Discussion - NAC2 Play-Offs SF Liereyy vs TheViper

[kw1k000000]

For NAC3 if it happens there should not be so many invites. May be 4 invites and 4 from 1 qualifier. Compared to KOTD2 there were so many top players missing.

Also Swiss stage is nice to get a lot of games for streaming, it also adds a lot of pointless matches and reduce the overall competitive feel of the tournament.

 

[Hellrider_23]

Really? This is the least competitive tournament I can remember. Both quarterfinals 5-0. Semifinals 5-0. Two best players played a noncompetitive series.

Very disappointing to me from a competitive perspective.

Mr.Yo didn't play , so I'm not sure why you would say the two best players played anything there.

 

[Funito]

Easy to say now, but I always felt that Viper vs Liereyy 5-0 was the most probable result. I love Liereyy, but Viper neutralizes him completely, like he used to neutralize Riut in the past. Today it seemed it could end 30-0. Liereyy (and Riut in the past) are that kind of players that are always taking advantage of the other's guy errors by pressing and pushing them with superior micro, but is almost imposible to make Viper make a mistake

 

[kalkkaro]

For NAC3 if it happens there should not be so many invites. May be 4 invites and 4 from 1 qualifier. Compared to KOTD2 there were so many top players missing.

Those "missing top players" I think you are refering to were not missing because there wasn't enough qualifiers spots but because they couldn't or didn't want to participate for their personal reasons. 2nd player who got through the qualifiers was F1re and how well he did? Only one of the invites who might not have made through the qualifiers was Jordan and personally I don't think he is considerably worse than the players who made it to the 4th-6th in the NAC2 qualis (firsts to left out). So how adding qualifiers spots could have made any real difference in terms of competitiveness of the main event?

Comparing 9 days LAN even to online tounament in this regards is just fruitless btw.

 

[Memeluke]

andrew you can become 2k7 yourself and challenge viper if you think the other pros are inadequate

 

[_Andrew]

andrew you can become 2k7 yourself and challenge viper if you think the other pros are inadequate

It’s on my to-do list.

Just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

 

[Der Zorn Gottes]

I am so tired of seeing Viper win once more.
I quit wtaching after the 3:0.

Its not his fault, but 1v1 tournaments with him have become really boring.

 

[wAkKo]

Latest results between Viper and Liereyy have shown that unlike the expectations of many people after the first edition of King of The Desert, the gap between them has increased.

 

[kalkkaro]

Latest results between Viper and Liereyy have shown that unlike the expectations of many people after the first edition of King of The Desert, the gap between them has increased.

Liereey has told himself that he was at his peak during kotd1. He was super motivated at that time.

 

[Fall]

Viper is probably only ever fully switched on/focussed during the final stages of a tournament.

Sometimes when you've been really, really good at something for a long time, in a low-stakes situation you actually can't perform at your best even if you try. If you don't feel some kind of pressure it can feel like a struggle to summon up that kind of excitement/focus you need to peak and for everything to just flow. I wonder if that's the case for him.

Anyone who's followed the game for any length of time knows he's in a different class to anyone else who's ever played the game.

 

[orangereaper]

The competetive scene has drastically changed in last few years as lot of $$$$ has been pumped in.
Viper being a full-time pro at AOE, has all to gain and lose that is his extra motivation.
That's that, IMO, keeps him practicing, find that extra edge and be at the top.

Note how his gameplay complete changes in $$$ tournaments, laming, full walling, trap walling, silly walling.

I dont think anyone can straight up win against Viper, he is too much of a pro to be ougamed at this.
IMO, there needs to be a mirror tournament to take away some of the silly civ-wins.

 

[_Andrew]

Viper is probably only ever fully switched on/focussed during the final stages of a tournament.

Sometimes when you've been really, really good at something for a long time, in a low-stakes situation you actually can't perform at your best even if you try. If you don't feel some kind of pressure it can feel like a struggle to summon up that kind of excitement/focus you need to peak and for everything to just flow. I wonder if that's the case for him.

Anyone who's followed the game for any length of time knows he's in a different class to anyone else who's ever played the game.

Jordan was arguably better than him for a 1-2 year stretch. I think Viper even conceded Jordan was better than him on standard maps at one point. And IIRC, Jordan won every BO series they ever played including a BO11 and BO21.

But other than Jordan, I'd agree no one has ever come close to Viper. I thought Lierey was poised to be that consistent challenger to him after KoTD1, but as Wakko alluded to, it seems the players have gone in opposite directions since that matchup.

 

[SouFire]

Jordan was arguably better than him for a 1-2 year stretch. I think Viper even conceded Jordan was better than him on standard maps at one point. And IIRC, Jordan won every BO series they ever played including a BO11 and BO21.

But other than Jordan, I'd agree no one has ever come close to Viper. I thought Lierey was poised to be that consistent challenger to him after KoTD1, but as Wakko alluded to, it seems the players have gone in opposite directions since that matchup.

