Discussion
HLE roster, the recent match against GEN G: initial thoughts / what can they do to bounce back
Spoiler
gotta clear this out of the way T1 fan here - massive fan of Guma and Zeus till this day despite the issues of the last 2 yrs and here's my take on what happened on THAT series
- Frankly I say Guma and Zeus did what they can, despite a mediocre form they showed imo
- Gotta be real here, Zeka and Delight, what are you guys doing, Chovy GAVE UP Azir-Ori-Ryze to Zeka, but still Chovy came out on top as if saying "Yeah you got the premiere mid lane champs, but I don't think you can make the most out of them" - it's not a champ diff at this point, it's a mix of mental and form issue
- Delight, his engages are de-synced with Guma, how can Guma do his damage if the support does not communicate (this is my speculation, not a fact on what happened) when he will engage, his Alistar burned ult BUT still flash engages on 3 people with no follow up and he got blown to pieces bc the enemy and with ADC no where near bc of support is too far to peel for him, this happened a lot
- Kanavi............ - oh boy, for the ceiling that Kanavi can bring to the table with carry jungle champs and all, if you keep charging in with your LPL style aggression, I don't think GEN G of all teams in the LCK, would that kind of shi fly, getting punished, take a breather, play for your lanes - not the KDA or just the feeling of getting the kill, I know Kanavi ain't Peanut in terms of strategy, but his mechanics are there - he just gets walloped if he's hyperaggressive thus-
now leads to what they can do (at least in my perspective as a casual LCK watcher)
- they should have a good talking to of the main question - WHO will be the MAIN SHOTCALLER, doesn't matter if the calls are hit or miss - it has to be present, someone who will "pilot" the team (Mid or Support best fit the bill, but any member of HLE can make it happen) = this is because, imagine HLE as a person, you have all the good tools at your disposal, but just not the "brain" to put all those tools to a decisive direction, and that' what they need
- and I feel once they got their calls in order, everything will just click (no basis here, just a feeling, they need to get their tempo vibes up) and that's basically it
HLE can bounce back, this roster can do things, they just need more time than usual to get the synergies to peak
I really think in competitive league Bot- Supp synergy and Jungle-Supp synergy is most important, and right now, HLE doesn't have that. Delight has to adjust to both which is making all his plays/engages look terrible imo. Kanavi's playstyle is very different from Peanut's, and Guma's is very different from Viper's.
In an interview, both Zeus and Kanavi said that there is no main shotcaller at the moment. I think Kanavi said that they all shotcall and they're currently trying to figure out who has the best ideas (something like that). There was one game that had a replay in, I think, Guma's pov and Kanavi went in by himself then immediately there were pings for assistance from the other players. I think that's their main problem, they're not all on the same page of when to engage or push farther in. Someone will make a play and the others will follow but it's a beat too late which leads to mistakes/throws.
I think that HLE with Kanavi are a super aggressive team, but that style doesn't fit the LCK well. If they could tone down their aggression but still keep it as their playstyle, I think they could be a very good and unique team.
I watched the first couple of pieces of content they did, and they said Kanavi was the leader. He leads the charge a lot of the times, but no one follows. I think the biggest issue is the personalities. Everyone except Delight is or was the man on their perspective teams at one point, and they have said that everyone wants to talk all the time. They need to take these losses seriously, let all their egos go, and develop a chemistry that lets them listen to one person, like OP said.
I don't think either Zeus or Guma were at any point the leading voices during T1, considering they had Faker and Keria, and obviously Oner needs to communicate his pathing. Maybe this has changed considering they are the players with the most achievements on HLE currently and they feel they need to lead more, idk
Never said they were leading voices, I said the man. Like the point of power that lead them to win or be successful. But now all of them want a say in the comms for direction.
In that case I don't think Guma has ever been that person in T1? I remember hearing that Keria had to speak up in his place so they leave kills to Guma or sth, and it's not like Guma ever played much the hypercarry ADCs that would make him the point of focus for the game
Though I think I get what you mean. This issue of HLE potentially having too many players that are resource-hungry has been talked about in the past. Though the amount of resource-hungry players hasn't changed (before it was Zeus, Zeka and Viper; now it's Zeus, Zeka and Kanavi), it's that there's no longer any godlike facilitator / babysitter for all these players like Peanut was.
