LPL Week 9 Review : Trolling and Torture.

by Michael "Tribble" Godani

A week full of blown expectations and surprises. Twist your mind around that one as we take you into a week where some teams will rise and others will fall.

*Note, there are no games this week because of the last rounds of the Demacia Cup*

March 20th

The first match of the day was between Invictus Gaming and Snake. Snake have been solid lately while experimenting with different comps, and they were ready for this fight.

Evenly matched at the start, this game turned when IG gave up three kills and a middle turret while attempting to grab their second dragon. Snake somehow remained in complete control despite Z1tai outfarming Flandre with a Hecarim- Maokai match-up. Note though that Kryst4l was going off in this game, hitting the 300cs mark at only 28 minutes and getting kills left and right which helped rocket him towards a full build Kalista.

Z1tai didn’t show up in the early game and he got blown up by Kryst4l during the teamfights. IG had decent vision control early, but Snake had total control over the red side jungle and continued to capitalize on their double-sightstone team comp in a better fashion then their opponent. Just before the late game hit, it seemed as if Snake was pushing for teamfights because they didn't have a proper 5v5 since the dragon trade.

After 50 minutes of skirmishing and IG even picking up baron, it was game over for Kid and his team. A fight for their fifth drake turned into a 4-0 victory for Snake and they quickly made way towards the base to finish off the game. Game 1 was won by Snake due to great positioning from Kryst4l and the terrific peel coming out of Flandre’s Maokai.

Game 2 didn’t seem to be much different than the first. I do have to mention that because of the somewhat ‘misformed’ juggermaw composition from Snake, IG was forced to pick up a Vayne to get through their frontline.

First blood took more then twelve minutes and before that time we got served quite a farm heavy early game. After that initial kill, IG made sure that they would continue to turn up the heat and forced a second kill onto Flandre’s Mundo and even took both top turrets within 90 seconds after first blood by keeping three to four men in that top lane. Snake made a huge mistake a few minutes later which pretty much sealed their faith.

A fight for the second drake got turned into the ‘dive the Kogmaw’ show. Kakao and Kitties capitalized onto Kryst4l, who was positioned on the frontline, blowing him up using the Cataclysm+EQ Leona combo to make sure he wouldn't last a single second too long. This happened a few times in a row. IG was already having a gold lead by out-rotating Snake and forcing these objectives with more care and precision; these frontline Kogmaw fights didn't help them to get back into it.

IG probably learned from OMG’s performance in the second game last week.

It was not that OMG was facing the same Snake comp that IG was facing, but the tactic that they used to not let the opponent get into their element was executed perfectly. OMG’s tactic was to dive the backline from Snake before they could even think ‘poke’ and IG’s tactic was to make sure that Kryst4l would die before Snake would even know they were in a fight.

Around the 36 minute mark there was actually a good fight from Snake against IG near the dragon pit, which occurred at the tri-bush leading towards the river. Kryst4l positioned great for a change as did both Kakao and Kitties, and not even Carry could reach the Kogmaw.

This fight ended in a 4-3 in favor of IG though, because they were simply wealthier and unable to lose a fight. IG eventually took the game but it didn't look as easy as it was supposed to be. They picked up their fifth drake and a couple of barons but were just not able to close out the game. IG has been struggling a lot with this and even now - right before the play-offs - it still hasn't been fixed. This should really worry the players but also the staff itself.

The first set ends in 1-1.

The second game of the week was between Vici Gaming and Gamtee.

Vici Gaming came out of their fountain with aggression and pressure, picking up a prompt first blood for Carry on his Gnar, giving him a fast Ruby Crystal to get going in his lane. Vici denied a lot of Gamtee’s early movements by obtaining vision control and grabbing two early drakes. A decisive 5-man bot gank gave Carry two more kills to put him comfortably in the drivers seat as VG had a fed frontline combined with Vasilii, who was having his way in the botlane. Hetong, who had languished the last couple of weeks, finally stepped up his game as we had seen from him earlier in the split and focused a lot on split pushing this match.

If you examine how VG would get such a lead, then vision is the biggest answer and their rotations. We all know that when VG is in their A-game, they have the best vision control of the LPL, and they showed us that this match. No objective got contested properly by Gamtee and they had no answer to the Twisted Fate who was constantly split pushing in the bot lane.

Despite some sloppy plays that gave up a few kills to Gamtee, VG was never in danger of losing this game. A great display of team effort and perhaps the type of play that this Vici has been looking for all along.

The second game in this set didn't differ that much from the first when it came to Vici's playstyle. Despite not having the Nunu, they followed the same plan.

Gamtee did play more aggressively in the early stages of this game, gaining a fast first blood for Letme’s Kennen with a tower dive at the three minute mark, but eventually a botlane gank resulted in three kills and a turret for Vici Gaming and that was the end of the story. In every skrim or teamfight from that point onward, Vici came out on top with an objective.

Vici's Dandy on Rengar showed us why that champion was previously banned out against him. Normally a Rengar can either have a great impact or no impact on a game. Dandy was in the huge impact catagory. His picks were the plays that kept Vici in this game despite the improved play coming out of the Gamtee line-up.

While Vici was creating picks, Gamtee kept giving them the opening by not warding properly or correctly and not upgrading their red trinkets to oracles to spot out Dandy if they were out of pink wards to use.

Even when Gamtee managed to win a drake fight and get the drake, Vici continued to keep on out-rotating and pressuring them. They were on a mission. After using Hetong to bait the Gamtee line-up to collapse on him in the midlane, Dandy and his teammates picked off the remaining Gamtee members and killed them one by one, ending this fight 5-2 and thereby finishing the game.

Vici Gaming seems to have found their groove, picking up two different team comps but still playing the same style of objective control League of Legends. Let’s hope that they continue this approach, because I can surely see them going far in the play-offs with this type of play.

The third game of the day was between the IEM finalists, Team World Elite, and Chinese powerhouse, OMG.

For some reason, the Dade style of picking champions was being mimicked by Cool who counterpicked himself by locking in Twisted Fate against Xiye's Ahri. The second place team, OMG, forced a tower dive early onto Aluka’s Maokai in toplane which resulted in a first blood for the Sion specialist, although he eventually fell to Gogoing’s Gnar.

As a reaction to this action, Xiye picked up the middle turret which put Cool in a risky position; not having a turret at his back while farming and having to deal with the double threat of Spirit and Xiye.

Spirit was destroying Loveling in the jungle via pathing and lane pressure. Despite going quite long into the game without any kills or assists, he exhibited control over the enemy jungle until he was ready to strike. However, the vision control from both teams was very poor. You'd expect to see more than just 1-2 wards on the map from a team like OMG, who often run double sightstone comps.

After a miscalculated dragon fight, OMG traded a kill for the dragon. A few minutes later the botlane from OMG dropped to their opponents giving away two kills and the advantage that they had in lane.Team WE collapsed on their gold lead and skirmishing power by almost baiting OMG into forced fights and then simply out-damaging them because of the item advantage that they had built up.

The game was sealed after an Ace at 22 minutes followed up by a surrender and Gogoings first ever loss on Gnar. A terrific performance from the last seat in China by forcing OMG to go all or nothing in Game 2!

Spirits were high after WE took down OMG in their first game of this 3-game week.

OMG did ban the Ahri this game while being on the blue side, which probably confused the viewers. Their questions about this ban were quickly answered though with a first blind pick, Leblanc.

After Loveling,s bad performance on Jarvan IV , he picked up the Nunu and made it work. A laneswap did occur and with Uzi on Lucian, a sub four minute turret for OMG was a fact, followed up by a level three dragon. This action put Team WE under much pressure, having the Hecarim laning against the Gnar in the botlane without flash and against a Nunu jungle, it quickly lead to a death for the brave soldier, Aluka.

As OMG’s botlane continued to dominate, a second turret fell, this time in the toplane, which extended their gold lead even more. Loveling applied pressure with his early sightstone and managed to place some deep wards, so those two turrets came in extremely handy.

