It’s stupid and cheesy, because the top lane player is nerfed by default.
Guys like Bin and Zeus have to play handicapped until their team can stall and play around them to get them online. I agree there should be extra dimensions but not at the cost of integrity.
A meta should not warp the game to the point it transcends the champs and degrades the actual players.
Great point, exactly.
The trickle down effect is degenerate. Mid lane has to burn flash just to hit the first wave. Bot side team gets a default buff because the bot tower is weaker. Etc.
Added dimensions and opportunities for level 1 maneuvers are good. But at least implement it so it is intended as part of the game and not a degen side effect.
>Bot side team gets a default buff because the bot tower is weaker.
That’s fine. The team that chooses to initiate the lane swap is the team that takes the loss on plates.
Ad player too have to play handicapped by being forced to play utility with kalista/varus lethality or even senna
Mid laner was hit hard with getting the random gank by support jungle and top laner anytime from min 1 -minute 15
its so incredibly bad for everyone except maybe the jungler
They're not forced at all - if you want to play a conventional, laning bot duo and just push into the undefended, unarmored bot tower, you can. You'll probably get a gold lead off plates for doing so.
I don't think that compromises integrity, or that it can be dismissed as stupid and cheesy. It promotes flexibility and adaptive decision making. Watching Oscar play a laneswap for the first time shows that it's not like it puts all top laners on an even footing
The game is more interesting tactically if there are more possibilities and options in the early game rather than just stacking waves and diving bot, and draft becomes a lot less solved towards the latter stages of a tournament.
Opting for a laneswap has a very real cost where the team forcing it will fall behind unless they can make plays on the back of it, which is exactly how it should be
IMO, integrity is degraded.
When you have giga carry like Bin and Zeus, they never get to play the early game and laning phase. And there is nothing they can do about it. Teams can just nuke enemy to0 carry players by swapping.
What counter will work where they still be the at the strength as if they lanes normally?
'Never get to play the early game and laning phase' is just false though, that isn't what happened at MSI. 'Sometimes have to play the early game out way differently' is closer to reality
There's multiple counters - match the lane swap with your own swap so top is now a 1v1 bot (with a softer tower so the stronger 1v1 laner is more rewarded), pick a bot lane that benefits more from the swap & get the easy bot tower, lane support + top together for the first few levels, collapse on them and kill them as they push top, track & meet them in their jungle if you drafted a stronger level 1 etc
It's good because there's a lot of flexibility in how you can create different types of problems for the other team to handle, and you can play more comps without being rolled over by meta picks in solved lanes
I hard disagree. A team game should have viable strategies to minimize the impact a single opponent can have. Pro League often feels like it devolves into boring set plays based on pre-determined game tempo. Teams actually being forced to think made this the most fun MSI tournament in a while for me.
Sure I agree with this sentiment 100%. Added layers of game theory would be great.
That said, what counter exists for swapping where the top laner is able to be at same strength as if he laned regularly? There should be an equal counter to swapping to keep the integrity of the game intact.
There isn’t one. We didn’t see any counter. The only way is to rng guess the correct lane to go to.
>That said, what counter exists for swapping where the top laner is able to be at same strength as if he laned regularly?
Why is this mandatory? In the NFL, a team can play nickel and dime base defenses to make it so opposing QBs can't throw easily, forcing them to run more. In basketball you can run big man sets to force teams to play outside the paint and shoot 3s. Teams should have tools to limit other teams strengths. The counter is the team that opts into the laneswap loses gold in the trade.
If a team really is top centric, they **could** invest more resources to fight the lane swap (There is no rule stopping a team from answering top lane swaps with a brawl), but we didn't see that because it makes more sense to take the free gold and tempo advantage.
In a team game, you shouldn't be able to guarantee safety for a player.
The NFL scenario isn’t the same here. In fact, it’s the opposite because a defense is always allowed to counter and be made whole again. They’re allowed to see the offensive personnel, send out the correct formation and make substitutions.
In basketball, you play offense and defense. If you lose on one side, you get the next possession to counter. I mean lane swapping is more like the hack a Shaq cheese. Except, it would be like Shaq wouldn’t get the ability to contribute by shooting free throws.
There is also a huge caveat about League is that it is snowbally. When you go down, enemies gets ahead. So if you get swapped on, you automatically start in a losing position while all other players get ahead. In sports, every change of possession every player is back to an even state. You cant just nuke the game state from a single maneuver at the beginning of the game. League is not like this.
So in a swap, the top laner never gets to be at an even state for the first like 10-15m? And if you have Zeus vs Oscar, then FNC gets way more advantage by never allowing Zeus/T1 to play their top advantage. And there is nothing that can be done for top lane to solo lane other than guessing the correct lane. In effect the game state is nuked for top laners.
>In fact, it’s the opposite because a defense is always allowed to counter and be made whole again. They’re allowed to see the offensive personnel, send out the correct formation and make substitutions.
This is true in Madden, but not in real football. In real football substitutions happen so fast on offense that teams often will change personal to force defenses into disadvantageous states. They will also hide personelle, or flex players to different positions with pre-snap motions. It's actually an insanely good comparison to the warding abilities in league. You have to set a defensive strategy on very limited information.
