Holy crud, what a weekend. The drama's been far in excess of my expectations, and it was already stacked high thanks to the quality of the teams that had made it to Tallahassee. Unlike IEM Katowice, there was absolutely no dispute that the representative teams were at the top of their respective leagues. Hyperboles like "clash of titans" didn't seem too far-fetched: SKT T1 had returned to their rightful thrones at the top of Korean play, Fnatic stood victorious dripping the blood of Unicorns upon the hills of Europe, Edward Gaming is blessed with the Heaven's Mandate of the LPL, and North America's Team Solomid was coming into a tournament as one of the favored teams for once. Heck, there was even little to complain from the Taiwanese corners this time around, with AHQ's jolting sweep through the Master Series promising that they'd at least put up a fun fight.

Of course, they did a whole lot more than that. The greatest thing about the Mid-Season Invitational wasn't just the clash of top teams. It was the implications that came gushing forth from the wounds and injuries they inflicted upon each other—forecasts from the entrails of hopes and dreams.

Pride goeth before

The first forecast was a harsh one: North America's in for a rough ride at Worlds. The skeptics' questions raised back at Katowice seemed prophetic. Does a victory over GE Tigers, who suffered drastically with patch changes, mean quite as much against a revitalizing SKT T1? Does a victory over Team WE really mean anything when they're so lowly-ranked in the LPL, and the looming threat of EDG's growing reputation among Asian teams remain untested by the west?

Well, no. The Katowice title seems a bit like a hollow crown now. TSM was studied thoroughly, and found wanting. If there was anything that unified the teams that qualified for Tallahassee, it was a reputation for abundant aggression, and Santorin in particular didn't seem to know how to handle the violence being wreaked upon his team by Fnatic's Reignover, AHQ's Mountain or EDG's Clearlove.

In contrast, literally every other team knew exactly what to do versus TSM, from moment to moment. No wards were needed to understand this simple truth: where Dyrus was, Santorin wasn't. With that gospel understood, there was little to fear against the North American champions.

North America itself's got plenty to fear, though. TSM's friends and rivals might have guiltily looked away from the slaughter upon their own home turf, as they share at least a little of the blame for the performance put up. The fact of the matter is that TSM is North America's number one, undisputed and peerless. Nobody else on the continent had the skills and teamwork to truly challenge them—and in their weakness, doomed their own champion to a terrible fate.

There has been no better mid laner to test Bjergsen's mettle. No better support to counter Lustboy's game-changing plays. Nobody in North America that's consistently converted Dyrus's sacrificial laning phase into a game-winning advantage. The world representative teams will be leaving Tallahassee soon—and when they do, who will TSM learn from now? Who can teach them something they haven't already mastered by the time October rolls around?

Maybe it's time to pull a CLG and see if Chaox can house them for a couple weeks in Shanghai.

The meek shall inherit

In contrast, holy crap AHQ! What a showing! Westdoor fulfilled his promise he made in a recent interview with me: they'd avenge Yoe Flash Wolves' 1-3 defeat back at Katowice, and did they ever do it with style. His cooldown Fizz was a terror from the deep—a pick that only maybe EDG's Pawn had any experience and practice with, leaving the rest of the world helpless before its trickery and cunning.

And it wasn't just TSM that suffered. They were the first team to give SKT a proper scare, dragging them to the brink of defeat in the last game of the group stage—in my bias, I'd like to say that they softened them up for Fnatic's legendary 2-3 near-victory over the Koreans the day after. At the very least, AHQ came out of Tallahassee high off the knowledge that their style is finally internationally viable, with victories over both Western teams.

They still have work to do, though. Even as their individual players have been impressive, organizational mistakes led to defeat by the hands of their eastern hemisphere peers. And the 0-3 defeat by EDG in the semifinals was especially appalling, demonstrating none of the vigor from the group stages.

In sharp contrast to TSM, however, AHQ has plenty more room to grow and refine. They aren't even considered, individually, the best players of their region. Even Westdoor finds himself besieged for the title by the likes of Maple, Toyz and Chawy. And where Taiwan's top players can't provide enough pressure to highlight AHQ's weaknesses, no problem—the LPL and LCK are almost literally just next door, and they're already lining up to scrim.

It's starting to look a lot like Taiwan's a threat—the first time that the region's garnered any respect since 2012. Been a long time coming.

Gods shall bleed

In fact, it's been about as long since the scene wasn't stricken with the terror of Korean dominance. The Season 2 World Championship and IPL 5 was the very last time that the Korean teams weren't the oppressive favorites. But now, even Faker's been shown to bleed. Febiven's miraculous back-to-back solo kills against the man commonly considered the best player in the world has been a thundering rally cry. AHQ demonstrated that even an oft-disregarded backwater team can put fear into the hearts of the world's best region.

