Showing posts with label Energy Pacemaker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Energy Pacemaker. Show all posts

Monday, April 6, 2015

LPL Week 10 Review : Bard/Kennen/Irelia support and more!


For many teams, this was the week of truth - and on top of that, they were dealing with a new patch. Returning picks such as support Irelia and new picks like Gragas jungle, Shyvana top and Bard even, made this quite the moving week.

by Michael "Tribble" Godani

Friday, April 3rd

OMG vs Energy Pacemaker

OMG's coach, citing the teams performance in other games, said he wanted to place his team on unconventional picks. Whether this was the case or not, it was still another show of disrespect levied towards the viewers and fans of one of China’s top teams.

Losing Game 1 in a true “we don’t care” fashion to the last seed in China does not mean EP didn't have to do anything for it. AmazingJ, who brought out the Garen the last time he was on stage, managed to 1v1 superstar Gogoing in lane. You could even see AmazingJ shout out loud when he got the solo kill.

OMG did manage to stay in gold range of EP early by prioritizing turrets. Unfortunately, EP played their teamfights a lot better and while OMG kept initiating fights, EP kept cleaning them up.

Energy Pacemaker came to play and they showed us just that with their new jungler and ADC. The last seed in China took down OMG with a beautiful teamfight composition. A few Gnar! + Glacial Prison combo’s completed the wombo combo and therefore most of the teamfights.

EP's comp was built around getting those five drakes and they did. Having the fifth dragon stolen away from them by Loveling was nothing more then a minor misstep for this relatively new lineup. EP managed to pick up the fifth drake followed up with the second baron of the game for them, and with that they upset the LPL and its fans by destroying OMG in the first game.

To round up this first game, OMG should really stop letting Cloud play Annie; his last two performances were very poor and the only impact that he has had was feeding the enemy team. We've seen that OMG cannot play these “lategame” team compositions well. Early/midgame is their forte, but who is going to tell them that.

The second game was a different story. Perhaps OMG realized that there were a lot of people around the world not amused with their performance/draft.

Putting Gogoing on the Gnar and Cloud again on a skillshot champion, Nautilus, they were ready to go. The star midlaner from the all-Chinese line-up, Cool, was playing the Anivia who picked up first blood sub 3 minutes into the game and from there went on to snowball, grabbing a few more kills around the map and a comfortable 30 cs lead.

EP’s Captain57, the jungler, did manage to get some aggressive warding down early-on in this game, same as he and the rest of his team did in the first game of the series. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't able to countergank since all the ganks or, let’s say, most of the ganks, were focused on the botlane.

Early midgame OMG did manage to rotate towards the toplane, giving both Cool and UZI a few more kills so that they could grab some new fancy gear from the item shop to get ready for the final siege.

A beautiful siege on the toplane ended with a Crunch into the Gnar! to line the members of EP up for the Anivia/Jinx combo who would quickly make fast work of the fresh meat that was being presented to them.

As mentioned earlier, Cloud was playing a skillshot champion. As the best mechanical support player in the world right now, he showed off with incredible hooks, beautiful peel and teamfight-deciding plays. The man is a monster on skillshot supports, showing it every single game.

OMG did not manage to end the game themselves. EP ended it for them by surrendering after 26 minutes and splitting the series.

King vs LGD Gaming

Two teams who both came out with their own unique compositions. The Ori/Kog’maw ball comp from LGD against the five-tank army from LGD. Yes, five-tank army! Maokai, Vi, Cho’gath, UrGOD and Nautilus. The most remarkable detail about King was that MLXG actually build Cinderhulk on Vi.

The first ten minutes of the game were quiet with a lot of farming, and right before the second spawn of the drake (the first one being picked up by King) MLXG ulted PYL above LGD’s red buff to secure a 4v5 advantage for the next drake. As King was not sure yet if a 4v5 was sufficient enough, they managed to kill Acorn’s Rumble and then went for their second drake of the game. It seemed to be going okay for King as they were still down in gold due to the fact that LGD was getting better farm and knocking down turrets. 

