Hey all CTRL ULT ELITE HERE. Sorry this is late this week. I am working too many hours and am having to cut back on my hobbies. Sorry that this week is fairly sparse in detail. I will try my best to be on time for next week. With week 4 finished playoffs are fast approaching. Some teams have already clinched playoffs for themselves and others are approaching do or die for wins. All 3 teams I had rated into S tier were able to clinch a playoff spot. This week I’m going to write about 3 matches in detail, one from each division that I thought was the most interesting and have a couple of notes on the other games.
Literal Moneys Vs Titan Gaming Atlas
Points of interest from this series (TGA won 2-0)
Rågnar is keeping the Ornn train rolling. We're now up to 9 games of Ornn with 8 wins and 1 loss. I’ll say it again. BAN THIS. Like comfort is a huge factor at our skill level. Why ban Aatrox twice we know Rågnar is picking Ornn unless its banned.
The mods are going to be looking at Hamswh1tch at this point with how well they are playing. This player is putting up stats that are not normal. This player is ranked number 2 in the league and is doing over 1000 dmg a minute. Game 1 as Xearth they did almost 2000 dmg a minute(1979). They did 1500 dmg a minute as Galio vs Viktor in game 2.
Aclick was forced to play something other then Cait in their series as it was banned both games and they did 1 game on Jihn and 1 on Twitch.
Au KnuckeD lost their top spot in the league as they were playing more of an engage role for the team so they died a lot more than normal(coming into this game AU KnuceD had only 13 deaths across 7 games and they died 11 times in this game 1)
PacaPaul played fantastic game 1 on Lilia and PuppyDrown3r had more impact on Sylas Game 1 than Rågnar’s Ornn
New World Esports Nebula vs Elementals Maelstrom
Points of interest from this series (EM won 2-0)
Game 1 is very close between these 2 teams and is a complete bloodbath(43 kills in 32 mins)
New World Esports Nebula were not able to get anywhere close to the same amount of objectives as Elementals Maelstrom in both games
Duck But Rubber for NWEN had probably their best game of the season in game 1 getting a Quadra kill and doing over 700 dmg a minute as Sivir
Nèzumi for EM was an absolute monster this series and has become the number 1 rated player in the league. Game 1 as Azir vs Viktor they did the most damage in the game and killed 5 turrets. In game 2 they smashed the otherside of the matchup.
Defly had an absolutely miserable game as Draven in game 1 but more then made up for it in game 2 on twitch
Goati still did insane on Rumble jungle game 1 despite having very little CC setup
I’m pretty sure if you asked EM for their perfect team comp it would more or less be the draft they had in game 2. This game was not close
TA wild side Vs Mystic Cats
TA wild vs Mystic Cats is the series out of Freljord that I am writing about in detail this week. This series had huge playoff implications. If TA Wildside were able to beat the Mystic Cats it would effectively lock the Mystic Cats out of playoffs. But with a win here, having a bye still and playing TA Tropics week 5 Mystic Cats would have a shot at making playoffs.
Game 1 had TA Wild Side on blue and the Mystic Cats on red with last pick. Draft started with TAWS focusing on AP threats getting rid of Gwen, Anivia and Zilean. Mystic Cats chose to spread their bans our more going after Kog'maw, Sejuani and Blitzcrank. I like the idea on TWAS side to get rid of things that are a high risk to a hyper carry. Gwen is immune(god Riot please just rework this) and Aniva and Zilean both provide tons of zone control and have good CC. I’m less enthused about the Mystic Cats bans you probably should be focusing more towards Soulbert, like Sejunai is great top lane and jungler but other picks do her job just as well or better like Ornn or Poppy. TAWS take Viktor as 1st pick of the draft and I’m kinda mad about it. I don’t know how many different ways I can say this but like Viktor has hard counters. He's weak against assassins generally and also weak to artillery mages as well. Viktor also struggles with early 2v2 fights and can be camped. Mystic Cats then take Zeri and Seraphine. I like both these picks. Seraphine is a flex pick for mid/support here and Zeri is a fairly safe marksmen who scales better than almost anyone. CornStar is also great on the pick. TAWS then take their own bot lane with Twitch, Amumu. Twitch relies on cheese kills looking for roams or faking resets and then hard punishing people on side lanes. If Twitch can get ahead of Zeri early he can start solo killing her over and over again. I really like this pick. Amumu I’m not as sold on I know you need hard CC here to lock down Zeri and Serraphine and he's good into Zeri due to the tantrum interaction but he is very all in. Amumu needs to land bandage toss and kill whoever he hooks if amumu is not ahead hes a suicide bomber whos going to die a lot. I think Nautilus might have been the pick here. Mystic Cats then take Lulu trying to make sure that Zeri will be as safe as possible. Their are picks who are better but who cares you have great disengage.
