Hello everyone, I hope you are having a great week. It’s CTRL ULT ELITE back once again with BOL Plat breakdown. Still struggling a bit to find time to write these but I think I have achieved the right balance. We are now heading into week 6 of games and we have just 2 weeks of the regular season left. Hopefully your team is still in playoff contention or better yet secured a spot in the postseason. I am enjoying my time with BOL immensely and hope you are as well.
Ementals Maelstrom VS Ta Wild Side
Points of interest from this series (EM won 2-0)
Game 1 was one of the better games for TA wild side all year they got a Baron and 5 towers before EM were able to scale up and win
Game 2 was not nearly as close
Defly had an awesome series only dying twice both games and having a KDA of 12.5 in game 1 and 10 in game 2
TheRealOogway had a great series as well being able to split push effectively on Mundo and Renekton
Nezumi retains their spot as the number 1 rated player in the league thanks to an incredible game 2 as Taliyah
Kurido in game 1 as malzahar was his teams MVP doing over 10k more damage then his next closest teammate being 2nd in the category for the game while also killing 3 of their 5 towers in game 1.
So what does this mean for both teams? Elementals Maelstrom has officially locked themselves into playoffs picking up their 4th win. You still have a bye as EM in the last week and play TA Tropics this Tuesday. Taking this series locks you in as second seed in Freljord. TA Wild Side has officially been eliminated from playoff contention. Hopefully your game vs Literal monkeys is enjoyable for both teams!
Literal Monkeys vs New World Esports Nebula
Points of interest from this series (NWE won 2-0)
Game 1 was a very high kill game with 1.6 kills a minute
Literal Monkeys only got 1 tower and no other objectives this series
Goati was an absolute beast this series both in game 1 on Azir in Mid and game 2 on Olaf in the Jungle
Pacapul was the MVP for Literal Monkeys in game 1 on Kayn. They did the most damage in the entire game as well as taking the most
All Fire was the other player doing well in game 1 for the literal monkeys as Sivir. In game 2 they played Cassiopiea bot
Chinese Spy had a rough series dying 8 times in game 1 and 6 times in game 2
Dholy played very well on Zeri both games showing that despite the nerfs the champion still can carry if you have the skill and hours on them
So what does this mean standings wise for both teams? Liertal monkeys have officially been eliminated from playoff contention. New World Esports Nebula are now just 1 win away from securing their own playoff spot. If they are unable to beat Titan Gaming Atlas you do play TA Wild Side week 7 who have yet to win a game so hopefully you can grab your win there to lock your spot in the top 4.
TA Topics vs Mystic Cats
This series was the steamed match of the week! Game 1 of this series starts with TA Tropics on red and Mystic Cats on blue. Unfortunately TAT had to use an emergency substitution and had a new top laner this series losing 2 bans. TA Tropics with their only round 1 ban decided to get rid of Anivia. A bit of a weird ban I think Paneer has been the best player on this team why not go after an ADC? Mystic Cats ban Poppy, Ekko and Yummi in round 1. This series was played on last patch so Yummi is still strong with the right combination. Poppy is a ban towards jungle and Ekko is a mid lane focused ban. These bans all do have one thing in combination: they are all disengage picks so I hope that Cats are going for something very aggressive with their picks. With 1st pick TAT take Seraphine noticing a lot of disengage tools have been taken off the table the elect to take a strong flex pick that look to quickly turn around team fights. Cats take Samira and Renata Glasc with their 1st two picks. I really like taking Samira into Seraphine she dies to your combo and you can windwall her ult. Renata is like the best duo lane partner to pick with Samira so that also makes sense. You are red side as the Cats so it pays to try and counter as many picks as possible. TAT goes with Wukong and Senna to finish round 1 on blue side for themselves. I really like Wukong with Seraphine and Senna Seraphine in an awesome bot lane but you are both super weak early and squishy. I worry that if Renata catches you with a handshake does it just force your flash? Mystic Cats go with Zac before the 2nd round bans come through. Zac is really good here it lets you repeat gank people after blowing flash and even does tower dives well due to his passive letting him drop turret aggro.