The real switch in the game was around the twenty minute mark when MLXG overextended and died for free while the rest of the team tried to catch up and got picked off one by one. A 3-1 trade in favor of LGD basically sealed the game.

We1less was playing the Orianna this game and he did so to perfection. A couple of beautiful shockwaves, especially around the thirty minute mark. TBQ jumped into the midlane, followed up by a Glacial Prison and Acorn’s Equalizer! Double kill TBQ, no escaping this though, the Ori ball caught out any player trying to escape this drive by the killer squad from LGD.

LGD destroyed King’s idea of being unkillable with teamplay and individual play. TBQ and We1less were looking very strong on their champions and secured a first game win by forcing the surrender from King.

Bard and Amumu were locked in for the LGD team and they got everyone hyped! The first time that Bard was to be seen in competitive play, Pyl was the first one to do it. Just a note on the side, Flame got swapped in for Game 2 to get some playtime.

Before the game even started, TBQ managed to give Leym first blood which resulted into a boots pickup for the Nautilus support. Leym used his mobility to scout out TBQ in his jungle to get vision on his jungle pathing and with success. TBQ was not as successful on Amumu as he was last game with the Sejuani. Dying too many times by making bad plays, TBQ set not only him but his entire team back by a lot. Flame was cursed to play 1v3 every couple of minutes and the bottom lane of LGD didn't get a single decent gank from the sad mummy.

It was actually We1less who once again was the shining light on the LGD team. Who would've thought that an Anivia's ganks would be more successful than Amumu’s? Indeed!

King controlled the game just fine, taking early drakes, collapsing on lanes knowing where TBQ was by warding properly and extending their map pressure.

A 23-minute baron by King didn't result in a total collapse on one of LGD’s turrets, but they used the buff to slowly take away the outer turrets and get more control over the map.

Pyl’s Bard didn't work out as he might have hoped for but it is to be appreciated and respected that he took it out, even if not to his own success. We have seen the potential of Bard and perhaps with some better coordination, this could really be a strong pick.

Skye might have been one of the better performing players this game, single-handedly taking out Imp in every teamfight and causing chaos. 

TBQ did give LGD a bit of hope by stealing the second baron, but King their lead was too big to overcome with this buff.

King takes the fifth drake and shortly after take down Game 2 as they split the series!

Star Horn Royal Club vs Vici Gaming

This is it, the moment of truth for the fans, the players and the organisation of Star Horn Royal Club. With four games to go, this should game should be a great start for a perhaps crazy playoff participation run, could it be?

No, it cannot! Vici gaming showed off another Montecristo like game with a low but efficient kill count and strong rotations to leave SHRC out in the cold.

Vici had 100% control over every single aspect of this game. They ended the game with a 22k gold lead and dropping no towers to the two-time runners-up at Worlds.

Calculated tower dives with a ton of  crowd control coming out of Carry’s Hecarim, Dandy’s Definitely Not Udyr and Hetong’s TF, caused them to multiple times come out of these dives with zero deaths.

The substitute jungler for SHRC was not able to make his mark this game, perhaps that was a bit too much to ask for.

So, a very strong looking Vici Gaming with another objective-minded game which worked out perfectly fine, just like the previous games that they have played.

Game 2 wasn't all that different in terms of results. Vici Gaming took control over the game after Blank was caught out in the dragon pit while Mata wanted to clear a ward. He tunneled into the pit and when he tried to tunnel out, Mata flailed him backwards and VG just collapsed on him. Instead of turn away from this area, SHRC decided that a early lead for Vici might be a better option here.

After this point, Vici took a big enough lead to start controlling the entire map again, as they did in Game 1. With superior ward coverage, a fast clear of the outer turrets basically sealed the deal for them. Vici showed incredible teamplay while the only shining light on SHRC was Cola’s Jax, taking away the only two turrets of the series in the botlane.

Dandy showed this series that his champion pool is more like an ocean. Udyr and Sejuani were picked up this set and especially with the Sejuani he showed off some incredible ganks. His ultimates were on spot, hit them 100% with a 100% kill follow up on them.

