Written by: ReiNNNN
EMS One Coverage Hub
Check link for brackets, and tournament format
Table of Contents
Bracket
Well, this is awkward. As much as I love how much effort EMS has put into hosting the Spring Cup, the bracket just ended up horrendous on paper. The top half of the bracket were seeded with the weaker teams while the bottom half are filled with the best from Europe. By all means, it was not EMS's fault that it turned out this way because the bracket was already pre-made before the playoffs began. Instead, it was Fnatic's and Alliance's slight hiccup in the groupstage which caused the bracket to turn out this way. Both teams paid for their insolence in the quarter-finals though.
It didn't help when Airman lost his passport and Virtus.Pro announced that they would not fly to Katowice FOUR days prior to the tournament. EMS handled the situation well and replaced them with Rat in the Dark but they were nowhere near VP's standard. Kaipi could have been a good replacement, but once again, players be players, bone7 told EMS that he could not locate his ID. The bracket was now as imbalanced as an Invoker in wtf mode.
Fortunately for EMS One, it all turned out for the better. EMS have RoX.KIS to thank for that because their spectacular performance both in the quarter-finals and the semi-finals impressed many, including me. The RoX versus Na`Vi grand final was just the best the bracket could get and I am glad the fans got what they wanted. I also do not understand why the grand final was not played in a best-of-five format because if you start with a best-of-three quarter-finals and semi-finals, it is just logical to opt for BO5. I also disliked how EMS One ran a single elimination bracket which was really unfortunate for the 5th to 8th placer considering they travelled all that way just to play one match.
Games
One-sided games, one-sided games everywhere. The first match-up of the day was just horrendous with aL, being the more experienced team mowing through the Finnish team in both games. The games were so one-sided, I would have turned off the stream if I did not have to write about it. The one-sidedness was so intense that a lot of the games ended with a 30,000 gold lead on a certain team. Team A stomping Team B is just not very enjoyable to watch. However, there were definitely some noteworthy games throughout the tournament. I truly enjoyed the third game between Mousesports and Alliance because both teams played extremely well and made the least amount of mistakes. Despite having a terrible start to the game, Alliance was close to bouncing back after miraculously winning three engagements. As the saying goes, fourth time is the charm (pretty sure it's third time, but whatever), Mouz finally won the fourth engagement and quickly took the game to eliminate Alliance. The second game of the grand final between Na`Vi and RoX.KIS was pretty interesting too. I know a game is good when the live report of the game gets hard to write because the game was so even that I couldn't pick a side. I am getting a little side-tracked here, therefore, read the match reports of Na`Vi versus RoX.KIS here. Let's move on to the stream.
Stream
First, let me set out the criteria I am judging the stream on; stream quality, stream speed, and stream chat. Stream quality. I would say the overall quality of the stream is decent and the only issue I had with the stream was the overlay. The overlay used on the first day was featuring a neon blue light which is too glaring compared to the game in general but EMS removed it shortly after. Good job EMS. With the increase in number of viewers, the stream started to lag, terribly. I am running a 10 megabit per second internet connection and I was getting a big frame rate drop all throughout day two. Fortunately for me, I also have an EMS One ticket which I watched most of the games with, while thousands of others suffered through big lag spikes on Twitch. DotaTV stream also did not have TobiWan's voice on, all throughout the first day. The situation could probably have been resolved quickly but no actions were taken. The stream chat of EMS One was just the biggest lump of cancer I had ever witnessed in my three years career in E-sports. The stream was constantly being flooded with people typing in capital letters (to show how manly they were), “rapecall” spam and also a word depiction of what seems to be my genitals. EMS should have handled the stream chat better, hiring some moderators and whatnot, because three moderators on BeyondTheSummit chat was honestly more than enough. Other Dota 2 personalities and I were also extremely underwhelmed by EMS One production value off-game. Instead of airing players sitting down and playing some music, so many more interviews and venue walkthroughs could have been done throughout those one hour downtimes. Highlights and recaps of the previous game could have also been shown to entertain viewers and honestly with that said, I don't even care if you put on random Dota 2 filler videos from Youtube. All that aside, I find the ads were quite nicely made although it's quite the flamebait.
Atmosphere
Judging from the stream, I would say the whole EMS One event was a little on the awkward side, mostly due to the lack of fans. They had a total of 40 seats in the house and according to what I have heard, only half the seats were filled most of the time. My sources told me that the entrance ticket for EMS One sold out fairly quickly despite the high price but the conference room was simply too small to accommodate more than 40 spectators. When we talk about European Dota, Germany and Sweden comes to mind. With that said, I also think that hosting a big Dota 2 event in Poland was probably not the best idea considering Poland is very huge for its League of Legends following. I'll just let the picture from IEM Katowice featuring Starcraft 2 and League of Legends do the talking here.
The prize giving ceremony was also a tad bit awkward with lackluster cheers from the limited amount of fans they had in the conference room. Despite Soe's best effort to keep the atmosphere interesting, the presenter did not shake the hands of the players while handing over the prizes, nor did the players say thank you after receiving them, well except for the overly enthusiastic Dendi who hugged Lari. Not to nitpick but I also think KuroKy could have held the trophy up a little longer to make it look more of an honour to win.
Casters
The English stream of EMS One was mostly provided by TobiWan and Kawa. Tobi was just being Tobi, the awesome play-by-play commentator that he is. Although he missed a few kills throughout the cast, I think the community has learned to forgive him because it is honestly not easy to control the cam and talk at the same time. As for Tobi's co-casters, the lack of insight was troubling to say the least and EMS did not help the situation by substituting PyrionFlax in. Loda swapped in for the Grand Finals and he did a fine job co-casting alongside Tobi and provided a lot of insight to the games. From what I saw in the stream chat, a lot of people also loved him commentating and perhaps EMS should start considering hiring a more in-depth commentator the next time round. On a side note, I heard v1lat was casting from the corridor on the first day and a tiny room on the second. I think EMS should revise that decision over because a person of his status should be treated with more respect.
Final thoughts
All in all, EMS One Spring was a great event and I am sure EMS has learned a lot to bring into their next three events. I was deeply saddened that neither my crew nor I could be there due to several issues. It would just be an honour to cover such a prestigious event on-site. It was even more disappointing to see other news sites, who were present at the event, not doing any interviews because I would love to hear from Alliance after their first round stumble. However, I still love EMS One Spring because the scheduling of the tournament was very well thought out and had no major delays or even minor ones at that. There were also not many technical issues on the computers the players were playing on and the gallery EMS posted up on their Facebook page was a pure gem for editorial personnel like me. Hopefully come two months time, EMS will be hosting a much grander event with a big improvement on all the problems they have encountered in their first attempt.
