Gambit Gaming OP

With P1noy currently riding a wave of success I thought that I would share my two cents on a very interesting topic to me. Aggressive players are extremely fun to watch but commentators and analysts will constantly remind you that overly aggressive play is flawed and will be punished by higher level opponents. Is this true? Are they just trying to ruin our (spectating) fun? Read on!

The Starcraft Analogy

Before jumping into League I want to step back and look at Starcraft 2 for a moment because I think the mechanics of the game lend themselves better to explaining aggressive versus passive play. In Starcraft 2 most games are dictated (or at least heavily influenced) by the opening builds and these builds are typically aggressive or passive. For example a Terran player might choose to get an early command centre and turtle into the mid game or they may go proxy barracks and immediately rush marines into their opponents face.

A hyper aggressive opening can often be devastating versus a similarly skilled or weaker opponent but they are often suicide versus a more skillful opponent. This is because the aggressor must overcome a positional disadvantage when making the play, i.e. the defensive player will have a choke point to defend and will be close to reinforcements and/or defensive structures. This means that the aggressor will always be fighting from behind and must be skilful enough to compensate for it; they must bring more/stronger units to the party and they must micro them better to overwhelm the defenders position. Surprise is obviously an important factor as this goes some way to counteracting the positional disadvantage.

This is where risk comes in because if the aggressor is not skilful enough to win from a disadvantaged position then the defender mops up the attack and wins the trade, usually emerging in a far superior economic position going into the mid game. However if the play succeeds then the game is usually won outright or the aggressor ends up in an extremely dominant position.

Where it gets interesting

So far, so boring but all this starts to get interesting when we move into the professional e-sports scene. At the top level the skill difference between players is much smaller so an aggressive opening becomes riskier – the aggressor knows they are fighting at a disadvantage versus a similarly skilled opponent – and so these plays become less popular. Why risk failed aggression when you are skilful enough to win with a safer, passive start?

However this is where the meta game comes into play. If a strategy becomes unpopular then players begin to cut corners and ignore it, preferring to focus on beating other common, meta strategies. Suddenly the aggressive play becomes more attractive again because it is unexpected; players adopting a super-greedy build to combat a standard greedy meta build are going to be caught with their pants down and quickly dispatched.

This is a concept which old Korean pros understand especially well (the likes of Boxer, Hero, etc.) and you typically see bluffs, and double bluffs coming out when two great Korean players face off against each other. Terran will know that Protoss is a passive player but he knows that Protoss knows that he knows this 😀. So instead of an aggressive opening he builds a passive, super-greedy opening expecting Protoss to waste money on defences in anticipation of aggression. Protoss however is smart and anticipates the double bluff so he instead switches up to an aggressive play style, punishing the greedy start from Terran.

For the humble spectator this can sometimes be hard to grasp but when we hear all the talk of coaches, scouting and preparation this is usually what is going on. Expected aggression is weak whilst unexpected aggression is overwhelmingly strong so knowledge of your opponents is everything.

Going back to League of Legends

As with everything, the concept of aggression is not so clear in League as it is in conventional RTS games like Starcraft. Aggression in LoL takes many different forms: from Champion picks to the runes, masteries, and moment-to-moment decisions in the game. Although like Starcraft you will still be required to fight at a positional disadvantage, either by fighting near an enemy tower, beyond your vision control, or simply by advancing to a position which separates you from your team/escape route. The term “all in” is frequently used to describe these plays and for very good reason because after you commit there is no way back if the play fails.

Unfortunately teams in the Western LoL scene are not nearly as experienced at exploiting aggression as in the Starcraft world. A lot of this is down to the fuzzy nature of aggression in the game but there is also a streak of naivety running through many Western teams which says “If we just play our best and focus on our game then we can win”. The irony is that this statement is inherently flawed for the very reasons we have just discussed, if “your game” is passive and your opponent knows that you will rigidly stick to it then suddenly their task of unpicking your strategy becomes that much easier.

The P1noy Effect

The reason Gambit – and P1noy in particular – achieved so much success at IEM was because Gambit were able to exploit aggression successfully versus their Western counterparts. Unfortunately for Gambit fans this was not really due to superior scouting or preparation on the team’s part (or if it was they disguised it well) but more because Gambit exploited both the environment and their own reputation.

The first factor at play was the habit of all Western teams to play overly passive on the international stage. It’s not hard to see why; stakes are usually high and so too is the pressure and weight of expectation on the players. It’s unsurprising that when faced with this situation many teams choose a safe, farming style focussed around minimal risk. Western teams typically wait for mistakes or aggressive plays from their opponents and then try to capitalize on them.

The second factor is that Gambit Gaming came into this specific tournament as a complete black box. Both P1noy and Cabochard were unknown quantities, Nic was (in my opinion) extremely underrated despite having already proven himself last split to be a solid mid-laner, and no one knew how this new Gambit line-up would perform together. Sure there were heavy roster swaps on some of the other teams but they still remained known quantities to some extent and featured familiar talents.

Against such a backdrop it is not difficult to see why P1noy’s hyper aggressive style of play proved so successful. This particular eco-system was perfectly poised for an aggressive strategy to succeed and flourish – in fact it’s arguably one of the reason why a historically aggressive Gambit line-up has been so successful at IEM in the past. It’s also easy to understand why many commentators are a little sceptical about Gambit replicating such success in the LCS. The league environment will be less vulnerable to aggressive strategies and teams will be expecting such strategies from Gambit so better prepared to punish it.

All this is not say that Gambit are a bad team, or that their success was some kind of “fluke”. To execute such strategies required a great deal of skill from both P1noy and the team as a whole and if they are able to show that they can play a passive, patient game as well as their aggressive game then we can expect great things from them in the future.

In Summary

Playing aggressive can often be vital for winning games but truly understanding aggression is what Western teams need to flourish on the world stage. Successful aggressive play is about understanding your opponent, their style of play, and their adaptation to the current meta game in order to punish an overly passive or greedy strategy. However aggressive play will put you at a disadvantage – especially when you lack the element of surprise – and so great teams know that aggression must be used carefully and with enough subterfuge to make the gamble worthwhile.