Jordan wasn't better than viper, joadn was viper's best friend, whenever they were playing viper never showed rivalry only friendship, during those times Tim was the only rival viper had and you could see the difference when facing him he was in full destruction/humiliation mode, unlike his games vs jordan, ofc if you ask viper he is going to tell you he was playing for real, but if you go back to those years you will see two big friends playing each other, just that.

Jordan reached his best level on that time but to be fair you can't claim he surpassed viper, for winning their bo series by one game lol all tyrant matches seemed to be rigged due to the constant close scores, heck even when jordan came back he won games vs viper despite jordan couldn't reach 2.2k for like 6 months, so there is evidence of viper being very soft vs him and it's ok they are friends, they improved together so they would never try to destroy the other.
But the time has passed and viper got even better, he is not faster he just play smarter and way more confident.

Right now lierey is faster than him but he lacks of experience and confidence, the more lierey loses to viper the more he fails the next games, viper seems to be aware of that, the only player that doesn't get intimidated by viper is mbl which is behind of lierey, anyway lierey is just a kid, he and hera have more potential to dethrone viper just give them time, the aging process doesn't not forgive, just see daut as reference.

 

[GmanStreams]

The fact we got all giddy over a 5-3 really shows the state of the scene atm. In almost every series there has been a clear winner and clear loser from the start. I dont mean insult to the players and ive no idea how it can be fixed, but for me the viewing experience is starting to suffer.

Wont be at all surprising to me if tommorow Viper wins 7-1/7-0

 

[kw1k000000]

Wont be at all surprising to me if tommorow Viper wins 7-1/7-0

Considering it's secret final Viper is not going to do this. It will go like viper wins 3 games then tatoh wins 1/2. Final score Viper is going to make it look like 7-5, 7-4.

 

[dnzdalgic]

Liereyy really needs to bring some surprise elements to his game. Viper basically does not even need to scout him, because Liereyy always plays meta. Yeah it works against all other players, but after so many losses against Viper, i was expecting him to do something different in this series.

When Liereyy got asked about what he need to do to win Viper in the interviews he always points out his small mistakes where he lost the games. That is wrong thinking i think. He should focus how Viper loses games. And to me its obvious Vipers weakest part of game is messy long feudal games with towers and stuff. Those type of games opens a window to get mistakes from him.

Remember the Mbl(aztecs) vs tatoh(spanish) game. Tatoh played it almost perfectly and got castle age faster. When he was making the castle MbL made useless tower with one villager. That useless tower cost Tatoh 5-6 villagers for nothing and he lost the economy lead in early castle age. Being able to get those mistakes from enemy is making MbL very good against Viper i believe.

 

[hebi]

I think Viper is sportsman first and entertainer second. Him bringing the best AOE2 should never be discouraged by comments like he is ruining tournaments or making those boring (there were quite a few in chat). It's his gift to us, he is in no way at fault here. Nobody is ever wrong for being the best.

I was wondering if he will give Liereyy few wins to spice things up but he didn't. He was being honest even though it might have been more beneficial for him to artificially make it more exciting. Him throwing few games would definitely have generated more hype = more money/audience in the future, not to mention lighten the mood because, boy was it dark during the interview.

I personally feel more respect for him due to this. He was being true, he was being honest to viewers, to Liereyy and to Nili.

 

[Syphax]

After this, are people finally going to stop pretending like "Mbl is Viper's kryptonite" or "only he can beat TheViiper"?

Now obviously Mbl is a great player and Viper would never really admit to throwing games on purpose or that he doesn't care to win them that much. But looking at the facts it seems extremely obvious that Viper didn't play near "full tryhard mode" against Mbl.

What we know:

- Viper has won every single big, serious tournament for years. The only tournament he lost recently was LotH - yes, against Mbl, but just check out the games. Compare Viper in his games there to his games against e.g. Lierey in the KotD2-finals or now. It's pretty obvious that Viper wasn't playing "his heart out" there either - and why would he, it was a very low money tournament.

- Viper plays very differently when he's not tryharding. He then plays less safe, often no walls, very risky castles and questionable decision making. It's not just that he plays "worse" or makes a mistake - it's almost a different style. E.g. check out the first game against MbL in NAC2 - no walls at all. And don't say it was "impossible to wall" - Viper walled basically every map against Liereyy in KotD2. Or look at the Spanish-Franks game on Coastal Mountain. Viper could easily have pushed MbLs base mid game. Instead, he was harassing the water with Conqs for minutes when he knew that MbL only had like 3 fishing ships and was already winning water with ships anyway etc.

- The games he lost against ML didn't matter at all - it was a group stage and Viper was going to advance anyway, only 2 players would go home. The small advantage in the playoffs due to the group performance is negligible - the tournament winner has to be able to beat everyone anyway.