In round 2 Mystic Cats focus their bans again on disengage taking Lissanda and Neeko out. TAT bans Zilean and Gwen. I guess Zilean gives you like a semi speed comp but I don’t think you pick it here as the Cats your team has really low damage already. Gwen is incredible into what you have drafted and it is probably a top lane counter pick so I really like that ban. The blind pick for Mystic Cats is Himerdinger, something that plenty of teams have started to pick, noticing his very high win rates in solo que in several positions. I think this pick is just as much about denying one of the best anti dive mages as anything else. TAT goes with Ziggs and Ganr to finish round 1. So I like the idea of this in theory this team is all about poke and letting Gnar get his split push on. I just think there's 1 huge issue and that's Zac. You have no way to stop Zac's slingshot and that gives the Mystic Cats a way to kill you all if they get on top of you. Gnar blind also since the nerfs has become even more risky, Gnar is unbelievably squishy early on. And Cats know that and take a classic counter in Irelia. So Irelia vs Gnar works by Irelia kills you over and over again. As Ganr you have to space incredibly well you cannot use your hop until irelia casts her E stun. The issue with that is Irelia can dash onto your face constantly her auto range is higher than Mega Gnars. Her Q range is also higher than your auto range as well in mini form.
Again you can watch this series on the BOL twitch channel. To quickly recap the game Irelia goes off this game getting first blood at 3 minutes and another kill top lane at 8 minutes. Cats take both Rift Hearlds and are able to gets lots of plates for themselves. The unsung hero of this game was FWESH on Heimerdiner doing the most dmg in the game. Paneer had a really rough game they were unable to finish their mythic as fasting senna despite the game going to 30 minutes in fact they made half the money that CronStar did. Ziggs for Monix 11x was able to stall the game out a bit and was able to pick up most of the turrets for TAT.
Game 2 of the draft has Cats on blue and TAT on red. For TAT they go with the Samira 1st round ban. Cornstar was crazy last game they did not even die I think banning Samira was the right call from the beginning TBH. Cats keep the same bans. Why not they crushed it. I mean maybe Ziggs was a good ban idea? Cats then decide to take Seraphine for themselves. I will be shocked if Seraphine does not become near 100% pick/ban for the remainder of our season. Not only is she powerful but she's viable in 3 lanes at a S tier and provides scaling something that we plat teams always like to fall back on. TAT go for their own uber scaling and take Sivir Lulu. Sivir has been the best ADC for 2 patches now with this patch behind us I'm curious to see if teams stop taking Sivir as much. Lulu pairs well with Sivir giving her the raw stats to make her feel like she has another item. Cats take Sona and Viego to finish off round 1. Sona Serpahine bot lane is a menace. It’s not exactly difficult to pull off and as long as you have some other high damage threats(like the Viego that was picked) your golden. Listen I’m not saying that one of my clash victories was putting 2 of my teammates on the duo neither of whom had ever played their champs before but Im denying it either alright. Vex is the answer for TAT before coming into the 2nd round. I agree with it you need something that is huge burst potential a prolonged fight vs that duo is never going to work.
