Week 1 Game of the Week Analysis

06/28/14

Week 1’s game of the week was Ostensible vs. Pandamaniacs. Here’s a recap and an analysis of the game. A small disclaimer: I’m not too familiar with these players, so I might be missing some facts, but it does make me objective. Also the pictures were pretty bad quality since I had to take it off of the VoD, but I hope you enjoy.

Picks and Bans

Match-Ups/Predictions:

Bans: Blue team’s bans are pretty meta typical and are bans you would see in your usual solo queue game. Purple team’s bans seemed pretty targeted. Zyra and Ezreal are pretty unusual bans to see and aren’t even in that good of a place right now. I’m not too familiar with the players, but I’m sure research was done. And then Jax is just a must ban in this meta.

Mid: Karthus vs. Nidalee. Lane wise, this is a pretty boring lane. Karthus doesn’t have kill potential and neither does Nidalee, so it should be a farmfest. There’s also no gank potential here…maybe unless Karthus is all the way at the turret without wards or vice versa. Roam wise, Nidalee is much better after 6, but Karthus’s requiem and pushing power makes up for that. Late game wise, both of these champions are monsters. Karthus is a bit easier in my opinion as he can just 5-man wall and just get up in your face with zhonyas/seraphs and rape everyone. But then again, one spear from Nidalee can make a difference. Nidalee hits her prime around mid game faster (really after athenes) and only gets stronger whereas Karthus really needs those items. I prefer Nidalee over Karthus overall.

Top: Nasus vs. Lulu. Lulu was last pick and picked after Nasus. Lulu does very well against Nasus, but the problem is that Lulu has no kill potential. She can bully, but there is no way she can kill Nasus against the sustain he has especially as the game goes on. Given this, I didn’t quite agree with the ignite taken on Lulu. In general though, Lulu is a very safe, very strong champion that offers so much utility to her team. I’m not a fan of Nasus these days, and I questioned this pick. I would have rather seen a tanky meta pick here like Shyvana or Renekton with TP to go along with this beast of a team comp (which I’ll get to later).

Bot: Very typical match-up, maybe except for Alistar. I think Alistar is a beast support if played right, and especially against Leona and other melee supports. If you’ve seen Aphro play in LCS, you would know how good Alistar can be and how much he is able to ruin all-in attempts from Leona. Caitlyn is definitely harder to control because Lucian and Leona are incredibly strong and literally one good e/q from Leona can lose the lane for Cait. In general, Lucian is overall a much stronger AD carry, and I would put the play making abilities of Alistar and Leona pretty equal. I expected lots of action from this lane compared to the other lanes and even for the junglers to countergank/gank this lane with Nasus potentially using TP to make the mess mostly from the supports’ play making abilities.

Jungle: Vi is a pretty normal jungle pick. Has good ganks, good damage, good picks…your typical meta bruiser. I have not much to say Vi but that I’m a big fan of her and I think she’s very, very strong and underrated. She’s also pretty strong early, so she can tip the favor for Karthus or Nasus. Master Yi was definitely a niche pick for Hugenoodlebrain. Master Yi is an absolute monster late game and is a strong duelist who can split push for days. I’m personally not a fan as he is too much of a risk pick who can snowball or get snowballed on. Also as for ganks, he can do a fantastic job at clean up (you know those intense lane fights where the other guy lives with 5 hp and then that master yi comes presses q and you die), but he can’t initiate ganks to kill someone 100-0 or even blow flash.

Team Comp: After 30 minutes, nothing can beat blue team 5v5 (unless one lane got dumpstered so hard that it was ff20). Not only that, the team has extremely good initiates from Leona and Vi that the other team has to kite REALLY hard or space REALLY well to escape this teamfight death. Luckily, Purple team had this poke comp with pretty good peel/disengage from Alistar and Lulu with Master Yi being able to split push. From my own experience, poke teams like these are incredibly hard to pull off (easy on paper, hard in execution) because ONE mistake means a loss, and especially against Leona/Vi ulties, it’s hard to really do. But then again, that’s implying that blue team will actually group and Nasus won’t go off top lane to farm the entire game claiming that he has TP while Master Yi is knocking down your inhibitor.

Early Game

Both sides had very typical starts with no level 1 invades and the junglers getting help from their bot lanes. As expected, most of the action was in the bot lane starting with the first blood. Leona capitalized on a crucial spacing mistake by Caitlyn getting into range of Leona’s level 1 Q while trying to use her ward. As Alistar pushed away Leona, Lucian was able to easily follow up with Q+passive and flash forward for the kill. I’m not sure why but Cait did not use her heal or flash.

Because of this very early advantage, Lucian and Leona were able to control the wave in their favor the rest of the laning phase. Although Cait did get one cool kill off of a completely whiffed Leona ult, due to some disconnects and some help from Vi, the general laning phase was in favor of Lucian.

Not long after, more action happened top lane where Vi ganked for Nasus while there was a huge wave near his tower. I don’t think this was a good gank as Lulu was running out of mana anyway and Nasus could free farm under turret, which arguably was much more worth than a kill and assist. Vi does end up hitting her Q but Lulu was able to flash away right at the right moment while Master Yi came for a countergank to clean up the manaless/healthless/summonerless Nasus and make Vi blow her flash.

Despite this early advatange, Nasus eventually became an unmovable, infinite sustaining rock while as Lulu was unable to kill him. Mid lane was pretty actionless until 6 where Nidalee was able to roam. Nidalee was able to get a few kills diving and catching people, but Karthus was by no means behind.

