, his team won). Quite a surprise, but oh well... meta changes fast ! 

SK vs. Acer:

I think we all thought SK would win.... and they did. Wow what a surprise ... nah not really. Team Acer might be pretty good, but I think SK is just one level above, taking the game home in a convincing 2-0. Well played.

CLG vs. Alternate:

Same thing. CLG were the favourites and they won. No big surprises so far in the LoL tournament for IEM. But maybe they will come tomorrow? Who knows. Yet I dont think anyone would have put his money on Alternate on this match. 2-0 CLG, well played.

Preview for tomorrow:

M5 vs. fnatic:

Im pretty sure M5 will take it. Even the fact that fanatic worked on their lineup lately and released Shushei. And they really improved. But I still think the Guardian Angel team aka moscow 5 will take this game 2-0. Sorry fanatic, but these russian beasts are ... yeah they are beasts ! 

CLG vs. SK:

This one is really interesting. Both teams are pretty pretty strong and they both deserve, to take the 2nd spot of the finals. Yet I think CLG might be a small step ahead of SK. But that should really be a minor one. With froggen mid and Wicked top, I think CLG will take this game 2-1. 

P.S.:

I will go to Gamescom tomorrow, to watch some games and take some pictures. I will update you with everything I did there when I come back ! 

Cheers,

KeeperDe

IEM Groupstage resumé and short instruction

Hey everyone, 

this is KeeperDe from Germany and I hope I can enlighten your life with some blog entrys about League of Legends and Starcraft 2.

Im a 20 y.o. student who is moving to Gibraltar in october to earn some cash.... actually just for an internship but oh well...
Now you probably asking yourself, what this is all about and I tell you:
-League of Legens
-Starcraft 2

No more, no less, while I think those two topics are pretty full of content for everyone, so I guess I wont lack any content at all (promise) *awkward smiley*

Ah yea you want to know about my hobbies too I suppose. So here it is:
In my free time I love to play Computer games ("oh come on thats not a surprise youre blogging about League of Legends and Starcraft") You sir, got a point.
But furthermore I play the piano and clarinet and am jogging.
Yup thats all I guess...

So here is the first "news" which you all probably are really excited about  ("go hoooooome" - "no thanks")

The G-G-G-GAMESCOM just started for open public today and the Intel Extreme Masters take place in hall 9.

We do have LOTS of top tier players competing for a massive price money in both League of Legends and Starcraft 2. But let's start with Starcraft 2, the mother of all RTS.

Starcraft 2:

The first matches for IEM Global Challenge Cologne started of wednesday with the open brackets ( each group had 2 open slots to be filled with players of 4 different open brackets). No real upsets happened after all - every slot but one (THANK YOU GRUBBY) was filled with koreans in the end. 

Biggest surprise:  Targa a not well recognizet norwegian zerg, who was able to defeat two koreans (Ace 2-1 and Oz 2-0) in a row, before falling to Grubby 0-2.

Mentionable:

The two koreans with most GSL awards ever earned IM.MVP and IM.Nestea fought in different brackets and both made it to the play offs. 

The Groups on wednesday:

Group A: Nerchio, Sortof, ForGG, Puma, Demuslim, Inori

Favourites: ForGG,Inori, Nerchio

Results:

Nerchio went out of the group 1st after defeating Inori, Puma and ForGG. Funny thing about this is, that he won to the probably strongest opponents, while losing to the "worst". We did not see much out of Demuslim lately, yet he was able to defeat our #1 2-1 - Hats off !

ForGG 2nd. Nothing more to say. He lost to Nerchio and beat everyone else. Korean style...

Sortof 3rd. Well after his great performance on the latest swedish tournaments (ripping naniwa for more than one time actually) it was not the greatest surprise that Sortof would do well in this tournament aswell. Yet he still has to prove himself, that he can keep up with the best players of the world and I think he has not done this quite yet. Beating Inori and Nerchio - Okay - but still his real skill has to be proven in the play-offs - Good luck.

Group B: Violet, Nestea, Pig, Kas, MVP, Feast
Favourites: MVP, Neastea, Violet

Results:

First of all, this group was probably the most high staked one in the whole tournament. MVP and Nestea didn't win the GSL for 7 times for no reason and Violet made some SERIOUS improvements lately. However there were still Kas, the beast from the east and Feast the up and coming belgium protoss. And well after all Pig probably felt a bit lonely there, which gave him a score of 1-10 only taking one map out of Feast, which to be honest, was no surprise at all.

1st to finish the group was MVP. I guess I dont have to introduce him, as he is the most renowned and awarded Korean player to date. He has won the GSL for 4 (!!!) times and his results prove him to be still one of the very best. In the end the only match he lost, was to Violet 2-1. Well playes sir!

2nd Violet: the korean zerg who just won IEM brazil and MLG has yet proven himself again by finishing the group 2nd, losing only to Nestea and having the same mapscore as the 3rd in his group after all. Only difference he won one game more than his contrahent did. 

3rd Kas the online monster who just twittered that he was happy about this insane group, right before the games startet, has performed the greatest upset of the day, by winning vs. Pig, Feast and Nestea to take home a well earned 3rd place. Good luck in the playoffs and show us, that you can take down major lan tournaments. I know you can ... ! 

Other two groups, yet to be played. If you are visiting gamescom, make sure to check those out in hall 9 ! 

League of Legends:

Not that much to say, as I did for Starcraft 2, yet not as many games had been played. 

The regional finalists for IEM cologne this year are:

Moscow 5 , Team Elohell, Curse Gaming, Team fnatic, SK Gaming, Team Acer, Team Alternate and Custom Logic Gaming.

For this tournament the favourite teams are definitely Moscow 5 , SK Gaming and Counter Logic Gaming, while only one of either SK or CLG can make it into the finals (they will be facing each other in the semi final, if they are able to both win their previous match)

For now M5 played against Elohell and won 2-0. Really not a surprise after seeing the latest results of the russian quintett, who were just placed 2nd in Dreamhack and 1st in ECC Poland, after defeating CLG in the finals. 

The second game, which was played, was Curse vs. Fanatic, were fnatic was able to take down curse with a convincing 2-0. Well played guys.

Most surprisingly fnatic was able to play one of the newer champs Jayce and won with it. Curses reaction: instantly ban him in the 2nd game ! - Why not ...

So far, thats everything for now. I hope you liked this stuff. I will probably go and add some pictures in the next posts aswell, so dont worry about too much black and white - it will be fixed (promise²). 

And now it's time to sleep. Good night guys ! 

Cheers,

KeeperDe