All right, everybody, welcome back once again to the ggwp, and if you haven't heard it by now, this is of course the Geeks gaming World why podcast? I am pyrotechnics. I am joined on this podcast by not only the wonderful the Magnificent the illustrious Chase wassenaar, but Back for the first time in 2020 no longer sick his immune system has processed the illness it is the man the myth the legend mad magical. What's up dudes, right? I gave you I gave you the best like WWE like intro and you gave me whack. Right, right. Did you want to honk at Mel's 20 nights ago? He talks? Okay. He still speaks good. We hadn't had confirmation that in 2020. That was good to still man. I'm glad to have your magical. I never know what to expect when you're on the pot. The big brain was definitely needed last week that the power rankings. But yeah, we have had small brain power rankings. Yeah. Don't worry. I'll tear apart your power rankings. Anyways, I sure felt good about some of the things we said like, I feel like 30% Yeah. I like man feeling great. Ha ha ha ha I should laugh at Kira and then I listen to the rest of the podcast. Well, you know, it's there there forever and we will publish a screenshot of the mall to and with magical getting his word and he gets a little bit of an advantage but he's committed to sticking to his pre Week 1 I have rankings which is good. And if you change them then would ridicule you for that when like three weeks down the line things change. JH but no one took EG number two in their power rankings after watching weak ones games. I have a hundred percent believe these illegitimate power that is imagine a man of his word and should be treated as such. Yeah. It's like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go shenanigan Ariane you guys I'm not gonna change about what I had originally thought and what I had originally pinpointed. So this is the true essence of my power rankings before week one. All right. I'm really happy about it. We'll get into it in a little bit. But yeah first off on the board, welcome back to the podcast magical for everybody listening. This is of course episode 29. It's the first three man pod of 2020 really looking forward to see what goes on throughout all the weeks and I'm just I'm excited for for a whole lot of stuff but we do have to start on a little bit of a kind of a bummer news here and you know, this is this has been beyond the scope of Esports and Beyond the scope of what we normally do here on the podcast, but We have to talk about that nasty coronavirus that's going around China because the LPL and the LDL the you know, the smaller League the the up-and-comer league if you will has been indefinitely postponed due to the viruses outbreak and that is no bueno in a lot of ways if you were in China, we wish you guys the best viruses like this is no joke. We don't really know what the scope of this is going to be where this This is going to compare on the Ebola scale is the kind of thing that we're talking about. And so, you know, I understand that there's a tendency to jump to oh man. This is bad for Esports. People are dying and I feel so bad for everyone this. Yeah. This is this is bad for everybody involved. Yeah, and it sucks because you know from a if we're going to talk about it from a support standpoint. I would say that certainly like in times like this not having entertainment is a shame. On the other hand keep these players and doors for the love of God. Some of them. I believe like haven't been able to leave the neighborhoods there in like Wuhan is completely shut down last time I checked and I've heard a lot of cities are going that way now. That's why one of the reasons we're seeing the LPL a lot of the games in Shanghai or not going to be broadcast for the same reason. Right? Right and the English broadcasters are tweeted just the other day that they were taking emergency flights out of the country. Honestly, I thought they were all staying safe. I'm the same as you Ooh, I'd rather people be safe. I'd rather everyone make sure that they're not getting sick because the coronavirus is nothing to scoff at. It's pretty it's a pretty severe disease that is as pretty infectious. So it's good to be able to have people not go to a crowded environment where there's the chance that they can infect others and continue the spread. I'd rather it be quarantined shut down for a little bit. Make sure to get it under wraps get it under control and then be able to bring it back where you don't feel like everyone who's going to an event is now in danger. Right. Now it first priority. Absolutely the safety of everything. I did want to touch on the like we always have no idea how long this is going to be an issue and we don't know how long it will impact among other things the LPL just just purely from that perspective though. I do want to get your guys opinions on you know, let's say this goes until MSI. Like how do you think that will actually affect the competitiveness of the region? I mean everyone is probably going to be staying home playing solo. Queue. Anyways, what do you what do you think this? There's going to be based on how long we think this is going to be an issue. Honestly, if I had to give it a lot of thought I think what would have to happen is that right would have to do something like they have done with Academy where they allow players to be able to play from the team houses in this case would be from home where there'd be some they have to figure out some way in order to be able to monitor these players to make sure obviously the Integrity of the league is still intact. You're not having people cheat and whatnot. But honestly if it goes on for that long, they have to figure something out they have to be able Do something gets it could have detrimental effects when it comes to MSI. Well, you can argue that MSI isn't that important? It's all about world's. Anyways, it's still the whole infrastructure that right has built up. It's a whole year long event and even having one of those cogs break could ruin the whole machine not to mention by far the largest and most profitable part of the resort Centre right China is the daily and illegal weapons. There's a reason we have those Mega structures like the ones that the Royal never give up and EDG Bill people fucking love League of Legends and China here. Welcome to the bleep. Bear Pier fine fine, dude. I don't think I've put I don't think I put bleep sin at all in any of these episodes. So, you know, it's okay, you're fine. I'm finding you you have to know you you have to have on cast commissioner magical are less concerned. This episode didn't get no. Wow. I'm concerned about my you know, Yo, you just recycling gosh China, please get better and you know, I'm sure that Riot will come up with the solution because there has to be look there's too much money involved. There's dad's money. Well, here's the thing. Yes, if it if it goes on till like MSI time. Anyways, we probably have a lot bigger problems, but I just was curious what you guys thought the impact would be just purely on a nice pour. It's level and I think you're both right that they will they will come up with some sort of interim solution to address the lack of games being played. So I suppose we'll see how that goes. And in the meantime, yeah, everybody stays safe doesn't matter where you are in the world. Obviously. This is