In round 2 TAT bans Hiemer and Anivia trying to make sure that Vex will be laning into something that is “normal” , something that does not out range her. I agree with both of these bans; they are 2 of Vex’s worst matchups. Cats bans out Ornn and J4. I am not quite sure why you are splitting your bans here so much. I mean both are engage that puts the enchanter duo bot at risk but why not ban like J4 and Sejuani or J4 Dianna. I mean its top lane counter pick that's generally not Ornn. I mean I guess if your play is to pick something like Jayce or Renekton that needs to hard win top lane it's a good ban? TAT with 1st pick of round 2 takes Trundle. I really like this pick if it's a flex. Trundle top is great into melee carries and tanks but struggles with picks that can just look to kite him out and dp short trades. If he has one of those matchups you can just throw him in the jungle and just ult whoever in teamfights and has decent setup for ganks with Vex’s fear and Lulu’s polymorph. Mystic Cats take Yasuo and Galio as their final 2 picks. This is a really strange version of the Enchanter comp I’m not quite sure I like it. With Yone Veigo and Galio always looking to dive in your backline needs to constantly move into danger and push forwards in case of flanks. But I see the idea if you can get Viego ult into Seraphine ult with Galio knock up that's like a tikotk level wombo combo play. TAT with the last pick of the draft unbenches the Kench, uninhibits the ribbit, unclogs the frog. So TK top is a very weird pick. He's one of the stronger lane bullies but builds pure tank and needs to get ahead to be any sort of damage threat. This lane matchup is also incredibly volatile. You both kind of need to just play like complete psychopaths and accept the fact that junglers are pathing top and it's going to be messy. Both of these picks excel as setting up dives so you need to play for push. Yone can buffer the TK stun and wins any extended trade due to lethal tempo but loses almost every short trade due to grasp and the healing of Tongue Lash. But long fights are not a guaranteed win either if you ever screw up a Q3 or miss your W for the shield TK can just chunk you and easily dive you with his jungle. But as the game progresses TK is forced to stack health so Yone(who generally rushes BORK) gets insane item value and can start to win the 1v1.
Game 2 is yet another win for the Cats. The game starts as a bit of a disaster for TAT and are down 3k before 10 minutes. They play proactively however and thanks to 2 separate double kills are able to drag the game back to even. But once Cats get Baron this game is as good as done. Cats take 5 towers within their baron power play and end the game on that push. TAT bot lane both play very well this game being given the free lame to farm and scale yet no one else on their team is able to withstand the pressure. Fyth on TK is not able to win topside, electing to play as safe as possible and just does not have the impact that is needed and ends the game doing the least damage in the game(other than Lulu). Monix 11x tries their best and does the most damage in the game as Vex but they are simply unable to burst anyone down ending game 2 without a kill. Cornstar and Shovy were the MVP for the Cats in game 2. Shovy elected not to buy a mythic on Yone this game going BORK into LDR into Infinity edge.
So what does this mean standings wise for both teams? TA Tropics are no longer masters of their own fate. In order for them to get into playoffs they would have to win against both Elementals Maelstrom and Literal Monkeys 2-0. And literally Monkeys need to not win a game vs Titan Gaming Atlas as they have the superior head to head record. So for Mystic Cats all you need to do for playoffs is have TA Tropics drop a game so go cheer on Elementals Maelstrom and Literal Monkeys. Or alternatively just win 1 games vs an S tier team.
New Worlds Esports Titan vs Revolution Ice Age
Points of interest from this series (NWET won 2-0)
This series was so incredibly 1 sided I feel bad for RIA. RIA got 0 map objectives and only 5 kills to the 30 of NWET in game 1. In game 2 at least they got 2 dragons and the kills were 6 to 19…
Udyr top this game was not looking hot for Shanghai game 1. In game 2 they were much better when put onto Ornn duty even when playing vs A hard counter in Fiora
Boogie of course looked great this series on the split push style picks of Camille and Fiora
Caliburen was unable to break 100 cs as LB in game in a 25 minute game. They had half the gold of NwE Merlin in game 1
NwE Trigger was great both series playing unusual jungle picks for BOL with Nocturne and Rek’Sai
I have like no time to go over this but I have absolutely 0 idea what the draft is that RIA ran in game 2 is looking to do. It's wack. Ornn, Udyr, Heimer, Ezreal, Taric. You have like 3 tanks, a poke ADC and Heimer a zone control mage. Is the idea you just siege and slowly win? You're into Viktor Sivir and Renata, good luck trying to siege. Dive them they have Renata and your team has like 0 damage. You also have like no split answer(other than heimer?)
So what does this mean standings wise for both teams? Revolution ice Age has officially been eliminated from playoff contention. For New World Esports Titan it is pretty much a lock for playoffs as well. I mean as long as you win 1 game not even a series but a game you are locked in. That might be a little hard as you play CN and CBT. But if GE Emerald loses a game it also ensures you make it in.