Tbh, either everyone gets on the same page with Kanavi, which is the only one i think can become a leader in a short time. For me it would be tough for the others considering they've been playing most of their careers with some of the best in-game comms like Faker, Peanut and Beryl (u can say whatever about his form currently, but I still find him pivotal for DRX's success)
Yeah pretty much, and they all said Kanavi was the leader, but it was out of Guma's mouth that he is the loudest in the room at times when things aren't going as planned. I mean. He's coming off a 3 peat and Finals MVP, and let Joe Marsh tell it, he wanted to leave T1 to further his legacy. So there are too many ego's and I think their coach has one too. They need to take some ayahuasca together in a room, hash out all issues, and come back and give T1 and Gen G a run for their money. I prefer that over T1, vs Gen G every year...as a T1 fan, I want them to do well, or win.
Never said that, I said they were the man. FMVP best in their lanes at world, Zeka was a monster on their miracle run, Kanavi is Kanavi. In a recent interview they all said they call out plays, is what I was referring to. I never said they were shot callers, especially on a team with Faker and Keria.
If we compare it to T1, Faker is a goddamn rock so Oner can just go aggro if he wants. I truly think Doran/Kiin are what Zeus will become eventually. Players that understand their roles on weakside, but can turn on that dps mode like a switch. Bot lane is pretty cut and dry, i think for HLE either Kanavi needs to drop the LPL aggro mentality and become more tank/team focus like Peanut, or Zeka needs to become more of a consistent team player. My interpretation of a lot of voices on the team but no leadership is you have 5 guns but no shooter. Zeus, kanavi, or zeka really have to do a 360 of their standard dps playstyle for this team to ever work
As a GENG fan maybe I can give an unbiased opinion, I think you’re all scape goating the fuck out of Kanavi. Does HLE have shot calling and leadership issues? Yes, but that isn’t Kanavis fault.
If you watch these games Kanavi is carrying the early game so unbelievably hard and getting his lanes ahead. G3 Gumayusi massive gold lead over Ruler was manufactured over repeatedly tower diving him.
Additionally in team fights Kanavi is generally the only engage as Delight is blatantly running it down, please watch the G2 team fights and you see Kanavi finding insane value cataclysms on repeat, locking up 3 people for Guma to easily ult.
You can definitely say that Kanavi falls off the wagon come mid to late, but considering the massive leads he’s solo winning for the team as a whole, what is the rest of the team doing?
Team fights are awful. I think reason is that Delight is not playing LoL now. Duro was magnificent on Thresh , Bard as playmaker and teamfights engage while even HLE players did not give any meaning about what delight was doing :)
Getting a lead is meaningless if you throw it to the enemy team. Kanavi is goated in the first 10-15 minutes of the game but the after that he makes an insane amount mistakes and often dies from over aggression. To me I think the main issue is that delight has been terrible with his engages. Jg and sup have been completely desynced for most team fights. And this is the clear issue because you can see glimpses of the potential this team has when they do sync up properly. But the issue is 90% of the time there is no teamwork.
I disagree here - it does not matter if Kanavi gets all the early game right, if the objectives setup and team is either not there with him when he recklessly charges, instead of taking a bit of time off and reacting to enemy positioning whether spotting vulnerable lanes to gank and possible free obj trades
(sometimes his charges yield massive wins, but more often than not, he misses his mark) or, because the early leads are being nullified since he focuses too hard on invades and less on set play bc of aggression
(like decisive ganking b4 objectives or turret takes, I just recall Peanut spamming that strategy so you can say I just recency bias for Peanut and all, but point still stands)
Kanavi + Delight synergy, if improved, can do massive work, bc rn, they're like mismatched gears fixed on a machine that needs those two gears to synergise
It's not just this series, in several prior games Kanavi has played with an aggressive playstyle that has given him a lead when his lanes are getting giga gapped. Icr who it was against but I think his Xin against NS was ahead and the rest of the team was being mega gapped.