a little bit scary stuff regardless, but especially if you are in China or in the area, please do stay safe. Don't go outside without a mask, etc, etc. And now over to some leagues that that aren't postponed for the time being we did have our kickoff. Of the LEC and the LCS this past week. In fact, just just before our our power rankings went live Chase. So I suppose we should probably get right into it and start talking with the LCS will move on to the LEC later. Were there any surprises from your end for week? Number one? Yes, I think it's safe to say I thought TSM would have a pulse. Let's start there. I thought they would they did. It. Just took 60 minutes. To no, no even better. That was embarrassing loss. I mean, I think that like we as a society loss because that game happened and in fact the TSM lost it. Yeah the way that I guess I got I just I don't know about this team, you know, I don't it seems like the shot Cowan is broken. I think I wish I had stuck to my guns that I had during most of the Since you're talking about TSM, I kept saying something is rotten in the state of Denmark. There are these problems here Sage wrote a whole article for you to court about all these intrinsic problems that the time has And I said, you know what second place anyway, I'm what I'm saying is I'm an idiot and those of you listening to the podcast or welcome to tell me that I'm dumb for not listening to my own advice on that one. But I really I thought they'd at least be decent. I thought they'd at least be competitive. I thought they'd look like if I was you I was right there with you dude. I was right there with you. I think like I for some reason in my head, I was like yeah Cloud Nine might be number two, but no I put them I put TSM at number two also and a little bit of regret e spaghetti and magical with your With your big brain did you know who could have predicted this who could have foreseen this was it was it magical Damas? So I will say I have two additional like two versions of my power rankings for North America TSM. This this will be this will be listed in the show notes. By the way, for those of you that want a visual aid. So people can see it TSM. I have them in two different spots one is third and that's Darda condition does TSM let Dar dark bead our talk and play his style where he can be aggressive. An impact other lanes besides mid lane, or do they make him into a ward like they like to do with their junglers. Well, I think we got us all a little bit of what they like do which is nothing. So unfortunately they're going to go into the other ranking I have which is putting them at 6:00 flight. I don't think that they're not a playoff game. I think they might be able to barely scrape by into playoffs even at that, but I'm not saying that I'm very thrilled after this weekend. I will also make sure to tell everyone this is just week one. It is only Week 1 you can Look at these games so hard and so long before you realize that it's only a two game sample. And how much does that really indicate on how well this team is going to be able to form. Are they going to be able to adapt better into the meta? Are they going to be able to fix some of these problems that they have early in the season with shock calling or are they going to continue to stumble and be like a Misfits but were last year or maybe even this year and that's going to be alluding to later. It's still something that we have to keep our eyes on. So it's like saying right out the gate we look at week one we look at Results spoilers, by the way, you have Cloud Nine dignitas and fly quests the to the three top teams. The undefeated teams. Do I think those are the three strongest teams in the region? No. No, I don't. In fact, you can look at my my power ranking that I have it very different from how that is week one doesn't really mean that much it is a good sample of like what maybe to come but you can't take it like a this is definitively what's going to happen. Are you saying it to game sample size is not Patient data to decide how the entire season is going to go. Especially when we had teams won't Chase Chase across. This is the overall reaction section. I supposed to over react don't don't peek behind the curtain. I'm sorry. I just now look I this is the this is the fun part because now you get to see these resolves truly going to stand the test of time when it comes to us addictions, right because cowards look at two games of the sample size that goes in the opposite direction from their original picks and abandon. Hope well, Well, the real analysts say it's only two games. I'm going to pretend like I still have faith in what I said, even though all the evidence. I've had to the country so far doesn't seem to feel that way. Well, I got some evidence to suggest that my power rankings aren't too bad because guess who put dignitas / EG and CLG this guy that yeah house like was doing in your rankings buddy. How's the already said that one? I'm not feeling too hot on. But yeah. I'll take the big one. Look a lot of people looked at the hunie price tag and thought alright, there's crumbs left for everybody else. They're not taking anything and crumbs is on the desk. Anyway, so what am I even talking about? No, no dig is doing just fine right now. Do I think they're going to be a top three team? No, but I do think that this is the team that can make the playoffs. I mean, you can argue that for almost every single team besides Mortals and then a you've been bad. It's week one. Don't worry about yes. Yes, 60-minute game. Oh man. That was so fascinating. It's so fun to watch. What'd I just say? I'm just saying it feels wrong to say of Mortals are the only key we don't care they could playoffs with one and a is trash and any of these things. I think I know golden golden Guardians probably won't make the playoffs but you know The Mortals have more faith in Golden Guardian thing. I do it. Toodles, hey, at least you know with practice with the team figure something out apparently so has it been with the team for like a whole three days. He knows what side lanes are how many using that ain't no it's idling so as so as clowned on people and like we said TSM didn't have a pulse and I feel like so as good enough to just put people in his backpack. I already said I think he's kind of washed up. But again, I completely forgot about one very important thing. Is that washed up into you. You still at least Diamond 3 NN a so they said hey, that's the lower. The bar has been lowered. I hope again, but by the way, can I just say one more thing about any before you move on because I forgot to ask you to put this in the show notes and I won't come up. Naturally. What is it? What is it dignitas Academy being a caddy because he's dumb and she filled um, that was like that gave me are to get CLG Academy was a Slaughter and that should not have been aired for audiences of all ages. And it's terrible that this is a big but still exist. They would take days off of actual LCS teams. I will say that like that is a too good of a Academy a team. There's no reason that that team should exist in academy. Yeah, yeah first hand was rough. It was it was it because it wasn't close. It's not closed and that's that's a good who's helping who benefits it's not like they're gonna get it's okay. I'm done. I'm done guys. I have concerns the space is gonna get broken. All