Vici Gaming is looking like the second best team in China at this point while Star Horn is in need of some serious help! The team looks completely broken, clueless and is really in need of someone to get these guys back on track.

Edward Gaming vs Team World Elite

To keep the playoff dream alive, Team World Elite must at least take a point off EDG in this series. After this first game, that is still possible, though highly unlikely.

Where teams such as OMG and LGD have been trying certain champions/strategies out, EDG is not much into that and just does whatever they want and how they want it together with winning.

Swapping out Pawn for U hasn't changed a thing for this match as EDG still dominated every aspect of the game.

The game started off quite well for Team WE by going even in the early game, picking up the drake and only being down in gold by some cs advantage created in the bot and top lane.

Until the second drake spawned, the game was quite even but EDG shifted into their second gear and took a 3-0 fight and the drake. All three kills went to the super toplaner, Koro1, who was playing Jarvan IV, building a brutalizer into a hydra into the last whisper and before he could complete his ghostblade the game was already over.

Several fights occurred across the map, especially in the midlane, and every single time, EDG came out on top. Even if only by a little, the No.1 in the world managed to grab the advantage out of every single confrontation.

Did TWE play bad? I don’t think you can say that they actually played bad, they were just up against a much better team.

Game 2 started a bit similar to Game 1, although with less kills yet there were some ganks from both junglers who could’ve lead to a few deaths across the board. While the game seemed to be going even, EDG was once again coming out on top after a few fights, ending with a 4-2 and a 4-1.

Looking at the trades, it looked good, but none of the kills were going onto EDG’s carry Deft. He was not having a good game, some might discuss his item build as an issue for this game while others might argue that EDG was a bit too cocky coming into this game.

Mystic on the UrGOD made quick work of Deft and made sure that he was the one coming out on top with his standard build (FH,LW,MM,BC) while Deft went for a unorthodox build with the Infinity Edge as his first item.

The game slowly turned as more teamfights started to ramp up and Aluka’s Sion was becoming more and more an issue for the players from EDG. As soon as the Undead Juggernaut got his Thornmail, he was dishing out more damage to Deft without even targeting him.

Team World Elite sought out more fights and got them, everywhere, within seconds of each other, almost fight after fight, extending their gold lead with each fight. All this fighting lead to destroying the bot inhibitor from EDG and a Nexus turret but, by overstaying a bit, EDG managed to kill two members from TWE and answer with the Baron.

Could it be? I mean, if there would be one team to come back after this(EDG being behind in the meantime in turrets 8-2), it would be EDG.

No, it couldn't. Some questionable engages came through from Meiko and even U all of a sudden was found in the middle of this “Melee range” formation which sealed the deal and gave the IEM finalists the win.

Team World Elite beat Edward Gaming and was added to the list of OMG, Snake and King of teams who managed to pull this off this split. 

A split between a cocky EDG and a motivated and 'all-to-play-for' Team World Elite, keeping playoff dreams alive!

OMG vs Energy Pacemaker 1-1
King vs LGD Gaming
Star Horn Royal Club vs Vici Gaming  2-0
Edward Gaming vs Team World Elite 1-1

  
April 4th

Star Horn Royal Club vs Energy Pacemaker

Crazy performance from the struggling members of the Star Horn Royal Club, forcing a 21 minute surrender from Energy Pacemaker after an amazing game!

Destroy AmazingJ, that was the early mission for SHRC, EP who initiated the laneswap placed Maokai in the botlane who got bullied by Zero’s Thresh and Namei’s Jinx. After poking him with the hook/chomper combo a few times, he had to give up first blood and gave SHRC more control on the bottom lane.

Star Horn turned up the heat and didn't stop, taking a turret in the bot lane, the drake and then collapsing with four people onto AmazingJ’s Maokai followed up by a toplane gank on the tree really sealed the deal.

They did not only break the confidence of the man who managed to kill Gogoing yesterday inlane 1v1, but the entire team.

