Posts by: leafeator

Jan 252015

2015

Ahhhhh, another new year. A blur of champagne and board games recently brought 2014 to a close in my life. Wait? That was three weeks ago already? I’ve had “UPDATE BLOG DIPSHIT” on my list for that long? Hot damn. Uhhh, okay.

So it’s 2015 now and that’s exciting. Shit it’s almost February. Also that means that I am 22 years old now. A real life Taylor Swift song. Is a quarter life crisis a thing?

Generally I am not a fan of New Years resolutions. I feel like they are fully and focus on things that you really don’t want to change, but in an idealistic world would. With that being said last year I made myself a promise that I was going to review every place I ate on Yelp. I had the goal of building a large profile with good reviews that I could use on a Yelp Elite application for 2015. Just the other day I got my Yelp elite status. I was super happy. Not just for the perks, because lets face it free 5 star food and networking is lovely (my first event yesterday in Venice was the bee’s knees). But the feeling that I committed to doing something, watched it pan out, and reaped reward was staler. It felt good to do that over a year.

Coming into 2015 I thought I would focus on another writing goal. I want to go back to being more involved in the eSports reddit community. Right now that means a high level of focus on the dota2 subreddit since I am already a moderator. I want to create good community content on a consistent basis which I can be accountable for, just like the Yelp reviews. This is going to require even more of a schedule to be kept, as I decided that I would be starting a weekly subreddit review article that encapsulates….everything. I am calling it “The Glimpse” because it is a short glimpse of what happened this week, but also the disruptor spell that sends people back. I thought it was clever. Week 1 got some great support so I am excited to grow it.

I will be cross posting all of those here if for nothing else than to make more content for this home. Because while I am focusing on The Glimpse, I still want to put more things here than I did the last two years. My food stuff goes on yelp, my Dota stuff goes on reddit, and I cant go to the same number of events (because they’re not really happening) anymore to report on. So I will be pushing some content up here if for nothing else to practice writing and make myself happy.

The thing that is stopping me the most now…UCLA. I fucking love UCLA. I am starting my second quarter as a transfer and I really am just in love with everything here. The people, the location, the life, the food, the opportunity. It’s wonderful and everything I could have asked for when transferring to a UC. I am so happy that I am here. I really expected to have more free time. More time to grind my MMR and do frivolous things. Turns out that I really want to be more active in the community which takes getting my body around to places and joining new groups.

The two major student organizations I am apart of is UCLARADIO.com and most recently the Daily Bruin. Both media stuff which I enjoy, and as a communications major, can be good practice for future work related things? At least that’s what I’m thinking. While I am involved with a bunch of other smaller things, I am really focusing on those two. One which requires radio so I can live out my Howard Stern fantasy. The other writing. Which I am doing here, on reddit, and on yelp. Patrice makes perfect.

In fact, I am writing this blog in preparation to start my second incarnation of Loose Leafs, as that will be the title of my UCLARADIO show Saturdays at 5om (Through April 2015). Who knows where that is going, but I am living my college radio Stern/Carolla/Jillette/Podcast fantasy right now. So tune in? I want the show to take an interview format, but right now we will be starting easy with some music heavy programming. I’ll probably post playlists and recaps to the blog also. GET HYPE.

So look forward to Loose Leafs the radio show. Look forward to The Glimpse. Look forward to my 2014 TV year in review, Winter 15 TV preview, and reviews of books, games, and whatever else I feel like in the neat future. I’m actually doing this thing. Thanks to yelp I guess for the self-realization.

Jul 142014 Tagged with ,

The Fantasy Report: Week 8

Hey Now,

Holy shit guys. Did you watch phase 2? Those groups were ridiculous. 123 games in 4 days. Upsets galore. Place 3-11 was all within a few maps of each other. Talk about an entertaining tournament. I am going to break down the numbers in this week’s Fantasy Report.

Is this your first time coming across the Fantasy Report? Welcome my friend. Allow me to indulge you with the world of fantasy dota. While Season 1 admittedly has some kinks, these first 8 weeks have been a lot of fun, and actually quite comparable to my fantasy NBA and NFL leagues. Putting in five to ten minuets a day utilizing the right resources can drastically improve your game, and help you win your league. These Fantasy Reports will be a repeating weekly articles to share tips, highlight rising stars, help with roster swaps, stats, and to discuss everything that is fantasy doto! If you would like to read the previous week’s posts (and you might wanna, there are some juicy tips inside) you can find those all over on my bloog, [looseleafs.com](http://www.looseleafs.com)

Week 8 was one of the most exciting in season 1. It is arguably how fantasy should be. A set 80 players playing a known amount of games against a known amount of teams. This was arguably the most “fair” system since fantasy inception, and the least confusing. Here it finally paid off to have fan favorite or strong picks. Well unless you were really backing [A]. =]
<~--more-->
Here are some tables with how the four days of Phase 2 reflected in fantasy :

Day1 :

Team| Score
—|—
Cloud9 |144.4
iG | 144.1
Alliance| 118.5
Newbee| 110.5
Titan| 103

Day2 :

Team| Score
—|—
DK|243.8
iG | 208.5
Liquid| 198.3
EG| 167.2
Titan| 151.3

Day3 :

Team| Score
—|—
EG|176.8
LGD| 169.7
DK| 155.2
Mouz| 154.8
Titan| 151.6

Day4 :

Team| Score
—|—
Mouz|161.7
LGD | 161.3
Newbee| 132.3
NaVi| 128.5
Cloud9| 124.6

Arrow Gaming, previous fantasy leaders by far, finished with the lowest total team score of 292.9.