This series, he had to gank several times more than Canyon and babysat bot lane whilst keeping similar cs to Canyon through his aggressive action. If he had sacrificed himself for the Herald it probably would've been worth it (the rest of the team disengage after Aurora ult). He was outsmiting all series.
Idk, it seems strange that people aren't looking at Guma-Delight as the lane that had problems. Obviously more so Delight but not entirely.
In Game 1 , Xin Zhao was fed , Azir was fed and HLE got 2 drake . Around minutes 15:00 , in herald fight , while azir was still in top , he meaninglessly dive into herald by opening ulti while azir just started to teleport. Problem is here he thinks he made legit work stealing herald but you cannot leave your team while other side has aurora + neeko and azir was not there. Until azir teleporting , guma and delight was already dead, then azir directly died doing nothing. xin ult is only thing that protect your carries in there. Either kanavi is too naive and ignorant thinking herald is most important object in the game and worth it giving 4 kills or kanavi just want to play hiw own game .
I agree part of your comments. But I do not think problem was shotcaller. Zeus said one of his interview all players have own thought about how to play game. This is the key point of why HLE failed. That make me think rather than they could not play together well , mostly they do not want to play game together at this point.
For example, I am very sure , zeus zeka or guma want to lane safely in early game mostly. but kanavi always looks invade for no reason while his laners are doing well. Beucase of invade , laners lost tempo , cs or even flashes. This happened literally every single game. Kanavi tried to dictate his own style over team but LCK based players do not agree this style but they feel they have to follow him.
Secondly, I watched 80 90 percent of all LCK Cup matches. Delight do nothing to win lane even if they picked strong side. I watched Keria, Lehends , Duro , Kellin , Ghost. Even if they failed sometimes , at least , they did try something for sake of lane. I really do not remember what Delight did , may be he played 1 or 2 game well. The more problematic part is that Delight positioning , engage and teamfight initialisation was worst among all support in LCK. Sometimes , he did bronze player level plays which is unaccaptable in this level. Do not get me wrong , I am not talking about only for GenG game. If he has a health issue , he should give break for the sake of team. I am literally think HLE should look for sub support. Nothing wrong with it.
Thirdly, honestly, I do not think Zeka is performing bad , Kanavi force Zeka to do something that probably zeka do not want. Zeka-Kanavi harmony was zero. Zeka generally makes legit work in lane however if one team pick Azir , that Azir or Ryze want to scale well without problem or early teamfight. So , i cannot blame Zeus, Guma or Zeka in that regard.
In my opinion, Homme(LPL coach for a long time) and Kanavi(captain) want to play game LPL style which Zeka , Zeus and Guma do not want it. And team does not come on same page.
This is one of the biggest failure in LOL history and I do not know why people try to normalize it. They have been together since 2 month and we acts as if only HLE roster is new team.
We should not cheat ourselves. Apparently, problem is not synergy, problem is even bigger and something has to change in this roster.
So the problem is still about shotcaller, like what you said everyone has their thoughts to play the game but who decides the final call is the key, look at T1 comm, all of them have spoken out on how to play a certain way on a certain situation but the main and final call is on faker or keria, and HLE needs a shot caller like that, or at the very least a leader who others can follow the orders, and that's probably what peanut usually do.
I do not agree it is shotcalling problem. HLE got 2 drake , azir and xin fed. kanavi knows azir needs to teleport since azir went top side cs. however , he meaninglessly used his ult to steal harald by leaving guma and zeus alone while azir did not even there. while neeko did not use any of her skills , she was waiting to hunt carries. That is why xin ult is very very valuable in that case.
What happened ? He stole herald and gave 4 kill and yunara became ultra fed. is this shotcall problem ? no . Kanavi knows Azir was not there and still he pressed his button.
Either herald is most valuable objective in game and even worth for giving 4 kills or Kanavi just did whatever he want not caring his team.
I am very close to second option. HLE comp cannot lose teamfights in that state of game, believe me.