Zero’s Thresh combined with the chompers from Namei was an effective way to take out a single member while the Gnarjuani combo took out the rest of the team.

Our world’s finalists blew our mind by taking the bottom inhibitor sub 19 minutes and forcing a 21 minute surrender after baiting the baron which lead to two kills.

Are they back? Is the playoff dream still real and alive for Star Horn, or was this a one time show?

Clearly, this wasn’t a one time show! Game two continued where Star Horn left off in game one. I do have to mention that giving away Sejuani and Gnar was quite the awkward decision, but it worked out for them.

Blank’s early gank pressure lead to several kills and Zero once again came out big with the hooks, this time out of the Nautilus.

Zero single-handedly dominated the early game for Star Horn and slowly but surely Cola joined the snowball.

SHRC looked very good and EP looked terribly bad! Although Star Horn didn't clear the game as fast as they did in the first game, the game was never really in danger of being lost. Especially after Cola’s baron steal, yes, the Leblanc baron steal got brought to you by Star Horn Royal Club’s Cola with a bitter taste for Energy Pacemaker’s Drizzle who failed to smite.

Star Horn cleans up this set and takes the three points home, being alive still to make the playoffs!

Gamtee vs Snake

Snake should be the big winner of the 5.6 patch, the tank meta would suit their champion pools and improve their peel for Kryst4l.

What Snake did today in their first game against Gamtee was something new, new for the entire league of legends meta, Shyvana top with Teleport Smite.

How does this work though? Well, in lane swaps, Flandre managed to pick up the Gromp which is a juicy 60 gold and add 30 gold to it once he had his cinderhulk. Flandre kept picking up the Gromps in either his bot or the enemy’s top side to keep him ahead of his laner LetMe.

His quick cinderhulk was the key to the domination that Snake managed to show off later in this game.

Gamtee did try to fight Snake off, but the newcomers kept their gold lead by contributing to kills as a team and not as a single or duo.

Flandre was ahead enough to tank up the baron together with Beast who picked up LPL’s first Gragas jungle and Baka was hitting it from outside the pit. They got caught out, but managed to pick up the baron, a 3-2 exchange in favor of Snake with Kryst4l picking up the three kills which got him going as well.

A fed Draven with a huge dragon in the front line that seemed to have a limitless health pool.

Snake did it again as most of the watchers would say. The only question is, shouldn't Snake just have played this safe instead of showing off these kind of shenanigans right before playoffs?

Gamtee’s LetMe was impressed enough by the Teleport Smite combo that he tried it out himself on the Rengar top building full tank. Snake came onto the rift with two new picks in the likes of Trundle and Volibear (jungle). Early on, LetMe was benefiting from the laneswap initiated by his team by being far ahead of Flandre’s Trundle. The small advantage became a bit better when Xiaohu managed to 1v1 Baka inlane and take first blood.

Snake answered back with a couple of early drakes, good vision control and taking the outer turrets down before the 15 minute mark.


The entire game was going back and forth, while Snake was in the lead most of the time, Tale’s positioning on the Kog’maw lead his team to even the gold and outplay Snake in the teamfights.

Gamtee made a questionable decision going for a baron which they did manage to get, unfortunately for them, Kryst4l was quick enough to come all the way to the baron pit after taking the bot tier 2 turret. Kryst4l then cleaned up the pit by taking three kills and Baka took the last one as Sinkdream managed to get away as the slippery fish that he was.

Snake’s limited engage from the Volibear was what should’ve lost them the game, Volibear is a pretty one dimensional champion who cannot reach the backline without flanking. If he does manage to reach it, he is either too low health to do something or his passive is popped already.

Gamtee exploited this and was on their way to split the series, but the bad positioning from Tale on the final teamfight at the dragonpit lead his team to defeat against a shaky Snake.

Invictus Gaming vs Master3

Both teams had something to play for and after looking good the last few weeks, this might be one of the most interesting games of the day.

Interesting it was, when we look at the first game. Z1tai playing the Eye of the twilight in the toplane, Shen while Kakao picked up the Gragas.