And with Korean blood in the waters, the sharks of China are in a frenzy.

All things must come to an end, empires and legends alike. And the untouchable Korean esports dominion now find themselves besieged.

This may be the year they fall.

Remember when Riot Oceania announced they'd sink an artificial reef off the coast of Australia to celebrate League of Legends? Now they're putting on a show at Sydney's Luna Park to celebrate the Oceanic Pro League Grand Final. In addition to the grand final itself, the event will feature a heap of other LoL-related shenanigans including cosplay comps and workshops, among other things.

It takes place August 8, with tickets on sale right now for $15 each. The grand final itself will commence at 5pm but the day kicks off at 11am, meaning you can ride the rollercoaster, be sick, have a nap, and recover in time for the final itself. 

The winner of the final will rep Oceania at the International Wildcard Tournament, which decides who gets a stab at the World Championships. We spoke to Chiefs captain Derek 'Raydere' Trang about the Australian League of Legends scene a couple of months ago, and it's well worth a read if you're interested in how pro gaming is developing in the country.

Riot's been semi-regularly updating the community on its infrastructural progression, and so far so good. I've actually noticed a reduction in my average ping over the last few weeks—which, granted, isn't entirely necessary when my champion pool mostly consists of heavy close-range bruisers. Skill shots? That's for mid laners to bother with. I just want to run up and hit people.

But it does help. And their eventual plan to develop what is effectively a semi-private nationwide routing network has great implications for the development of North American esports by reducing the artificial limitations on skills development for more easterly players. Right now, west coasters have a significant advantage—30 ms from San Jose versus 100+ is basically the difference between reacting and predicting. While there is certainly value in developing strong predictive skills in-game, which is the basis of Madlife's legend-inspiring Thresh and Blitzcrank play, a player's mechanical strength is based at least a little on the speed they react to developing situations in a fight. Especially in solo queue.

Granted, it isn't the only thing, or arguably even the most important. Low reaction speed can be compensated for with a good team composition and strategic planning. Sure, you might be liable to miss crucial Smites or whiff difficult Glacial Prisons, but a good understanding of blind points, play patterns and ability abuse has lifted even the most remote players to the top of solo queue rankings.

Case in point: AHQ E-Sports Club's own ace in the hole. Liu "Westdoor" Shu-Wei is a feared local legend, dominating not just the Taiwanese Garena servers but slashing through the ranks of North America and even Korea in yesteryears. The average ping from Taipei to Los Angeles? 166 on a good day, or ten times that of an LCS pro duking it out somewhere in the vicinity of Santa Monica. Sure, Westdoor is incredibly skilled, but given that he made his name off Twisted Fate's fire-and-forget Gold Cards (as opposed to Riven's frame-by-frame intricacies) it's clear that "skill" in League of Legends extends past just reactionary play.

That said, an east coast server is probably going to be necessary in the long run, and not just for ping parity. There's a metagame aspect that is oft-overlooked: all of Asia's involved in a coordinated conspiracy to keep the world championship trophy to themselves, and it's got a lot to do with their server regions.

Eastern alliance

I've verified it over the spring split with multiple teams, on the record. Heck, LMS teams have said so on video (albeit in Mandarin, so mostly to the ignorance of Reddit et al). It's not exactly a big secret, just one that's often overlooked by the region-specific narrative espoused by most commentators. Shanghai, Seoul, Taipei: three server regions, but one practice circuit. While Korean and Chinese teams do focus primarily on their domestic circuits, thus forming the particular metagames and trends of each region, they regularly swap notes and test the strength of each other's best.

It's why, for instance, Westdoor popped out the Cho'gath mid pre-Cinderhulk. Korean solo queue's been using it as a LeBlanc counter since early spring, the conical Silence on Feral Scream doing a serious number to what was then an assassins-heavy meta, dependent on champion ability and burst potential. It was weeks later until the west picked up on it, and by then it was less about shutting down assassins and more about providing another layer of meat in front of the AD carry.

It is, I suspect, a major reason for the eastern regions' continued strength. The Korean exodus did more than just weaken KeSPA's stranglehold on esports success—it's networked the eastern hemisphere regions into a loosely organized competitive federation. Though not one without its pain points.