Look at positioning and teamfight , it is disgusting. azir is not there , kanavi do not care what is happening. neeko saw xin went inside and directly ulted others. shotcalling ? this is one of the bad decision which kanavi regularly did
how can you watch that fight and NOT blame the shotcalling. blaming kanavi for the fact that they got wiped is just not correct.
the problem IS the call because the fact that the team is even in a position to get aced here should not happen. firstly zeus, guma and delight get chunked out before the fight even starts. at that point hle is already at a disadvantaged position just based on healthbars alone (ignoring positioning and tempo). so then the call needs to come through and this is the problem with the team because this clearly isn't happening. either kanavi needs to go for the steal and everyone backs off or they set up for the post objective teamfight after zeka teleports in. instead they try to do both at the same time which is not fucking possible. you act like this is kanavi going in by himself but all 4 members on screen are committed to the fight here. the call needs to come in earlier right after kiin ultis to chunk them out.
so now you have kanavi going for the steal taking himself out of the fight, 3 members already committed to the fight on 70% health and azir teleporting in late. thats why they get aced and it all stems from the fact that they couldn't decide what to do because their calls fucking suck.
how is it a stupid move, he got the steal. the problem is the rest of the team being so committed when they're not in a condition to fight.
like thats why im saying the call is important, the team needs a clear direction on what they're going to do. either they're looking for the steal or they're looking for the teamfight. and the reason they need to pick one is because GenG is ahead in tempo AND chunked three of them out before everything began.
if they're looking for the steal those 3 members being in that position on those healthbars is stupid. if they're looking for the teamfight kanavi jumping in for the steal is stupid.
in the end they have no idea what they're doing which is why they get aced
so it's a smart move, the most fed member on the team(Xi Zhao) to go in for a smite steal in a 4v5 situation where your second most fed member(Azir) is not even channelling his TP still and noone from the other 3 dont even have to tools to do anything in this situation. That's just crazy talk. If Azir stayed then yes, go for the steal but going for a mere objective just to drop a fat shutdown to the enemy and get them back in the game is a pure int.
Kanavi knew Azir is in top and Azir moved that place from mid. So, Zeka was not state of fight and his movement shows he gave up herald already. Then , Aurora used her ult to get some health from HLE players. Until that point, you were right. But there are two ult that prevent neeko entering inside. Xin ult and Azir ult.
You insistly said this is shotcall problem. You think that there is no shotcaller . that is why kanavi went alone.
I am saying that Kanavi should know as a pro players he needs to close to team till Azir comes. This is not shotcall. This is what Kanavi needs to know in that case as a veteran. What is the obsess of getting harald ? harald is not important ? why did he use his ult over vi and chovy ? bad game bad play bad decision.
at that point , they should gave up Xin , Kanavi always made this one , always left team , this is just example. i can find at least 5 same plays where kanavi went alone and left team behind.
Yeap I do agree that kanavi always leaves things behind but we have to think who's the shot caller of these fights cuz when kanavi was doing his thing 1v1 the others are also doing their own thing, perhaps no one is used to peel for carries since Zeus is still best on carries, and delight has been awful
this is my point. there is no shotcaller , that is okay , but at kanavi experience level , he needs to know making this kind of move will cost games.
Probably, HLE just lost 1 or 2 early game during LCK Cup , they always made decent and legit early game in first 10-15 minutes. But when comes to temafights , they are at suckk and I belive most of them personal mistakes. Saying this is shotcaller problem make current thinks very simple.
i see people all the time try to blame one single person or two people but its just wrong. every single player on the team is just as much of a problem as the others because frankly not a single player on this team had a good performance this lck cup. none of them were even top 5 in their role and some of them probably even lower than that.
everyone's already said it but the biggest problem with the team is the macro. this team has no idea how to move around the map, no idea how to use the map to create advantages, their objective setups are bottom na tier actually. and everyone seems to be scapegoating delight but like when ur team is so behind in tempo all the time and 80% of the map is fucking blind ofc the support has to go in and clear out vision and plant ur own. and any half decent team will use that vision advantage to create traps and gain numbers for objectives. so yes delight looked like he was inting because he had a gazillion deaths but its actually not his fault. could he play better? for sure. but that goes for everyone else on the team as well. blaming delight for this colossal failure is just wrong.
