Roccat Cool Off Supa Hot Crew, Advance to Face Fnatic

By Matt “It’s Pure Luck” Lee

It had been a rough Summer Split for Roccat following their surprising performance from the Spring, in which they finished in third place. It was a split full of ups and downs that saw them start off with a dismal record of 1-7, only to claw back to .500 at 10-10 after Week Eight. But they couldn't keep up the momentum they had gained and Roccat dropped six of their final eight games to finish the season in sixth place with a record of 12-16. Heading into playoffs, they were dangerously close to the dreaded relegation matches. 

Now they needn't worry about it anymore.

Roccat managed to eliminate the young and upstart Supa Hot Crew in fairly easy fashion, taking the Best of Five series in four games. With the win, not only does Roccat avoid the possibility of being sent to the LCS promotion tournament, they keep their dreams of qualifying for the World Championship alive and will now have two cracks at achieving it. Supa Hot Crew, meanwhile, have to beat Millenium next week in the fifth place match if they want to dodge participating in their second straight promotion tournament. It would be a disappointing finish for a team that showed so much improvement from the Spring Split where they finished in seventh place.

And yet, watching this series, it looked as if Roccat were the third seed and Supa Hot Crew the sixth. Roccat seemed to come into this set of games incredibly well prepared, and it showed right away in the picks and bans of the first game. They let Kassadin slip through during the banning phase, seemingly knowing that Supa Hot Crew would first pick it, and Roccat was ready as they opted to run the Morgana and Elise pick comp to retaliate. It paid off massively for them. Jankos was able to put out a ton of lane pressure early, and at 8:05, they were able to drop the top turret of Supa Hot Crew. Just a bit over two minutes later the mid turret also fell, along with a dragon for Roccat.

Perhaps the biggest moment of this game came at 15:40. Roccat were able to turn an attempted initiate from Supa Hot Crew back around and pick up first blood when the fight was five versus four in favor of SHC. That fight illustrated the power of the team comp Roccat assembled, despite being one person down while it happened. Vander managed to get a black shield onto himself and avoided being knocked into the air by the Nami ultimate. At just about the same time, Jankos managed to land a cocoon on Mimer to prevent the Renekton dive into the team. From here it goes horribly wrong for Supa Hot Crew as Xaxus teleports in, and they start to scatter a bit in panic knowing their initiate didn't go as planned. Roccat immediately annihilate Selfie with a dark binding chained into an Alistar head butt and pulverize combo. Following this fight, despite only having one kill, Roccat already had a 4.5k gold lead at just over sixteen minutes. Supa Hot Crew was never able to recover from this point. Roccat methodically put the game away in slightly over thirty-five minutes to take a 1-0 series advantage.

In Game Two, Supa Hot Crew attempted to adjust and this time they banned Elise away from Jankos and grabbed Morgana themselves after Roccat first picked Maokai. Early on, things were looking great for SHC. They managed to pick up three kills in the first ten minutes and Impaler was far more active on Rengar than he had been on Kha’Zix the previous game. Yet, as well as they looked early on, the game turned around at just under twenty-one minutes. Holding a slight gold lead of five-hundred at that point, SHC tried to go to the well one too many times. Twice already they had snuck MrRalleZ up to the top lane along with Impaler to get multiple kills on Roccat. The third time wasn't the charm as they had poor ward coverage in the river and never saw Jankos was there along with Celaver and Vander. They were able to kill Vander, but Jankos had a great cataclysm that prevented any members of Supa Hot Crew from getting to Celaver, who picked up a double kill.  All of the sudden, Roccat had the gold lead and the baron buff. They wasted no time with baron as before it had worn off, they pushed bottom lane and won one final fight, ending the game before it was even twenty-six minutes old.

Game Three saw Supa Hot Crew pick up their first and only win of the series in what was a long and drawn out battle. Once again, SHC looked good early as MrRalleZ was able to get a few picks on Twitch for the second game in a row. It might have been nerves due to their season being on the line, but Supa Hot Crew did almost nothing with this early lead. At the 28:40 mark, Jankos and Xaxus picked off Mimer top lane, but in return, SHC was able to pick up the dragon. Fifteen minutes later, despite having picked up the only baron of the game and four of the six dragons, SHC was only ahead by one outer turret and their gold lead was starting to mean less and less. And after a baron steal by Jankos in the forty-seventh minute, it looked as if Supa Hot Crew could be in real trouble as their lead dwindled away. It got worse for the Supa Hot Crew in the fifty-sixth minute. Selfie had a poor Orianna ultimate that only hit Xaxus, and Roccat won the resulting team fight as well as another baron pick up. Selfie would ultimately redeem himself, however. In the final fight of the marathon game, he hit a three person shockwave that allowed Supa Hot Crew to pick up two important kills and push through the nexus turrets for the sixty-seven minute win to avoid being swept.

It was far from a convincing defeat, and Roccat quickly adjusted for game five, as they smartly banned Orianna away from Selfie. One has to question the picks by Supa Hot Crew on the turn after Roccat first picked Maokai; by taking Ryze and Tristana they left both Elise and Morgana open for Roccat who immediately locked them in. Once again, Jankos was helping with an early turret push, this time down in bottom lane as they took down the first turret of the game. Kasing committed a big no-no as he was caught window shopping and Overpower managed to pick up first blood on him right after the turret fell with a long range Ziggs ultimate.

As the game went on, it just felt like Roccat was dictating the terms and the pace; they were being proactive and Supa Hot Crew was being reactive. The fifteenth minute mark of the game is the perfect example of this. Supa Hot Crew sent three people top to get a kill onto Xaxus while Roccat took dragon followed by the bottom lane outer turret. Supa Hot Crew didn't even manage to take the top turret down, and now the gold lead for Roccat swelled to almost 4.5k at sixteen minutes.

It wasn't until the game was in the twenty-first minute that it began to spiral out of control. Despite Celaver having a trinity force on Corki, which is stronger than a mid-game infinity edge Tristana, SHC took a fight in the river near dragon and lost three members. Roccat went on to do baron and managed to get two more picks growing their gold lead to almost 7.5k. The strength of the comp Roccat was running was on display while they were pushing and sieging turrets down mid. Even the beefier targets like Braum and Dr. Mundo were easily dropped if they were hit by a cocoon or dark binding.

Roccat did make a few mistakes as they were trying to close the game out. Impaler managed to sneak a baron steal and Jankos was picked off carelessly in mid. It allowed Supa Hot Crew to cut the gold deficit to around six-thousand, but in the end, it was too little, too late. Once again the cocoon and dark binding chain crowd control combo caught onto Mimer as Roccat was trying to break through the last defense of SHC, pushing down the middle inhibitor. After a chaotic fight where the remaining Supa Hot Crew members desperately attempted to defend the nexus turrets and the nexus itself, Roccat was able to destroy the nexus and take the series 3-1.

It’s hard to say for sure, but Roccat seem to have found their rhythm at an opportune time. They looked much better than the team we saw struggle all summer to close out games where they had leads. In this series, they were quick and decisive in what they wanted to do when they were ahead, and Supa Hot Crew was never able to rise to their level.