TWE played the double teleport like they did at IEM, but once again, it just didn't work. OMG was too strong, too aggressive and perhaps even incredibly angry still about their horrible performance in Game 1, and someone had to pay the price.

Cool went off on his Leblanc (but then again, who didn't on OMG’s side) grabbing a 30 minute'ish fifth drake and dominating map control and vision control to seal the deal. The flash Crescendo plays by Cloud shouldn't be left out in their second game as he has proven to not only be able to play Thresh, Janna and Nami.

A dominating performance from the Chinese powerhouse team as they secure the second spot for now and grow closer to being crowned the new Draw Kings being just one draw behind Gamtee.

The World’s Best ADC is about to face the three time LPL split champion, Deft vs Namei, EDG vs SHRC. The most hyped up match of the week and the last game of Day 1.

Both teams came onto the rift with late-game compositions; SHRC picking up a Twitch into EDG's Juggermaw comp. The idea from EDG was clear. Punish Namei - which would lead to Deft getting a lead - and keep Koro1 safe and alone in the toplane.

Everything worked out as they planned. The massive amount of attention and lack of peel for Namei resulted in a few early summoners/deaths. It wasn't just EDG's team pressure as botlaner's Deft and Meiko actually managed to kill Namei alone, giving Deft the psychological lead over Namei.

Despite a small victory over the fourth drake spawn for SHRC, EDG did manage to get their comp into the safe zone, winning every single teamfight that followed.

Deft was close to immortal with Lulu's expert peel. During one teamfight, he even managed to position so well that he took Namei out while having next to no health. It was an epic demonstration of EDG's superior teamfighting skill and it left SHRC with a loss for Game 1.

Game 2 was another episode of the Clearlove show. Not only that, but Pawn's locking in of Katarina was seen as arrogant and disrespectful behavior. While the lane swap was initiated by EDG, Deft’s Corki was allowed to free farm in the toplane while EDG was able to pressure and kill Namei (after being hooked by Meiko, followed up by the twisted advance from Koro1, who were waiting in the side bush in the bot lane.)

Frustration is the only thing that Namei could’ve felt after again being targeted so heavily by his former teammates. EDG had no intention of letting this game go past a 40 minute timer because of SHRC's Kog’maw, so they decided to take a 7k gold lead and go 2 - 12 in kills after only 14 minutes. At this point, Clearlove was 6-0-4 on his Lee Sin and Namei was 0-3 on his Kog’maw.

EDG utterly destroyed SHRC and appear to be superior. The best team in the world right now? I think yes!

These two matches really showed that against top teams, Namei needs too much attention or perhaps he just needs better teammates. I'll let you decide.

Results Day 1:

Invictus Gaming vs Snake 1-1
Vici Gaming vs Gamtee 2-0
OMG vs Team WE 1-1
Edward Gaming vs Star Horn Royal Club 2-0

March 21st

The first game of the weekend was between Vici Gaming and Snake, Vici looking very good yesterday with their new style of playing.

The “new” Vici, if I may call it so, continued their dominating way of playing against Snake and they did great in the early stages.

Dandy controlled the Rift scuttler and made sure that there were wards in place to keep an eye on Beast, which worked. Beast, on his 100% winrate Nunu, didn't seem to be of any use the entire game. VG’s early vision dominance secured their own jungle from invades and whenever he tried to even get near the middle of the river, Vici would collapse onto him.

Another problem was that Kryst4l and Beast were not doing a great job zoning Carry away from farming in the lane swap. After eight minutes he picked up a 33-5 cs lead over his direct laner, Flandre, who never got back from the cs deficit.

Where some teams lose focus on their vision control, Vici gaming stepped up their warding and made sure that they had full vision around the midgame of the jungle pathing from Beast. They also contested and almost took every single buff the entire game.

It was a low kill game and not a lot happened in terms of action, but the way that Vici Gaming controlled the game was a joy to watch. Some would say that it looked a lot like the controlled type of games that EDG can often play.

The game ended after 35 minutes with a 10-1 turret lead and 10-1 kill lead. The only death for Vici came right before they ended the game with an 18k gold lead. It was a very impressive game from Vici, exploiting Snake's weakness and leaving them helpless and broken.

The draft from the side of Snake looked a bit awkward seeing Baka on the Zed and Kryst4l again on the Corki. Snake was looking for some more early aggression with the J4 jungle and the Leona support, but letting Vasilii on his Lucian only resulted in two early deaths for Kryst4l by his hand.

It was quite different in the early game than the first game that we saw, but nonetheless, Vici Gaming was in complete control. Snake did commit quite some resources towards the toplane after Flandre did 1v1 the Fizz from Carry but it wasn't enough to stop Carry from ending the game with a 10-2-8 performance.

Vici Gaming started to turn up the heat slowly when coming out of the laning phase by placing deep wards and taking command of every single team fight. They did step away from their rotational low-kill style of playing and step back into the aggressive LPL style. They created picks and killed the morale of every single player from Snake, who were forced to surrender at 27 minutes into the game.

This Vici Gaming has improved their game, showing a lot of diversity in the top lane, and notice that Mata and Vasilii are playing much better together as a duo lane now than they did at the start of this split.

Vici gaming has stepped up and shown to China and the world that they are a Top 5 World Team with their performance this week. For Snake, let’s hope that they are just trying out certain comps/playstyles, because if not, they could be in a lot of trouble for the upcoming play-offs.

The second game of the day was between OMG and King, after the loss from Snake earlier today the second spot was pretty much secured.

King really needed to win or at least get a point to stay decently ahead of SHRC but it didn't look good for them in Game 1.

With an unusual team comp, playing Rek’sai in the toplane, OMG started the same way they did against TWE in the second game by forcing an early drake and fast pushing the outer tier 1 turrets from King. Gogoing was a bit unlucky early with misclicking his tunnel which lead to him diving into the three King members on the botlane.

MLXG did play the Nunu quite well in terms of controlling the jungle, disrupting the paths of Loveling’s Nidalee but, strangely enough, he didn't rush a sightstone. An early sightstone has so much more value for your team then the juggernaut enchant; not having that early sightstone gave OMG some time to breath before forcing that 24 minute surrender.

Game 2 was very different. A poor picks & bans phase coming out of OMG, who entered the rift without a tank, which didn't work out for them last time around. King got comfortable with the Kalista/Leona botlane, who managed to 2v2 Uzi multiple times and make him close to useless until later on in the game.

OMG did managed to pick up the first drake after seeing MLXG fail a gank on the bot duo in the top lane. A slow recovery was mounted from their terrible early game, but having an 0-4 Uzi after 13 minutes really meant this was a 4v5.

As the game continued, it was more and more likely that the only way that OMG could win this game was to fight in narrow spaces where Cloud, who was on spot with his bindings, could land his skillshots and where they could split King.

King, on the other hand, became incredibly tanky with three tanks on the line-up and they were able to clean up teamfights with speed. In the end, OMG was punished for their double AD/No tank comp, and King took Game 2 to split the series.

Pawn vs Dade, the two former Samsung midlaners faced eac hother in a pretty one-sided first game.

EDG didn’t hold back against M3 in the third match of the day and continued to torture their enemies while pleasing the neutral LPL watchers and fans with their play.

EDG did what EDG does best, turning picks into objectives. Of the first four kills, three of them led to two outer turrets and a dragon. We are talking about EDG having complete control of the map pre-10 minutes and forcing that final outer turret down at the 13 minute mark while having a 5k gold lead.

Clearlove’s Lee Sin is comparable to Cool’s Ahri or Faker’s Leblanc and is a guarantee for a win. He is now 8-0 with that champion this split. Pawn killed Dade multiple times 1v1 and literally took on anybody on the map, having a Rabadons Deathcap after only 17 minutes.