For Round 2 Cats ban Trundle and Shen looking to limit top lane options. I am not a huge fan of these bans as you are already saving counter pick for your top lane. Why not simply ban junglers no one is going to have amumu jungle. TAWS bans Sylas and Hecarim trying to make sure that seraphine does not have too many engage frontlines. Cats take Vi which is great here to try and kill twitch. TAWS takes Poppy and Ornn solidifying themselves as a 2 threat team with great team fight potential. I think the major issue with their team comp is that poppy does not have a great lane to gank really. Ornn and Viktor can follow up your CC sure but don’t have that much damage. Your bot lane is awesome to gank for but you're into Zeri lulu. If Zeri has flash I don’t see those ganks ever working. With top lane last pick Shovy goes for something interesting taking Swain Top. Swain is really good into this comp that is all about dive and tanks he just kinda sits there and drain tanks your team. And as long as you play safe it’s not like Ornn is going to kill you hes pretty telegraphed when he has opportunities. I like the comp that Cats draft its straight up disengage and that's pretty good as long as they survived the initial burst I imagine fights go your way.
For Game 1 Cats had a lead the majority of the game. At 15 minutes they were up 4k and got it all the way up to 10k by 20 minutes. ChupapiDaddy had an amazing game as Vi only dying 3 times. Fwesh was able to play safe on Seraphine not dying the entire game and Shovy was able to drain tank in team fights doing the most damage this game as well as taking the most. Mystic Cats played this game out slowly but surely getting TAWS to come fight for dragons and secured 2 barons.
Game 2 had a very similar start to the draft as game 1 despite switching sides. TAWS kept their bans the same whereas Cats decided to leave up Sejuani and banned Seraphine instead. Seraphine ban makes sense as she is powerful being a flex pick and having strong combinations in bot with multiple champions. I think TAWS should have changed their bans up a little bit. Viktor was such a huge priority last game, maybe you want to take it off the table. Vi also gave your team a lot of trouble as well maybe that was something that should be banned. Cats then take Viktor 1st pick for themselves on blue. This is actually a flex pick somehow so I hate it a lot less. TAWS takes Azir and Ashe. Azir is great into Viktor as you both freely scale and neither of you can really kill each other while Azir has early push priority. Ashe I am not sure about here at all. I feel like Ashe is much more about the team and this Team is about Soulbert. Mystic Cats then get weird and take Heimerdinger and Sivir. I think that they showed their cards way too early here but I like the innovation that the Cats are showing. So this is Heimerdinger Mid, Viktor top and Sivir ADC. I think you probably could have gotten away with not taking Heimerdinger here(I very much doubt its getting banned in round 2) and gone for a support to leave TAWS in the dark. Heimerdinger is great into Azir(and just pretty great in general) and provides teams with great objective taking, lane priority and siege. Sivir does all the same things so you are making TAWS play something super aggressive early in the jungle or your lanes are going to fall way behind sitting under their tower. TAWS answers the weird picks with a Wukong flex trying to make sure that they are leaving options open for the next 2 picks so that they know what this Mystic Cat comp is.
