The community always blows things out of proportion, but there are two running themes that need to stop. The first are jokes about Warden’s weight. He’s a big guy, but he’s not breaking any records. If I see one more picture where he’s pretending to eat a giant hotdog, hamburger, or the Eiffel Tower, somebody is going to die, and it’s going to be me from a brain aneurysm. The comedy bandwagon hasn’t moved in over six months. It’s time for new material.
And even though I hate Warden jokes like PETA hates Vick’s Victory Kennels, they can’t hold a candle to the “Rector sucks” sentiment in the community. Just from the pure emotion on the forums, you’d think he single-handedly destroyed 3D, prevented eSports from going mainstream, and killed 1.6. And, if people believed he could shoot straight, I’m sure they would have accused him of being the second gunman on the Grassy Knoll.
Not everybody thinks that way, though. GotFrag published an article a while back that was a semi-defense of Rector. It didn’t avail him of blame as much as it pointed out he wasn’t the only problem; Method’s stats were just as bad, but he didn’t receive any of the criticism that Rector does. Naturally, the article was misconstrued by the community to mean a few different things:
A) GotFrag thinks Rector sucks
B) GotFrag thinks Method also sucks
C) LANDodger is awesome
Everybody knows that “C” isn’t true, so let’s look at the other two.
Rector
There are a few big problems with the “Rector sucks” mentality. One is that eSports statistics aren’t anywhere close to supporting it the way the community expresses it. All we can do is look at the stats and see he’s playing poorly. But we can’t answer why. It could be a lack of talent (like the community believes), or it could be something totally different – burnout, the play of his teammates, his role on the team, etc. This isn’t a problem with the author of the GotFrag article, either. He clearly admitted the claims you can make based on stats are very limited. The community, however, isn’t that rational.
For statistics to back up the idea that Rector isn’t talented or skilled, you have to eliminate every single outside influence in the game. If Ksharp played against coL with four CAL-O guys, his stats would look a lot worse. It’s common knowledge that Warden from coL is “always” the first to enter the bombsite. It’s a team game, and Rector’s basic stats are influenced by things other than him. To make a case that he “sucks” based on statistics, you’d have to compare his performances when entering the bombsite first, when he’s the only one defending the site in a 1 v 2, how many times he gets outshot, etc, to the “league average”.
Obviously, that doesn’t exist. Nobody keeps those statistics. So, we have to do things the old fashioned way: watch him play. A lot.
It’s not enough to see him two or three times. Rector could have an unusually bad match or three. People go into small funks, or have bad maps. Somebody else on 3D could have a bad match or three, forcing Rector into difficult situations. The other team could be unusually hot, or 3D unusually disorganized. You need a large sample size.
This brings up a couple questions: how many people on the forums have studied every round of Rector’s play during a demo, and how many demos have they watched?
My answer, to both questions, is “very few, if any.” Most of them are like a trusty parrot, just repeating what they’ve heard other people say.
There is a group of people that gets to see him play a lot, though: his teammates and his opponents. Add all those matches together with the untold number of scrims, and judges that know every single trick of the game, and you’re bound to get a more accurate assessment from them than your average forum poster.
And, to be blunt, I’ve never heard of a professional player that speaks poorly of him. That includes my own conversations, private/public gossip, and public statements. In fact, what I’ve seen is just the opposite – his peers rushing to his defense, talking about his role on the team and criticizing the simplistic eSports statistics.
So, the public attacks his skill, his peers defend it, and the stats are the equivalent of the “check engine” light on your car. We know there’s some kind of problem, but we have no idea about what the cause is. Your car could blow up in thirty minutes, or you could drive for years with a faulty “check-engine” light. In Rector’s case, it could be his skill, or it could be something else showing up in the statistics, like bad luck, positioning, or the play of his teammates.
The final say comes from the demos, though. When you watch Rector play enough, you see him hit plenty of tough shots, and beat good players. The problem isn’t his skill, it’s something else.
Method
Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to Method. They don’t seem related, but Method’s poor play helps Rector’s case, because his stats are just as poor. Again, it’s clear something isn’t right, thought we don’t know the cause.
The problem with Method can’t be talent, though. He was a dominant player in 1.6, and arguably the best fragger on NoA during their 2004 CPL title run. Talent doesn’t just vanish. We’re left with a few possible explanations for his poor play.
He could have problems with the transition to Source. But that doesn’t make sense. How many 1.6 players are significantly worse in Source? coL made the transition in dominating form. The rest of 3D seems fine. The Venom and the Core are doing about what they did in 1.6. I can’t think of one professional Source player that came from 1.6 and simply collapsed, in terms of talent. Some had small upticks or slides, of course, but nothing like Method going from CPL champion to 50 damage per round.
