Glad I had the opportunity to join Jatt for this one. I appreciate anyone who has read any of my stuff over the last few years, and hopefully finally putting a voice to it won't ruin whatever image you've concocted of me in your head (which I imagine is as an Olympian god with massive muscles).

popegonzo

It was actually Kien's response on his own survey.

AYAYA

shyguyjyyn

TL used a sub for Olleh though, right?

At MSI last year yep (but it was also something he requested IIRC). That slipped my mind as I was thinking just about the LCS.

asiantuttle

He also got 2 accounts top 10 in TFT.

This is a very exciting development for my brand -- no longer just Hai's brother. :p

(I am technically 13 + 14 atm. No Kayle, no win life. :d)

Frelayer

I've never really followed writer for esports as they are either completely by the numbers and bland, or mostly just silly with little substance. But I read one of your articals and liked it a lot so looked to see who wrote it, then liked another onecand saw you wrote that too. Too long of a story (already) short, Im a big fan of your work and appreciate how you weild your craft.

Thanks for the message! :) Hope you keep reading~

higherbrow

Always love Kien's articles.

I tend to agree with most of what he's got, here, except I don't think he gave Optic enough of a steely eye for beating Clutch and 100T to sit at 2-0. Crown may be a fantastic player, but they've still got the worst bot lane in the league by a country mile, and Dhokla is middle tier at best. With Darshan out of the league and Solo looking stronger every league, Dhokla's going to have to step up if he wants to be anywhere other than fighting Huni for not-worst in role in the league.

Echo Fox may have scraped by TL, but I also think they did what successful teams do when they're in a deficit early. They minimized losses, found some savvy trades, and when they saw a shot to get into the driver's seat, they were decisive as could be. Like, yes, ideally you just don't get into that situation, but it does happen, and Echo Fox handled it well.

Mmm... I think you're giving Solo too much of a pass, too. He also needs to be a bit more consistent. Definitely agree that OPT isn't suddenly a major player because of this 2-0 week -- they have a lot of things to fix (even sending Crown off as TF to finish the game was sloppy). Even last dating back to last year, they found themselves in a lot of weird end-game situations -- IMO they're just not very good at identifying win conditions or doing things that lead to that. This is generally tied to poor vision setups around Baron / not managing waves properly so you aren't pressured by a side lane when you're trying to bait or start the Baron.

Lowsmithy

Love your posts Kien, keep it up!

Thanks for reading!

enchanted037

Really well written. IG is such a meme team in China. One day Jacky decided to play Rek Sai jg and he shouted at 100%volume on stream asking Ning what masteries to take. Instead of walking a 5 s round trip, Ning shouted back equally loud and this became a shouting contest meme LOL

Thanks! Time zone differences mean I'm trying to sleep as my stuff gets picked up by Reddit, but I just wanted to share a bit of my interview that didn't get picked up:

"The five of us are especially talented individuals, and we’ve been together for a very long time. We’ve also been through the fires of the World Championship, so I think we are the strongest we’ve ever been, and we are currently in a very competitive form. We also trust each other deeply -- that’s why we’re so strong."

Cool to think he believes they're at their strongest ever. If anyone happens to beat them (to win this entire MSI and not just a Bo1 here or there), it'll be even nuttier now. :)