In round 2 TAWS ban Lulu and Taric. These are safe bans I can agree with. This Cats team just needs disengage now and they are all set. Cats ban Sejuani and Renketon trying to make sure that whoever is top lane will not be able to set up ganks for their jungler. With the 1st pick of round 2 TAWS takes Lux support trying to ensure that they can have 1 lane with push priority. I think this is a great pick here, you leave Wukong as a flex and he functions similar to renekton in top lane. Mystic Cats then take Hecarim and Leona trying to ensure that they can engage when they need to. I’m not sure about the Leona pick to be honest I think that you need a ranged support with this sivir. Lux Ashe is going to push hard and sivir wants to as well. Karma I think was the pick, letting your team reposition easier and giving you a better lane. TAWS then takes Trundle last pick and I’m not a fan. Trundle has okay ganks but his major strengths are 1v1 fights vs the opposing jungler and ulting divers. Trundle however is weak to getting kited. I don’t think that Wukong and Trundle are the right type of frontline to threaten Viktor, Sivir and Heimerdinger. Wukong is great into them but needs something else to pull the trigger if Wukong goes in they just get insta bursted as soon as he starts to hit ult. I think this team needed something to sack the top lane like Ornn to give you some sort of a go button.
This game 2 if you look at damage and kills its clear this game was not close whatsoever. Shovy in top and CornStar at ADC do over double the damage of their counterparts and FWESh still does 5k over Kurido. It was also 24 kills for Mystic Cats compared to the 9 for TAWS.
GE Emerald vs Revolution Ice Age
GE Emerald were able to pick up some much needed points with this 2-0 Victory. Revolution Ice age has officially been knocked out of playoffs. Notes on this series
Game 1 of this series was all about the two ADCS. Leavy and Hai Legacy both played fantastic in game 1 and did double the damage out of almost everyone else.
Shanghai and 1 icecreamguy 1 decided to stick to the top lane island and just took turns fighting and solo killing each other
Both teams were pretty messy macro wise game 1 with each team taking 3 dragons. RIA were able to get both rift herald's but only got 4 towers.
Game 2 had a very similar draft to game 1 but Pocketp1ck as Kayn in game 2 could not get form so they were not very useful
Leavy was unable to pop off in game 2
Senesi Squad Susanoo vs New World Esports Titan
New World Esports Titan(NWET) did not have their full roster for this series and had only 3 bans both games. Sensei Squad Susanoo got a clean 2-0 this series and are looking like a clear lock in for playoffs. Some notes on this series
NWET only managed to take 1 tower this series
Lavalizard8u played amazing on Ahri probably keep this as a priority ban
NwE Trigger got jungle gapped hardcore in game 1
Sunflower absorbed all 3 bans game 1 and still did great on twitch probably don't try to ban them out
Orphic looked much better this week then they have all split playing split push comfort picks and just trying to skill check his opennet.
Protomorph had a rough game 1 as Jinx and were not able to be the hard carry bot this team envisioned in draft game 1. In game 2 as Ashe they played much better
Crustacean Nation VS CB Tsundere
A banger of a series, need I say more? Of course I do. I wish that this could have been the match of the week on stream. There are so many cool picks in this series I really wish I could look at the match history for these games, unfortunately I am writing these late in the week so I cannot look at stats of the individual games themselves just the overview and draft lol. Spoiler alert this series goes to 3 so CN have now lost a game and if it's possible to have a worse take then my copypasta level praise I wrote I would be surprised. This was unfortunately the last week CN got to play with their mid laner as they have ranked out of BOL. Fs in chat. At least they ended on a win.