Mushi had the highest single day score with 57 points on Day 2, in fact all of DK had abnormally high numbers on that day.

Week 9 is going to be split up between Phase 3 playoffs ending on Monday, and the Main Event starting on Friday. That gives a good 4 days to jockey for players and build rosters for the week. Use that time to get the most active players possible.
___________________________

###Tools:
Rehashing last weeks post, I again encourage you to check out and use my spreadsheet. I have compiled a google doc that has each player’s daily point earnings. This should be valuable information in letting you pick up only the best, and most active players. In addition on this document you can find overall team totals, and a handy calendar that will tell you what teams are playing when. USE THE CALENDAR! If you do not have active players every day then you’re losing points. Don’t lose points yo.

**[You can find the document here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PsDzbVMQ2a_mDUyXTg63tZ2mvjC9TicWdhhzYMPC0eY/edit?usp=sharing)**

________
###Tips:
**Monday’s Bracket** – Newbee and Titan will play a Bo3 Monday. The winner will play Na’Vi in a Bo3. The winner will play iG in a final Bo3. While it is most risky to be playing newbee or titan players, they will reap the greatest rewards if they do well. While it might be safer to play iG players, you will at most be earning two games. Try to build you roster to have multiple people active on Monday. If a player is eliminated in this stage you can always drop then.

**Friday** – The next games will not be played until Friday. Here we will have all three winners bracket games, so VG, EG, DK + 1 will be playing. The losers of the first set will play again on Saturday. Keep this in mind for your Friday lineup that only these four teams will have games, and two of them will have double sets.

**Drop everyone eliminated** – Even if someone scores you points on Monday, but is eliminated, drop them. Their points will not go away. You need that roster space for players who are actually still chasing the dream!

**Know how the bracket works** – Like I outlined above, knowing what teams play on what days will be crucial in scheduling not only trades, but your active roster. Checking out the [survival guide](http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/wiki/events/ti4) that /r/dota2 put together should also help you greatly in this regard.

**Lower seed = Higher pirority** – Remember when you’re making your trades and attempting to build a good active roster, that the lower seed in the fantasy league gets priority if multiple people trade for the same player. If you’re low seed feel free to try and pick up the hottest free agent, you have priority. If you are a high seed, or even winning your league, be careful who you pick up. Trying to trade for Burning when 3 other people want him will only waste your daily trade. It’s better to settle than to be a victim of the trading metagame.

________
###Week 9 Pickups:
I realize that in a competitive good league there will be little room to make trade now with so few players left. However if you have an opportunity to pick up one of these players, do so ASAP.
**iG.Chaun** – With iG doing very well, and playing Monday, Chaun is a no brainier to have on your active roster in the support slot through Monday and lower brackets. 430 is also a great choice for an IG player.

**EG.Zai** – This kid is a monster fantasy support scorer. EG will be playing at the start of the main event, and pending on how USAUSAUSA does v DK, will either do a second game, or have a lower bracket run.

**Newbee.Hao** – I think Newbee is going to tear through the bubble bracket tomorrow. They should play a lot of games and have a strong showing. Hao will therefore score big relative to everyone else playing. Then again I was burned by Newbee in Phase 2 also, I really think they’re gonna make a run for it tomorrow. Then they secure top 3 by beating VG.

**DK.Burning** – The highest scoring DK player. Why would you not want him.

**Vici.Sylar** – Similar to burning. A real great pick through groups with VG’s staler performance. Could play winner bracket games, or have a good lower bracket showing. Definitely choice 1 for a VG slot.

###Week 9 Drops:
**Eliminated Players** – Might seem obvious, but seriously. If you have someone on your roster who is out of TI4, trade them for a team that is still in TI4. Who cares if you’re trading a hard carry for a 5 support. You need people who are going to be playing. Build your roster up to have only people still in the tournament, and drop them after they get eliminated.
__________
###Stats:
**Highest Earning Player** – Liquid.Qojquva 180.1
**Superstar Support** – Liquid.Pegasus 144.5 ( But LGD.ddc should have, considering Jimmy is kinda C now. )
**Highest Earning Team** – LGD 671.7
**Most Games Played** – Liquid 21
**Total Week 8 Points** – 8285.3
**Average player score (active players only)** – 88
**Week 8 average total (sum of daily active player means)** – 440.5 <– The number you want to beat __________________________________ So how did you do in week 8 of fantasy? Were you able to pass average score? Did you have some high-value players disappoint you, or hidden gems on your team? Go ahead and comment below. I ended the week with a lackluster XXX points. It’s a little embarrassing I think. I had EGM supporting all week which was really disappointing. Good thing Zai brought home the bacon. Also with DK, iG, and Newbee doing well (I played a lot of Mushi, Xi, and Hao) I think it tanked my group score quite a bit. Next week will be a lot about having good active players for Monday, and making efficient trades for the main event. GLHF dominating your leagues in week 9. Get hype for TI4 main event!