In Taipei, for example, the Taipei Assassins have caught a little flack over their scrim schedules. Sure, it makes perfect sense for them to want to spend a lot of time scrimming Korean teams—it's why they brought in a Korean coach in the first place, to provide that sort of networking opportunity. For them to do so almost at the exclusion of their fellow LoL Master Series teams, though, has engendered a little ill will. There is some nationalism with the Wolves and AHQ in that they're working to redeem Taiwan's reputation in international esports, yet the Wolves claim that it's easier to get scrims with GE Tigers than it is with TPA!

Quid pro quo

But even with neighborly issues, it's hard to pretend that the Taiwanese teams haven't undergone substantial improvements this year. Their exposure to the practices and habits of Chinese and Korean peers has greatly expanded their playbooks and tightened their mechanical executions—in lieu of actual international competition, they can at least have international practices to keep them truly ready come the MSI and Worlds.

That's not possible for EU and NA teams. The last time that the two regions were interconnected was back in 2012, when TSM was an East Coast team and bearing with 150+ ping to occasionally practice against their Old Country counterparts. Nowadays, the only cross-cultural interchange is between North America and Japan—and it's mostly Japan stuck playing on NA servers by virtue of lacking their own, and they're too new to really offer much in terms of experience to the more established North American scene.

That's going to impede western strategic development. It probably already has. It is by no mere accident that Europe's picked up a reputation for sluggish, grinding play, and no accident that TiP so rapidly tore through established North American teams back when they were LMQ and staffed entirely of Chinese players. It is natural for a region to copy the play styles of their most successful teams, but the insulated nature of the western regions means their best teams have very few opportunities to learn how they might get punished by somebody working off a wholly different set of assumptions.

Thus: a trans-Atlantic server. Or, at the very least, deliberate effort to extend Riot's ongoing network development program with the trans-Atlantic connection in mind. And, if at all possible, with Brazil in mind as well, as the rapidly developing CBLoL program is arguably mature enough to deserve a guaranteed Worlds seed in 2016.

What might that cross-pollination result in? Better League. Better play. Less 50+ minute European snoozefests as teammates bicker and snark—at each other—over how best to not shut out a game when they're ahead. It's not as if Chinese games don't run the clock either, but it's much rarer—and even when they do, the kill tallies pile up like an avalanche over the entirety of it.

I think that's something we can all approve.

By now, the damage done to the legendary Korean esports infrastructure is self-evident. Though the epic five-game set between SKT and CJ Entus this week was suitably entertaining, with Faker remaining undefeated when allowed to pilot LeBlanc, even casual observers had to admit that it's lacked a certain sharpness that's graced the OnGameNet Champions playoffs of prior years.

The first two games were especially disappointing, with SKT's rookie jungler T0M and secondary mid laner Easyhoon visibly cracking under the pressure. And it certainly didn't help that CJ support player Madlife was playing up to his near-mythical reputation, devastating their ranks with aggressive over-the-wall Flash-Flays. For a while, it seemed as if CJ Entus ended up being the greatest beneficiaries of the Patch 5.5+ meta—up until now, neither team had suffered a single defeat post-Cinderhulk.

Then it turns out that Madlife wasn't the only veteran gaining a boost from the new metagame.

When was Bengi last this good? During the preseason, it seemed as if his Lee Sin was beautifully on-point—but then again, the preseason made Samsung's new all-rookie team seemed like they'd actually be a threat. When actual consequences were on the line, their roster wilted, and so seemingly did Bengi's career as a respected jungler. Yet when he and Faker were rotated back to the roster versus CJ Entus, it was lights out for the enemy team.

And this, I think, is why Korea's still to be feared, as we get closer to the Mid-Season Invitational. They've lost a lot of luster after China's madcap shopping spree, as whole rosters get replaced and entire coaching staffs had to be rebuild. Even their secret weapon was partially dismantled as the one-team-per-organization rule tore apart the prior sister-teams system that guaranteed a baseline quality to their scrims. But only partially dismantled. And after IEM Katowice shook them up, and another round of international prestige is up for grabs, the remnants of the Great Korean Engine of 2013 and 2014 is spluttering awake again to remind us lesser mortals why it terrified us for so long—and why even its cannibalized remains are worthy of respect.

By a thread

Do you recall how they came to that place? As we all lamented for Bengi's disgrace? The collapse of a world championship legacy is a painful and merciless one, and as SKT T1 K was torn apart piece by piece, player by player, only two things were known for sure: that Faker was going to be the very last to leave, and Bengi shouldn't stay. Where Piglet still had flashes of brilliance and Impact was a solid if unexciting role player, the former world champion jungler was struggling for relevance.

