Good news! Despite my concerns, the community indeed delivered and I have stuff to talk about. Bonus for some of you, only half of it is eSports related.

EU Live Championships

I wonder if Team Secret would know what I mean when I call them Jordan, Pippen and Rodman? Three championships, three wins for the French phenoms in their triumphant series over Team Snow during the Finals yesterday.

Team Secret dropped the first game as Snow brought out the Lance (there was so much Lance at EU Championships) and clinched the game with a diehard Kraken push. Game Two was a different story, a different story from just about any story on the Fold ever. Secret took Lance to the lane with Tension Bow and Aftershock, brutal Imaples, with Ardan support and crystal Taka in the jungle. Snow was obviously shaken by the way this fluid CC comp took control and rocked their faces.

Games three and four were classic Team Secret performances, in that Snow let Mowglie have Phinn. While there was no push comp, Palmatoro and KValafar had some serious syngery with Skye and Celeste and then Skye and Glaive. The pulls pulled so hard, followed up with Death From Above and a nice compliment of rocket axe chops and fallen stars. I hope this paints as pretty picture of just how much fun it is to watch Team Secret so you don’t necessary have to watch. Although, why don’t you?

VIS League Finals

The Vainglory Invitational Series finished its final week of the regular season with two triple-headers that had some serious fireworks. Excuse me while I buff my fingernails as Liberation made a fantastic showing, beating both Team SoloMid and Hammers eSports with dominant precision. PontheOriginal, in particular, was truly fantastic as Ringo and Blackfeather on Thursday but StatusBaked warmed the cockles of my heart with his Petal and Ozo play.

We actually saw a few appearances by the Monkey King as he took advantage of some sweet Adagio buffs to brawl with the best of them. Also SAW, always SAW. SAW is top notch in the big way lately, especially when his stutter stepping is being handled by a professional.

Nemesis is on an incredible six game winning streak and just looking better every time. My concerns about VONC’s over-aggressive play were moderately quenched as I saw a nice amount of teamwork, even with BestChuckNA subbing in for LostBoyToph.

The finals are guaranteed to be a blast, starting this Saturday the 18th at 3pm EST/ Noon PDT and running until the dust settles.

Tesseract

The Second Qualifier for the Spring Season comes a close next weekend and the might of Infamous is very apparent with Spectre and Legion advancing to the semis. Their greatest triumph this time around may be Spectre elimating Ardent Allegiant in the quarter finals. Ardent took out Nero and Spectre in the First Qualifier before finally falling to Legion. Another act of revenge came in 3LSea winning out over their Spring rival Dion Strategist that won in the previous match up. But I’m pulling for the FakeBosses. Not only because I don’t have to listen to them, since they’re not my real boss, but as far as I can tell they weren’t even in the First Qualifier!

Follow @vaingloryesports for updates on when to watch the semis and finals next weekend.

SEMC Community Appreciation

Our grand overlords have thrown some pennies from heaven recently with special community centric contests and discounts. The NA and EU Championship weekends had a Twitter contest as users were encouraged to post a picture showing their support for a team in hopes of winning an IPad Air 2.

There was also the #INeedASkin Twitter event as players posted their funniest, most endearing, honest reason why they needed a particular skin. There were some pretty fantastic submissions, including some thoughtful poetry and Weird Al song parodies. The winners were announced today, most likely because my Ed Gein reference doesn’t promote the positive atmosphere SEMC tries to cultivate.

Of course the Hero sale wasn’t bad either. 25% ICE discount on every hero this past Saturday most definitely helped some players round out their collection. I saw plenty of excited chatter online from players that were weighing their options on how to best spend that ICE freezing a hole in their pocket.

Dynasties Blackfeather

With the final in-game unveiling of Blackfeather’s first skin “Dyanasties”, we received some more non-canon lore to go along with it. As a prolific non-canon specialist myself, I find this piece quite disconcerting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but I suspect it’s not written by SugarVenom. The references to Blackfeather’s masculinity, repeated use of longing and the fact that Malene is in love with him makes it quite clear that Blackfeather wrote this himself. Fan fiction is one thing, but putting yourself as a character is pathetic.