Also worth mentioning is that M3 switched out Candy to play with Smlz, who is a known UrGOD player and therefor locked in the UrGod.

It was quite the farm game although Kid and Kitties managed to push Smlz into his turret early with some good harass and forcing the heal as a result of eating a death sentence.

M3 decided to make a dragon play and with succes, just the follow up on ganking the botlane didn't share the same success. At least, not for M3, a gank with the Glacial Prison got turned from a possible 2-0 gank into a 1-3 advantage for M3. A great countergank by Kakao didn't only lead secure his own bot duo, but also lead to killing the enemy botlane in exchange for his own Kitties.

The Kalista from Kid being up by two levels, two kills and a gigantic cs lead, meant that the botlane was secured, time to focus on the other lanes.

Rookie was doing a great job already against Dade’s Vladimir who lost his turret early and falling behind in CS which meant that the Batman & Robin duo from IG focused on helping their toplaner out.

All this happened without any form of real pressure by Master3, who just let IG do whatever they wanted and when they did try to interfere, they simply got smoked!

Yes, IG showed off their mechanical skills, especially Rookie who had some beautiful Azir plays and Kitties max range Death Sentences were one not to forget.

A 21 minute surrender was the result that IG was looking for. They take game one.

The second game of this series was a lot more interesting to watch when it comes to close games. Looper locked in one of his favorite champions in the toplane, Singed, as Invictus Gaming came onto the rift again with the Shen & Gragas.

M3 was looking good early in the game, coming out on top in the little skrims that occurred across the map but not quite as lucky on the dragon attempt that got stolen by Kid with the Ezreal ult.

IG traded the next two drakes for a mid outer turret and the top tier 2 turret and continued to expand their lead in forms of farming and turrets.

We do have to mention though, that M3’s jungler, Condi, is just looking terribly bad! Yes, he did have a decent debut, but after showing off his facechecking ability for the last few weeks, our friend managed to single-handedly lose teamfights by misusing his Glacial Prison. Not once, not twice, every single time!

IG’s composition had again a lot of utility and they used this to bait the baron multiple times so that Zz1tai, who had a double teleport on the Shen, could splitpush and take down the bottom inhibitor which eventually lead to a baron for Invictus Gaming.

M3 wasn't playing better or less than IG in the teamfights, but when you  have a jungler who wastes his aoe stun ultimate on a single target or in the open, you’re chances are pretty much done for.

Kid managed to punish Condi’s lack of insight with cleaning up fights due to the ability he had to burst down champions and chase them to finish them off.

A great performance from Invictus Gaming who secure the three points and push M3 really close to relegating.


Team World Elite vs King

Perhaps one of the most important games this week in terms of playoff seats. As both teams still have control over who is going to the playoffs, this promised to be a interesting match with two teams going all out.

Assassin, the decent performing midlaner from King, came onto the rift with the Karthus while LeyM obviously thought that Zero’s Irelia support pick was good enough to pick it himself(and also in the second game).

King started very strong, Assassin was using his ultimate almost to perfection as the team seemed to communicate very well. The pressure that MLXG applied on the botlane got followed up by the pressure that Assassin put onto Team WE with his ultimate.

The roams from the King midlaner lead to full control for the promising team who according to the critics would be somewhere in the top of the LPL based on their pre-season performance. King continued to pressure WE and eventually pushed their lead towards the 9k gold mark which didn’t even help King that much. A teamfight that occurred at that point went even, 4-4.

Despite the gold lead, this game seemed to be even in terms of fighting, as TWE tried to stall the game to farm up as much as they could. King couldn't close out the game, a common issue that we've seen quite a few times before this split and with that they kept TWE their hopes high. Teamfights were still going even until around the 40 minute mark. A teamfight that barely went in favor of King, as their team started to scale better and TWE their damage was falling off, lead them to the baron and eventually to close out the first game.

King was lucky that TWE is not a good teamfighting team, otherwise this might have turned out otherwise.

Perhaps the most important game for Team World Elite was the second game against King for them this split. For some reason, Spirit and Xiye were allowed on Nidalee and Leblanc which lead TWE to victory in the second game of this set.