CB Tsundere vs CB White
Draft for game 1 has CBT on blue side and CBW on red side. CBT goes for ap jungle bans getting rid of FiddleSticks and Lilia and go after Tristana as well. CBW decide to focus their bans on more utility picks banning Hecarim, Renata and Zilean. CBT start off draft with everyone's favourite flex pick in Seraphine. CBW answer with Sivir Nautilus taking the late game hyper scaling to match it as well as some engage options in lane to try and get early kills. CBT then takes Senna and Trundle. So Senna is somewhere bot and other than that CBT has only taken flex picks so far. Serraphine can still go mid and Trundle can go either top for a split push threat or jungle if he has a bad lane matchup. I think that this is incredible drafting out of CBT so far. Your comp is super squishy right now but have not shown any of your cards and taken away some of the stronger meta picks. CBW not knowing where anything is going take Viktor with the last pick of round 1. Viktor is always good if the game goes late and he does lane decently into Seraphine being able to trade with his shield. I also think that CBW has the right idea as well. If the enemy is taking all these crazy flex picks make sure that you have a strong bot lane and a good mid laner. Worry about giving your top laner counter pick so that you can solve the puzzle of where everything is going.
Round 2 of draft starts with CBW going after top laners. Renekton and shen are bans. I mean sure top lane bans are good as long as you have an answer into Trundle top that is not getting removed from the pool right now. CBT ban top laners as well focusing on high damage juggernauts banning Darius and Mordekiaser. CBW takes Graves jungle leaving last pick for top lane. I don't think Graves is the pick here. You need something with very high tempo; Sivir and Viktor are more than enough late game damage you need something to dissuade Seena Serpahine. Graves cannot give up farm if he wants to play the carry role and Sivir and Ciktor are going to start stealing camps as soon as they can. If you think damage might still be an issue take Kha’Zix but I would have loved to see Vi or Poppy here, something that can charge through a Seraphine ult. CBT to round out their draft go with Zac and Heimerdiner. So the only thing we know for sure about the CBT draft is 1 Senna is in bot lane fasting with someone. And 2 trundle or Zac are going jungle/top. We can assume its bot lane heimer due to the fact that Viktor is one of the only mages Heimerdinger currently loses to. Zac in top lane only can play into champions that want extended fights like Warwick or Mordekaiser. CBW end draft with Camile. I’m not a big fan of this pick either, yes it provides engage that your team needs but Trundle beats you in the isolated matchup until Camille has like 3 items. I hope it's not Zac top, Camille just wants short trades and once she has divine I don’t think you can ever kill her you stack so much HP she will just heal so much off her divine proc. I think I would have went for the wombo combo bomb and taken Kennen here or Wukong. Both lane quite well into Trundle and Zac.
So it ends up being Zac top. And well I’m not surprised now that CBT lost this game. So Zac did less damage then Camille healed this game just to give you an idea about how top lane went. Eazy in mid lane on Viktor also played super well having almost 9 CS a min on Viktor and was the richest person in the game. Bot lane for CBW in this win was pretty much a non factor. Sivir just kinda farmed, she did like 300 dmg a minute. For CBT 2 players had a good game, Coach Pizza on Heimerdinger and Jobey on Trundle Jungle.
Game 2 starts with CBW on blue and CBT on red. Both teams repeat their 1st round bans completely the same. I mean I would have given thought into getting rid of Senna as CBW just to deny some of the flex shenanigans but as I alluded to earlier I like the bans these teams did. CBW take Sivir as the 1st pick of the draft. CBT then takes their own bot lane with Twitch Amumu. I think Twitch is probably the best answer into Sivir and Amumu I guess is a flex pick. I think you should have gone for something else here Amumu does not so well into other tank supports and can be countered by disengage enchanters as well. I would have looked into taking my jungle pick here it’s safer. CBW just try and grab everything from their 1st comp and take Naut and Graves. I’m not a big fan of this as these 3 picks were more or less the worst picks from your winning team last game. CBT then takes shen before it can get banned out in draft. I mean if you support Shen by banning his worst matchups this makes sense. I don’t know why you did not grab Viktor here instead. If it's not banned CBW grab it in their next rotation and if you take it with your next pick your saving counter pick for jungle. That's generally not accepted draft theory Jungle normally has a pretty clear cut of what's good and stuff that's not good is normally pretty bad.