M3 could’ve surrendered at the 20 minute mark but they didn't. Instead they chose torture over surrender, but eventually, after getting killed a few more times, it was enough for a 29 minute surrender and a 1-0 lead for EDG.

The second game was a completely different showing of League Of Legends. M3 actually managed to keep EDG down with their cocky picks like the Fizz mid and Evelynn jungle. They also managed to pick up dragon control by securing the first drake, and they continued to control that pit for the entire length of the game.

It was excellent vision control from M3 who, during the first 20-30 minutes of the game, tried and managed to keep at least 3 pink wards on the map and a ton of stealth wards, both deep and defensive. EDG, on the other hand, looked terrible in terms of vision and objective control and it almost looked as if they were still living in the previous game.

EDG turned the game with a beautiful flank onto the M3 line-up while they tried to take out the mid inhibitor. This 5-1 teamfight in favor of EDG led to a baron for EDG, but the fourth drake was picked up by M3.

During a teamfight for the fifth drake, M3 got engaged on in the red bottom side of the jungle by Koro1, who got zoned by Dade’s gravity field. The backline of M3 was in the perfect position until LoveCD used his Monsoon and blew Koro1 onto the backline of M3 which turned the fight around.

EDG and M3 then had the most thrilling finish of all the LPL games so far this split with two failed base races that got interrupted by resurrected members from the opposing team. Eventually, despite the quick pick up of the fifth drake for M3, EDG sealed the deal and took a 2-0 victory over M3 who maybe deserved more after their performance in Game 2.

After splitting their set with OMG yesterday, Team WE looked in proper shape to take on LGD Gaming.

A meeting of junglers led to an early dragon from Team WE and the roaming from Xiye on his Viktor really applied pressure to both the jungler and botlane from LGD.

At some point there were three pink wards seen in the red jungle from LGD, who managed to pick up two early turrets and tried their best to get back into the game. After being out-rotated by Team WE, they managed to get a fight off at their own tier 2 turret which resulted in a 3-3 trade but getting multiple kills onto We1less’s Diana and double buffs. LGD from that point on turned up the heat, grabbing back the vision control, forcing teamfights and with some great ultimates coming out of Acorn and Pyl, managing to seal the deal pre-30 minutes.

Game 2 should’ve been an easy game after seeing how LGD accelerated in the first game but, according to Spirit, hopes are meant to be crushed. Team WE's unsympathetic jungler transformed into a godlike creature by the name of Lee Sin and went off this game, picking up an early double kill off a top lane countergank with Aluka.

This was the begin of the end for LGD as Spirit did not stop carrying this game and kept on taking the kills. He made a couple of great plays which will of course be seen in our LPL Top 5 but do take your time to watch this second game.

Unlike previous TWE matches, Spirit was not alone this match. Xiye also went off on his Ahri during the fourth drake spawn, resulting in a fight and a triple kill for Xiye. TWE turned this second match around completely and destroyed LGD, forcing the split.

Results Day 2:

Vici Gaming vs Snake 2-0
OMG vs King 1-1
Edward Gaming vs Master3 2-0
Team WE vs LGD Gaming 1-1

March 22nd

The first game of the day was between Snake; safe in terms of play-offs, and Energy Pacemaker, who are most likely going to be relegated.

There is not much to say about this set, Snake took an early lead in the first game with a good gank in the midlane giving Baka the first blood money to sit comfortable in his lane. Energy Pacemakers’s lack of objective control gave Snake, in both games, the time and space just to do what they wanted. Snake knows that they are better in teamfights than EP and forced those teamfights whenever possible. Coupled with Snake's dragon control and turning teamfights into objectives sealed the game for the third spot LPL team.

Two games with not a lot of action, but still three points to Snake.

The second game of the day was between the world’s best, Edward Gaming and King of the splits, Gamtee.

Gamtee might be sitting in the lower part of the LPL standings but they are not a team that is easily beaten. They have only lost six times with a 2-0 which is less then both seventh and eigth seed teams, M3 and King.

Gamtee will not sit back and get stomped by any team, and the same goes for their game against EDG. They came out strong and, due to lack of vision control on the top side of the map, Hu1 was able to force Pawn’s Corki to drop to the likes of Xiaohu’s Lulu and give up first blood. First blood is, of course, a small victory but Gamtee also managed to take out two turrets in the early game, giving them a good head start.

Recognizing the power of Koro1 on his tree this split, Gamtee send a lot of resources top to suppress his progression and get their Mundo ahead, with success. LetMe picked up two early kills and Mundo was doing “as he pleased.” Even around the twenty minute mark when EDG thought that their double ADC comp would be strong enough to take Gamtee on for a dragon fight, they were wrong. Gamtee’s Lulu was incredible and punished EDG for their lack of respect. Gamtee took the teamfight 4-3.

That was not the last of Gamtee this game but unfortunately their bravery couldn't turn this game in their favor.A baron fight where Gamtee tried to flank EDG from two sides got turned into a 5-0 victory for EDG which delivered them the Drake and the Baron.

Worth mentioning was that Deft’s Ezreal was going for the blue build and it was such a joy to watch. The kiting potential and flank potential from this player on this champion was marvelous. Gamtee might have had a chance to win this game, but EDG is simply too smart and too strong on their champions to be outplayed by a team of that caliber. Gamtee fought bravely this match, but too many times in the later stage of the game, their members got picked off by one of Clearlove’s Nidalee spears.

The second game was a bit different from the side of EDG, who came out lookin gfor more aggression. Having Clearlove on his perfect score Lee Sin didn't add anything good for Gamtee to look out for. EDG were able to deny LetMe to farm on his Hecarim, being stuck on eight cs after eight minutes. Xiaohu's Leblanc was strong and he showed to everyone why it’s often banned against him, getting fast four kills onto it, but this wasn't enough to carry his team.

Clearlove was looking for fights everywhere on the map. His aggression got rewarded with fights and with victory. The only downside to EDG performance was that Pawn’s Lux was getting caught out too many times, a very immobile champion but I guess EDG can afford to play these type of picks if you have a Koro1, Clearlove and Deft running around. Later on, as the game progressed, the vision control and map control from EDG returned to the level that we expect from them and by picking off enemies in the jungle or in lane, they forced the enemy to drop to the strength of their team.

Another terrifying performance from the #1 seed in China who once again show they are the best at what they do.

Who is going to have a chance to avoid relegation and get into the play-offs? That was the question for the next game between Spirit’s Team WE and Namei’s SHRC.

SHRC took control over this match for the first 20-25 minutes with great rotations and objective control. Having Corn play the Leblanc and ending the game with a strong 10-2-9 performance still didn't secure them the victory.

Team WE turned the game around after losing pretty much every teamfight before Aluka got his Frozen Heart on his Sion. From that moment on, he was pretty close to immortality. Peeling and poking around in team fights and using his ultimate to either interrupt the disengage or to secure a point-blank knock up which led to a kill. This man surely was the MVP of the first game with his presence in teamfights.

Now, Namei has been back for a few games but hasn't really impressed me. The only aspect of his game that did make an impression on me (and many others) was how bad his positioning has been and the amount of deaths that he's taken every game. I personally think that it’s not even his team's fault that he gets caught out due to lack of peel. His positioning is just all out terrible, getting caught out by dark bindings and such.

So Team WE grabbed at least three points this week. Will they be able to continue their path of victory and take a 2-0 set over SHRC?

The second game was a bit trolly if you ask me. Zero picked up the Irelia support which is not something that you could have expected. Before the game even started, Mystic managed to kill Namei four times in lane in a 2v2 setup, while Aluka managed to force Cola out of lane early.

Perhaps the most surprising outcome is that Xiye, on Ahri, was winning his lane by having the perfect counter for Viktor. The early game surely went in favor of Team WE, who seemed to be on the right path to claim victory if they continued this type of play.