Game 1 started with CN on blue and CBT on red. CN start with bans on Hecarim, Lulu and Miss Fortune spreading out their bans. I think Hecarim is a very worthwhile ban the speed comps he enables are crazy. Im less keen on the lulu and MF bans as there are still tons of power picks left. I guess if you are looking for a Sivir 1st pick then banning MF does make some sense. I think Trundle was probably something I would have banned istead if you are trying to play the speed comp as he is able to both slow down the speed with pillar as well as Subjugate the diver. CBT ban Zac, Taric and Talyiah in the 1st round. Im curious why the Taric ban in 1st round, Taric is absolutely incredible vs any melee support but struggles with ranged supports who can peel him. Zac and Talyiah are both strong picks that are haviley played by members of CN. Crabs take Sivir looking to play the speed comp as I earlier alluded to. I like sivir 1st pick, she can be your win condition or just a facilitator depending on how the draft shapes out. CBT then take Seraphine and Trundle. I think that this is the correct response and the start of an awesome team comp. Seraphine is a 3 way flex and wants frontline that trundle provides. Crabs fully commit to the speed comp and take Zilean, Aatrox to finish round 1 for themselves. I’m not a big fan of this. Aatrox is terrifying when they can get onto the backline with Zilean speed ups but running straight into something like Seraphine and Trundle that's probably not going to happen. I get that you can match Zilean wherever Seraphine goes but why take Aatrox here. Elsa from Frozen has tons of other picks that work as back line dive threats. There are plenty of other disednage picks left open this draft and Aatrox is hard counter by brust and CC. CBT takes Ornn and their comp for pure disengage is really coming together. As far as the matchup toplane its a complete skill matchup ornn has a dash to avoid the Q3 from Aatrox can immune the pullback and does have some trading opportunities with bellows breath. No one in this lane is generally going to kill one another and that favors the tank a lot.
Round 2 of game 1 has CBT ban Diana and Azir. I agree on the Diana ban 100% but not as much about Azir. Azir does not want to run in like the rest of this team and you have counter pick saved for mid. I think you should have thrown another jungle ban towards a dive bomb threat like Volibear, Olaf or J4. Crabs ban Karma and Viktor here. Viktor for sure is a ban but there are some mid picks left open that are crazy good against the dive your team plays Anivia and Veigar. CBT then takes Senna showing its farming Seraphine bot and fasting Senna. I hate Senna because she enables drafts like this. Senna is again great here you can simply throw the root anytime someone goes CHARGE and ult to save your seraqueen. Crabs then take 2 picks I do not like this draft at all with Renata Glasc and Volibear. Hindsight is of course 20/20 but taking Renata kinda screwed your team here, it lets Ornn and Trundle build pure armor by having Zilean mid. I get the deathball that they have is super scary and you need AOE to combat it but Renata ult is too slow and you are the team running in. Volibear also is a good dive threat I agree but I think you need more damage and less utility. Olaf was the pick here if you want pure dive or maybe J4 to look to out tempo trundle and just chain gank bot lane. CBT then take Veigar and god damn do they have a good disenage comp. Veigar is an exceptional pick here giving you even more disengage and lets you straight up nuke people if they don't have the support of the team behind them.
So as it stands CN have a really hard time to win game 1. Unless Aatrox is able to get some solo kills or you are able to get an early hearld to crash their tower I think this comp just eventually is unable to do enough damage to win. This game is incredibly close between the 2 teams but CBT takes it
Game 2 in draft opens with the slides swapped. CBT keep their bans exactly the same. CN change most of their bans. They keep the Hecarim band but decide to get rid of Seraphine and Trundle instead of Miss Fortune and Lulu. I think that Seraphine is a very good ban idea especially because CBT showed that they can flex it. Trundle is whatever, sure. CBT take Miss Fortune pick 1 on blue starting that AOE worked last game and were sticking to it. CN fires back with Amumu Tristana, a very aggressive bot lane that wants to solo kill you and is especially great into Marksmen like MF who have no dashes. CBT takes leona and Volibear trying to make sure that they have dive setup ready for bot and somewhere on the map as a point of pressure. CN then takes Renata Glasc showing its the bronze special its Amumu jungle. I actually love Amumu jungle his clear is decent, he has incredible ganks but my god is he blue buff reliant. Getting invaded on this champ sucks and you have very limited creative pathing options you are almost forced to start blue side.
For round 2 CN ban things they lost to a solid strategy. Ornn get that out of here. Veigar see you sucker I wish to be free of the baby cage. CBT ban top laners getting rid of Mordekiaser and Darius trying to make sure that whatever they blind pick, Elsa from Frozen will be able to be managed. CN take Viktor here and I’m not certain about this pick. You already have a really weak early 2v2 with Amumu and Viktor makes that a lot worse and they have Volibear. I think safer wave clear would be better. But CBT decide that we drafted a strong bot and that's where we are pathing taking Corki and Sejuani. Sejuani, Volibear is an absolutely nasty gank top lane its like 4 seconds of CC if layered properly. Corki eventually outscles Viktor if the game goes omega late like game 1 did and can freely scale. Elsa from Frozen decides that this game is on their back and locks in everyone's favorite split push trick2g DCANE himself Nasus. If nasus gets 3 items it does not matter between Volibear and Sejuani you need like 3 people to kill that thing.
