Roccat Waltz Into IEM Cologne Semifinals With Decisive Victory Over DoWS

                    Matt “It’s Pure Luck” Lee

It was far from the hardest test they will face this year, or even this tournament, but the new look Roccat lineup was dominant today versus the Dolphins of Wall Street in the first round of the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne. Coming into IEM Cologne as the likely favorite to win a spot in Katowice in March, Roccat was crisp and efficient in the two game sweep. The second round will see them draw stiffer competition as they square off against NA LCS representative Counter Logic Gaming but based on today’s performance it’s hard to not like their chances to move through to the finals.

           
Game one started off fairly slowly but for a bit of early action down in the bottom lane that saw former Millenium AD carry Creaton (Ezreal) nearly pick up an early kill on Woolite (Corki) only to be thwarted by a nice Aqua Prison by Vander (Nami) in the middle of an Arcane Shift. The game would see its first attempted gank just after the five minute mark. Lasagna (Pantheon) went to the top lane in an attempt to pick off Overpow (Irelia) who would quickly flash to safety but almost immediately reengaged as Jankos (Elise) was arriving on from river.  The level two Equilibrium Strike from Overpow would prove crucial this fight as not only was the stun long enough to use the ability twice, it helped lock down Lasagna as it was chained with Cocoon from Jankos. The Roccat jungler picked up first blood as we have seen so many times before and with a little help from Ryu (Jayce) roaming up top Overpow picked up the second kill on Meziljie (Gnar) while just barely surviving himself.

            

Roccat would find a pick on Lasagna a few minutes later courtesy of a deep ward placed at the red buff of DoWS. The game started to snowball out of control at this point. Roccat would pick up a dragon just after the ten minute mark while Overpower would simultaneously pick up a solo kill in the top lane as he tower dove Meziljie. Ryu, Jankos and Vander would find a kill on Bebe (Xerath) on the edge of the jungle near the mid lane as he was caught trying to steal dragon with a Xerath ultimate only to be Aqua Prisoned himself. The only lane that hadn’t gone horribly wrong for the Dolphins this late into the game was bottom where Creaton and Masterwork (Karma) were trading with Woolite and Vander fairly effectively. It simply wasn’t going to be enough for the Dolphins to get anything done. The vision control and map pressure were too stacked in Roccat’s favor and so was the gold advantage. At just over the fifteen minute mark Overpow was already 6/0/2 on a very snowbally champion and closing out the game was merely a formality for Roccat and it would mercifully end for the Dolphins in twenty-two minutes.

            

Game two started off quite slowly much as game one did and it was at the five minute mark again that the game would see someone take a trip back to base via a grey screen. It was played brilliantly by Vander (Thresh) landing a hook on Masterwork (Nami) who erred by venturing into his bushes instead of staying in his minion wave. Jankos (Lee Sin) took the lantern from river into the fight and would make a nice play on a ward hop to slow Masterwork down and allowed Roccat to pick up first blood. However, DoWS would answer back a few minutes later as Jankos was caught being a bit  greedy as he seemed to favor stealing the enemy blue buff away. He would pay for it as Bebe (Syndra) picked up the kill and secured his own blue. But Jankos would get revenge shortly after that as he and Ryu (Fizz) would team up to take down the Dolphin’s mid laner and the blue buff would be turned back over to Jankos.

            

The lead for Roccat stood at one thousand gold at ten minutes with neither team yet to take a dragon. The two teams would exchange kills on a Roccat invade that stole away the DoWS red buff. Masterwork was caught by Jankos and Ryu but was able to flash away. Lasagna (Kha’Zix) and Bebe were then able to close in on Jankos and Ryu with Bebe once again taking Jankos out with another Unleashed Power. A teleport bottom from Overpow (Gnar) sent the Dolphins scrambling away with Masterwork being killed for the second time in the game. But while this was happening, Bebe found another victim as a straggling Vander was picked off in the river close to mid lane resulting in a two for one in favor of the Dolphins of Wall Street. Meziljie (Jax) took down the top tower just after all of this ended and it brought the gold between the two teams to dead even just shy of twelve minutes into the game.

