Nightmare on the Fold

Split Two, Weekend Two

This weekend of Vainglory8 was pretty scary for some teams. We had interesting finals in both EU and NA. My picks for this weekend on the TFResports podcast were to say the least, horrifying. At least I stuck with Rogue this past weekend. I would have to say this weekend was a Thriller. Sorry, my puns are about as good as the graphics in Arena of Valor. Even the Vainglory production team was in on the halloween fun. (see vods below)

Lets move on from those, some would say cringe worthy videos. I was pretty much locking SK Gaming in for the worlds position after their split one performance. Now, I feel like I have jinxed them with G2 esports being hot on their tail. G2 is starting to look like that number one ranked seed we saw in the spring finals. Hundor and Darkpotato are playing fantastic right now and they may be hitting their strides at the perfect time. Darkpotato wasn’t the only potato on the Fold that surprised a lot of people. Saltypotatoes had a great weekend taking down teams like Calamity Reborn and Mousesports to get to the finals against G2. NA is the region that has always had the close race for worlds, but now EU has its own race. With SK playing FNATIC and G2 playing Mousesports, this third weekend is shaping up to have some intense matchups. G2 defeats Salty in the finals 2–1

In NA, we had a pretty big shake up with two of the most dominate teams, TSM and C9, not making it to the final matchup. For TSM, VONC got his wisdom teeth out and was unsure going into the weekend if he was going to be able to play. I just got my wisdom teeth taken out this summer and let me tell you, it was miserable!

Hammers is able to take down TSM 2–1 with Flashx in the jungle and Luckybread on the captain position. I am confident that TSM would of handled Hammers just like they did in weekend one of split two finals if they had their normal roster. Hopefully VONC heals up for the third weekend! This brings me to my next point with Hammers and StartingAllOver. I think I will start a new segment on my write ups titled “Endless Opinions”. I have a lot of them, so why not share them! So here is the first edition of “Endless Opinions”

I have been seeing a lot of talk about how if Hammers keeps performing well, they could still reach first place, qualifying for worlds. This is great for Hammers, but can StartingAllOver even travel? I have heard that he cannot travel internationally, which is a huge problem in competitive esports. Most of the time, you play in your regions and compete in online tournaments. Then if you are good enough, you will travel to compete in the biggest events of the year. So my question is, is it even worth it for Hammers to play with StartingAllOver if he cannot travel internationally? I mean, why put the time and effort into a player if the team will just be let down at the end of the year anyways?

We have seen examples of this with L3oN who is a fun, exciting player to watch. Unfortunately, with him being young he could not travel to live events in the past and his team pays the price. I am not taking away from how big of a player Starting is in Vainglory. The kid has serious skill. If you take him away, we have seen how Hammers performs without him. When you put him back in the mix, now all of a sudden Chicken and Status are playing better. He is also a cocky player with a lot of confidence, which can be good or bad. Take this tweet for instance.

Good point Starting! Also, imagine if TSM had their normal roster going into this past weekend’s game. I already mentioned TSM probably would of got that victory. Let us move to example B of when this starts to really well…trigger me.

In this tweet, we see his predictions of Hammers getting second behind Cloud9 to end this split. Since Cloud9 already has their worlds spot, Hammers would qualify for worlds. This would be a nightmare for Hammers and Super Evil Megacorp (SEMC) if the full roster that has been playing all year cannot even travel. It is a wasted spot in worlds and I would rather have another EU team in the mix before we have half of the Hammer’s roster. Why build this continued hype of Hammers making it to worlds if it is a Hammers without StartingAllOver? If the Vainglory competitive scene wants to continue to grow, we cannot be having simple player issues like this.

This is an unfortunate circumstance that I am sure the organization of Hollywood Hammers and Starting have been dealing with. We have seen past issues that cannot be avoided when it comes to visas and legal travel. IraqiZorro ran into issues when trying to return to North America after a travel ban was implemented. Legal issues happen. When it comes down to it, does Hammer’s points even matter at the end of the season? I think it is a legitimate question that should be discussed somewhere. I have asked Starting a few times on twitter if he could travel if his team did happen to make it to worlds.

He has not responded to any of my attempts at getting an answer. Like I said, Starting is a damn good player. He deserves to be on the big stage with his team if they would so receive a spot at worlds. That would make the Vainglory scene even more exciting. But teams like TSM and Rogue would have received more points this weekend if Hammers were playing with the roster that would actually be at worlds. These are teams with a real chance at competing against the strong EA region at worlds. Again, I am just speculating and have no concrete proof that Starting cannot travel. I just think it is an interesting topic of conversation. “Endless Opinions” segment one concluded, lets get back to the Vainglory8 action.

On the other side of the bracket, Rogue and Tribe faced off. This was bound to be an exciting matchup. This weekend had another big surprise with the Wizard himself, Sibs, returning to play with the OG Rogue roster. You know, it felt good seeing the old crew back on the Fold together. Sibs had a pretty strong showing with a lot of good Alpha play. They were able to take down Tribe 2–1. In the finals, they were up against Hollywood Hammers. Like I mentioned above, they are playing fantastic Vainglory currently. The last draft for Rogue was perfect! I thought they had the win locked up. They got Churnwalker, Saw, and Alpha, which was almost the same composition as game one. They won game one in 12 minutes!?! Hammers adapted well, and changed what went wrong in game one. Blackfeather needed to be banned away from Starting since he was playing him so well all weekend. He goes 11/4/4. Status playing the Koshka also added an extra dive component that allowed Starting to survive these team fights. The atlases on SAO and Status were enough to make Hami’s job on Saw nearly impossible. Hammers prevailed and picked up first place of weekend two. Rogue was able to get one point in the finals to move past TSM and take overall first place. I am looking for these last two weekends to be a fight for worlds between TSM and Rogue.