In round 2 CBT ban Darius and Mordekiaser trying to make sure that Shen has priority in top lane. CBW goes after AP jungle mid flexes in Taliyah and Dinah trying to ensure that they get some sort of counter pick with their last 2 picks. CBT then takes Viktor like they are kind of forced to. CBW takes Corki as their mid lane answer and Swain for top lane. That's an odd counter pick I have not seen but it's a good one according to stats sites. As far as Corki vs Viktor I think that Corki is not really playable anymore if I’m being honest. Not having the package for every Dragon fight makes you so much weaker and the amount of gold you need before your poke starts to matter is absurd. Corki needs like 6k gold to become a champion that functions and needs like 13k to be something you actually need to respect. I mean if it goes to 6 items you are more useful that Viktor is that's still true. CBT with the last pick of this draft take Viego. So veigo makes sense here due to the fact that you have high burst in Viktor and Twitch. Shen can also ult you for the submarine combo(stealth and jump out of stealth with a shen R on you). Its just as Viego you don’t really want to steal any of these people your chain resets kinda suck.
So game 2 is a super long slog fest. A 45 minute game with 51 kills between the 2 sister teams. The game is dead even for like 30 minutes neither team gets more than 1k ahead of the other. Fighting tooth and nail for every objective. At 37 minutes it looks like CBW has won yet again they get a massive team fight win and move to collect their 3rd dragon to deny soul from CBT. But Jobeby makes the hero steal and takes dragon killing himself in the process to claim the soul. CBW are then able to get baron and still have like a 5k gold lead. Both teams trade towers across the map during baron and when CBW groups to take elder dragon as their baorn buff has run out. They take Elder but lose the fight somehow and with death timers being so long CBW are able to end through bot lane. For individual player shoutouts here are some for CBT. This new jungle player Jobey is incredible. Shifti also played out of their mind on Twitch that game. On the side of CBW BruhRock on Sivir and Eazy were the 2 standout performers.
Game 3 starts and this series has been close throughout. Draft has radically changed between these games and I’m excited to see what's coming next. CBT start on blue side once again. CBT kept their bans the same for the 3rd game in a row. CBW decide to switch their bans a little bit and leave Hecarim up to ban Shen away from Rindo. CBT 1st pick Miss Fortune and I do not know why. This series has been all about your jungler. Their best pick just got left open for the 1st time this entire series and you do not take it? Why? Lulu is still up as a speed comp support and so is Sivir. CBW take Naut Sivir again for the 3rd game in a row. I guess having engage is being really highly valued by CBW because Nautilus has not been good for them this series. Sivir also does not do well into MF early, I think you needed to switch up your bot picks here. CBT then takes Amumu Viktor and I’m in disbelief. Viktor is not safe here. Why not take Hecarim? I mean CBW gets the next pick and can take whatever they want into Viktor or go to their pick after bans if they have multiple ideas. CBW answers Viktor with Yone. Hey its a skill matchup and its what Eazy wants they have played great so far so why not take the matchup. Yone can aboloutley pop off fights with lethal tempo stacked.
In round 2 CBW ban the junglers that they are afraid of Hecarim and Veigo who popped off so hard in the previous game. CBT continue to ban out top laners and get rid of Trundle and Darius, signalling to me they want some sort of tank. CBW takes graves in the jungle again. Denali the King had a great game 1 on Graves and was still a 6 item carry in game 2 sure its fine as long as your top laner is some sort of frontline. CBT then takes Diana jungle and Olaf Top as their final picks of the series. Olaf top is a weird choice here to me. Like the CC immunity is the strong part of Olaf top and CBW has very little and have a ton of kiting. Yone is slippery enough to kite you out and Sivir is probably running Flash ghost this game. I think Olaf is incredibly feast or famine and with Diana its not like you have incredible 2v2 or dive potential. I would have gone safer here with Gnar or Sett both have bad matchups sure but they are at least useful in teamfights. CBW ends the draft with something that I think riot needs to look at Udyr top. So Udyr’s rework is finished and he's kinda the same basic concept but modern he just runs at you and slaps you. The big difference between the 2 variants is the awakened passive. Awakened R is more or less Viktor Ult and awakened W is some of the craziest lane sustain I have ever seen. Loldobby has a video on it that you can find here: How KR Challengers Use Reworked Udyr
So game 3 is unfortunately the least close of the entire series. Until 15 minutes the game is dead even. After 15 minutes CBT stops picking up kills and CBW starts racking them up. By 20 mins CBW are up 5k and by 23 minutes CBW secures Baron. After the baron push the CBT base is in shambles and CBW just simply push down the last lane.