            

Bebe played well up until this point but would make a mistake of face checking a bush in his own jungle that resulted in a kill for Jankos and a dragon being picked up for Roccat.  They would continue to hang close with Roccat for the next few minutes but little mistakes would begin to add up. Meziljie went for an engage in bottom on Vander in what appeared to be a 3v2 in favor of DoWS but they never saw Ryu enter the brush and it was quickly turned back around on the Dolphins. Woolite picked up the kill on Meziljie and would get another on Masterwork on the ensuing chase by Roccat. The fight would be extended long enough for Lasagna and Bebe to attempt to get involved but their efforts were in vain as they both were killed and it was a 4-0 for team Roccat. The lead was suddenly commanding for Roccat as it surged to four-thousand gold at sixteen minutes; as noted above, it had been dead even just four minutes prior. 

            

With sightstones completed for two members, Roccat began to find picks as they wanted. They would catch Creaton out near his own red bluff and took their second dragon of the game. Overpow would defeat Meziljie in a duel and the deficit grew to almost seven-thousand for DoWS twenty minutes into the game. It took a bit longer this time but now it seemed to be a repeat of game one. The Dolphins seemed dazed as Roccat would take objectives and turrets as they pleased as the game progressed. A great hook from Vander onto Bebe would initiate the team fight that all but signaled the game was over as Roccat would ace DoWS without losing any of their own members. Roccat would pick up the Baron before winning one final team fight in the opponent’s base and pushing through for the win in twenty-six minutes. 

Cloud 9 Take Home Intel Extreme Masters Title With Dominating Performance

Congratulations to Cloud 9 as they clinch a spot in the Intel Extreme Masters World Finals in Katowice to take place in March with a 3-0 series defeat of the Unicorns of Love in the finals of IEM San Jose!

Next up for the Intel Extreme Masters series is IEM Cologne which will take place from December 18th-21st. The ESL will also be hosting the EU Expansion Tournament bracket stage at this event.

Unicorns of Love Rout Team SoloMid to Reach IEM San Jose Finals

By Matt “It’sPure Luck” Lee

           

When the lineup for the Intel Extreme Masters San Jose was originally announced some people seemed to feel that the fans voted in Unicorns of Love simply for their name. Or maybe it was because of the Poppy pick in a do or die games versus Millenium in the EU LCS Spring Promotion Tournament. It simply didn’t seem to fit that a team who recently rose up from the Challenger Series should be voted in to a tournament as prestigious as IEM over a long time standout such as SK Gaming.

            

Yet in the end it was UoL who proved all doubters wrong as they managed to 2-0 tournament favorite Team SoloMid. The victory earns them a berth in the Intel Extreme Masters Grand Finals to take place later today where they await the winner of Cloud 9 versus Alliance. Using a combination of off-meta picks to catch Team SoloMid by surprise and seemingly impeccable team fighting, Unicorns of Love looked much sharper in this set than they did in their previous series against Lyon Gaming.

            

It didn’t take long for the mind games by UoL to begin. They caught TSM unaware in the pick and ban phase of game one by baiting Bjergsen into a Xerath pick when Twisted Fate had been taken the previous turn by UoL. The only problem was that it wasn’t Twisted Fate mid; it was going to Kikis in the jungle.  Power of Evil responded by last picking LeBlanc and it was a selection that worked out brilliantly for UoL. Only three minutes into the game, Bjergsen was caught pushed out a bit too far and we saw the first successful Twisted Fate jungle gank off a flash plus gold card combo. The game would calm down for a few minutes until the first Destiny attempt from Kikis came with an attempt to catch Dyrus out in the top lane. It was unsuccessful but it put more pressure on Dyrus who already had a tough matchup as Rumble against Gnar.