Summer Party!

Just yesterday SEMC surprised us with news about the new summer party extravaganza on the horizon starting with update 1.19. As pictured above, Summer Party Krul will be available with ICE or card unlocks, followed by two mystery skins in subsequent updates. A new rewards system is coming as well, details are scant now but promise to award all types of players and give extra opportunity to gather all important skin cards. My predictions for the mystery skins are right in line with the popular internet opinion; 1.20 burly figure holding a shovel looks to be SAW with that tiny plastic trowel for shanking and 1.21 I believe is Alpha with umbrella for stabbing and a bucket on her head to hide her dead lady face.

The Rona event got me encouraged to play regularly, snatching up those cards. Then quests came along with something to look forward to even when I just wanted to play a couple Battle Royale. I like where this trend is going and look forward to what Update 1.19 has for all us causal players.

Recommended Viewing

I wanted to gather some YouTube videos that aren’t the marathon stream VODs of the professional eSports play. You have more than likely watched the big dogs *cough* Rumblysuperset *cough* but there are a lot of great videos from lesser known creators.

Azaus has recently started his channel, making his own news videos and some really sweet montages like this Blackfeather one that is set to surprisingly chill music.

EddiiieeGaming does some pretty fantastic playthroughs trying out specific builds, but also has fun little stuff like this collection of running animations.

For the last several weeks now Team Phoenix has been putting out Top 5 VG Plays videos complete with commentary that show off great moves around the Fold. Clips are user submitted if you’ve captured something you think is worthy!

VIPL had a ton of stuff to watch this season, and if you missed most of it CheatFighter2 XIII has you covered with a slow motion Top 10 Plays.

If there’s someone making awesome videos, maybe even you, please give me a heads up for future weeks!

Vainglorious Trivia

There were a lot of submission, but unfortunately no one got last week’s question correct. The hero SugarVenom would say is most like Wolverine is actually Catherine. Sugar can see both of them doing everything from fighting in a jungle to meditating on top of a mountain. Good news is the nothing reward will roll over to this week.

Here’s your question: Who started the BrokenMyth site? First correct answer wins double nothing!

“Lore”: The Brittle Mermaid

A group of hot chicks giggle as they put the final touches on a sand sculpture before frolicking down the beach, curves bouncing. Krul watches them go with a ghastly smile on his lipless face. Buried up to his neck, he surveys their work, appreciative grunts at the way they used sea shells to adorn his lower half as scales. Moments later Fortress trots up next to him and plops down.

Fortress– Were those pretty ladies bullying you?

Krul– No, I asked them to make me a mermaid.

Fortress– What a waste. Why not something real like a bear or Kraken?

Krul (lifting his head)- There’s nothing wrong with dreaming.

Fortress– A fantastic creature with no scientific basis built on the romantic loneliness of sailors? Yawn.

Krul– Please, I’m trying to enjoy this moment.

Fortress– The digestive system questions alone defy all logic.

Krul– Plenty of people eat sushi, raw fish is amenable to one’s system. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m basking in the ocean breeze.

Fortress tries to remain silent, fails.

Fortress– What about gills? They have to breathe.

Krul– Small ones on the neck, or behind the ears possibly.

Fortress– Pah, even on Kevin Costner that was preposterous.

Krul– Citing a fictional movie does not help your case for scientific accuracy.

Fortress– Fine, then the beautiful hair.

Krul– Thank you, I like the blond highlights.

Fortress– No, theirs. If mermaids spent their entire lives underwater, they would be bald and slippery. Not so alluring, I think.

Krul (heavy sigh)- Okay they’re bald. But that’s only because they spend their lives in a majestic undersea kingdom drinking from coral goblets and riding sea horses. On the other hand, when a wolf goes bald it’s because parasites cause mange that results in severe itching and lesions. Between the two, I’ll take the romantic fairytale.

Cranky silence.

Fortress– Your sand boobs are uneven.

Thank you for reading! In case you’re wondering, the tier list and that strategic content you all love should be coming soon. See you next week Krul surfers and Lance nerfers.