As we started out even, with great ganking pressure from MLXG on the midlane, TWE managed to come out on top early in the midgame. As both Aluka and Skye farmed up, Aluka got a little bit ahead after Spirit started to give his lane some more attention.

Xiye in the meantime had been toying around with Assassin’s Lissandra, who didn’t stand a chance 1v1 against the Korean midlaner.

The first teamfight seemed to be happening around the second dragon spawn, but TWE managed to poke and scare King away from it, giving them another free drake which would help them significantly to close the game out earlier than King did the last game.

Creating the fights that lead to turrets and eventually the baron, strangly enough didn’t come from Spirit or Xiye, but from Yuzhe, who showed why we are all such a fan of LPL supports playing Thresh.

Death Sentences, to the fullest meaning of the name, were thrown out to sentence the poor looking King players to a 1-1 in the series, which would keep the hopes for the playoffs for TWE alive.

Team World Elite didn’t hesitate pressuring King while having a gold lead, they searched for fights, created fights, took objectives and forced a sub 30 minute game win over their competitors for that playoff seed.

Results Day 2:

Star Horn Royal Club vs Energy Pacemaker 2-0
Gamtee vs Snake 0-2
Invictus Gaming vs Master3 2-0
Team World Elite vs King 1-1

April 5th

Snake vs Master3

A beautiful game to start your Sunday off with. Snake came onto the rift with the troll in the toplane and the fat drunk man in the jungle while Baka picked up a new champion, Karthus.

A game that shortly after M3 picked up the first blood on their ADC, got turned into favor of Snake with some unfortunate teamfights for M3. You don’t want to be in early skrims around the map with a Karthus on the enemy team.

Baka picked up three early kills and the likes of snake took the rule of three into three early drakes and turrets.

There was nothing much that M3 could do except hope for mistakes from Snake’s side. After picking up the baron early in the game, pick got turned into a teamfight and turned into favor of M3. Bad positioning from the likes of Kryst4l and Flandre, but well executed skillshots from Dade and zone work from Lovecd.

This only extended the torture that Snake had lined up for M3 who had no answer to their strategy of the Trundle splitpushing to get rid of the outer turrets.

Snake ended the game 9-0 in turrets and took a perfect game. M3 their chances for playoffs is now looking very grim with King picking up points and all they can and must do is turn it up for game two against Snake!

So it appears that someone told Dade that if they wouldn't win this game, playoffs would be close to impossible.

The former Samsung Blue superstar came onto the rift with a digusting performance in terms of KDA and skills to show off together with LoveCD. Dade’s Leblanc, Lovecd’s Thresh was a recipe for abuse and disgusting punishment.

Snake started off decent by taking the early dragon again but M3 wouldn't have it. Flandre who locked in the Shyvana again with the teleport smite got camped and taken out of the game with some 3-4 men ganks.

M3 showed a completely different approach to the game than they had shown in the first one. More aggressive and above all wanting to win and destroy the opponent. We mentioned Lovecd, who is just one of those players why you would watch M3, especially on his Thresh. Every Chinese support is a great Thresh player and the use of his kit this game was tremendous, beautiful flails into the box and DeathSentences that literally caused death.

As you can see in our Top 5 of this week, Dade’s dancing skills were tremendous and his ability to delete Baka was quite entertaining also.

M3 kept pressuring Snake and left them no chance to even have hope to get back into the game.

A well deserved split.

Team World Elite vs Energy Pacemaker

All that Spirit and his ducklings need right here is a 2-0 victory to have a bit of hope of making the playoffs.

Spirit was once again the man of the match, the uncontested MVP for Team World Elite. His early ganks, annoying Nunu invades(which causes nothing but stress and frustration for the enemy) applied enough pressure for his team to capitalize on the already relegated Energy Pacemakers.

Spirit got his ADC Mystic a head with some beautiful Thresh lantern ganks got him ahead too in gold to work on his support items.