- Viper has been known to throw games or play risky/not tryharding when it doesn't matter that much. That is obvious in rated games, but even in show matches (as Viper has sometimes admitted himself)

- Game comparisons against other players show the difference in skill: Liereyy appears to be stronger than MbL, yet Viper dominates him in games that matter (!) right now. Obviously you can claim some "rock-paper-scissors"-relationship, but that seems unlikely seeing that MbL hasn't won a single important tournament set against Viper.

- Always winning every game with lots of people watching is quite clearly actually detrimental to Viper: it makes people less interested in the competitive scene, always root for the opponent and maybe even result in a financial loss to Viper (less viewers on Twitch, less tournament money sponsored).

---

Tl;dr: I'm not saying that Viper "lost on purpose", but that he clearly didn't even nearly play full tryhard againsrt MbL. Obviously we can never know for sure (and Viper would never admit it), but based on the aforementioned facts it seems very likely. Even Nicov said after his games against Viper to MbL, "he played serious against me" (of course you can say, "just salt"). I would bet that Viper, going full try hard in a series that mattered (e.g. important tournament knock-out rounds) would crush MbL right now.

Of course you can now call me a Viper fanboy or whatever, but I like to look at the facts. Don't try to create hype that doesn't exist.

(~long time lurker and twitch viewer)

 

[Beinchisme]

 

[KTTRS]

Tl;dr: I'm not saying that Viper "lost on purpose", but that he clearly didn't even nearly play full tryhard againsrt MbL. Obviously we can never know for sure (and Viper would never admit it), but based on the aforementioned facts it seems very likely. Even Nicov said after his games against Viper to MbL, "he played serious against me" (of course you can say, "just salt"). I would bet that Viper, going full try hard in a series that mattered (e.g. important tournament knock-out rounds) would crush MbL right now.

Actually mbl was only trolling in the series and didn't play serious either, so your argument makes no sense

 

[teutonic_tanks]

Imo the 5:0 wasn't only caused by viper's close to perfect play, but also by the draft. Viper had in every game a civ, which was either slightly better or far better and then it simply snowballed every game. As nili said after the games all other guys at NAC agreed, that there was close to no chance after the draft. Viper is currently the guy that profits the most by the fact, that in every tournament civs are determined by drafting. He simply outsmarts everyone already before the games with the civs. I'm pretty sure there wouldnt have been a 5:0, if some of the games were free pick, mirror civs or pick from A B C D civ.
People have to start to ask, if drafting only is the best setting for aoc. In my opinion it clearly isnt and just increases the probability of pregame civwins.

 

[bartman.]

As nili said after the games all other guys at NAC agreed, that there was close to no chance after the draft.

Nili said that about the TaToH-Nicov series though, not about Viper-Liereyy. Other than that i do agree that some other players tend to undervalue the civ drafts sometimes. They are part of the game though and i do think it's fine like it is. It's also not rocket science to come up with at least a solid draft if you care enough to prepare some stuff. That's part of the game and if you either don't care enough to prepare or simply are not particularly good at that, you'll simply need to try and improve. Plus - as far as the Viper-Liereyy series - Viper looked sharper in the actual gameplay as well, independent from the civs. The draft was part of the victory for sure, but i don't think it was a foregone conclusion before G1.

 

[Double_N]

I´m not too huge a fan of drafts either, especially with mixed maps where you have maps like rehydration, praire, land madness, general water maps or maps with nomad or regicide start that highly favor certain civs.

I think we can agree that mixed maps widen the skill gap between players. Players like Tatoh, who are arguably better on mixed settings than on pure arabia are rare. Also there is a limit to preparation you can make, as with drafts you can´t be sure you get certain civs or that you still have them after the ban phase.

 

[_balcanman]

That's part of the game

its not, just a very questionable idea from casters, in shooter games you arent forced to choose sniper in first game, grenadeer in second, heavy infantry in third and so on. Its bad for the sport (maybe good for fun), let them pick what they want.

 

[buhanisson]

He simply outsmarts everyone already before the games with the civs. I'm pretty sure there wouldnt have been a 5:0, if some of the games were free pick, mirror civs or pick from A B C D civ.
People have to start to ask, if drafting only is the best setting for aoc. In my opinion it clearly isnt and just increases the probability of pregame civwins.

I wouldnt go as far as saying "it clearly isnt", especially since many top players seem to enjoy that part of the game. But as a viewer I too would take mirror civ over constant civ wins any day. Having a 30+ minute game decided in the first decision of the game is pretty dull entertainment. And its not always just about outsmarting the opponent. At some point the Secret guys talked about how between them it sometimes results in this game theory -kind of thingy where you try to think what your opponent is thinking that you are thinking he's thinking, etc, and then you just basically have to make a good guess and hope you are lucky.

And its also easy to see why the drafts give a big additional advantage to the most experienced players from the big teams where they can practice that part together and share their spreadsheets. Its one of the things that makes it infinitely more difficult and unmotivating for new talented guys to ever really try break into the pro scene even if their ingame skills would be good enough. Good drafting is probably not as easy as the twitch chat makes it sound like.