right. Well, that's that's the LCS. Let's let's talk about the LEC and I think we've gotten a little bit of magicals Power Rankings, but I guess before before we move on to that. I do want to just give you the floor magical fully like of everything you saw so far and then just your overall your overall Power Rankings what you know, what fit? What didn't what do you what do you think we need to see more time of that? We didn't already cover so looking at how you is. I pegged five teams that I thought were going to be the top five teams. It's pretty much there's a big discrepancy. I think between the top five in the bottom five. That's G2 origin fanatic schalke and Rogue. I put in my top five. Honestly, like I think g 2 hours, it's just it's G2 like they can it doesn't matter where they put perks and where they put caps are still going to be G2 and they're going to destroy people and I think that that is always the battle for second who's going to be able to try to combat against them and I feel like not like Rogue is definitely a team that people need to keep looking at like and this is going to make Chase happy. Jace is gonna look at my power ranking to like but you put them at V. It's like yes, but there's a reason for that and it's only because I feel like Two through five are that close that honestly it can really shake up. Anyway, I think that they're all really good. I think that seeing Larson be able to just be Larson. It's going to be great Vander and Hans AMA and the bot Lane is a great bot Lane fins doing amazing in the Top Lane. So I think they're going to be a good team the team that I'm really shocked that did like kind of poorly even like they went 0 2 was schalke but I don't think that they look terrible in those games. I think that they always look like they had a fight Chance that there's just a couple mistakes here and there that if they're able to fix up going into the next week's that they're going to be able to continue to be one of those top teams that I was talking about. You put them in that was that was pretty high. I want to be on the record and I understand that the ready audience is overreacting and that's you know, two games to emphasize again, right but like I was expecting something from that guy and I got nothing. I don't II didn't see anything that made me think he was a top ten European the Twitter and that's a concern to me. It would have been nice to see a little bit more play making it would be nice to see a little bit more, you know a champion fool that I felt, you know the cast and the the rise kind of weird picks for the where the midlane Met it is not unprecedented. Added my name put didn't really impress. I wasn't it's not great. It didn't go great. And I think that this is a team with enough strong personality is where if he doesn't turn around and it becomes a point of weakness the way that you seek a was a point of weakness for Vitality in the summer sport last year. Who asserts that that could be a problem? Well, the thing is if you look in 2019 with Ava dog, hey, I'll give him a little credit. It's not like he came up on the field in which smashing everyone anyways, it was like he was consistent. He was decent. He was always good but not great. I feel like that is a kind of a thing here with schalke and I almost wonder how it's going to be because he said there's powerful personalities. You have God gilja sand. You have forgiven. I'm not a fan of galius. I think that he is Rated and there's been reasons why many a time that he's been kicked off teams. So I feel like it's gonna be a little bit more dependent on how gilja sits able to go with someone who doesn't smash Lane, but it doesn't necessarily lose Lane with David algae and how he's going to be able to transition leads into someone like overwhelm they or into forgiving Mmm, okay, by the way, before we before we move away from it, I wanted to I wanted to shout out G Zu K. I was actually pretty happy with his his game against a hundred thieves and the the interview afterwards were awfully asked him if he tried American Pizza and he just has this like look in his face like anyone else see that. I just wanted to put that terrible thought in my mouth. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was it was just it was just the best but we didn't talk about it. But Monday night League was a thing that happened. Yeah. It's kinda forgot. Since before we moved on it was it wasn't terrible but it wasn't the nothing special. It was exactly what I predicted. It would be Which is less pop. You expected a hundred a hundred K tops. I mean a hundred K. I thought you compared you to an average broadcast date with that with always. Yes M first, it's not great. Right. It's no it's not great. It's not great. I was just trying to get a fix on numbers and maybe we should have probably done a prediction previously because I looked at that and thought that too but I also didn't think. Oh God. The sky is falling no one's watching this, but it definitely Lee it's just there was nothing to differentiate it as a special Monday night broadcast. They just it was just an extra day of LCS pretty much like a half day and on a Monday when you're at a time, which it's too late for Europe to keep up no and that it's I mean I still feel like you could have done something you could have done something that would have made it cool would have made it stand out. A lot of people on Twitter we're talking about this they could have made it like a WWE like intro thing with walkouts and cool stuff. Like I would have loved that CI. I don't know. I'm right. Take some hints. I don't know if I'm a fan of like the WWE style like walkouts, but definitely adding some flare to it making it more interesting a reason to watch it as opposed to it's LCS. You should want to watch it's like yes, we want to but on a Monday is not easy for everyone. Some people got work. Some people got school. Some people like you said over in a you they're not going to be able to watch that at all. It's way too late for them and they have work or school in the morning. They can't really be focusing on staying up that late on a Monday. So yeah, Monday Night Football exists is because of broadcast television timeslot competitions that make absolutely no sense for a digital medium in 2020. I just want to make that clear the only reason the Monday night football is on Monday night is because ABC or NBC, I forget who had it at the time realized that they could win the coveted Monday night slot by running NFL football when previously there was only one day of competition. Good watch and I did really well and continue to be a top time slot during that time period that would you needed time slot domination in order to get the ad revenue and that is it has nothing to do with people's watch schedules. It has nothing to do with Monday being a particularly special day for competition. It's time slots from 120 years ago and Chase. This is where I'd probably make the argument that honestly Friday would make more sense if you think about it with how the more digital age works because you you have to worry about like what someone's doing the next day. It's a Friday. It's like they're going to be able to stay up a little bit later. If you have games all you know at like five are here over in Pacific coast standard time compared to that of the Greenwich Mean Time where it's nine hours