Jul 092014 Tagged with ,

WCS America Season 2 Finals (2014)

You know what, I think the third time might really be the charm. In a world were WCS NA was questionably handled by both MLG and NASL, it seems that ESL has really dedicated an American team to doing this product justice.

I was able to attend the 2014 WCS America Season 2 Finals (yup, it’s still a mouth-full) in beautiful Burbank California at the brand-spankin-new ESL studios. This location really is new, and this was their first big SC2 broadcast. They had time to practice with Tanks and promos, but it seemed as if this was finally the real deal for them. The first real test. After whipping up the warehouse into a badass studio and production house, they put on one hell of a show for not only oodles of online viewers, but a packed house of SoCal local attendees. Thank’s for letting me clown around at your new home ESL.

So onto the event itself: In a world were I get most of my WCS knowledge from liquipedia, I started off a little under-enthused going into the Ro16. Major was there, but no players who I really cared about, or could have good dinner conversation with, made it. Luckily I had my hands full taking oodles of pictures of them smexy Korean’s. If you’d like to just look at pictures (maybe you hate my writing, maybe you always just had a thing for picture books and magazines, I don’t judge) you can look at them all here:  Day 1  // Day 2
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Jul 092014 Tagged with ,

The Fantasy Report: Week 7

Hey Now,

Welcome back to another exciting and super duper awesome Fantasy Report. With only three weeks left to go in Season 1, we will be spending our time doing a lot of TI4 stats, and I could not be more excited. It really is Christmas in July.

Is this your first time coming across the Fantasy Report? Welcome my friend. Allow me to indulge you with the world of fantasy dota. While Season 1 admittedly has some kinks, these first 7 weeks have been a lot of fun, and actually quite comparable to my fantasy NBA and NFL leagues. Putting in five to ten minuets a day utilizing the right resources can drastically improve your game, and help you win your league. These Fantasy Reports will be a repeating weekly articles to share tips, highlight rising stars, help with roster swaps, stats, and to discuss everything that is fantasy doto! If you would like to go back you can view and fantasy reports!

I am going to have to keep the Week 7 recap short this week to avoid copious amounts of flame and anger. tl;dr The fantasy system was fucked up. With only fringe league being played in the by week before TI, they failed to record stats for the few teams that were playing. Only 35 players reported scores this week, when in reality a good 70 should have posted. Even though they had their scores recorded in their profile, they did not calculate to the team. This effected leagues like: BoraDota, ZSword, Vietnam Esports CHampions League, GG League, DatBet, Western Digitial, and AMD D2M. Hyper Glory, LGD2, Invasion, Mineski, PR, CNB, Union, Titan, MVP, Arrow, and more all got fucked over. It wasn’t very cool. The system was actually broken. Like unplayable because of this. Regardless of how hard you tried, you might have goten a great pickup for this week (Invasion.Ghost) only to see him play a good 13 games, win most of them, and not score a single point. Sigh.
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Jul 032014 Tagged with ,

The Fantasy Report: Week 6

Hey Now,

First and foremost thank you to the warm fuzzy responses from the pilot Fantasy Report last week. You most definitely encouraged me to not toss this project to the wayside, and keep writing about fantasy on the weekly. I aim to not disappoint and keep these articles at a high quality. Thanks.

Is this your first time coming across the Fantasy Report? Welcome my friend. Allow me to indulge you with the world of fantasy dota. While Season 1 admittedly has some kinks, these first 6 weeks have been a lot of fun, and actually quite comparable to my fantasy NBA and NFL leagues. Putting in five to ten minuets a day utilizing the right resources can drastically improve your game, and help you win your league. These Fantasy Reports will be a repeating weekly articles to share tips, highlight rising stars, help with roster swaps, stats, and to discuss everything that is fantasy doto!

Week 6 was quite the exciting one. D2L, Good Play, and Bounty Hunter were all tournaments that ended early on in the week. Monday alone saw 900 points injected from 59 players. Arrow went on a tear winning two tournaments, and EG was equally impressive with their D2L win. When Arrow stopped playing, EG went on to end the week by playing 8 games Sunday and taking second place in ESL. Empire saw some action in D2L, but they gained some serious points by shit-stomping NaVi.US on Wednesday. Fun stats below.

Week 7 is going to be the foil to 6’s action-packed crazy antics. 7 is sure to be a real snore. As we build up to the start of TI4 in week 8, week 7 is our calm before the storm. I have done extensive research attempting to aggregate all of the match information this week. It was much harder than I thought it would be. Week 7 is going to be fantasy hell, as we see very, very, very few active fantasy teams and players. Even more so there is no good resource (gosubet, liquipedia, ingame calander) to schedule players off of.
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