His teammates could be “letting him down”, so to speak. But everybody outside of Rector has good stats, and I don’t think one player can have such a large effect on Method – especially when Ksharp, LiN, and Volcano, clearly aren’t suffering as much.
He could be burned-out. We’ve seen that with Sunman. Let’s not sugarcoat it: Sunman was terrible for a while. His aim was off, and I swear his reactions were so slow I thought my grandpa was playing. Alright, that's an exaggeration, but he definitely wasn't in top form. People would just run strats and dominate him. But he came out of it when the CGS rolled around, and he’s been downright good – he was +13 for the CGS season (June-July), according to GameSense, compared to -21 during EFG’s three-match run in the Intel Invitational (February). Method doesn’t have that problem. He still does all the crazy things he used to, and he looks good for certain stretches during the demos.
The Problem
The key phrase is “certain stretches”. The problem with Rector, with Method, and with 3D, is consistency.
They aren’t able to produce consistent results round-to-round, let alone during a whole match or tournament. One round they’ll completely shut a team down, and then the next their entire defense falls apart. People get flanked, teammates rotate to cover the same areas, and leave other areas exposed. Then they go right back to domination the next round.
The Newegg LANFest was a good microcosm, in terms of match results. They won the matches they were supposed to on the first day. It was a weak group, but they still took care of business. Then, in their first match the next day, they lost 1-13 to the CHImera. This prompted Trevor “Midway” Schmidt from GotFragTV to tell his co-broadcaster, “I could pick up three guys off the street and play with you and them and get more than 1 round against the Chimera.” And no, fRoD was not his broadcast partner.
They followed that with a 13-1 victory over a pug team, 1shot. Before you laugh, remember that 1shot tied the Dallas Venom the day before, and ended up eliminating them from the tournament. That started their good run, where they beat Carolina 13-7, Pandemic 13-10, and barely lost to coL 10-13 in the Consolation Finals. Where was that team in the first match of the day?
The skill, the talent, the potential – whatever you want to call it – is there. In fact, I think that’s the only thing keeping them afloat.
The Fix
What they’re missing is an Alpha Dog.
Let’s get a couple things straight, first. This isn't a knock on their players. A-Rod might end up as the best player in baseball history, but he's not an Alpha Dog. And 3D can be the second best team in Source without an Alpha Dog, to boot. They might have that distinction already, anyway. But if they want to compete with coL, they need to find one. Every truly great team has one. They’re the teams that win championships, and you hear them immortalized in a specific way.
Michael Jordan’s Bulls. Brady’s Patriots. They own those teams, and everybody else falls in line. It doesn’t have to be the best player, and a lot of times it isn’t. The Yankees are Derek Jeter’s team, even though A-Rod is a better player, and their pitching (particularly Rivera) was more valuable during their championships. Even organizations that are lauded for spreading the wealth and playing a “team-oriented” game usually have a clear leader: the Piston’s Chauncy Billups, for example. Sometimes it isn’t even a player. The Tigers are Jim Leyland’s team, and the Chicago Bulls are Scott Skiles’ team.
At this point, I’d love to tell you the exact definition of an Alpha Dog, but it’s almost impossible to describe. It’s not just being a leader, calling strats, putting a team on your back during a clutch round, or even having what people call the “killer instinct”. It’s all of those things and more. It’s not something you know, it’s something you feel, and words can never truly capture a feeling. But the best teams in eSports have them, too.
Moto used to be that person for 3D, and after him it was Rambo, who’s now doing the same thing for coL. Pandemic is Juan’s team, despite the fact that n0it is (probably) the best player. Turmoil is Sasquatch’s team. Historically, NoA was Xeqtr’s team, and Heaton filled the role for SK.swe and NiP. Even guys like NightFall, Remix, and messiaH are Alpha Dogs, though they don’t have the same accomplishments as the other people on the list.
If you put me at gunpoint, I’d say the primary roles of an Alpha Dog are 1) making sure everybody’s not only on the same page, but the same line and word, and 2) making sure nobody lets up mentally, even for one second.
3D doesn’t have that guy, and it shows up in their inconsistency. They make too many small mistakes that end up costing them big rounds. You’ve heard the expression that a team is “greater than the sum of its parts”. Well, the opposite holds true, too. Sometimes talented teams are “lesser” than the sum of their parts. Think 2004 Red Sox, which overcame huge, seemingly unbeatable obstacles, versus the Chicago Cubs, who never seem to hit on all cylinders, even when they spend money on talented players. The lack of consistency doesn’t come from a lack of talent. If you stink, you stink. It comes from mental issues: putting yourself in difficult situations, poor communication, bad rotations, that kind of thing.
In short, it's time to stop bashing Rector. He's been the lightning rod for criticism, but replacing him with a more skilled player doesn’t solve 3D’s problems, because skill isn’t holding 3D back.