difference. It's like yeah that doesn't matter anymore because they just felt like they're going to have school or work more likely in the morning. They can actually stay up and enjoy that if they wanted to yeah. No, I think that makes a lot of sense actually and this this could end up getting chucked. One of those right experiments that ends up just not working out but the question is how long do they stick with it? They do it for a split to they do it for two for the whole year don't know. I think there are solutions. But yeah for the time being I was a little disappointed that there wasn't anything to make it stand out. Well, you know, what did Stand Out is that their favorite sponsor Bud Light understands what let's do and so it was probably needs to sell for that. So that's probably why they did Monday night League actually. Oh, yeah, I'd be that I thought This was see-through from the start. Yeah, so my by the way, by the way Bud Light is but light is is is not a very choosy sponsor with the comes to Esports man there they're getting around OverWatch League last year LCS this year what next? There there there with everybody man or craft reforged Esports Bud Light. I am for it by the way a spree. I want to go pro in that game. That's and by the way, can we just point out that Smash Bros was pulling 70 to 80,000 for their grand finals last night for melee despite the fact that it had like no advertising at all and meanwhile the Call of Duty League only hit over 80,000 for one series entirely. - we will we will hit the Call of Duty League Chase, but you are right on the money that that's really good for fgc. But that's because it's a loyal fan base. Yeah, I wasn't I was worth thinking about it the opposite herbs. I gotta go positive. I got to counteract all this negative energy Chase your concerns with but but overhear happy taste is not a lot of have concerns you have taken those away. That's true. He's not allowed to he's not allowed to say the phrase, but I feel like I feel like he's getting it. In there anyways, it's right I distracted us for a while. Let's go back to the LEC because I want to get this out of the way before we talk about other Esports. I think this is the league where we're a lot more aligned with our with our predictions for the most part. The biggest difference is I see you're like exact placements in top three exact placements in bottom bottom for but to be honest, I don't I don't think there's really two many. They're really too many surprises out of this first week at least not from my end. Maybe the show The schalke ship kind of not really sailing very well in week. Number one. I kind of expected at least a single win there. But apart from that did you guys get any get any surprises from any of the LEC games? Not a lot of huge surprises. I feel like you know to say it went shop would maybe be a little bit overstating it. I am surprised that we didn't see a millage this weekend. I guess he lost the starting spot to second second. I don't know how yeah, but that I think it's taken that's not a great sign for the season. Is that the guy that you and I spent all this time hating up didn't even make the shadow roster for Week 1. I don't know what that means. I don't know if it's because they're trying to keep the French Synergy given the Kappa shirt skins of both French comp. I believe was from that ldl-c team. That was really good. And I remember in properly. Yes. I am. So like there's a I guess maybe that's an argument II don't I did not see a lot of life from that Vitality team that did not Look like a team that is happy to be here and is excited for an object. Yeah domestic season ahead Misfits look bad as I expect Rogue look good. Did I I'll say this. I understand the two game. They also beat Misfits in Excel. But yeah, yes, and if you look at they were good there were good. Both Hans trauma and Larson have 22 que Tas right now and sure it's two games that means nothing but clever case of Chase. 22 we'll get an answer. We'll get an answer as our road good next week because the first game of week to this upcoming Friday is going to be Rogue vs. Origen and that is that is like my game of the week to be on a great same here. I'm actually really hyped for that. I think that's going to be a good indicator of exactly how good Rogue are and because I think that origin well because I personally hard to see where origin were either because I mean they beat fnatic which is big but well I'd argue this origin team is by far one of the best up-and-coming team, so it's not named G to it. Like that's fair. Like there's a reason I put the number two like well, I think that 2 through 5 are closed. I think origin are there's reason I put them at to over these ones. I think that just you look at the Alfaro zerks a nuke duck upset Destiny Destiny was doing great over and Oceania and now he's being able to come over here and he has someone who's very aggressive like upset that he gets the backup Chase. I think this is have another opl believer. Yeah. Well, hold on one second. Destiny because we Alma was so bad that you had to have something to lead on to that. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Today win some you lose some all right. I don't feel confident about the LCS the LEC. I did four years in this region. I understand a little bit more how these guys work at all so I gotta give you that. I was also about to say also Destiny was probably the best player on that Mammoth team just going to say that so I think that he was I think he was the best pick up like that you could get from that. Yeah. I don't totally disagree with you. I'm trying to like find a counter point. But to be honest, I think Mammoth had a lot of Rises and falls and the most consistent. Her on that team was definitely and I think that works perfectly with what origin want to be able to do. I think that there's I think broker going to be a good team. Like I chase thinks that I don't think that going to be I have faith that they will make playoffs. No chase chase doesn't think that anyone who thinks that Rogue is below third place is worthless exactly doing well, but just how well are they going to be able to do are they going to be able to stay? Assistant are they going to be able to keep this momentum going forward especially when you go up against a team like origin in week 2, I feel like they are going to have some fault. There's especially like we to do for I think it's where Rogue is really going to be tested. And then after that towards the end of the split, I think it's where Bill really start kicking into high gear. And that's when they're going to look their strongest. But I do I'm going to take care your I'm stealing your phrase. I have concerns when it comes to their early successes. Look guys. I zoomed out of your robots when you started a while back saying I like Rogue. I swear I do and that was all I needed to hear. That's fine. I don't know where that I don't listen to anybody that came in. That was that was some spice feel betrayed are you doing there? I absolutely came at you. I'd real but now I'm say I've tried to play the victim and I doubt any of you are higher on Rogue. Any of us and I think this is very much a playoff team, but II need to be convinced of them being a top three team the top look that's fine. I think they did what they needed to do this week to do that. I think that the two