SHRC did manage to get somewhat back into the game with a couple of good picks around the midlane and having Zero with a 4-2-2 score at 14 minutes. You could certainly question who the carry was when looking at Namei's 0-4 Kalista.

With the power of Mystic’s Lucian and the pick ability of the J4, they managed to pick off Namei and Zero near the baron. After deleting them from the map, Team WE pick up a 23 minute baron, just extending their gold lead towards the 5k mark - and this early baron means a bot inhibitor for Team WE. In the past, Team WE managed to lose leads due to the lack of communication, but this time it went the other way around.

Mystic, who picked up his big lead by dominating the SHRC botlane and transfering that into kills, was surely the MVP for this second game. Team WE aced SHRC and picked up a very much needed and deserved win.

Team WE and SHRC are fighting to avoid relegation and at the same time seeking to take away the 8th spot needed for the play-offs that is currently in possession of King.

The last game of the day was between OMG and Invictus Gaming. OMG has split twice this week and with one more split they would take first spot in terms of splitting series.

A very strange team composition came out from the OMG line-up but it didn't immediately show in the game itself. The first game went pretty well for both teams. Not much happened until the twenty fifth minute when Cool got picked off after OMG took the mid T2 turret from IG and stole away the blue buff.

Cool was railroaded by Zitai's Sion ult and was quickly killed by the rest of IG. IG then went for the baron and OMG tried to interrupt it, but a bad Sona ult only hit two people and got turned quickly with a kill on Gogoing, who went too deep. Cloud got killed swiftly after being ulted into the IG formation by Kalista’s ult and a brave attempt from Loveling to steal the baron ended up in a death for the yeti.

After that baron pick up, IG took control over the game and it even resulted into a mini base race which gave IG the advantage after they were running out of minions. OMG took out the mid inhibitor and IG took the bot inhibitor and a nexus turret. OMG seemed to be alive still after Loveling pulled off a very cheeky dragon steal with his consume smite combo but it wasn't enough. Another pick onto Cool got turned into the game winning teamfight as Uzi was being chased and chunked out by Kakao’s spears, who were on spot the whole game.

Invictus gaming took the first game and looked good to pick up maybe a win over the still undefeated OMG. We’ve seen this before this split, OMG falling behind and then coming out with guns blazing, blood everywhere, leaving the enemy team in their seats without having a clue what just happened.

Not this time. This time, it was Invictus Gaming with the likes of Kakao and Rookie who came out with firepower that would last for an eternity. Rookie pulled out the Ahri into Cool’s Viktor, who commited another Dade for the second time I believe this week. Rookie’s Ahri this game was compareable to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance in Commando. One mission with only one way of completing that mission. And so he did, together with Kakao who early on with only two ganks forced four summoner spells and two kills for his team in just a couple of minutes to set the pace for this game.

Having blown both Cool’s summoner spells, Rookie had a somewhat free farm lane and could push Cool into his turret non stop. Nunu didn't provide any massive amount of gank pressure, especially not in mid. The lead that Rookie got himself after the successful gank from Kakao was huge, although he was competing against OMG’s UZI who also picked up a few kills and they were even until 4-0-1. The big difference was that Cool was completely useless, having died already 5 times early on in the game and also UZI’s support, Cloud, wasn’t scared enough to jump onto the death train.

Where we would've normally see IG struggle in closing out games and really choking down their opponents, we didn't see that today. They took immediate control over the red side jungle from OMG, knowing that their only way to secure the win this game was to somehow starve UZI’s resources and apply pressure to him. IG already took out one carry from OMG and now it was time to take out the fed carry by successfully starving him as they did.

The game was getting out of control, because even if OMG could have managed to somehow get back into the game, the fed Ahri would soon be replaced by a late game Kog’maw. Where OMG did fight off IG, surprisingly being down over 10k gold, seemed to only be a big mistake made by IG but without big consquences. They quickly got back into the base of OMG and took down the three inhibitors.

Invictus Gaming is the first team this split to 2-0 the ranks of OMG. Aside from this victory, the way that they made their picks and bans work and adjusted their game-closing play style was an even bigger victory.

Results Day 3:

Snake vs Energy Pacemaker 2-0
Edward Gaming vs Gamtee 2-0
Team WE vs Star Horn Royal Club 2-0
OMG vs Invictus Gaming 2-0

Standings after Week 9:

Schedule for Week 10:

Day 1:

OMG vs Energy Pacemaker

King vs LGD Gaming
Star Horn Royal Club vs Vici Gaming
Edward Gaming vs Team World Elite

Day 2:
Star Horn Royal Club vs Energy Pacemaker
Snake vs Gamtee
Master3 vs Invictus Gaming
Team World Elite vs King

Day 3:
Master3 vs Snake
Team World Elite vs Energy Pacemaker
Invictus Gaming vs King
Vici Gaming vs LGD Gaming

Week 8 LPL Review

A week without our beloved Team World Elite but with the comeback of Namei, a triple LGD confrontation and OMG facing Snake. A week full of spectacular matches!

by Michael "Tribble" Godani

March 13th

The return of Namei, the pride of China. Fans of the LPL and followers of the entire League of Legends scene have been waiting for this moment for months and today was the day. Both games were very close but there was only one person that was decisive in leading his team to the double victory; Namei.

From the first couple of minutes of the first game it was clear that the presence of Namei gave so much confidence to both Zero and Insec, that it was almost an honor to the spooky things that surround Friday the 13th. Some might think that I am over exaggerating but I'm not. Note that Wei the last few games was mostly down by 10-20 cs after a couple of minutes and Namei actually switched that around. Despite the early bot ganks by Gamtee, SHRC didn't lose faith, in what some believe to be the best skillshot dodging player in the world.

Namei appeared on the rift with Jinx, a very immobile ADC, yet coming to the rift with her he already had a 5-0 record and at the end of this full set it went to a 7-0 record, undefeated. Namei’s presence was surely noticed in teamfights where he would atl east pick up a minimum of two kills in every 5v5 confrontation (there were a ton of 5v5 confrontations in this game.) Seeing him stepping back and forth while continuing to dodge skillshots and taking out enemies was a joy to watch and gave a great feeling of joy to finally see that Namei was back!

SHRC defeated Gamtee, 2-0, after the first game ran for over an hour and the second game was won by Insec stealing the baron at the 30 minute mark with his AD Fizz jungle.

Something to really note about this set was that in the second game, Gamtee’s Sinkdream picked Sona. Sona already is quite a weird pick in competitive play but what was even more of a shock was him building the tear and then a sheen instead of picking up a Locket or Mikael’s even against a triple AP comp (Fizz, even in AD, does AP damage.) His trinket was also not upgraded after the twenty minute mark. A very peculiar way of playing a support in a professional competition with a soloQ build.

The second match of the day was between Invictus Gaming and Vici Gaming. Both teams faced each other in the Damacia Cup earlier this week where IG took a 3-0 victory over VG. VG did fine their star support player, Mata, for approx $8000, for trolling, unprofessional behavior. All we could expect from VG is to actually play the way we are used from them to play and so they did. The match-up between these two teams was incredibly close and therefore also ended in a split.

Mata actually showed up and didn't troll. His beautiful hooks with one of his favorite champions, Thresh, sealed the first game to give them a 1-0 lead. Both games, as said before, were extremely close and were not decided until the very decisive teamfight in both games. A point for both teams is the right outcome, yet it doesn't help either one of them that much.

The third match of the day was the big one. Edward Gaming was facing LGD Gaming. Some believe that these are the the best teams in the LPL and therefore this should be a joy to watch. Clearlove was back in the line-up for EDG and with picking the Nunu as his jungler in Game 1 he was ready to give TBQ a very hard time in keeping his jungle to himself.

Clearlove and Pawn were the stars of this game, the Jungle/Mid duo were roaming together and ganking wherever they could. Especially the red jungle of LGD was turned into a graveyard for TBQ, who got picked off multiple times by Pawn’s Leblanc, who played as if he was possessed by Faker himself because my god was he good!