So game 2 time. Elsa from Frozen is a chad taking Lethal Tempo Flash and Ghost. This game is still super close between the 2 teams. Both teams get inhibs CN even gets soul but somehow the Crabs pull out the win. Queue the silver scrapes it's time for game 3.
Game 3 starts with CN back once again on Blue and CBT on red. CN ban Hecarim yet again but also ban Miss Fortune and Seraphine. Hecraim you do not want to play yourself so get rid of it sure. MF popped off game 2 and Seraphine was the lynchpin of game 1 so I agree with your bans. I wonder what on earth the plan is for this game. CBT after such a close loss must be devastated but stick with their same 3 bans. CN take Trundle as the 1st pick, a strong flex pick that looks to punish tanks. CBT then takes the speed comp and take Zilean Sivir. I am not a big fan of these into Trundle but you do not have to commit to the speed comp you can just secure yourself the ultimate late game win condition. CN continue to take new picks this series and lock in Caitlyn and Azir. This is some crazy levels of disengage into a speed comp I like these picks. Cait I’m not as big on just due to the fact that her mid game power trough is so bad and against Sivir I don't think you get to push your advantage early game. CBT go with Ornn here. I’m not crazy about Ornn here. Trundle absolutely destroys Ornn top denying his ult with Pillar every time and can just steal all the crazy bonus stats that Ornn generates. But if you are committed to a top lane tank he is the best option.
Round 2 starts with CBT going after Elsa getting rid of Nasus and Sett. Ornn is your pick top and those are some of the better matchups into him but I was still surprised to see those bans. Trundle has been picked already and is a great counter into Ornn, your pillar can be placed to deny his ult and you can steal all of his bonus stats as well. Elsa has also played the pick 15 times this year in ranked. I would have looked into banning things that combo well with Cait like Morgana. CN ban Viktor and Veigar wanting to ensure that they will have the superior scaling mid laner. CBT then takes Kindred for their jungle pick and that was a major surprise to me. This is one one of very few Kindred games I have seen and is a major counter pick into Trundle. Kindred requires your team to have early push so that you can look for marks and wants people to help her kill whoever she marks. Azir also can shuffle you out of your own ult. CN replies with Mordekaiser top and Amumu support to finish out game 3 on blue side. So Morde is good here its really good into Ornn lets you deny the ult and can deny kindreds death realm. But it makes it tough for Trundle. I’m also not keen on Amumu. It’s true that your team lacks engage but with Cait Azir and trundle you are more looking to play for siege and towers. I guess you can play the pick as just disengage sitting on your carries.I think Braum was the pick here. CBT then finish the draft with Malzahar. I really hate malz here for sure. I get you need something that can shove quickly for Kindred but man single target lockdown is not what your team needs. Having Zilean you cannot flex it mid into Azir as thats one of the few matchups Azir just wins in isolation so this needs to be a mid pick. I think that the should have been much more burst oriented. Azir is really weak against artillery mages so one of them would work well. Talyiah would be perfect but it was the 2nd ban by you.
Basement Dwellers vs CB Rush
This was the steamed game of the week and was a complete stomp both games for CB Rush. Game 1 was a little closer in kills but both games thier series were clear well played wins on the side of CB Rush.
Gl4cial popped off in both games. In game 1 they were able to flame horizon Jayel and had a KDA of 7.5
CBR Rutledge was able to do the most damage out of everyone in the entire series and did not even die in game 2.
Pipp out laned CTRL ULT ELITE game 2 on Sett also not dying that entire game
Huntersteelwolf5 did exactly as he needed to as a jungler. He ganked at opportune times to blow flashes in the series and would return to secure kills. Huntersteelwolf5 managed to take almost every neutral objective in the series away from Battle Gnome.