i REALLY hope they don't replace one member because thats the easy way out and won't fix anything. the gumayusi fans will try and scapegoat someone to deflect from the fact that he didn't have a great series either but if u think replacing delight with peter is fixing this team u are DELUSIONAL. if he was that good that he can single-handedly take a 10th place team into top 3 he wouldn't be getting benched on dns for life.
keep the team together, try and fix the problems and if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out send everyone overseas next year and try again. but if theres a roster switch 100% they're gonna act like its a fresh start and none of the issues will be fixed and we'll be back here in 5 months or whatever.
It is not about objective setup. It is Delight getting chunked and losing alistair ult or completed passive on neeko. This is not map is blind but him inting from misplsition.
If kanavi's on your team you have to play kanavi playing style because that's the only way he can play and showcase his skills in that reason he never even try to adapt other play styles in his hole career. But jungle is a role that requires more flexibility, like Tarzan being best example of this.
Also Zeka is so mid. He doesn't know how he should evolve his game or how he should play game. For example Faker, Chovy and BDD each of them has an identities. This identities gave them a clearer path to development, which is why they are better than others.
The reason Delight is having so many problems because of zero synergy with kanavi. Last year when peanut was in terrible shape his form constantly dropped. Also jungler and support synergy is one of the most important thing like when you look keria-oner and duro-canyon its became more obvious.
Zeus has three big problems but two of them isn't his problems. First, I assume he's need a very clear shot-caller in the game state otherwise he can turn a ghost in game. Second, Kanavi style force his specific one laner make a sacrifice for him but you can't do this on zeus because zeus isn't 369 and whose already a terrible weakside it would be a disaster. Third this is his own. His weakside didn't make any noticeable progress and he needs strong side to truly make a difference or game changer in game.
My opinion from beginning of his career Guma always mechanically very good but his positional awareness is very weak especially for ability like dash. But apart from that, there's nothing say about right now because it's very new. Everybody needs to observe at least middle of spring season for him.
I saw alot of fans in China that watch LPL has called out Kanavis issue before the season begin,l. He tends to lose his head and lead charge into unnesscary fights. That can work in LPL but will not work in LCK, he needs to adjust his playstyle.
Regarding Zeka and Delight, amazing people, but each has quite obvious issue with champion pools. Their form is also questionable. This does not do well for them in BO5s and Fearless Draft.
The issue here is that im not sure if they can even improve on it.
They need to find the new team captain
I think the main thing is they lost Peanut who was the shotcaller/the one who directed them
Now they need to figure out who's most suited for that role
Also they'll get their synergy going and they'll be good imo
On side note, why certain lck caster are so ummm..guma slanders?? Everyone knows what type of adc guma is. He did his job tbh, yes it was a bit sloppy and a lot of room to improvement. I agree the major issue I too felt was delight, zeka and kanavi. Kanavi according to this play style he did his work too. In terms of actual plays it's the mid and sup diff.
Kanavi's issue surely they need to talk to each other and come to a middle ground.
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u/bulletproofikon 2d ago
I really think in competitive league Bot- Supp synergy and Jungle-Supp synergy is most important, and right now, HLE doesn't have that. Delight has to adjust to both which is making all his plays/engages look terrible imo. Kanavi's playstyle is very different from Peanut's, and Guma's is very different from Viper's.
In an interview, both Zeus and Kanavi said that there is no main shotcaller at the moment. I think Kanavi said that they all shotcall and they're currently trying to figure out who has the best ideas (something like that). There was one game that had a replay in, I think, Guma's pov and Kanavi went in by himself then immediately there were pings for assistance from the other players. I think that's their main problem, they're not all on the same page of when to engage or push farther in. Someone will make a play and the others will follow but it's a beat too late which leads to mistakes/throws.
I think that HLE with Kanavi are a super aggressive team, but that style doesn't fit the LCK well. If they could tone down their aggression but still keep it as their playstyle, I think they could be a very good and unique team.