            

Kikis would try his luck top lane again a few minutes later but Dyrus escaped with a sliver of health. However, while this was going on, we saw something that seems to be incredibly rare as Power of Evil was able to pick up a solo kill on Bjergsen. UoL was able to pick up their first dragon a bit after this and they had control of it almost the entire game. TSM was able to pick up a kill on Vizicsacsi in the top lane off of a gank by Santorin, but Power of Evil responded by grabbing a solo kill on Bjergsen again in middle.  Kikis was also able to answer back for UoL in the top lane with a pick on Dyrus with a use of Destiny.

           

From there the game seemed to snowball out of control for Team SoloMid. UoL would make a few mistakes; including an over aggressive play by Power of Evil trying to zone Baron. But the gold difference was simply too much to overcome and the Unicorns would close the game out in 38 minutes.

           

Game two would start off slightly better for TSM, but Bjergsen continued to have trouble with Power of Evil in the mid lane. The UoL mid laner was able to pick up yet another solo kill just after the sixth minute mark as Syndra on Bjersen’s Azir. Power of Evil wasn’t shy about using his ultimate whenever he wanted to. Even if he was not picking up kills, he was forcing Bjergsen to return to base constantly.

            

UoL simply seemed to be one step ahead of TSM the entire way. The gold deficit didn’t grow as fast as it did in game one, but SoloMid just could not cut the gap as much as they needed to. It was Santorin’s steals of dragon that helped ensure they were in this game at all as it progressed. TSM did a better job this game of trading objectives with UoL, but team fighting from the Unicorns was a notch higher than that of the North American Summer champions. The gold lead slowly grew to just shy of 10k after the thirty minute mark and it seemed as if TSM could see the writing on the wall. In a desperation play they opted to try and base race UoL but it didn’t work out in their favor and the Unicorns would take the game in thirty-three minutes and the series two games to none.

Unicorns of Love Take Down Lyon Gaming

By Reece "Sabrewolf" Dos-Santos

With their first appearance in an international event coming just before their LCS debut, some people were initially sceptical on how the Unicorns of Love would face up to the competition of IEM San Jose. But the team came out to play and play hard.

Pick/Ban phase:

Unicorns of Love stayed adamant on removing Jayce and Zed from the series along with Warwick in game 1 and Pantheon in game 2. Meanwhile Lyon saw to remove Thresh in both games but targeted Pantheon and Vizicsacsi’s odd ball pick Poppy in game 1, then opted to his Gnar instead and remove Warwick.

Lucian and Corki premiered as the only ADC’s picked across the two games played but every other role saw a range of variety, the biggest surprise factor being Kikis’s decision to bring out a Jungle Kayle which in the end worked out rather nicely for him as his team. Generally Unicorns Of Love opted for a “stun and destroy” theme across their team comps focussing on having Braum in both games as well as picking up Syndra and Gnar in game 1 and Irelia in game 2. Meanwhile Lyon Gaming clearly had the idea of picking comps designed to make plays across the map employing a roaming Alistar support in game 1 with Lee Sin and Leblanc. This was attempted again with Orianna, Sion and Evelyn in game 2. The fault in Lyon Gaming’s team comp set ups and playstyle choice however was that they required Lyon to not fall behind and still maintain the ability to actually set up all the plays that the champions enabled, unfortunately for them they simply weren’t ever allowed. 

Game 1:

Game one started off slowly but it was evident that the Unicorns were clawing ahead slowly, by the 6 minute mark both solo lanes were ahead by over 10 cs and Dodo on Alistar had begun to start roaming in order to try and get a 3 man catch with their jungler Thyak. Unfortunately for Lyon this led to unsuccessful gank attempts on Power of Evil and eventually led to Dodo being pink ward baited and killed seven and a half minutes in.

The situation then only began to get worse for Lyon as the solo lane cs lead had doubled to 20 in favour of UOL by 10 minutes and Dodo became more desperate to land another attempt on ganking Power of Evil. By the time they finally succeeded, it only left Maplestreet to get return killed in the bottom lane and put further behind. Thyak managed to land a dream steal on dragon at 13 minutes meanwhile Vizicsacsi increased his cs lead to 50 while taking a tower moments later.