What is worth mentioning is that LGD had a huge gold lead, also being up in turrets at some point (8-4) and picking up a lead in the dragons early on. The gold lead that was close to 10k didn’t matter much for EDG who seemed to be cocky enough to just wait for those couple of picks and lategame teamfights to turn the game.

Pawn picked up a few multikills and turned teamfights around with his incredible distortion plays. Just before the end of Game 1, Imp sealed his teams' fate by face checking a brush with Pawn in it. He got blown up and so EDG ended Game 1.

Game 2 was a different level of League. Where Game 1 was, despite the gold lead, quite close, Game 2, or shall we call it "The Clearlove Show" was nowhere near close. For those who are familiar with the Foxdrop video about his best Lee Sin game, this is similar, but then in the second best league of League of Legends.

"The Clearlove Show" started from the first minute with a beautiful tower dive in the toplane and the one-man show didn't stop there. On his first back after his smite jungle item he came back with a warrior enchant, sightstone and a pink ward. That’s a lot of gold to have to spend after only 9 minutes into the game. The game was a one-sided show starring Clearlove, who ended the game with his fellow companions around the 29 minute mark without losing a single turret.

Both games are really worth watching if you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend that you do so.

Results Day 1:

Star Horn Royal Club vs Gamtee 2-0
Invictus Gaming vs Vici Gaming 1-1
Edward Gaming vs LGD Gaming 2-0
King vs Energy Pacemaker 2-0

March 14

The first match of the day was between LGD Gaming(4) vs Snake(3). LGD’s We1less pulled out the Cho’gath mid against the Lissandra from Baka and even managed to kill him 1v1 inlane. Despite this early victory, Snake already picked up the first dragon after 3.30 minutes because of the laneswap that occurred. Picking up another two dragons, Snake had three drakes at the 16 minute mark and seemed to be in good shape to be picking up that sub 30 minute fifth drake. Unfortunately for them, the game was quite close, not so much in kills, 5-9, but in gold. It only differed around 500-800 gold, while the turrets were at the same count.

LGD did use their midgame powerspike to their fullest potential and created picks here and there on the map which lead them to several teamfights for dragon that gave them two dragons to equalize with Snake. LGD managed to snowball their well-planned picks into a victory and were ready for the second game.

The first thing that got everybody’s attention was that Snake allowed Acorn, who didn't get swapped for Flame, to play his Rumble. Snake had a reason for this because they made sure that Acorn became useless in this game, starving him out after a laneswap - and after the standard lanes returned he got pressured by the rest of the Snake team to make sure that his powerspike got delayed, 31 cs at the 10 minute mark.

Snake made their poke comp Xerath/Nidalee/Corki work by picking the LGD members off one by one and in teamfights poking them down, followed by a chase for blood. Snake dominated this match and made LGD looked like a team that didn't belong on this level of gameplay. Worth mentioning is that despite the triple AP comp from Snake, the members of LGD didn't even bother to pick up a Locket of the Iron Solari. We1less was the only shining light for LGD but was not able to turn the tides of this game. A consistent team, Snake picked up the win in Game 2 and LGD was once again disappointing with their inconsistent way of playing.

The third game of the day was between Edward Gaming and Invictus Gaming. What seemed to become a very solid and quiet game (1-1 after 15 minutes) turned quickly after Koro1 picked off Kakao just the when the third drake spawned and IG was in their powerspike (Corki/Ezreal Tri-force and Nidalee jungle item). From that moment EDG took control and even went for a sub 22 minute baron. Promptly afterwards they took Game 1.

Game 2, it was Rookie’s Yasuo vs Pawn’s Jayce. Rapidly it was known that Rookie was going to win the lane match-up and he did so, taking Pawn extremely low so that Kakao could finish him off for first blood which set the tone for the match. A match that resulted in 41 kills after a 34 minute game in favor of EDG. Yes, this match was bloodthirsty from both sides, but after every skirmish on the map, EDG came out on top. It was either a turret, dragon or more time for Deft to free farm in a lane to continue to build up his inventory. The only win that Invictus Gaming had after a 2-0 defeat was that they didn't get slaughtered the way that LGD got slaughtered in Game 2 the day before, but they just lost to a better opponent. They can look back on the series with their heads held high.

The last game of the day was between OMG and Master3.

Cool got allowed on his Ahri twice and ended the series with a convincing 18-1-28. Cool is by far considered the best Ahri player in the world and despite the nerfs that the champion has seen, Cool showed that she was still far from “unplayable.” M3 made a huge mistake, letting OMG pick the same midgame composition twice in a row, yes, the same team, except for Game 2 where Cloud's Thresh got banned and he picked up the Janna instead. Cloud was by far the MVP for Game 1 with some beautiful roams and death sentences - he made game deciding picks from the first to the last kill. 

Where the first game started off a bit slow, the second game started off quite faster with Dade going ham on his Leblanc, which he played surprisingly well. Where OMG turned up the heat in Game 1 before M3 could really react. In Game 2 the same situation occurred except that Dade was the only one who was up to the challenge.

This was also directly the problem for M3, as only Dade was fed and didn't enjoy the peel that Uzi and Cool received from their frontline. After a somewhat disappointing start from Cool in Game 2, he shifted into the next gear and returned to the Cool on Ahri that we know. OMG showed that they are just as superior as EDG in China, both teams got no equals aside from each other.

Results Day 2:

LGD Gaming vs Snake 1-1
Energy Pacemaker vs Gamtee 1-1
Edward Gaming vs Invictus Gaming 2-0
OMG vs Master3 2-0

March 15th

Namei’s Star Horn Royal Club take on King in the first game of our final day.

What should’ve been a 4-0 week for SHRC got turned into a 3-1 week. King disrupted their party in honor of the comeback of Namei with a victory in Game 1 over SHRC, keeping them behind themselves as they remained in the eighth spot in the LPL.

So what did King do to make sure that they could defeat this revived SHRC? They picked them off. From the first until the last minute, King was all over SHRC. Their vision control was better, their Rengar/Lulu engages were crazy and would catch SHRC off by surprise. MLXG even used the Rengar ult to scout out SHRC so that they could set up a play right after. It was beautiful to see how King managed to destroy a team without really teamfighting and just by picking them off left and right.

Quite a disappointing appearance from SHRC but a great one from King.

Game 2 on the other hand was slightly different.

A forced “Namei comp” was the key to success in the second game of this match-up. Namei, on one of his best champions, Kog'maw, combined with the peel from Nunu, Morgana and Rumble was what really made it work. Corn actually played well on no other then Ahri, a champion which seems to become a second Thresh, since all chinese midlaners play that champion pretty good. SHRC recognized their powerspikes and forced plays around those powerspikes which secured them the second game and therefor a split.

The last game that we are going to review is that one between Snake and OMG. The first time these two teams met they split the points, let’s see how they did this time.

OMG didn’t came out on top in the draft phase, again Baka got put on his Xerath, the only champion he plays, Beast got put onto Nidalee and Krystal onto Corki. A full poke comp to which already took down several teams. 

The game started in favor of OMG by having Uzi picking up two kills before the fifth minute and he quickly snowballed by picking up more kills onto Kryst4l and setting him miles behind. This all seemed good for OMG, but this time, the team composition was not at all about Kryst4l, it was about Baka's Xerath and Beast's Nidalee, both of whom came out on top in this game with fantastic performances.

OMG didn't have a real tank, except for Lee Sin, and didn't know what to do against this Snake who were picking them off left and right, nullifying the fed Uzi, who up until late game still had the most gold onto him. After around 27 minutes, Snake already took away four dragons without having to put up a single fight. The game ended not much later as Baka ended the game with a impressive 10-0-5.

A great display of teamwork and pick/poke potential from the newcomers and a well deserved victory in game one.