people that I thought were going to be really good or really good and I think they're going to like, I agree with magical that the top five teams are clear and the order could be shaken up its origin surprises me and does really well. I'm not going to pretend like oh my god, there was no world I couldn't imagine Wait, wait, wait taste rotate the top three, but I think that's how you're looking at week one results of Rogue and thinking that this is great. They faced off against Misfits and Excel. I'm sad. That is what I said play you only get ahead of you and they did everything you wanted from those kids playback. All right, that's fair. Take care of business. You want it to be clean, but one person died. What's hot summer day? They did it. They did the job they needed to do I agree with you, but you have to That they played the game. They played the game on easy mode and now it's dark souls next week. Okay. Wow. Okay. Okay. Look all I'm saying if they look if they look as clean against origen as they did against Misfits and Excel. Okay, then I will start this podcast by giving you a round of applause and I hope magical will join. Okay, look if you're thinking that is Dark Souls next week. They're gonna go they're going to be 3 1 by the end of next week. I mean, there's still gonna crush the vital. No, I think I think origin okay to be fair G2 is Dark Souls or is just Like it's more like they're playing they're playing like the old Super Mario Bros U know that's what they're playing. They try to speed run that if rho Chi second to bite. We gate by the end of week four. I'm going to be that's my that's my dream ranga. Okay, that's other games. I'm keeping my eye on I think for day number two. I want to see Madeline's versus schalke because that will answer a lot of my questions about both those teams. Agreed I think that's actually a really interesting game to I know everyone's gonna be looking at g 2 vs origen but I feel like schalke versus mad Lions is a little bit more interesting just because that will be able to tell you one Howard schalke gonna do do they kick Ilyas off after week to or do they try to cope with him going together? It's we asked it forgiving is going to be on that roster. It's not forgiving. Yeah earlier that I think Billy is gonna kill me. Emerge one and one and look strong at points in both. I'm going to have to re-evaluate at least up to you know, the seven spot probably and if they do poorly than I'm going to start feeling pretty good about where I have I think this is this more than like Rogue just needs to go one and one the next couple of weeks as they played seems like origin and G2 and whatever if they're splitting games, they'll still be towards the top of the standings. I think mad Lions is a young team that right now can take advantage of the fact That there's not a lot of film or available on them that they can still do some good things and catch people off guard and that they're playing teams, especially next week that you could predict to go a little bit more standard. These are going to need so don't win them and make me say nice things about next week. Well, alrighty then on that note. We're about halfway through the time. Why don't we go ahead and take a quick break? Okay, let's talk about blue here at the ggwp. We use blue microphones on every episode and I gotta say they are so easy to use and they sound great that professional audio quality you're hearing right now. That's a blue microphone there Yeti. USB mic is the internet's most popular microphone and they have a full line of Premium headphones that deliver amazing sound with And super comfortable fit Blues award-winning products helped countless podcasters musicians YouTube creators and twitch streamers find an amplify their voices learn more about blue at Blue designs.com and use the code ggwp and their web store for a 20% discount at checkout. All right, everybody. We are back and we are moving on from the wonderful world of the LEC to the world of Activision Blizzard. You didn't do it, right? Yeah. Yeah, I can't really do a really good Wilhelm scream to be honest. I'll Trust you on that one magical because that's pretty much the mood that I have for most blizzard stuff these days but what I will say is they just Inked a major business deal this past week and one of the biggest articles actually on it was reported on Business Insider. Basically Activision Blizzard, they dumped twitch for YouTube and they signed a pretty large scale deal for them. And now they're going to be exclusively. Testing all of their Esports. That is of course OverWatch Call of Duty whatever else have you on YouTube for the next I believe it is two years. Yeah, it turns out that twitch didn't want to pay 90 million dollars again for that deal. So I guess here we are YouTube decides they need some things. So that's good. I mean they do want to break into the into the space, right? It does kind of make sense from from a Google and YouTube standpoint to sign what at least has a lot of money in it. It's just so hard for me to get excited about this deal. You look at say Super Smash Bros. Melee in the finals Genesis 7 this weekend. We're both melee and spray. The foreshadowing comes in black eyes poppy. Yeah, that was more popular than what we actually saw for most of the Call of Duty world league outside of Chicago versus a optic which is basically a old Optic versus optic like let me take let me get this straight jacket. Are you suggesting? Are you suggesting that? We should be prioritizing getting Grassroots Esports to talk to your viewing platforms instead of people that throw around a bunch of money. Is that are you Mike? Am I reading that right? Am I picking up what you're putting down? It does seem like it's dead instead of trying to constantly like by the next best thing and by 25 million dollars so that you can get into some exclusive franchise city-based never been done before. Thing that's going tirely unproven but you're not copy doesn't seem to have amazing Financial models in mind. You could just invest for like a tenth of the cost in games where people have already established the infrastructure and know what they're doing and then you could just have to be aware of it. And apparently there's no fgc fans and go well according to that Esports Association from like a month ago that everyone's already forgotten because it got me into death Esports is VR and yoga. So for those people who I think this YouTube deal is great. It's a great headline. That's like I just want to I just want to put it up put it out there that that is like one step up the ladder from E gaming. So we're moving forward. Wait. Why are you using ha ha ha? Okay, maybe we're going down. I don't know either way a metaphor like Ricky ladder that you put up, you know really high on the roof and then like you take the step onto the wrong higher but it breaks because of course it does because it's a rickety ladder. So technically you're not wrong that just doesn't work that way. You heard it here. First. YouTube is a rickety ladder. But let's let's see. Let's get a little bit more into the meat and potatoes of this. I think that when it comes down to it a lot of this was with the timing of the Call of Duty League, which by the way was the ultimate like Doom saying this was going to crash and burn this was going to be dead on arrival. This was going to be