Sure, yes, 2014 was Kakao, Spirit and DanDy's crown jewel season. The trio of junglers represented a platinum-grade talent pool as yet unmatched by any region (even now, when all three are work-vacationing in China), so it was maybe a little excusable for Bengi to get overshadowed for most of Season 4 But that excuse swiftly died as his spring performance continued to suffer. There was nobody left that should be casting a shadow over him, yet it might have been kinder if there were—if nothing else, to keep the camera off his failures as SKT struggled for anything resembling control over the Rift.

It was a breathe of relief for SKT fans when newbie T0M was pulled out from seemingly nowhere to terrorize people with Udyr. Sure, the kid was young, untried, and inexperienced—but he was aggressive to Bengi's passive, thrill-seeking to Bengi's pathological risk aversion, and seemed to do well early on. If he had just a little more mental fortitude, just enough gumption to stay on top of his game versus a similarly revitalized CJ Entus, maybe this would've been Bengi's last professional season.

Instead, the newbie wilted, and the old hand was drawn in. And Bengi fought like a blood-crazed shark.

T0M's entry into SKT was the threat, I posit. The Sword of Damocles, hanging by a single horsehair thread over Bengi's proverbial head. The proof that he was expendable—proof that an old trophy from two years ago meant nothing if he was going to hold his team back.

So Bengi got better. He had to. And Jin Air's Cpt Jack got better after a two year slump, as Pilot was breathing down his neck. And even Madlife and Space, the great despair of 2014, got significantly better, as even they were saddled with understudies eager for their jobs.

Maybe it's time the west also took their substitutes seriously.

Seconds in the corner

It's usually accepted that North America and Europe are particularly inept at developing talent, though that hardly needs to be true. Yes, China's LSPL mocks everybody else's attempts—there are teams and players in there that could easily be considered world-caliber contenders (or were last year, thanks to the Korean buy-out being so thorough that they ran out of LPL slots to put everybody). North America, in particular, seems just a step away from having a formalized system: "academy" teams in the Challenger Series have demonstrated that there is at least that minimum fiscal means among the top organizations to fund a secondary team.

The problem is, as the Challenger Series is currently conducted, the only thing they're looking to do is sell off their excess team at the end of the split. And to me, that seems wasteful—like a farmer selling or eating their seed stock.

There is currently no system in place to maintain individual talents, like there is in conventional sports. While a pro tennis player can expect their professional careers and physical conditions to peak at the comparatively ripe old age of 30, esports professionals are lucky not to burn out before their early 20s. Theoretically, this is exactly what you use a substitute for—sure, it's not as if a pro gamer puts even a faint shadow as much strain on their tendons as Tim Lincecum does with every pitch, but I'd bet that Cloud 9 wished that Hai's wrists were healthier and had more time to rest. Damage over time can be even deadlier than burst damage, after all.

But an ideal substitutes system doesn't just give players somebody they can foist duties off to on unimportant games or matchups. It's also an implied threat. Currently, it is believed that roster stability is the most important thing for a team—and there's some truth to that, as shotcalling and team synergy is an overwhelmingly important part of League strategy. But stability isn't purely positive, as it also breeds complacency. If a player thinks they've got the starting position anyhow, and have burned out or otherwise lost interest in the game, they become a major liability to the team's overall performance.

If they'd rather just play Hearthstone all day, that's really unfair to their teammates. So how best to prevent that sort of complacent attitude? Well, for one, by instilling doubt whether they get to keep their jobs.

Imagine this: a North American LCS organization starts up a Challenger Series team, recruiting solo queue's best. They then sign all five up as their LCS substitutes—a situation currently allowed and even implicitly encouraged by the rulesets governing each circuit level. Unlike in the status quo for most academy teams, the Challenger and LCS teams are each other's regular scrim partners as well—less beneficial for the LCS team than training with their top-level peers, maybe, but extremely helpful for turbocharging the Challengers' development by breaking down the decision-making process and practices of the more senior team for them to emulate.

Then, this is the important part: the LCS players are also the substitutes for the Challenger Series team.

You now have an internally developed Sword of Damocles, control of which lies with the team's coach. Players on both sides are spurred to draw out their utmost performance from week to week in hopes of qualifying for the LCS seat—and players that are suffering maladies or otherwise need a break can gearshift down to the Challenger Series' less demanding level of play. You also solve the enforcement problem esports coaches currently have with headstrong players by giving them tangible means of dictating authority.

You are left, in other words, with an authentic and fully realized professional gaming organization, with infrastructure in place for both talent farming and professional advancement. One with the staff and methodology in place to finally crank out winners. Congratulations, North America—you've finally made it.

Or, at the least, you'd make it if you stopped making teams like TSM Darkness and CLG Black. What a dismal waste of time.