Monday, March 9, 2015

Week 7 LPL Review


by Michael "Tribble" Godani

After a week of upsets, the LPL returned with twelve magnificent matches containing even more surprises. Let’s take a look at the most interesting matches of the weekend:

March 6th

As mentioned in the preview that we released earlier this week, the first match of the week would be Master3 against King. Both teams played against each other in the Damacia cup - where M3 took the win after a fifth and deciding match in the Bo5 series.

This match-up could best be put into one word as “botlane.” The series ended in a tie with two very one-sided matches, something we've been seeing more and more in the LPL lately.

Both teams in their wins started out strong, only the M3 botlane stuck to Corki/Annie while King switched over to Graves/Thresh after not having too much success with the Kalista/Morgana combo. A series like many others, yet still undecided as both teams had to do with a single point.

Next, we had upcoming IEM contenders Team WE facing off against Snake Esports. For those who have seen the two matches, incredible! You will surely find a few plays of there in our new weekly LPL Top 5.

As said, this match-up was one of the best ones of the weekend due to the highly unpredictable outcome of both matches. Along with the revived Team WE, Ninja came out guns blazing, ending game one carrying on his Kassadin with an amazing 11-0-3, participating in 14 of the teams 18 kills.

But what a game this was! Let’s take it towards the 20ish minute mark; dragon had respawned and both teams wanted a piece of it while not having great vision control in the river. Team WE beat Snake to it and took control over the dragon area only a few seconds before the spawn. Team WE did pick it up without any real fight, but this wouldn't be LPL if there wouldn't be a fight after all.

Team WE pick up their second dragon and right after Snake tries to engage onto Team WE but before the engage is a real engage, Ninja already used his Null Sphere on Baka to take away 50% of his HP after which Spirit uses his Flag and Drag to jump into the frontline of Snake. Team WE retreats as Snake chases them down towards the bottom lane where Flandre uses his Twisted Advance onto Styz and YuZhe his Dark Binding hits Beast, unable to follow up on his sonic wave. As Kryst4l takes out three members of Team WE, Ninja goes ahead and cashes in on the shut down gold from Kryst4l.

Team We might have gotten the dragon but lose the fight 4-2 and the worst thing there is that all the gold, or most of it, went to Kryst4l, which meant a even stronger Corki for the next teamfight. After an intense game, that, after 36 minutes was only in favor of Snake who had a 800 gold lead and 3v2 dragons, it could have been anybody’s game. It could have been, but it appeared that Snake pulled off a Scarra. What seemed to be a teamfight going in favor of Snake, got turned by Gnar’s Gnar! A triple stun onto the side of the baron pit sealed the faith for Snake.

Game 2 wasn't much of a difference from Game 1. That’s what made this series so good,both teams continued where they ended in game one. A four men gank on Ninja’s Ezreal gets turned into a first blood for spirit. That play set the whole game around after only 2 minutes and 40 seconds. Team WE was in the lead and decided that it was time for a early dragon, low enough to be smited, but Beast takes it away with his Prey Seeker on the so popular Rek’Sai. What a steal!

Ninja continued his carry performance with the Ezreal just the same way he did with the Kassadin only now he had more kills earlier in the game. Around the early midgame there was a fight for the tier two turret from Snake where Ninja in a skillful fashion picks up a couple of kills and survives with 30% of his life remaining as if it was nothing.

It was nothing, Team WE continued to take a bigger lead throughout the game and even had a 10k gold lead. The only problem was Flandre’s Mundo who at some point was unkillable, the total opposite of Aluka’s Maokai who seemed to try to equal his deaths to the amount of towers that his team had taken.

After some bad focus in teamfights and a few picks here and there, the gold lead from Team WE wasn't that big of an issue anymore. It came to a point where gold didn't really matter all that much anymore and the immortal Mundo and ghoul shooting Kogmaw were dictating the teamfights despite the fed Ezreal from Ninja.

Snake had a huge advantage throughout the game and that was that they managed to pick up four dragons and one minute before their fifth would spawn the game-deciding teamfight broke out. Ezreal being focused and the major tank Maokai, Snake had a free passage into the base of Team WE to secure the split.

These are the endgame results for Friday, March 6th:


March 7th

Energy Pacemaker took on Invictus Gaming on the second day and took yet another point of a well respected team in China. After getting humiliated by Vici Gaming, EP stepped up their game and have been taking points of LGD and even VG (in the game on the 8th of March).

After a somewhat close match, EP decided to finish the game off the back of a beautiful outplay in a teamfight in the midlane. They took Game 1 and forced IG to step up their game for the second game.

IG didn’t really impress this second game, but with some beautiful rotations and picks, IG managed to at least splitting with the last seat in the LPL.