The pressure on Lyon Gaming was evident as Dodo remained fixated on using his Alistar to roam and make plays but they simply never fell into place, instead Maplestreet on Lucian remained a sitting duck to ganks and eventually got pushed out of relevance entirely.

Things looked like they might change as UOL made a sloppy play in topside in an attempt to take an inhibitor tower and gifted away 4 unnecessary kills but the chokehold they had amassed up until this point was simply too much to handle for Lyon Gaming. With 3 dragons, 1 baron and a 14k gold lead, Unicorns of Love took game 1.

Game 2:

Game two in my opinion played out like a mirror image of game one. By the 5 minute mark Vizicsacsi was 10 cs up ahead of Porky again. The clear difference in his impact to Porky’s was so big he was able to teleport bottom lane for the first blood on Dodo, not get the assist for it and still go back to being dominant on his lane. Meanwhile Power of Evil was picking up easy kills on Seeiya.

Lyon however made good use of their Evelyn pick by flanking bottom lane and synergizing the surprise with another surprise appearance of Sion as well. Lyon had also learnt from the mistake of leaving Maple alone and he was provided with more support from Dodo and his team this time around. However by the same point of near 14 minutes Vizicsacsi had once again amassed a 50 cs lead and was fast becoming a monster. This was backed up the sudden 4 slaughter that occurred around 19 minutes lead by Vizicsacsi’s first picked Irelia.

Going into 20 minutes Lyon Gaming had however managed to take 2 dragons but on the flipside they only had 3 kills which were all on Thyak’s lessening impact Evelynn.

In almost an exact repeat of their first game mistake, Unicorns of Love go in big for an inner turret and Vizicsacsi manages to hard dive the team for a kill. But things appear to go south for the Unicorns in the 3^rd dragon dance as they once again over aggress and fall prey to a 4 man shockwave, into Sion Q, into Corki rockets that removes 4 Unicorns from the map instantly. However like in game 1, 4 kills for Lyon appear to mean absolutely nothing as they simply cannot find the resources to hold off the Unicorn’s relentless aggression.

Outlook:

Overall the Unicorns looked impressed throughout this series; they appeared to ramp up as time went on and they got more into the flow of the games but the biggest worry throughout this was their clear over aggression in the mid game period which could be attributed to over-confidence. If Lyon were more able to grab hold of momentum swings they could have heavily punished the Unicorns in both games but once put behind they struggled to have any kind of late game presence. The overall series MVP in my eyes was Vizicsacsi, his top lane dominance was outstanding and entertaining to watch.

GG 2-0 to the Unicorns of Love

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Curse, CLG & Gambit joins Fnatic for IEM Cologne

By Anel “Musinlol“ Musinovic

The European team that is going to join Fnatic will be Gambit Gaming, who has a long history with Intel Extreme Masters.

Every other team in this poll doesn't have a full roster, which could have led to more votes if they had. (In Copenhagen Wolves case, they have no players at all, hence the 3% vote.)

Gambit will be going head-to-head with the recently qualified 'new' Moscow 5, who are going to represent the CIS region; the previous organisation for some long-standing Gambit members such as Diamond and Edward. It will be interesting to see Gambit playing with their newly signed top laner, Cabochard, and ADC, P1noy (previously known as Krislund), as they try to qualify for IEM Katowice through IEM Cologne.

Going across the Atlantic and looking at the NA poll, it will be Curse and CLG joining Fnatic and Gambit. 

No surprises here. CLG and Curse are both loved by the community and Curse probably clinched the higher percentage of votes since signing Korean superstar, Piglet, who previously played for the Season 3 World Championship Winner, SKT T1 K.

IEM Cologne will be taking place in Cologne, Germany from December 18th to the 22nd. Team SoloMid, Cloud 9, Alliance and Unicorns of Love were not participating in this poll as these teams are already fighting it out at Intel Extreme Masters San Jose on December 6th and 7th.

Poll graphics via intelextrememasters.com