XFlow Blue VS IceBorn Chaos
I am surprised at the outcome of this series. I thought that Xflow Blue would come out on top of this series in a 2-1 fashion but Iceborn was able to get the 2-0 victory. Game 1 was incredibly close between the 2 teams and Xflow had the lead early and took a 26 minute baron. At 32 minutes Iceborn got a dream fight scenario and were able to get an ace, dragon and baron. With the Baron push they ended the game.
Stunna played really well game 1 securing FB and were able to carry in teamfights.
QLUU hit the 300 CS sivir win condition and with 4 items became unstoppable with all the CC their teammates packed
OPKillSwitch was the MVP of game 1 on the losing side doing the most damage out of everyone on Taliyah
XFW ReedandWrite had a rough game as Sett in the top lane but Taise was not able to effect teamfights much either as Wukong
Game 2 was a very slow even game at the beginning with only 5 kills by 15 minutes
Iceborn get a baron at 24 minutes and game was just over Xflow did not get enough time to scale and get items onto their Zeri and Veigar
Ta Akatsuki Vs SG Invictus
Unfortunately the game 1 draft lol link for this series is not working so I am unable to talk about how the draft order went. Here is the final team comps and this is my thought for each side.
TAA are very AD heavy this game 1 draft. This comp they are playing is all about bot lane focus you have a really high push prio lane of Cait Morg and a jungler who plays for early ganks and dives in Volibear. Ornn can simply scale top lane and play safe Shyvanas not going to solo kill you. Mid lane is a complete skill matchup for both teams but Yone does have a slight push advantage early game. This team just needs to secure early dragons quickly and look to avoid full 5v5s trying to skirmish and set up picks before objectives.
SGI are playing for wombo combo. As long as no one loses lane really hard this game is a win. You have Sivir Karma to contest the push of Cait Morg. Shyvana needs to focus on clearing waves as fast as possible to go deep ward and find Volibears whereabouts. You can take his camps if he plays bot too much and look for herald to give yourself a lead. Transition your early game advantage build up a slow push top or a big wave and run hard for the dragon delaying Ornn as much as possible. Mid lane as Ori the game plan is simple. Get your mythic for the 2nd dragon fight and ball your Wukong. Both of you press R and win a teamfight. Repeat that process on CD.
This game 1 goes exactly how TAA want it to. Cait and Morg early push get plates and let Eqq get every dragon. Everyone on TAA has an enormous gold lead other then DownBadAndSad who does his job as Ornn getting sieged into. This games not really close its 3 kills for SGI compared to the 17 for TAA.
Draft for game 2 has STI with 1st pick on blue and TAA on Red with counter pick. STI ban Ziggs Cait and Trundle trying to make sure that they will not get hemmed into their own towers. This is a great draft adaptation you identified a problem and are looking to fix it. TAA keep their bans the same as game 1 with Swain, Seraphine and Aatrox. STI takes Miss Fortune as the 1st pick for game 2. TAA decide to go with Tristana and Wukong. Tristana is a flex pick mid and does really well into MF its the greatest lane counter. Being able to rocket jump out of MF ult is really helpful and you can even cancel it with your own ult. Wukong is also a great flex pick here. If STI decides to go with another scaling option top lane you can throw this into the jungle or simply play it top if they pick something squishy that Wukong can look to solo kill. STI goes with Nautilus and Pantheon jungle looking to play for early game snowball as hard as possible. Pantheon has incredible gank setup and good dive potential but is an absolutely worthless pick when behind. I think that this a valid path to go down game 1 you got shut out lets try and pull a UNO reverse card here and shut them out. TAA go with Alistar to close out round 1 of game 2. Alistar is a bit of a throwback Nautlius answer the idea behind it is you just stand in front of your AD and pop aftershock whenever he goes in. If Naut flashes behind you simply just headbut the ADC out of the trade. Alistar also gives you another way to stop the MF bullet time. It just means that both junglers are almost forced to path bot lane that is a lane of violence due to this draft.