the worst thing ever and not just with us. I mean mainstream media outlets in Esports were saying this was going to be an absolute dumpster fire and it turns Out it wasn't question mark of all the events I've seen in which the schedule wasn't announced until the day before in which it was very unclear what the format would be and a weekend in which at least two teams literally broke the rules because they didn't have a way to manually ban certain perks that they needed to bring and the players. Did know the rule set properly and use them any way. Other than that, I'm great. I was all those are all of those things it was fine. And I guess that's like it's a fine it is it fine for a franchise League not to release their schedule except for days before actually happens a franchise like a one-off tournament. Maybe you can excuse them for not being very good at organizing. This is franchise. Paid in millions of dollars to be a part of this league and yet nothing gets announced until days before it starts. That's no no. No. No, that's not. Okay. Okay, so pretty definitive answer for Magical but he's angry with you guys. But but but it somehow wasn't a dumpster fire. I have to give him this valve also denounced the schedule for the international until the day before and that was a 30 million plus dollar term. God don't remind me. But that's not franchise. They have teams paying millions of dollars just to get into the league. Look do not make me try to defend blizzards that happen. I'm just a magical magical to it. I just I want to hear the can you do and conflict in his voice? I am livid with this situation. It's like you can't expect teams and organizations to pay millions of dollars and then not actually put the effort into your only gets like that so you can make it. For years we OverWatch league has existed for two years. These teams were part of it. It doubled out anyway at this point, but at least they got a schedulable for like more than a week before the game started. Also keep in mind that that one of the biggest complaints that these players had. Was that a patch drop two days before that's not normally they started and that's not new but I'm saying it's including all of that normal DS which is the patch that dropped last second and the perks that they didn't ban properly. Yeah, and so there were two teams that ended up using percolation of use and now there's a question of will do they get disqualified for technically cheating even though right now they want they lost a game. They had a game go against them because of it. But yeah, they well because here's the thing that's really bad about that. The people who probably aren't glued in the Call of Duty when realize is that they're doing this weird mix of like weekend tournaments and like franchised. Play so the only teams that won a game this past weekend get to go to Call of Duty London where there's going to be another big prize fool specifically for those eight teams. So if you lost a game and I don't know I honestly would have to go back I've read stories about II can't put names to things as well as I'd like, but if you're a team that got screwed over because of one of these rule things. It could literally cost you tens of thousands of dollars because you didn't get to go to the other special week. So it at the very least even if in this particular case the perk didn't matter and the league decided not to do anything from a competitive Integrity standpoint because of all these other factors, which is not okay. But okay like huge risk for the long run. There's a lot on the line for winning these individual games. It's not like week one in the LCS where someone misses, you know some bug that could have turned something around like well, it's one regular-season. This was a rule. This was a rule. Lack of clarity and that's that's on Activision that's on Infinity War that's on everybody that's running this stuff. And I believe the team you were referring to this Los Angeles gorillas actually chasing. They not a hundred percent sure, but I do believe they did qualify did they did end up going one and one so this time around you got away with it, but that's not a position. You want to be in like this like you can't when the when the pressure is so high when determining who gets to go to these events and who has a chance to win these big prizes and whatnot. Is based on maintaining competitive Integrity rain? There's one team named the Los Angeles. Gorillas. Yes and gorilla. Gorilla Warfare Warfare. Yeah. There's also optic gaming Los Angeles, which is fucking terrible as wait optic gaming Los Angeles. That's the name. That's the name. Yep. There's some weird names for sure. Oh and it also Atlanta phase. The Atlanta phase is also sort of works. It's sort of works more than the other ones. It's the same people in charge of phase that were faced Call of Duty optic gaming La is called out the Gatorade LA and has no connection to any of the old optic giving people what they were just yeah the later with the Huntsman which is why that was the one game people watched this week. It's like that 1907 feta Bochy. It's like my brain. Yeah, how is this allowed? I haven't paid too much attention to the branding but you know is is what it is. But okay, but let's let's talk a little bit about the actual viewership because I know you called out to this and I know it definitely wasn't great especially for the investment but was the viewership just in a vacuum good for this opening week. No, no. Okay. Here's the thing called in a vacuum. You could have played by different rules Call of Duty leak you had a choice if you wanted to play by the same. Same rules of Call of Duty that you had in previous years by not upgrading this 25 million dollar spot franchise leak we get to talk about you in the same breath that we talk about say rocket League. Nobody beats up on Rocket lie, because their games have 40,000 to 50,000 viewers for the majority of their games rocket leagues just that size of an esport and we all accept that because that's the kind of way that they advertise themselves. That's the way they position themselves as sponsors. That's the way they fit and the larger ecosystem but no no no no, no, As you asked for 25 million dollars and as I brought up so many times on this podcast. I said the same report all the time arshad but it will take five and a half years to make back the entry fee if they got a hundred percent of Revenue sharing at the rates that you would expect for a deal that was better than the one that they probably just got from YouTube. You can't settle for okay, that's not enough. You can't lose the majority. Preity of your weekend to Genesis 7 that's not acceptable in a vacuum in anything. You can't do that and say that you're a copy store and it's one of those things like it's frustrating because I you know, Emily Randy was at the event and she was covering it for ESPN did a lot of great pieces for it. I think there are good story lines. I think there's some great players and great personalities of user. They have their stories told. I think there were some fun games and I think that for what the broadcast could have been given everything. We described it should have gone a lot worse, but that doesn't make this acceptable. It doesn't make it good. It doesn't make it sustainable. I think it's a mess the problem I have with it is if I'm looking at