Before Game 2 got going, Uzi was caught by the camera crying on his chair behind his computer. The team coach and host of the show tried their best to cheer the two-timed worlds finalist up. Even the crowd got involved into it. Uzi, who actually had quite a good first game, was so mad about losing the first game and not being able to secure three points that this was his way of expressing it.

The draft phase for the second game didn’t really seem to have many changes for Snake since they picked up the Xerath again, but this time, OMG came out with a Gnar, J4 and Uzi on his famous Lucian. Uzi was mad, emotional and above all eager to take this game and carry it by himself. Is 19-1-7 enough? Yes it was, yes it was. OMG took first blood by the hands of Uzi again and he got rolling together with his botlane partner Cloud.

Let’s take a quick look at this botlane before we do continue, the first time that we saw this duo in competitive play it didn't work out too well but most of the critics agreed that playstyle wise Cloud and Uzi would be the best duo. As I personally prefer San as ADC, I have got to say that Cloud and Uzi definitely convinced me and many others.

Cloud was again on his Thresh, he might be the best Chinese Thresh player we’ve seen and he showed this by two early mid roams together with Loveling to disrupt Baka his laning phase. OMG was creating pressure on especially the botlane, trying to get Uzi even more ahead then he already was. Kryst4l may be first in the MVP standings, but getting solo killed two games in a row by Uzi shows that those standings mean little. OMG had great dragon control yet their vision with the double sightstone didn’t work too well early. A problem that OMG runs in to quite a lot, the lack of vision. Nonetheless OMG forced three barons, of which one was a steal by Loveling, six drakes to secure the game.

Once again , the Chinese top teams split points.

Results Day 3:

Star Horn Royal Club vs King 1-1
Invictus Gaming vs Gamtee 1-1
OMG vs Snake 1-1
LGD Gaming vs Master3 1-1

Standings After Week 8:

Schedule for Week 9:

Day 1:

Invictus Gaming vs Snake
Vici Gaming vs Gamtee
Team WE vs OMG
Edward Gaming vs Star Horn Royal Club

Day 2:

Vici Gaming vs Snake
OMG vs King
Edward Gaming vs Master3
Team WE vs LGD Gaming

Day 3:

Snake vs Energy Pacemaker
Edward Gaming vs Gamtee
Star Horn Royal Club vs Team WE
OMG vs Invictus Gaming

Week 7 LPL Preview

After what was a somewhat shocking week, we are back with twelve fantastic confrontations. Let’s take a look at the most interesting matches this weekend and the Top Three Players to look out for.

by Michael "Tribble" Godani

Current standings:

Friday

Kicking off this week will be Master3 vs King. Last week, both teams showed up; Master3 defeated the still undefeated Snake 2-0 and King took a game off EDG. Both teams faced each other this week in the Demacia cup where Master3 came out with a 3-2 victory. Superstar Dade celebrated the revival of Master3 with a pentakill on Yasuo in Game 1. Tied for the 7/8th spot with 13 points apiece, this could really be a step in the right direction to either team to secure that 4th place spot towards the end of the split.

Star Horn Royal Club, Worlds finalists of 2014 are facing a powerhouse in LGD. Both teams made different impressions on us last week. SHRC got aced by EP, who finally got their first 2-0 of the split, where they played incredibly bad. They took a strike back against Master3, where two incredible games full of objective steals ended in a 1-1. SHRC really looked a lot better in this match-up and all we can ask for is that they continue that path of playing.

LGD is currently 4th in the standings after splitting against Gamtee and EP. This is really what LGD is all about this season, extremely well-played games followed up by a different LGD who don’t seem to be able to get that victory but will always settle for the draw. 

The last game of the day goes to OMG against Vici Gaming. OMG took a game off the top two team in the world, EDG, with a surprising new botlane in the form of San and Xiyang. Gogoing was dominating on his Gnar whom he played for the first time in the pro-scene. OMG looked really good that first game and hopefully they'll continue this type of gameplay and see how Vici gaming respond to that.

Vici gaming is home of the best support player in the world, Mata. The whole team has been playing better each week and it is really a joy to watch their rotations and picks as they have one of the strongest roaming supports in the scene. After failing to take a 2-0 against TWE last week, which could’ve given them the 4th spot in the standings, they’re certainly looking to turn up the heat against OMG.

Friday’s games

Master3 vs King

Star Horn Royal Club vs LGD Gaming

Team We vs Snake

OMG vs Vici Gaming

Saturday

The first game of Saturday can be described in one word for Snake. Revenge.

Revenge for their 2-0 beating at the hands of Master3 and revenge against all their vocal critics. Ella and Beast are the players who can make this match-up against King really turn if they give Kryst4l enough space to do his job in teamfights.

But it's easier said then done to “create space in teamfights” since King is such a teamfighting-oriented team who, still as they are sharing the 7th spot, should've been higher up the standings.

Both teams will bring out their best and this will be one of the must-watch confrontations in Week 7.

Saturday’s games

King vs Snake

Invictus Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker

Team WE vs Master3

OMG vs Gamtee

Sunday

Sunday is Edward Gaming’s chance for revenge against the surprisingly well-performing Snake, the only team to leave EDG with 0 points after 2 games.

EDG seems to be looking not only for a win, but for the same type of win that they showed in Game 2 against OMG.

Fast rotations, incredible picks so that the lead they build up will even give them 4v5 teamfight potential if needed. They will want to not only defeat Snake but to show everyone that EDG is the uncontested number 1 in the LPL.

Snake on the other hand as mentioned before is looking for revenge and in this match-up Snake will be seeking to show, once again, why they have been second for such a long time this split.

Perhaps not as big of a game as EDG vs OMG, but looking at the standings it actually is.

A win for EDG can enforce their first seat but a loss could bring both Snake and OMG closer to taking that away from them.

Finally we end the weekend with OMG vs SHRC.

These teams have had an incredible history together: OMG have been eliminated by SHRC at the last world championship and the worlds before, the last time being far closer with five incredible games of beautiful play. 

Since then a lot has changed and SHRC is not the team that they were used to be, losing UZI to OMG and not being able to have Namei play for them has really set them back a lot. Earlier this split OMG already 2-0’d SHRC and how things are looking now, the only thing that is marvelous about this match-up are the team names. OMG will most likely win this match, unless……

Top 3 players to watch:

1.     Gamtee’s Hu1 – After scoring a pentakill in his first ever professional match, this man is the person to follow this week. Gamtee will only play 1 game this week, but it’s against OMG. Let’s see if the penta-debut from Hu1 who also was quite good for a new jungler in terms of vision, can continue his positive performance in this week.

2.     Master3’s Dade – Sometimes it’s best to ignore the kills on a midlaner and actually look at his performance in teamfights. Dade performed good last week, yes he did good, not outstanding, but good. His Azir game might have not been the luckiest games that he has played but the way he performed in teamfights was incredibly good. Yes, he might have died a couple of times, but he made sure he died for a good cause. After scoring a pentakill during the Demacia Cup against King, all we can hope for is that DADE IS BACK!

3.     Master3 botlane- Normally a player should be standing here, but the botlane of Master3 has really been performing exquisitely the last few games. The Kalista/Leo combo is really a joy to watch as they carry teamfights on their own with the amount of CC and peel that Lovecd provides. A joy to watch!

The games are live viewable on the following streams at 6AM CEST:

http://www.twitch.tv/riotgames2

http://star.longzhu.tv/lpl

Day 1:

Master3 vs King

Star Horn Royal Club vs LGD Gaming

Team We vs Snake

OMG vs Vici Gaming

Day 2:

King vs Snake

Invictus Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker

Team WE vs Master3

OMG vs Gamtee

Day 3:

Vici Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker

Master3 vs Gamtee

Edward Gaming vs Snake

OMG vs Star Horn Royal Club

Week 6 LPL Review

As expected and announced in the preview, Week 6 contained 24 games full of action and surprises. Let me take you through a few of the games and give you some fascinating facts about them.

by Michael "Tribble" Godani

February 27th

The day kicked off with an expected one-sided victory for Vici Gaming, who completely outclassed the inexperienced Energy Pacemakers. Vici then set out to humiliate EP, taking the second game in under 20 minutes and securing themselves three points for the series.