As always it is both amazing and satisfying to see a player of world class being able to solo-carry games in the professional gaming scene, Spirit always delivers!

A perfect game for Team World Elite that didn't drop a single turret forced the surrender right before Mystic could’ve gotten his first penta of this split.

Energy Pacemaker got their bans back this game after being punished for not obeying the rules for showing up with the proper lineup.

The weird fact about this pick and ban phase is that Aluka got to play his Sion again as Spirit got his Nidalee and Xiye his Leblanc.

It was another one-sided match. Team World Elite dominated thanks to the likes of Spirit who in the early game was not even needed in the bottom and midlane. Xiye got himself ahead as Mystic picked up a early double kill inlane.

Spirit kept applying pressure after delivering Aluka his first blood and destroyed the morale of EP. Contesting buffs, showing up constantly in the enemy jungle and even scaring EP away from a dragon while being outnumbered 1v3.

Spirit showed off as if he was making a “How to carry” video live on stage.

Spirit got himself so far ahead and therefor also his teammates that they could capitalize on every teamfight, the one in the bottom lane ended with a massive chain of CC by Aluka and cleanup from the likes of Spirit and the one in the toplane ended with a quadra kill for Xiye.

Another perfect game by not giving up any turret and Team World Elite take a well deserved and needed 2-0 in their last game of this week!

King vs Invictus Gaming

King starting off by giving Skye the red buff for his laningphase against Zz1tai’s Trundle. Mainly to sustain his health and to be able to come out on top in trades. In the meantime in the toplane Wuxxian was destroying Kid thanks to great play from both Wuxxian and Leym but also due to a slacky performance from Kitties. Failing to peel properly for his ADC by not using the proper spells in the proper moments caused them to fall behind, getting poked out in lane and then giving up first blood to MLXG’s Rek’Sai.

To make matters worse, Skye teleported top and ended up giving his ADC a double kill, just to snowball his lane and getting him ready for the upcoming teamfights.

Despite the early kills on MLXG and Wuxxian, the gold stayed even as Rookie and Zz1tai were winning their lane in farm, but King was winning the battle in dragons. As we will see later on they managed to pick up 5-0 dragons in this game which eventually caused IG to lose the game.

We can’t blame everything on the dragon control, Kakao was just not able to make his presence known in the first 10-15 minutes of the game while Rookie farmed up mid.

The first teamfight that occurred in the toplane went in favor of King, who gave a great show in terms of “How to peel for your ADC” while Rookie did not manage to pull off a proper flank with the Azir.

Losing this teamfight caused IG the baron and the fourth drake for IG. As IG did manage to pick up the baron later on in the game after Assassins got caught out, they couldn't translate it into anything big like a inhibitor. King continued their wonderful way of teamfighting for which the team has been praised so many times this split and took the first game after MLXG and Assassin collapsed onto the backline after Skye splitting up the team.

A very much deserved victory for King who controlled objectives and fought their fights carefully and properly.

There isn't a single person that stood out on King, all players put filled in their roles and managed to win thanks to their teamwork.

Game two was a total different game than the first one, as King decided to turn on the heat quite early by MLXG counterganking his botlane, grabbing the first blood on Kakao’s Nidalee. Not much later he caught the jungle cat in the river and turned her into a dead kitty while Rookie was taken out by Assassin.

From this point on, there were appearing little skrims everywhere on the map, King came out on top of every single one of them. Assassin impressing a lot again on his Karthus, timed ults, beautiful teleports to assists his teammates.

Perhaps MLXG and Assassin impressed me the most this game, they were very eager to choke IG and try and take the three much needed points to keep the playoff dream alive, or should we say secure it?

Also this game, King controlled the dragon, grabbing all dragons in this set is perhaps a detail for Invictus Gaming to think about.

Then again, perhaps Invictus gaming is aiming fort hat 6th spot and didn’t bother too much with this game? Who knows, anyway the three points go to King who have their seventh spot almost as good as secured!

LGD Gaming vs Vici Gaming

The best set of the night on this final day of week 10. We got served some bloodthirsty first half of the game with picks such as Imp’s Ashe, Acorn’s Galio and Mata’s Kennen.

