League World Championship Day 2 and the Warcraft Movie
TSM Reborn
After dropping their first tournament match, TSM was not going to let that defeat stick in their mind long. They jumped all over SSG and I think really made a statement. After struggling to get things going in the game against RNG, the entire team made a turn around against Samsung Galaxy. Hauntzer dominated top lane and with the help of Svenskeren took first (and 2nd) blood at 4:20 and they never looked back. Bjergsen played like everyone expects and smacked Crown around mid lane, netting a nicely executed solo kill at 6:20. This was definitely more like the TSM we expect than what we saw against RNG.
Throwing down an 18-1 kill ratio, it looks like TSM has been reborn and may be ready to show the world why they are the top seed from North America, and the best chance to bring the championship to NA.
SKT Starts Their Title Defense
With the 2nd, 6th, and 10th best players in the world, SK Telecom T1 opens up their defense of the 2015 World Championship against North America’s Cloud9. While the audience was clearly pulling for C9, I think the odds were definitely against them. And to start it off, Jensen needed to play smart against #2 Faker mid lane. The bad thing for C9 was that he seemed to not respect Faker’s Syndra and he gave up the first 2 kills to SKT – Faker was involved in both. I think Jensen had some nerves since I don’t think he played up to his potential in this game.
In any event, SKT ran out to a 7-0 line until a fight top lane put C9 on the board as Meteos and Impact took down Duke’s Jayce at 19:30. But then SKT just kept the pressure on as they knocked down turret after turret and built up a commanding 9k gold lead by 22 minutes. They clearly looked like they are prepared to defend their title. In my view, C9 put up a valiant attempt, but they just couldn’t get things going consistently and eventually the gold lead pushed SKT on to victory. There is some hope for C9 later in the tournament since Impact and Meteos played well, they just need to get Jensen to turn things around.
Warcraft…The Movie
I finally watched the Warcraft movie and I have to say that I enjoyed it. Sure it was not the best movie I’ve seen, nor the best I’ve seen this year, but it was not a bad film. Watching Jesse Custer and Tulip play in a fantasy realm as king and queen was pretty funny and I still am not a fan of Lothar’s smirk that I’ve seen since he starred in Vikings, but the acting was not bad. I really enjoyed the Orcs. Mrs. Redshirt and I really thought the CG department did a great job on making them seem real. We agreed that we could watch a regular TV show with just them as stars.
The scenery was great and I enjoyed all the lore, but I think there could have been a better effort to carry non-Warcraft fans into the world. There wasn’t much in the way of world building and Mrs. Redshirt even mentioned that she was confused for the first 30 minutes of the movie. Too bad…I think that’s probably what reduced the box office here in the States. Hopefully though, they’ll make another and highlight some of the other races…Tauren, Dwarf, Elf, Troll…I think that would make for an even better time.