The second match was between LGD Gaming, one of the favorites for the top 3 spots, and Gamtee, who have improved a lot in their last few games. With the help of smart rotations, LGD won the first game with a strong lead in gold, kills and objectives. Gamtee's new jungler, Hu1, had a somewhat unlucky match, but his debut performance wasn't bad if you ignore the statistics.

Game 2 started off with a surprise for both Gamtee and their fans. Hu1 scored a pentakill after only 11 minutes.

The setup for the pentakill was exceedingly well done. Hu1, on Rek'sai, moved into the first botlane sidebush, waiting for TBQ to engage onto Sinkdream and Tale. On the engage, Hu1 immediately responded with a three men unborrow. Sinkdream dropped to PyL while both midlaners and toplaners raced to botlane. Hu1 picked up a fast double kill and then used the turret as a safespot just to flash in and take out PyL. During this, Xiaohu was putting out as much damage as he could with his ultimate while moving towards the botlane as Hu1 quickly took out We1less, who towerdove Letme and was still getting hit by the turret. Hu1 then chased down Acorn with Xiaohu to get his first Pentakill in his debut in the LPL!

Hu1 quickly turned that pentakill gold into a Sightstone and Giant’s Belt just to be that huge meatshield to carry his team to victory. Despite a 41 minute win for Gamtee to split the series, after the pentakill they were pretty much in control of the game.

The third game of the day was former SSB Spirit’s Team WE vs King. Team WE, being on the bottom of the LPL standings at this point, showed disappointing gameplay from pretty much all lanes. King, who are out of a playoff spot, were not reflecting their way of playing according to most analysts, but they've been steadily improving and were really looking forward to grabbing some points and repairing their standings this week.

The most exciting part of this series was actually game number two. TWE’s Ninja picked up the Cho’Gath mid against King’s Assassin’s Ahri. With an out of meta pick like Cho’Gath, it seemed like Team WE would split the series after losing Game 1 to the LPL newcomers. Winning scrims here and there on the map forced King to get their heads together and produced some heavy 5v5’s. Despite Aluka and his good Sion ults, the teamfighting potential of King took the victory with a clean ace, bringing out WE's surrender. An expected 2-0 victory for King and yet, a very strong performance from Team WE in Game 2.

The big match of the day was EDG vs OMG, take a look at the link below for the review with special guest Reid “RAPiD” Melton.

EDG vs OMG W6G4 review with Reid "Rapidcasting" Melton - LCSFanzone.com

These are the endgame results for Friday, February 27th:

February 28th

For those who have followed me or other LPL watchers on twitter, the second day in our favorite league was injected with the word “unexpected.” That being said, the struggling team of SHRC took one of the teams who hasn’t been able to secure a 2-0 victory yet in the current split, Energy Pacemaker. Energy Pacemaker came out with new energy in Game 1 against the 2014 Worlds' finalists and having their jungler Drizzle on his favorite champion, Lee sin, meant a different EP then we have seen until now or even yesterday.

One big surprise came in the champ select after Raphael locked in Viktor mid, following the trend that LCK’s GE Tigers started the day before. Drizzle tried taking control of Insec’s jungle by invading and taking away big creeps, hoping to force his enemy's Rengar away from the camps. SHRC controlled the first ten minutes, taking first blood after a great gank by Insec onto Raphael’s Viktor using the Lissandra/Rengar CC chain to lock him down, despite having cleanse on his champion. Later on, they secured the first drake in trade for a couple of flashes and Insec's life - and that is where the game started to turn.

EP was smelling blood and blood they found. SHRC was looking for fights in the most uncommon and strangest places which would only benefit EP's composition. Every single teamfight ended up in giving Viktor kills. Viktor, in turn, got massive, as you can expect and took his team by the hand together with the amazing performing Drizzle. The vision game was still pretty bad by EP but the way that they anticipated situations and taking into consideration that they were quite fed, there was no real vision needed to delete SHRC from the map in just 28 minutes.

The biggest surprise for Game 2 was that SHRC did not ban Viktor (who was picked by Raphael again) to which they had no answer and strangest of all, they didn’t ban or take away Drizzle's Lee Sin. Instead, Insec took the Jarvan IV, a champion who he is not that impressive on. This time, EP did manage to improve their warding around objectives and what also helped was that X1u was really showing up on his Thresh with some amazing backward flays. After dictating the lanes, great rotational ganks and a fast push of the outer turrets, EP managed to take a pre-22 minute baron with a 7-0-7 Viktor and a 4-1-5 Graves. EP, surprisingly enough for a team that hasn't won a series yet, closed out the game extremely fast and ended the game in 27 minutes with Raphael’s Viktor having a perfect 9-0-11 game, participating in 20 of the 22 kills. 

The second game of the day was between Masters 3 and the surprisingly well performing Snake Esports. Snake went into this confrontation being the only team to have won a set against the LPL powerhouse EDG. Snake did well by taking Baka’s Xerath away from him by putting Dade on him, yet the Azir was taken by Baka, which surprisingly got him quite the CS lead early against the under-performing midlaner from M3.

After taking the first two dragons against the odds, M3 was done giving away free objectives and turned on the heat by taking the next two without any real trouble. The botlane from M3 showed up with some incredible plays and, being part of 9 of the 11 team kills at around the 20 minute mark, really learned that they were the ones carrying their team through this game. With a comp to really poke their opponents, not a lot of vision was needed and so they did siege up to the tier 2 turrets with success. Putting Snake on their back with a 35 minute win in Game 1 only meant that Game 2 was going to be a do or die for Snake if they wanted to secure that second spot in the standings after this week.

Game 1 really showed that the current #1 spot for MVP, Kryst4l, is a bit overrated. He didn't show up in Game 1 and the Draven pick for Game 2 wasn't doing wonders for him and his team either. The decision to take Draven against such a mobile champion as Kalista (who was combined with the Leona) while having two assassins on their team with Dade’s Zed and DreamS’s Rengar, was a risky pick to say the least.

Baka was performing decently on his Kassadin with picking up a fast five kills but he didn't seem enough to deal with Looper’s Lissandra and the power botlane of Carry and Lovecd. After losing baron and some big scrims and teamfights, despite the gold lead, M3 did manage to push their gold lead towards a very clean 2-0 victory over Snake. Looper and the botlane, formed of Candy and Lovecd, really showed up with their incredible abilities of carrying the teamfights, while Dade was not to be left aside for his beautiful assassination plays on the Zed.

Candy is really playing a terrific Kalista and he and Lovecd seem to become stronger by the week. After EP shaking things up earlier today, followed by the ace of Masters 3 over Snake, would this be the time for Team WE to finally take their first series of the split?

Team WE left me with a good feeling. Even after losing the series to King, they seemed to have improved their teamplay and shotcalling and appeared ready to fight in the series against IG. Ninja, who hasn’t been performing well, jumped onto the Ezreal while Spirit took one of the tickets for the Nidalee jungle hype train and with success!

Slow pace and limited action really marked this series. We are talking about 18 kills in an almost 34 minute LPL game. What was strong this game was the dragon control by TWE, having that poke comp with the Nidalee, Ezreal and Corki while also having that big Maokai for the frontline and the Janna for the disengage. Making sure that they had the exact timer for the dragons resulted in a five dragon game while most of them were uncontested and otherwise the players of IG were poked down too low to be of any value to contest the objective.

The second game wasn’t much of a difference, only this time TWE didn’t have a poke comp and Aluka jumped onto his favorite champion, Sion. Another five drake game by TWE resulted in a beautiful and well deserved 2-0 victory over Invictus Gaming. We can only hope that TWE will continue this form of teamplay and objective control so that we will see a very different TWE for the last end of the split.