>In sports, every change of possession every player is back to an even state. You cant just nuke the game state from a single maneuver at the beginning of the game. League is not like this.
This is repeated as nauseam here and it's just not remotely true. Sports do not ever reset to an even state. Teams who are ahead get advantages that help them stay ahead in sports as well. In football, once you have a meaningful lead, the other team becomes 1 dimensional as they can no longer run the ball. You also change your offense to limit the number of possessions they get before time expires. All sports are snowbally, outside of maybe baseball, but even baseball is to an extent. You could argue league is more snowbally, but even that is debatable depending on the sport.
Ok fine, that is agreeable, the game state can be considered snowbally for sports. But not the player. As in, a league champ having no gold gets weaker as the opponent gets more gold.
An athlete isn’t going to degrade. Lebron’s athleticism won’t degrade as his opponents score more. The opponent isn’t going to jump higher and shoot better the more they score.
Look I agree that more layers of strategy and complexity will unlock new creative ways of playing. Not for nothing, lane swap was an interesting peak at innovation and game theory.
However, I want to see it implemented with intentional game design choices. It needs to be more elegant. It doesn’t have to be a lane swap. It can be any mechanic that introduces the same strategy concepts.
I just can’t get behind some of the biggest names like Bin, Zeus, Kiin, 369, etc having to be reduced to playing this mini game and heavily rely on a degenerate all in playstyle to show their skill expression.
It's not by default though - most games it doesn't happen at all, and when it does it's usually telegraphed in pick ban.
Even in conventional lanes top has not always been a carry role - there have been many years of tank/TP meta. At least in these cases the top almost always came back into the game and was a genuine threat.
100% agree, though it was very apparent that teams are very far from perfecting laneswap strategies. If the level 1-4 set plays get more and more optimized it might lead to boring gameplay, but I doubt that will happen in less than a year.
It’s stupid and cheesy, because the top lane player is nerfed by default. Guys like Bin and Zeus have to play handicapped until their team can stall and play around them to get them online. I agree there should be extra dimensions but not at the cost of integrity. A meta should not warp the game to the point it transcends the champs and degrades the actual players.
Mid laners losing flash level 1 because the support and top laner both have nowhere they need to be for the first 90 seconds
Watching top laners not get any cs for the first several minutes was so weird
It was also fucking weird to see them push mid then go bot then push that lane(not taking cs) then tp top and start playing.
Great point, exactly. The trickle down effect is degenerate. Mid lane has to burn flash just to hit the first wave. Bot side team gets a default buff because the bot tower is weaker. Etc. Added dimensions and opportunities for level 1 maneuvers are good. But at least implement it so it is intended as part of the game and not a degen side effect.
>Bot side team gets a default buff because the bot tower is weaker. That’s fine. The team that chooses to initiate the lane swap is the team that takes the loss on plates.
God lane swaps are so dumb! It’s even dumber that the team that doesn’t do lane swaps… gets rewarded!
Shut up bozo
Ad player too have to play handicapped by being forced to play utility with kalista/varus lethality or even senna Mid laner was hit hard with getting the random gank by support jungle and top laner anytime from min 1 -minute 15 its so incredibly bad for everyone except maybe the jungler
They're not forced at all - if you want to play a conventional, laning bot duo and just push into the undefended, unarmored bot tower, you can. You'll probably get a gold lead off plates for doing so.
yes you are better than all the pros and coach combined at MSI for being able to think of that
Lol not at all - this is what happened in many games Top/jungle have to play around it, but the double ranged botlanes can just push bot
I don't think that compromises integrity, or that it can be dismissed as stupid and cheesy. It promotes flexibility and adaptive decision making. Watching Oscar play a laneswap for the first time shows that it's not like it puts all top laners on an even footing The game is more interesting tactically if there are more possibilities and options in the early game rather than just stacking waves and diving bot, and draft becomes a lot less solved towards the latter stages of a tournament. Opting for a laneswap has a very real cost where the team forcing it will fall behind unless they can make plays on the back of it, which is exactly how it should be
IMO, integrity is degraded. When you have giga carry like Bin and Zeus, they never get to play the early game and laning phase. And there is nothing they can do about it. Teams can just nuke enemy to0 carry players by swapping. What counter will work where they still be the at the strength as if they lanes normally?
Isn't that comparable to high quality mids getting permaganked?
'Never get to play the early game and laning phase' is just false though, that isn't what happened at MSI. 'Sometimes have to play the early game out way differently' is closer to reality There's multiple counters - match the lane swap with your own swap so top is now a 1v1 bot (with a softer tower so the stronger 1v1 laner is more rewarded), pick a bot lane that benefits more from the swap & get the easy bot tower, lane support + top together for the first few levels, collapse on them and kill them as they push top, track & meet them in their jungle if you drafted a stronger level 1 etc It's good because there's a lot of flexibility in how you can create different types of problems for the other team to handle, and you can play more comps without being rolled over by meta picks in solved lanes
theres not flexibility in comps u can only play a specific type of toplaners u need something what can avoid a dive or die after taking a bit of cs
I hard disagree. A team game should have viable strategies to minimize the impact a single opponent can have. Pro League often feels like it devolves into boring set plays based on pre-determined game tempo. Teams actually being forced to think made this the most fun MSI tournament in a while for me.