OMG took on Gamtee in the last game of the day. As mentioned in the preview, Hu1 was one of players we should keep an eye out for. His Rek’Sai was taken away in the first game and he was not looking impressive with his Lee Sin. OMG came to the rift with their “Running Man” botlane (San&Xiyang) who played the Corki/Morgana combo. The most interesting aspect of this game was Cool playing Xerath to almost perfection. His first blood on Hu1 showed some nice skillshot mechanics and also his teamfighting presence was really out of this world. No wonder this man is being seen as one of the top midlaners in the world.

Gogoing went back to his Maokai and made sure that the Gamtee line-up was not able to reach the backline of OMG, great Twisted Advances and smartly dodged the Righteous Fury/RoA to just build straight into tank stats for the teamfights.

It wasn't even the gold lead that made OMG win, but the way they used their champions to the fullest of their abilities.

Game 2 was moderately different. OMG appeared onto the rift without a tank and havd nothing work out with Xiyang. His Veigar and Gogoing got pressured too hard by LetMe really sealing the game. The teamfights that OMG wanted didn’t appear and Gamtee forced them onto their playstyle by jumping onto the carries. Gamtee splits with OMG and this face-off ended in another draw.

These are the endgame results for Saturday, March 8th:


March 9th

The final day of the week was all about EDG vs Snake and OMG facing SHRC.

EDG vs Snake was the third match of the day and EDG was seeking revenge for the only defeat that they suffered this Spring Split against Snake.

EDG showed up big time although they did swap out Clearlove for Firel0li. The disrespect towards Snake showed really after Pawn locked in Riven as last pick in the draft. What seemed to be a difficult start for EDG and some might say that Snake did win the early game, really turned the moment that Deft’s Corki picked up a double kill in the toplane after making sure that Flandre’s Gnar was useless and 2+ levels behind most of the EDG members.

EDG continued from here on to step up their game and turn on the pressure by out-rotating and out-teamfighting Snake. “Get Corki fed” that seemed to be the mission here and that mission was accomplished after a 29 minute win. 

Game 2 was all about the “Juggermaw” for Snake, who had a Maokai, Jarvan, Lulu, Kogmaw, Janna comp. The whole idea was to stall the game until 35+ minutes so that this lategame scaling team can get to work and let the Kogmaw go where he pleases.

EDG responded to this comp in a very good way, picking them off, exploiting their weaknesses early and taking turrets as fast as possible including the dragons. They were on the right track but just didn't seem to be able to finish the game or to take an inhibitor even.

Snake took their advantage from this weakness and continued to get bigger to even an extent where Kryst4l sold his boots and picked up a 6th damage item. He had enough movement speed from the Lulu and Janna and with their shields, Kryst4l and his companions picked up Game 2 to split the series.
I highly recommend that you do watch this series on YouTube, it was a joy to watch!

The final game of the week was between OMG and Uzi’s former team, Star Horn Royal Club.

OMG showed up today with their Uzi/Cloud botlane and came out with a lot of force and energy! SHRC’s Wei showed up again with his Graves, God knows why because this fella is clearly not suited for this level of gameplay - again showing a bad performance and trailing by 45cs after 10 minutes.

A wonderful 1v3 outplay by Uzi on his Kalista really said everything about this match. OMG had no equal, they were not tested, the only aspect of their game that was tested was to not fall into the trolling behavior that they often do show in games. They did need a win to secure the second spot and so did they finish off SHRC in just 23 minutes.

Game 2 didn't differ that much, the game took a bit longer and forcing their way to playing 5v3 by camping Koro1 non-stop and zoning him leaving him with only 91 CS after 32 minutes and not taking the likes of Wei too serious.
For OMG, Cloud was the real MVP this game, beautiful Flash+Hook combo’s with a lantern to drag a teammate in and on point flails.

OMG take a very convincing 2-0 victory over SHRC who really need to hope that Namei, who is coming back next week, will jump into the Gogoing carry mode and carry them towards the play offs.

Later this week the LPL Top 5 will be released, a LCS FanZone special, keep an eye out on the timelines of Jodi and Tribble.

Standings after Week 7:


Schedule for Week 8:

Day 1:

Star Horn Royal Club vs Gamtee
Invictus Gaming vs Vici Gaming
Edward Gaming vs LGD Gaming
King vs Energy Pacemaker

Day 2:
LGD Gaming vs Snake
Energy Pacemaker vs Gamtee
Edward Gaming vs Invictus Gaming
Master3 vs OMG

Day 3:
Star Horn Royal Club vs King
Invictus Gaming vs Gamtee
OMG vs Snake
LGD Gaming vs Master3

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