For round 2 TAA ban away Sylas and Shyvana. I agree with the Sylas ban for sure Wukong and Alistar are 2 ults that Sylas can use exceptionally well. Shyvana sure it was decent last game. STI goes after Viktor and Fiora. Fiora is a really good split pusher and when she has a winning matchup can 1v9, so with TAA having last pick I support that. Viktor is always a good pick/ban with a 61% WR in BOL right now and the 2nd highest pick count. TAA then goes for blind pick Oriana. This is a bit of an ego draft from TAA basically saying we can play your 1st comp way better than you can in the same circumstance. STI goes with Veigar and decide to blind Gnar top lane for STN e dash Trade. Veigar is great here; he does very well into Ori traditionally and it gives somewhere else for Pantheon to gank. Gnar is in a bit of a rough spot right now in terms of solo queue win rate but they have played the pick multiple times this year. He is a competitive staple being more or less a tank with some split push threat. My only worry is that Gnar really struggles with early game carries when Wukong was popular top lane he was Gnars hardest counter pick. TAA take the Vi here and its more or less a flip of game 1.
This game there is a clear MVP and its STN Kubix for SGI. They end the game 10-3-11 on pantheon while getting soul for their team. Im guessing DownBadAndSad gets camped top lane or something, they end this game with 7 deaths and 0 kills. Despite how well the top side of the map did Snowlife played amazing on Tristana being the richest player in the game and making it so the gold lead for SGI was only 4k despide TAA being down 13 kills and over 20 assists. So we go to game 3. This series has been very much decided by who plays the early game better. It has been win lane win game this series I'm curious to see what the adaptations are for both teams.
TAA on blue side ban Pantheon Aatrox and MF. These bans are just what have worked for SGI this series. STI go with the Cait, Ziggs and Volibear bans trying to once again put TAA back onto scaling. TAA take Seraphine for 1st pick of the draft. Serqueen as annoying as she is a good competitive pick. She's flexible, provides tons of utility and even has decent damage. STI goes to match the scaling and take Sivir and Veigar. Sivir sure Veigar not so much. So Veigar struggles with 2 things primarily in lane: picks that outrange him and picks that pop him(he's a squishy yordle). Seraphine out ranges Veigar can shove faster to beat him to roams and can throw out CC that can let you 1 shot the master of evil. If Seraphine is support its great for Veigar thats just a free 1 shot target. But if Seraphine has gold she effectively matches you and her utility lets her outvalue you in teamfights. TAA go with Nautilus and Twitch to compliment Seraphine and this is a problem for STI. Twitch does quite well into Sivir as your power spikes are easier to get and you can snowball your kills. STI goes with Braum a fantastic lane partner for Sivir to keep her safe and something that can punish Naut if they go in.
For Round 2 of pick Ban STI bans out Trundle and GP trying to make sure that STN e dash Trade can get a winning patchup. TAA go with bans on Wu Kong and Bel’Veth. These 2 picks are super strong carry junglers. If you can avoid pre 6 fights on these champions they hit an immense power spike for dragon fights. STI goes with Nocturne leaving top as a blind pick. Nocturne again is a carry jungler if they get to 6 and the games even they can almost always turn around and get kills. My only concern with Nocturne here is you do not have any dive buddies. Sivir Veigar and Braum are all going to sit back in fights. This pick looks like its going to be the only thing going in so it might not be that great. TAA take Olaf and Gragas to finish their draft and both can be flexed top or jungle depending on the matchup. This team comp by TAA is awesome you have dive threat tons of utlity and CC and lots of damage. With the last pick of the draft STN E dash trade takes Gnar. Gnar is great into olaf(just kite him bro) and has a decent matchup into gragas as well. So STI are playing a comp that just needs the game to go late. Sivir needs 3 items to become a true carry and the later the game goes the happier Veigar is. Gnar generally wants to wait to join full on teamfights until 2.5 items as well so that they can survive diving in and the same is true for Nocturne. I’m really not a fan of this Nocturne pick if I’m being honest. I think you needed something more to play with the rest of your team. Like Talyiah works here or J4 or Veigo something to just sit with the team.
This game 4 is still not very close. TAA gets soul and both rift heralds in their win. PotPot Pothead and Snowlife both have great KDAs and have item advantages by the end of the game. STN Kubix dies 8 times as Nocturne; they are unable to get ahead and just die on repeat with their ults.
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