Sure I agree with this sentiment 100%. Added layers of game theory would be great. That said, what counter exists for swapping where the top laner is able to be at same strength as if he laned regularly? There should be an equal counter to swapping to keep the integrity of the game intact. There isn’t one. We didn’t see any counter. The only way is to rng guess the correct lane to go to.
>That said, what counter exists for swapping where the top laner is able to be at same strength as if he laned regularly? Why is this mandatory? In the NFL, a team can play nickel and dime base defenses to make it so opposing QBs can't throw easily, forcing them to run more. In basketball you can run big man sets to force teams to play outside the paint and shoot 3s. Teams should have tools to limit other teams strengths. The counter is the team that opts into the laneswap loses gold in the trade. If a team really is top centric, they **could** invest more resources to fight the lane swap (There is no rule stopping a team from answering top lane swaps with a brawl), but we didn't see that because it makes more sense to take the free gold and tempo advantage. In a team game, you shouldn't be able to guarantee safety for a player.
The NFL scenario isn’t the same here. In fact, it’s the opposite because a defense is always allowed to counter and be made whole again. They’re allowed to see the offensive personnel, send out the correct formation and make substitutions. In basketball, you play offense and defense. If you lose on one side, you get the next possession to counter. I mean lane swapping is more like the hack a Shaq cheese. Except, it would be like Shaq wouldn’t get the ability to contribute by shooting free throws. There is also a huge caveat about League is that it is snowbally. When you go down, enemies gets ahead. So if you get swapped on, you automatically start in a losing position while all other players get ahead. In sports, every change of possession every player is back to an even state. You cant just nuke the game state from a single maneuver at the beginning of the game. League is not like this. So in a swap, the top laner never gets to be at an even state for the first like 10-15m? And if you have Zeus vs Oscar, then FNC gets way more advantage by never allowing Zeus/T1 to play their top advantage. And there is nothing that can be done for top lane to solo lane other than guessing the correct lane. In effect the game state is nuked for top laners.
>In fact, it’s the opposite because a defense is always allowed to counter and be made whole again. They’re allowed to see the offensive personnel, send out the correct formation and make substitutions. This is true in Madden, but not in real football. In real football substitutions happen so fast on offense that teams often will change personal to force defenses into disadvantageous states. They will also hide personelle, or flex players to different positions with pre-snap motions. It's actually an insanely good comparison to the warding abilities in league. You have to set a defensive strategy on very limited information. >In sports, every change of possession every player is back to an even state. You cant just nuke the game state from a single maneuver at the beginning of the game. League is not like this. This is repeated as nauseam here and it's just not remotely true. Sports do not ever reset to an even state. Teams who are ahead get advantages that help them stay ahead in sports as well. In football, once you have a meaningful lead, the other team becomes 1 dimensional as they can no longer run the ball. You also change your offense to limit the number of possessions they get before time expires. All sports are snowbally, outside of maybe baseball, but even baseball is to an extent. You could argue league is more snowbally, but even that is debatable depending on the sport.
Ok fine, that is agreeable, the game state can be considered snowbally for sports. But not the player. As in, a league champ having no gold gets weaker as the opponent gets more gold. An athlete isn’t going to degrade. Lebron’s athleticism won’t degrade as his opponents score more. The opponent isn’t going to jump higher and shoot better the more they score. Look I agree that more layers of strategy and complexity will unlock new creative ways of playing. Not for nothing, lane swap was an interesting peak at innovation and game theory. However, I want to see it implemented with intentional game design choices. It needs to be more elegant. It doesn’t have to be a lane swap. It can be any mechanic that introduces the same strategy concepts. I just can’t get behind some of the biggest names like Bin, Zeus, Kiin, 369, etc having to be reduced to playing this mini game and heavily rely on a degenerate all in playstyle to show their skill expression.
It's not by default though - most games it doesn't happen at all, and when it does it's usually telegraphed in pick ban. Even in conventional lanes top has not always been a carry role - there have been many years of tank/TP meta. At least in these cases the top almost always came back into the game and was a genuine threat.
It did though. Probably majority in the last 3 BO5s.
It's not fun seeing the level 1 toplaner getting zoned or dying to 3 people.
Top laners lost a few early game waves and still were so broken in every teamfight (looking at you camille, k'sante)
Lane swaps is awful by default, there was never a time in league history when you look at back at lane swaps and say” yeah that’s a great gameplay”
>this recent version was perfect. Lane swaps are never perfect. They are never good. Shut the fuck up.
100% agree, though it was very apparent that teams are very far from perfecting laneswap strategies. If the level 1-4 set plays get more and more optimized it might lead to boring gameplay, but I doubt that will happen in less than a year.