I don't mind criticism, I can always either choose to ignore it or if it's reasonable and constructive, I can actually take it to heart. That's how people develope themselves and I am no different.
I don't mind being the scapegoat. I've worked as the lightning rod of the old MYM-team countless times over the years and know that sometimes someone needs to be put to blame.
I don't mind that the community is full of know-it-alls and people who likes to think that they have the necessary insight to pass judgement on how, what and why. Everyone's seemingly an expert. It's been like that forever, and I doubt it will ever change.
And yet it never seizes to amaze me just how stupid a majority of the people who utters their opinion are. Or at least how little they think and analyze before speaking up. You would think that since they're not the best at the game and thus can't pride themselves, their name and online identity on that merit, they would instead try their hardest not to come off as rambling fools and instead actually take pride in the opinions they spew out. I guess not?
Alright, so for the sake of self-insight and not just throw this off as yet another "it's not me, it's them!"-excuse, I'll be honest and admit that this has possibly been one of the worst periods in terms of my ingame play. I won't deny it as it's painfully obvious and sure enough, I can't really take pride in much of the play I did over the weekend. Sure, there's reasons from outside of the game that affects these things, but there always will be and I'm not one to use them as an excuse. I did not play good.
However, the accusations and reasonings coming from the community just portrays a bunch of dense people with an inability to think on their own two feet.
Let's bring some of the more popular ones up and address them accordingly:
First off, a lot of people are fast at comparing results between this weekend and the week prior where Universe played in my stead.
"The picks were horrible and his leadership/way of calling the shots is bad"
- Fear has been acting as the captain for over a month now and both picks and leadership has been passed on to him entirely. And while I'm sure the team played a much better tournament in the Root Avermedia Cup, I also think it's safe to say that the lineups and matchups EG got in that particular tournament severely outweights the ones we ended up with in the playoffs this weekend. In comparison, half the EG lineups comprised of Sven, Magnus and Wisp in the same lineup in the Root Avermedia Cup where as in the playoffs of RaidCall D2L, we let Empire have their dreamlineups 4 out of 5 games in return for... just about nothing. Could we have won with our picks anyways? Sure. Did we make it a lot harder on ourselves than we had to? I think so. Fact of the matter is, teams were unprepared for Magnus and Sven 10 days ago. A week later, everyone is doing it. And as I'm not currently captaining the team so I don't know why I would be singled out for neither picks nor leadership. It really can't be all that hard seeing who's Blue/Pink or on top of the teamroster during the draft.
"Maelk lost them the game with X hero"
- "Maelk mid QoP" has suddenly become the most popular thing to say since "0-20 Venomancer". And I suppose this is partially because of the lack of insight or overview from Ayesee and Draskyl, the casting-duo of the tournament. In our second game against ZERO, I had the pleasure of soloing Queen of Pain middle playing as Dire. Now, the hottest trend as Radiant is to pull the middlespot so to completely deny entire waves of experience from the Dire's middlelane. Something that was given all too little attention from the casters. Admittedly I played it overly aggressive from level 1 and opted for Shadowstrike over Blink and was punished by a Rhasta with an Invisibility Rune combined with KotL's Illuminate and Magnus' Skewer on level 1. That alone doesn't necessarily lose you the lane, although Magnus got the firstblood thus having a Bottle right away. What sealed the deal was the fact that Keeper of the Light pulled three full creepwaves before the 3 minute-mark allowing Magnus to be level 4 against a level 2 Queen of Pain. With the nonstop neutralcamp pulling from both Rhasta and Keeper of the Light, they were soon both level 6 and proceeded to push both midtowers with no help to be had from anyone on my team (because Dark Seer also lost his lane terribly and no AoE-spells on our supports). With the huge level- and goldadvantage that they now possessed, Rhasta had himself a fairly early Blink Dagger and as any seasoned player would know, going out on your own was no longer an option, even for a Queen of Pain.
What I don't get is why nobody flamed the shit out of Scandal when he lost his lane just as hard as Templar Assassin, again because of the pulls. Or when Sneyking got ganked continously and his team ended up losing 30-4, where was the critics then? Or, if we're sticking to just targetting EG-players, when DeMoN's Magnus lost his lane so hard to Sneyking's solo Bounty Hunter who proceeded to gank every lane and win the game singlehandedly. Or his Bounty Hunter against Funn1k's Clinkz. Or Fear's Clinkz against Funn1k's Dark Seer for that matter. All were sololanes who weren't even ganked nor pulled for yet those lanelosses alone cost us the game. Personally I think it's because of the surprise in me getting to play a solo mid for once thus everyone pays a lot of attention to how that's going to pan out having no regard for the circumstances surrounding it. Cause apparently when it's someone who solo's on a daily basis, it's okay to lose your lane so hard that you ultimately lose the entire game. And before anyone suggests otherwise, I'm not actually blaming Fear, DeMoN, Scandal or Sneyking for that matter, for losing their lanes, cause I know the reasons behind it - and it's perfectly justified.
Another good comment I read a few times, was how I couldn't carry with Sven. The game in question is the first game against Empire in the Winnerbracket Finals, where I play a support (4/5) Sven in a trilane where we're meant to give Juggernaut the kills and the farm in a game Empire completely dominates after getting a 13-minute Orchid on Clinkz. I think I already said everything that needed to be said on that matter.
Of all the games this weekend, the one I regret the most and the only one I'm actually ashamed of, would be the Pandaren Brewmaster where I was completely off my game with his ultimate. That was an embarrassment. But like I mentioned earlier, I had a lot of flaws throughout the weekend with unnecessary deaths or slow spellusage, and I was definitely not playing on par. But then again, nobody was aside from Funn1k, the MVP of the tournament, and even then he had a very questionable Sandking. I'm not trying to make excuses for myself, I just don't think some of these critics are using their head. And if they are, I wish for them to get a new one for Christmas.
Anyways, it's the night before Dreamhack and I'll get some much needed sleep before meeting up with the guys tomorrow. I made a promise on Twitter, that I had all intentions of winning this Dreamhack, and I'm going to do my best to hold up to that promise.
Lastly, to those who continues to wish me off the team, I'm sorry, but I'm here to stay. I'll bleed blue for the Evil Geniuses throughout 2013 and I'll do everything in my power to get us on top. I don't care if you hate me, as long as you still support the team, just as I don't care if someone dislikes any of my teammates as long as they appreciate the team as a whole.