As for jungle pressure, Vi wasn’t able to do much. I don’t blame her as these lanes were essentially ungankable. Even with ult, she could not take down a Lulu with a Nasus or a Nidalee with a Karthus. If she wanted to go bot lane, she would immediately see a TP from Master Yi and risk a countergank cleanup. Overall, I would give the early game to purple side mostly due to the successful Nidalee roams and a double kill Master Yi was able to pick up bot lane due to Lucians overextension.

Midgame

It looked bad for Blue side as both Nidalee and Master Yi were 3-0 and as Purple grouped and started sieging turrets as their team comp allowed for. After pushing down the second tier top turret, Alistar aggressively initiated in an attempt to kill a half HP Vi. What seemed like an easy kill turned into a disastrous teamfight for Purple, winding up in a 2-0 loss. This teamfight exposed Purple’s weakness as a 5v5 unit and the inability to follow up an Alistar initiate.

This did not mean Purple wasn’t a threat anymore. Their team comp of Master Yi splitpush and Nidalee/Cait Siege with Alistar/Lulu disengage allowed for a very strategic game. Also, their skirmishes were top notch as no one could withstand Master Yi in a 1v1 or 2v2 duel as seen in this catch.

However, this team comp, although it sounds good on paper, was a comp that required precise vision control as well as decisive calls on split pushes and sieges. One mistake could allow for a Blue team initiate (which is no joke with Karthus wall, Vi ult, Leona ult). Anyway, continuing on with the game, after the catch in the above picture, Purple team decided to Baron. Baron decided it didn’t want to die just yet and well….

Surprisingly no one else actually died, and Purple team narrowly survived. Instead of taking the Baron or even just grouping up as 5 and playing to their strengths, they split and started to farm, giving Purple side the free skirmishes, picks, and sieging that they needed. I don’t know what their comm was like, but while Lucian and Leona randomly pushed up to second tier turret mid, Nasus was top and Karthus was bot while Vi was jungling. Grouping as 5, Purple was able to push into the second tier turret of Blue with absolutely no risk or pressure simply because they just weren’t grouped.

Now this is what happens when they group:

I’ll be honest, this was one of the sloppiest fights I’ve ever seen from both teams, but even with that sloppiness and the fact that they were over 5k gold behind, Blue team pulls out with an Ace. A few minutes later, same thing happens. A very sloppy engage, but Blue team manages to actually come out even despite that gold deficit.

Endgame

This leads to the endgame. The gold lead difference was only around 2k at this point. Despite the closing gap, Purple team played to their strengths and was not afraid to take advantage of their team composition by pushing down mid and sieging as 4 while Master Yi pushed. At this point, no one could duel Master Yi and although Nasus tried, he was no match.

Purple team was able to push down the second tier turret while 3 of the Blue team went to deal with the Master Yi. However, overstaying their welcome, Purple team lost 3 and allowed Blue to do baron. However, as the baron was finished, Master Yi was able to teleport to bottom and take out the open inhibitor while the rest of the team pressured the top open inhibitor. After managing to fend them off, Blue tried to do another awkward push with 3 members charging down mid. I’m not exactly sure what the plan was here. Nasus was defending bottom while Vi was in her jungle. With 3 squishies charging down mid, Lucian was almost caught off after one spear and cait Q. This allowed Purple to 5 man counterpush down mid and almost catch off Leona as well, but nothing could be accomplished as Purple still had baron.

Game was incredibly boring after this. I think it was mostly because Blue was forced to group defending their base while Purple kept doing that same strat with 4 siege/Yi splitpush. Purple couldn’t exactly dive them to finish because technically Blue was stronger. Blue team couldn’t exactly just push out either because Master Yi could always TP, backdoor, and finish the game. So the game was at a deadlock for a while. Eventually, after a close fight, Purple was able to close out the match with Master Yi getting a quadra kill.

Conclusion

Overall, I wouldn’t exactly call this an exciting game (maybe for the players?) but it was a pretty close one. I think strategically, Purple was much, much better grouping and communicating exactly what they should do, but their team comp just didn’t allow for a strong closer. Blue kept splitting and not playing to their strengths. Nasus and Vi would never be with their teams. Yes, I know Nasus had TP, but that TP should not be used to just come in when a teamfight starts. This idea comes from the solo queue mindset of the old days of Shen, but Nasus in front of the team even just body blocking spears and withering Caitlyn would do much more than trying to 1v5 clean up especially when Master Yi on the other team is better at doing that. TP is taken for making plays, not reacting to plays and is useless when the team is behind. (Anyone who watches LCS or more importantly, OGN would agree). Anyway, Purple team simply took advantage of Blue team’s indecisiveness and won the game.

Personal MVP

Hugenoodlebrain on Master Yi. Yes, it’s easy to say that anyone with two hands can steamroll through lategame with a Master Yi, but I think I would give this to him due to the sole pressure that he created. The typical solo queue Master Yi with an early game advantage will think that he is invincible and try to get the team to go in 5v5 and lose and blame team. It takes actually a lot of skill and mind gaming to split push and coordinate with the team to group to push. Plus Master Yi was truly the most valuable champion on that team. Put a normal, meta jungler in there like Lee Sin or Elise, and I would guarantee you Blue team would have been able to steamroll through that comp like a bullet through a sheet of paper.

Sorry this was so late, but getting used to the Medium site and trying to get all the pictures was nastier than I thought. Thanks for reading. I will probably do the next one soon now that I know how this works.