So what does this mean standings wise for both CB teams? CB White I don’t think can make it unless one of the teams agrees to a reschedule. You can get a max of 3 wins or 27 points currently and you would need at least 28 points to lock in playoffs. For CB Tsundere your safety net is all but gone. You have 2 series left, one vs GE Emerald and one vs New World Esports Titan. If you are able to beat GE Emerald in week 6 I think you lock the top 4 of the division(barring any FFs). If you lose that series it becomes tied between the 2 teams and you are both playing teams at the top of this group for the last week leading to an exciting end of season.
GE Emerald vs Crustacean Nation
Points of interest from this series (CN won 2-0)
CN has a new mid laner LædyLight (or watercat) as their previous mid ranked out of the league(Fs in chat)
LædyLight did really well this week. They were the richest player in both games and had awesome KDAs so it's not looking like this team got all that much weaker.
GE Emerald were down to fight in game 1. There were 1.5 kills a minute and CN had a kill a minute.
GE Emerald had different players this series between games
DragonMoonCake is still keeping the deaths down they only died once between the 2 games this week
TehSplash is continuing to play more of the tank junglers in BOL with games on Amumu and Udyr this week
Elsa from Frozen played Sett and Renekton keeping their juggernaut streak going
So what does this mean standings wise for both teams? CN had already locked a playoff spot but with this win I think they have locked a spot in the top 3. If they win again on the 13th they lock 1st in their group. For GE Emerald this makes your playoff path a lot harder but it is simple. Your last 2 series are vs the teams directly competing for the last spot in Shurima just win every series you play. If you win your in. Lose a series and you're out.
Basement Dwellers vs Ta Akatsuki
TA Akatsuki won this series 2-0
Game 1 was one of the longest this week at 40 minutes and was very close with just 4k separating the teams at the end of the game. Both teams got 3 dragons, a baron, Rift Herald and an inhibitor
Game 2 of the series was not nearly as close. In 26 minutes TAA won taking every single tower of BD, every dragon and the only baron.
TAA came into this series with a plan electing not to play a standard ADC and went with 2 different mages in the bot lane playing Swain game 1 and Syndra game 2. They then drafted AD damage through GP top both games and Yone mid in game 1.
Snowlife who was playing Mages bot was the undisputed MVP this series doing the most damage in both games
Eqq also had a great series in the jungle for TAA In game 1 they had a 3.3 KDA and 65% KP and increased that in game 2 to a 16 KDA only dying once on Wukong while participating in 85% of the teams kills.
Jayel for the Basement Dwellers has been struggling the past couple of weeks and is now averaging 6.2 deaths a game(that's the 2nd highest in the league amongst all ADCS)
NakNak played well this series doing the most damage on his team in both games
Battle Gnome was able to make the most money on his team in both games and only died 3 times in game 1. Hopefully they will continue to be a pillar for this team.
So what does this mean standings wise for both teams? TA Akatsuki has locked one of the playoff spots in Mt Targon with Hypnotic dropping; they receive a free win and 6 points in week 6. The remaining games for Mt Targon are all about seeding for them. For Basement Dwellers they have a very slim chance at making it into playoffs. They would have to win both their series vs SGI and Iceborn to make it in. They are however masters of their own fate Iceborn has a bye next week and SGI has a free win their last week. Even if BD loses on Tuesday they can play spoiler for this group for the final week.