The final results for Day 2:

March 1st

On the third day of the week, the day of draws, there were a few games that are really worth mentioning. Let’s start off with Edward Gaming against King.

King already took four points out of the possible six in the last two days and were really looking forward to giving the now mortal-looking team of EDG a strong fight. The first meeting between these teams was very close, although EDG did take the 2-0 in that series.

Game 1 was an incredible show of map control by EDG. They did not focus on the early dragons as we had seen against OMG earlier this week but instead worked on controlling the lanes and everything in-between. The way that EDG responded to a tier 2 turret siege from King at some point was by taking away their mid tier 1 turret and top tier 2 turret which forced the remaining four members of the team to recall and defend their base before EDG would take it in their wanted base race.

EDG continued to rotate inbetween the lanes to put out pressure onto the remaining outer turrets and inhibitor turrets with some stylish teamplay of Samsung superstars, Pawn and Deft. A high kill game from part of EDG that only gave away five kills in 36 minutes, of which one was a suicide into the enemies' fountain by Koro1. The 4-0-12 Twisted Fate of Pawn and 5-0-12 by Clearlove's Rek’Sai really impressed and this was by far one of the most dominating performances of this week.

Game 2 didn’t seem to be much different, only that EDG was looking for more and faster kills then in Game 1. The first show of power by King was around the 20 minute mark when Assassin, Nlxg and Leym were waiting in the river bush in the botlane to punish the arrogance of Pawn and Meiko running down the river over the scuttle crab that was in control of King by going for a 3-1 trade and taking the bot outer turret. King’s Assassin told the journalist of the LPL after the game that after going 1v2 against Deft and Meiko on the botlane, coming out with two kills for him and sacrificing himself to Clearlove so that his team could secure the baron was the moment that he felt like they had this game.

Assassin’s Zed was the highest level champion in the game and looking terrifying with wielding a Black Cleaver, BOTRK, Brutalizer and a Last Whisper after only 30 minutes. The proper items to simply delete a squishy target of the map. Nonetheless, the dragonfight that occurred several minutes later ended up in an easy 4-1, tier 2 turret and inhibitor for EDG, yet they lost the drake to King after Nlxg kicked Clearlove out of the pit with Lee Sin’s ultimate - securing his teams' fourth drake of the game.

After some vision control swaps around the baron between EDG and King, EDG came out on top and having that mid inhibitor down only meant that they were the ones that should be able to pick up this baron quite easy and uncontested.

Having wards everywhere in King’s red jungle and having super minions pushing into the nexus turrets, King didn’t hesitate to protect or, better say, steal this objective away from EDG, who clearly was not respecting the Fiddlesticks that was brought out by Leym as a support. When Leym ulted into the baron pit, Nlxg followed right after just to steal the baron away from EDG. While escaping, Skye put down the equalizer and burned through the heart of this EDG line-up - which left Pawn and Koro1 behind with very low health bars.

Deft being the only one to survive and being picked up later with only a little more then a minute remaining for a possible fifth drake for King only got this game looking more and more exiting. King made the wise decision to take away the inhibitor turret in the middle from EDG and then rotate back towards the dragon pit so that they could place their wards down to have full vision for what would be one of the "do-or-die" moments of an already fantastic week. The drake spawned and was started by King, which would result in a 50/50 smite fight between Clearlove and Nlxg - who was a level higher so 20 more damage on his smite. Nlxg came away again with the objective and this meant a fifth dragon plus baron buffed team that stood in front of EDG. King didn’t hesitate and deleted EDG in no time, with only Clearlove managing to escape.

This meant a fifth point out of the possible nine for King, knowing they did split against the number one of Korea and maybe the world, meant this was a great performance from this King team.

There were obviously more matches being played this weekend, they were all worth watching, yet I had to make a choice of which games to cover as a report and these were the ones. The Day 3 SHRC vs M3 is also a very interesting match to watch, highly recommend that if you love objective steals that you watch this series between SHRC and M3.

Standings after Week 6:

Upcoming Games for Week 7:

Day 1:

Master3 vs King
Star Horn Royal Club vs LGD Gaming
Team We vs Snake
OMG vs Vici Gaming

Day 2:

King vs Snake
Invictus Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker
Team WE vs Master3
OMG vs Gamtee

Day 3:

Vici Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker
Master3 vs Gamtee
Edward Gaming vs Snake
OMG vs Star Horn Royal Club

Welcome To Paris : A Fast Look at All-Stars

by Jt 'Ribbwich' Egbert

Halfway to worlds, the leagues are all ready for a chance to take a warning bite out of each other. As the All-Star hype train reaches critical mass, let's look at how these five teams have earned their invitations. We start with the kings:

Korea:

Korea is being represented by the winner of the Season Three World Championships, SK T1 K, although it is pretty well-known they aren't the strongest team in the region. (A title that probably belongs to one of the teams in Samsung Galaxy's stable.)

Why They Can Win: Mechanics, Mechanics, Mechanics. All of the pros in this region are 100% entrenched in their teams. This makes their personal mechanics match their team play mechanics. They time things to the millisecond, and outplay opponents on a large scale. Even the most solid teams end up tilting after experiencing SK T1 K's abuse.

How They Can Lose: Overconfidence is a weakness most Korean teams share. If their opponents remain calm and poised and stick to what they know (instead of going on a tilt trying to counter them,) any team has a chance of beating the god-kings.

China:

We had our first taste of China in the World Finals, when we got to see Royal Club's Tabe drop bears on people's heads. This time, we'll be seeing the Chinese team, OMG.

Why They Can Win: Aggressively striking from the shadows with fearless precision, the deadliest Chinese team is the unseen one. This team could take the win from nowhere, and you won't even see them coming...at first.

How They Can Lose: Vision. Other teams can pressure them out of their comfortable, unseen presence if they have a well-warded map. Get them on a tilt and the "W" is yours.

Garena:

The surprise winners of the Season Two World Championships, the Taipei Assassins are going to this years All-Star challenge as well, and they're riding the momentum of an undefeated spring season.

Why They Can Win: This region is always an unexpected treat - mixing Korean mechanics with Chinese aggression - but their best shot at winning lies in the fact that other teams are coming in crippled. SKT is slumping. C9 doesn't have Hai. OMG is playing with a rusty Cool, etc.

How They Can Lose: They don't really posses any team-fighting skill, so they need a lot of practice. Considering they'll be up against the best players in the world, the answers to this question are pretty much endless.

Europe:

Europe is one of the most competitive regions in the world, with some of the closest records we've seen in a single split. The European playoffs were hard fought, but ultimately they went in favor of perennial favorites, Fnatic.

Why They Can Win: Fnatic have great potential if they wear their amazing pants to these games. Fast reflexes, excellent mechanical skills and good rotations can lead Fnatic to victory.

How they Can Lose: By not bringing those pants. Fnatic has shown many times that they will attempt to try new things and push the meta as far as it will go. If their picks are bad and their play inconsistent, it might not be an impressive showing by Xpeke and the boys.

North America:

Who can say no to apple pie? Undefeated playoff contenders and double split winners, Cloud 9 HyperX, face their first Korean challenge in SKT T1k, and look to exact revenge against EU rivals, Fnatic.

Why They Can Win: Cloud 9 will come into this series prepared. They have done the legwork. They know their enemies...and LemonNation's legendary notebook has something in store for every one of them. Early Jungle pressure and superior rotations should keep even the best opponent on their toes - as long as they can synergize with Hai's replacement, Link.

How They Can Lose: C9 might have trouble keeping their collective cool under the immense competition these teams are sure to bring them. If they get out-pressured and over-aggressed, places where C9 has shown weakness before, it will spell the end of the red white and blue at All Stars.

That's all I have, thanks for the read, I will see you all in Paris! (Well, in twitch chat!)

League of Legends : Ushering in World Peace