this in a vacuum trying to make it I'm not going to compare it to any other Esports. I'm going to this is a vacuum on how much these organizations spent money to get in to be a part of a league. That doesn't even break six figures is atrocious. It's too much money spent for each one of these teams to be in a league that Get the viewership capable to actually be then be able to turn around to sponsors themselves and try to advertise themselves get more money, etc. Etc. Be able to function as an organization it just so looking at this if you're looking at and you have to just look at it as money spent based off what return that they're getting. It just not enough. It does not equate and then you have the exclusivity deal with YouTube that you add into on top of it. Maybe that hurt the viewership a little maybe that detracted a bit from it. At the same time this is still Call of Duty. It doesn't matter what Universe you live in Call of Duty is one of the most popular games that there is just as a franchise it costly sells. Well a constantly gets all this viewership and you'd expect that even being exclusive on YouTube that they'd still be able to break six figures because it is that popular of a game yet. It didn't it failed at doing that and that is where I have problems with the dot is where I have concerns you can you can say he did it. Alright. Right. This is the this is the episode where we all have concerns except Chase not allowed. He's busy and have them he's been on a quota. All right. No, I'm out of concerns. I'm just you know, what I'm going to say this Call of Duty leak. I'm not even mad. I'm disappointed. You're gonna throw that on there. Okay yikes. All right. Well that was cold. But so was the reception that was apparently I'm not a total. Yeah. Well apparently not really they said it was about Using which is like warm by Minneapolis standards. So now I'm from Southern California that so I don't know what that means freezing. All right. Well, let's move from to and talk about some some fun legal court rulings because this is going to meet you and she got a job. No, no don't violate my rights Community magical. We we have we have finally answer the age-old question of of Does being muted in a video game construe a free speech violation? Of course, it doesn't this guy's an idiot. This is an article on Kotaku and that that you know that that tells you all you really need to know I suppose this this this is a this is a this is about a lawsuit that happened. I believe earlier this year and then end up getting a peeled from a RuneScape streamer named Amber Oh Ellen. Sorry. I don't know if you guys know who that is. He sued the developer of the game. After the company muted him in a game last year for basically a violation of due process discrimination and the track on an attack on his is where it gets good free speech and human rights. This is just such a train wreck of a thing and it's like only in America I feel so basically the obviously if the ruling went against him, he appealed it to the US court of appeals federal court. And they just tossed the suit out and they were just like are you kidding me? Apparently, it's not even the first time. This guy's done. This he is he is he sued Tinder and that probably tells you all you need to know there are two guys are institutions are working. Maybe no dough have no when it comes to when it comes to being muted and video games. Let me add that amendment. I look I hate will say aye it reminds me, you know that that proverb That proverb but that's saying you know, if you wake up in the morning and meet an asshole you go to lunch and you get an asshole you go to dinner and you need an asshole and maybe you're the asshole. I feel like this guy like when you keep having this seen in my life, no because they children are account. Yeah, it's like men everyone seems to think that I shouldn't be allowed to talk on their platform. I'm sure that's everyone else's fault. Huh? The world isn't ready for my genius. I almost want to give him credit for His persistence like this was a lot of jakku that you're an idiot. Like imagine how many warriors he had to go to as he kept bringing this case higher up the ladder explaining. No, but seriously take even though I'm clearly toxic enough to be needed at this game taking me seriously and take this to court like that. He had a project in the works. It was handwritten to Maybe didn't have a lawyer. Maybe that explains a lot. I don't know either way. Either way I get I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying because he didn't like there are tight. Like you you sometimes have to her weirdly respect people who persist in the face of evidence to the contrary and sometimes it's because they actually are revolutionary and sometimes it's just because they're idiots. This definitely feels like the ladder it's not it's not a feels like it's there's no feeling here. This is a Because this is the creaky ladder. This is your creaky ladder magical this sliders perch on top of that buyer State Building and this is just something totally different. Yeah, I got I got nothing else. I don't know. I felt that was a fun story and I kind of just gave my own thoughts on it. No, I heard it. I hate it that this is an actual thing that had to happen like, oh my here's the thing you have you need? This put it in writing. So never again. That's important. There's a I wish legal. I wish I was there. I wish I was in the courtroom for this because I would have I would have just loved to like see this argument play out like like terrible daytime TV Judge Judy style and then like have like one of the the jagex employees that's just like obligated to be there just be like, why am I here it would have reminded me of that one. Here's the YouTube video where it's a Rick and Morty animators baby like over the like they voiceover. Actual transcription from a one of the court cases that was just completely ridiculous God and it's that whatever to versus Rick out. I'll send you the thing that I looked it up because I had the exact same thought magic. That's what I was thinking. I'm linking this in the show notes. I need to see this. Yeah see it. Oh my goodness. No, I haven't so actually really excited about the podcast but good came out of this fans got their. Yeah, that's good. Yes. Also all of you listening to it, you'll be able to watch it by clicking the link in the description. Oh cool. Cool. Alright, so any closing thoughts on that that bombshell of a legal ruling before we move on. Why are people dumb? Good question people Mysteries, we would solve the world. We would create magical if we could solve that mystery and I know we're getting deep. This is a deep podcast episode. So let's talk about csgo. We have no controversy. No craziness. No, whoa is everything in the state of the industry? Let's talk about a relatively healthy game at the moment. We're talking about the the ranch. Or is it just gone completely under your radar? Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, I want to talk about the blast Premier series. It's coming up. There's some exciting teams playing most of the top 10. No Cloud. Nine will not be there which is a little sad, but they're just kind of starting their hot streak as this as this cross you guys is a radar so far. It's like the first big csgo event to 2020. Well, it's my job to be up on csgo. So yes, I've been watching this would very closely. Excellent. I love this. This your job at unicorn.com, right? Yeah, the world's premier league sports betting site. I've been told that outfit like it's my plans interesting format, you know, they've done a really fun job of creating something that feels so different from what they've done in the past, you know, this three-tier double-elimination group stage is fun. But then you also get to add on that that's going to help determine who goes to The Showdown which has its own different format, you know tournaments build into each In the blasphemy R but they're not necessarily the same old song and dance each time. I do think that makes it an interesting comparison to say the ESL Pro Tour, which is pretty much it's gonna be the same ESL pro league and dreamhack events than you're used to accept now under a single banner and what you're seeing from the B site which is not much. We haven't actually seen a lot of confirm details on the B-side face it tell us things I I want to know what you're doing for the love of God, but look for what we have. Now. This is a really fun really fun event lot of good teams. I think group a is the one that's going to be coming up this weekend. I want to see how Team Liquid does. I want to see if they can kind of bounce back from some of their performances recently. I want to see a big say my BR has any fight in them that be fun. I'd like to see phase continue to figure out whether they're good or not. Position and consistent recently. How do you how do you feel about OG do you feel about? Oh, gee, I will say this. I'm a big fan of NPK because he did a stream raising money for the Australian wildfires. That was cool. Yeah. Yeah. So I like I like with it like I like the roster. I like what they're doing in general. I like Alex of a lot. I think if you are in and span if you're still somehow in its can because I think a lot of its agree we should probably should probably be an OG fan at this point. Yeah, I'll accept some real fun and a great guy and this team has a lot of players that I think have been waiting for the right pieces around them. And if you look at where they are in group C, I think they should be in a pretty solid spot hundred thieves obviously are nothing to be discounted. But Yugi are also a kind of a good that's saying you're just got you're not talking about EG. I don't like when you gonna get the Evil Geniuses. This is the team that I think it's going to be one of those like surprise. Is where people kind of like they're good they but they forget about them in under the radar despite the fact that they're like the number six ranked teams. I like feels weird because the last couple of events, you know, here's the thing, right? They want from first place to start series first place a TCS during the North American version. Then got v sick that I am Beijing fits six that the csgo Asian championships third for the BCS finals v 6 of the pro league finals and then third for that a not overwhelmingly. Native epicenter that you would have felt they should have done better at they kind of got well now by mousesports if they're if they're always placing like 4 through 6 in everything good. They're good team. I don't want this like sneak on them. But I also like if you think people are sleeping on them a bit. It is a hundred percent because this team went from being like winning tournaments are getting second place in tournaments to now taking four steps back. Yeah. And and that is to still be very good. But we as humans I think are very bad at evaluating movements that aren't absolute right or very good at recognizing the best or very good at recognizing the worst. We are as a species pretty bad at analyzing the middle ground and Evil Genius by has very good but not great. As of right now speaking a middle ground hundred thieves are another team to keep an eye on to because you know like there if you're if you're an Australian csgo fan there. Super freaking exciting. Yeah that right. There was actually open up and now yeah, and it's nice to see them. It's nice to see them on a very healthy org backing. I think that's that's the thing I want to talk about is the fact that they found they found keeping our fingers crossed a forever home. You know, that's the hope and I think that other thieves do a lot of things right, I think certainly they know how to Market these kind of personalities very well. They're very likeable team. Yeah the boys, I think we'll be up in arms. They should be G-tube are a better team than G2 on paper. They should be able to execute as much as I like necks. And I'm sorry. I haven't been enthralled by how they look as a full unit yet. It's fun. And you don't need to worry. If you're if you're a French fan like go for Vitality. They're more exciting anyways, but here's the thing. We haven't had a lot of big competition since 2020 began, you know, this is kind of a slow period for csgo. And so this is the first time we're going to see a lot of these teams really perform on this big of a stage. So I'm incredibly excited. I think this is going to give us a really good insight as to where these teams are standing heading into what's going to be an incredibly busy intense year with three different franchise leaks all fighting amongst themselves for not exclusivity exclusivity. That's going to be a fun battle and Blass gets to strike first. They get the first event. So we'll see how they carry it. That they do. All right any closing thoughts, you know, that's that's kind of our episode for the week guys. You know, how's it feel to be back on the train? I know chase you and I've been doing it a bit but magical it is so good to have you back man. I just want to say It's it's it's full circle. We've come full circle. But also I apologize that I didn't bring my hot cakes were worth the sacrifice to your ears. I think that is all good. And I guess we're going to go watch some judge Morty. So on that note. Thank you so much everybody for listening. We'll see you all next week, but for now say goodbye Gents.
*HONK* We’re back, with the first 3-man pod of 2020! The Mad Maverick Magical joins Chase and Pira to give us BigBrain(™) analysis from the first week of the LCS and LEC, as well as looking ahead! Everyone is meh on Monday Night League, and Chase’s Concerns have been co-opted by everyone else. After the break, the guys discuss the implications of the recent Youtube/Activision esports deal, and how the Call of Duty league’s opening weekend went down. Magical can’t believe some of the CWL team names, and we up the trainwreck ante with the news about the guy who sued for being muted in a videogame. Finally, we end on the least controversial topic of the week by previewing the CS:GO Blast Premier series! GGWP LCS/LEC Power Rankings - @ 1:40 LPL shut down indefinitely due to Coronavirus - @ 2:30 LCS Week 1 (over)reactions - @ 8:00 LEC Week 1 musings and week 2 preview - @ 15:00 Monday Night League discussion - @ 19:00 Activision Blizzard esports moves to Youtube exclusively - @ 34:00 Call of Duty League opening weekend - @ 37:00 Surprise Surprise: Being muted in game isn’t a civil rights violation @ 47:30 *NSFW* Rick and Morty court Video - @ 51:40 CS:GO Blast Premier Series Preview - @ 52:45  Follow the GGWP @TheGGWPod on twitter, and send us your thoughts, or what you'd like to hear about in a future episode! 