[Recap] Vainglory at PAX East 2015

So PAX East has turned out to be an amazing, reveal-filled weekend. While you may have already heard about some of the reveals, we thought it’d be nice to share a recap of all of the Vainglory live streams.

Friday Morning Stream
Super Evil Megacorp kicked off PAX with a double bang! Two huge reveals back to back. First off one of the longest requested features for Vainglory: Skins. While they didn’t disclose any of the details, they did show off two of the alternate character models that’ll be coming to the Market soon.

The next big reveal was almost as anticipated as the last, spectator mode! A huge leap towards the beginnings of a competitive season in Vainglory. Though unfortunately, spectator mode still has a lot of work that needs to be done and the developers don’t believe that it will ship in the next update. Nonetheless, it’s amazing the amount of progress that has already been made on it and to see how great the UI already looks.

Friday Afternoon Stream
After the amazing reveals of the first stream, there was a lot to review on this stream. This mostly stream mostly focused viewer games and showing off the news from the morning stream.

Saturday Morning Stream
Sadly no new reveals on this stream, just a review of the previous day’s announcements. The stream opened curiously without Zekent, but instead ShinKaigan after Zekent had mysteriously “gone missing.” PlayoffBeard and ShinKaigan went over some past reveals: skins and the Android beta.

Then EdTheShred gave a serious talk addressing a lot of the communities concerns about the Android crossover; putting to bed rumors of hacking, reminding everyone that the same security flaws in Android can already be found from jailbroken iOS devices, and that they’ve already been dealing with these issues. He also mentioned that hacking the game is similarly difficult to PC MOBAs because of how server-based the game is, your client saying that you have more gold or more attack speed doesn’t do anything.

Right before moving on to shout casting, Zekent arrived, freed from some nefarious trap of Shin’s. Shin respectfully gave the helm back to Zekent and the stream resumed from there with some shout casting of pre-recorded spectator matches.

Saturday Showdown!

Early game MsVixen’s team took an early lead in gold, while Prodigy’s team was able to comeback in gold by getting an early kill on Vixen, Vixen’s team still managed to quickly take the lead in gold.  The game snowballed with a gigantic imbalance of +2k gold by 10m. Vixen’s team nabbed the first ace and was able to push down the first two turrets. The second ace resulted in third turret down and a Kraken for Vixen’s team ending the game before 20m. Victory went to Team Vixen!

Saturday Afternoon Stream
This stream was a bit delayed and started of with a public viewer match. CaptainNeato then came on and discussed some interesting details about the skins. Notably the Goth Adagio skin is based on the original concept of Adagio, which was a character who was part of a secret society called “The Gentlemen of the Black.” And that the internal name for the skin was “Black Gentlemen Adagio.”  Spectator mode was said to be likely two updates down the line. No new reveals. Skins were confirmed for every hero. PlayoffBeard reveals that in one of the playtests for Ardan, the Gauntlet was almost the size of the Halcyon Fold.

Sunday Morning Stream
In the last developer stream of PAX, Zekent and PlayoffBeard showed up more of the revealed content. Replaying the skins videos for those who had yet to see them, and showing off yet another spectator match.

Sunday Showdown!

The match started off with an early lead in gold from Blue Team (Team Nickatnyte), but at the first team fight six minutes in Orange Team (Team M0lt) managed to grab two kills on Zekent and Nick while managing to keep all of their team alive turning the game dramatically in their favor. At the second team fight, eleven minutes in, Orange Team was able to get an Ace bring the score of the match to 0-8 and taking down the first blue turret. Two minutes later, the third team fight become a much better trade for Blue Team, scoring them their first two kills while only costing them the death of their tank. Right at the fifteen minute mark the Blue Team pulls off another great trade taking two kills for free in the fourth fight.

Eighteen minutes in there was an excellent opportunity for Blue Team to engage a fight as they were actually better equipped, due to Orange Team being unable to shop while sieging turrets. Although Shin was able to harass Wabeesh enough to make a fight impossible. Another four minutes in Orange Team is able to snag two kills and turret in exchange for a death, marking the fifth team fight. Twenty-three minutes in after slowly closing the gold gap between the teams Blue secures the second Ace of the game as well as the first Kraken in exchange for their tank. The Kraken was only able to take the first orange turret and half of the second’s health, because the Zekent and Nick were not able to escort the Kraken in absence of their tank.

Shortly after in the seventh team fight of the game, Blue Team snags their second Ace once again losing Wabeesh in the fight. Twenty-nine minutes in Blue Team picks off Krul and Koshka, finishes off the third orange turret, and grabs another Kraken. Without proper escort, the Orange Team is able to take down the Kraken, having their turret take only three slaps before finishing the beast off. Thirty-three minutes in the third Kraken is taken by Blue Team, without escort though the Orange Team kills it with only one hit against their turret.

Thirty-seven minutes in Shin initiates with a solar storm one-shoting Nick and half-healthing Zekent, they quickly push this into an Ace without losing a single player. Rush the fourth Kraken of the game, and finish the game before any of the enemy team can respond or even before the Kraken can make it to the base. Victory went to Team M0lt!

Post-Match Stream
Super Evil Megacorp wrapped up PAX with a short and sweet round-up of PAX and the preceding match. Everyone from the matches were brought on for the farewell as TacticalPinup with TheHaleyBaby whom both announced that they’d be playing Vainglory in the future. The Nvidia Shields were awarded to Shin, M0lt, and Gibbs. Zekent gave some brief thoughts on the match and then closed up the stream.

Lots of exciting things from PAX: skins, spectator mode, double glory weekend, Shin hosting the official livestream, and so much more. Thank you SEMC for putting together such an amazing weekend for everyone who was there or at home!

UPDATE: Added a bunch more photos after Zekent kindly sent me the skin videos they used.