Oh yes, it was on! Dandy tried to capitalize on TBQ’s predictable and weak early jungle by invading and placing traps all around. He managed to find at his blue buff after PyL had to wait in the fountain to revive after giving up a kill. This “capture” by Dandy, turned into a incredible fight with teleports being used and ults being thrown out. A wonderful play by We1less and teamfighting from LGD turned this skrim into a 6-2 win for LGD.

TBQ was active this early in the game, ganking here and there and even killing Dandy solo in his own jungle. LGD was playing this early game with succes, as Vici was not allowed and able to play their dominating rotation game as they did the previous games.

Unfortunately for LGD, at the dragon pit, Carry got a triple kill on the big tree which turned him into a vicious animal at this part of the game and Vici jumped on his back. The tree was carrying the teamfights with his AOE damage reduction and throwing the damage back like the boss that he was!

Vici Gaming was perhaps not able to show off their objective minded gameplay, but they did outsmart LGD, baiting TBQ’s ult kill him and Pyl shortly after to take the dragon and more map pressure.

VG’s comp seemed to be stronger than LGD’s comp, or they were just playing it better. Who knows, anyway Vici Gaming was going to take game one after LGD was throwing their early lead that they grabbed from TBQ’s aggressive play.

VG takes the baron, two inhibitors and then die to LGD in a teamfight…yes, they died.
The gold got put into good use as the gap closed to only 3k gold and LGD seemed to be able to stay alive a little bit longer.

As the next baron spawned, Vici was looking to take the two inhibitors down again so that they could just recall, sit out the baron that LGD took as they moved in for the inhibitors.

On the contrary….LGD came out of their fountains after the empowered recalls with FURY AND RACED AS HARD AS THEY COULD FOR LGD’S BASE!

A game, a game of throws some might call it, got thrown towards the likes of LGD who managed to pick up game one to disbelieve of VG’s Dandy.

As the second game went into the draft, it was quite clear that Vici Gaming was here to take the win for the second game, LGD on the other hand were trying out some other picks. Riven mid, Khazix Jungle and Miss Fortune ADC.

TBQ applied a bit of pressure early after We1less got ganked mid at level 2 by four people and managed to pick up a kill on Hetong. This was pretty much the highlight for LGD until Flame managed to pick up a triple kill with his Shyvana in dragon form.

Vici was not going to let LGD style on them and started to slowly turn up the heat which came to a real explosion when they found a dragon fight. That fight went in favor of VG with 5-0 since We1less was not yet aware of how to enter a fight as Riven. The triple kill in that fight that got onto the God of Vasilii helped him to get far ahead of Imp’s MF and to apply more pressure inlane.

As soon as Vici took the outer turrets from LGD it was the same ol’ story as the games before, apply pressure, obtain vision control and suffocate the opponent. In contrast to other games, their opponent was not that much troubled with it, perhaps only Flame(who has been trolled by LGD in both games he played this week). LGD was getting their asses kicked but on the player cams it didn’t seem to bother them.

Right before the 20 minute mark Vici managed to ace LGD again and slowly entered their base.

A clean game from Vici Gaming who ended the game with a 38-5 score to split the series.


Results Day 3:

Master3 vs Snake 1-1
Team World Elite vs Energy Pacemaker 2-0
King vs Invictus Gaming 2-0
Vici Gaming vs LGD Gaming 1-1

Standings after week 10:


Roster for Week 11:

Day 1:

LGD Gaming vs Gamtee
Master3 vs Energy Pacemaker
Star Horn Royal Club vs Invictus Gaming
Edward Gaming vs Vici Gaming

Day 2:

King vs Gamtee
Star Horn Royal Club vs Snake
OMG vs LGD Gaming
Edward Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker

Day 3:

LGD Gaming vs Invictus Gaming
Team WE vs Gamtee
Edward Gaming vs OMG

Vici Gaming vs Master3

Monday, March 16, 2015

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


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

Sunday, March 1, 2015

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.

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