SG Invictus vs Iceborn Chaos
So game 1 of SG Invictus vs Iceborn Chaos started with SGI on blue and Iceborn on red. SGI went after the mid lane pool of Mikewiwi really hard in draft of game 1 banning his 3 most played mid laners round 1 in Azir, Leblanc and Vex. Ice decided to spread their bans out a bit more going after teamfight picks with bans on Miss Fortune, Amumu and Hecarim. SGI took sivir as 1st pick of the draft. Makes sense with MF gone Sivir is probably one of the strongest ADC’s left up(this series was before the nerfs) and is a comfort pick I’m sure for almost every bot laner in BOL. Ice goes with Jinx and Kindred for their 1st 2 picks on red side in game 1. Both QLUU and Stunna have had awesome games this season on these picks. I think having both hyper scaling ADCs might be a little much but as long as you draft plenty of peel for them and a little bit of magic damage it should work out well. SGI go with Pantheon and Alistar to round out round 1. I think Pantheon has easily been the best pick for Kubix in Risen and was surprised to see if left open. Pantheon does get out scaled but his early game is nearly unrivaled in terms of gank power and dueling. It seems like a great pick here Kindred wants to invade for their Marks and Pantheon wants to fight. Alistar is the engage pick here for the team. It's good against Kindred again as you can just punt her off of Lambs Respite and Jinx has no dash you can just combo her. Alistar and Pantheon also gives you some unreal dives when ahead. Iceborn seeing the writing on the wall takes one of the best defensive supports in Braum. I really like Braum here but I’m wondering if you should have looked at something Mid. SGI has already spent 3 bans here. Why would they not throw 2 more?
Iceborn also decides to go after mid laners and ban Anivia and Vlad with their round 2 bans. SGI continues with mid bans as well getting rid of Cassiopeia and Veigar. I like all 4 of these bans by both teams. Iceborn goes with Galio and I’m hesitant to say I like it. On paper it's great for the re-engage but I just remember Mikewiwi’s last game on this pick in BOL and I shudder a little bit. SGI then goes with Veigar and Camille. Veigar has been struggling after his nerfs as well as the predator changes but can still take over a game when given a free laning phase. Blind Camille is also really interesting. It's kind of throwing down the gauntlet vs Taíase saying what you got? Camille has some serious lane counters out there she is fairly weak pre 6. Taíase decides to go with Gnar trying to provide his team with some sort of engage and I’m now very worried for Ice. Camille Gnar is a classic matchup. Gnar wins the matchup early, not hard but does win. After 2 items though Camille can more or less 1 shot you whenever you are in mini form trying to push on the side. SGI also has insane gank setup for Pantheon in every lane. Every lane has CC to follow up the 300 cosplayer wanna be baker and almost everyone on Iceborn is super squishy early.
SGI take game 1 in 35 minutes getting every tower on the map 3 inhibitors and 2 barons as well as dragons. My fears about the Galio prove to be right the game is mid diff. Veigar does 30k damage this game compared to Galios 11k. Alphnexus is simply way too strong and is more less able to 1 shot whoever STN Kubix or Shaquille stun. The other major issue is that Ice are never able to win on the side and get push. 3 people on this team do not hit a tower at all and Kindred does less damage to towers this game the Alistar does. At 20 minutes the game is dead even in gold. But SGI is up 9k gold just 6 minutes later.
Game 2 of the series has Ice completely change up their early bans. On blue side they decide to ban Pantheon, Aatrox and Bel’Veth. I have not seen Bel’Veth played a single game in BOL plat so that's an interesting one. Incivtus keep the Azir and Ahri bans but decide to ban Miss Fortune instead of Vex not wanting to give up what many people consider to be the strongest ADC. Ice takes Hecarim 1st pick an incredibly powerful jungler who gives great dive access. I think most junglers in the league have started to pick the pony back up and he has only gotten stronger after Riot buffed him this patch. SGI go with J4 and Xayah as their 1st 2 picks on red. J4 sure, great similar idea to pantheon win early 1 shot people get your lanes ahead and win. Xayah I’m less thrilled about. Yes you lane partner is most comfortable on Rakkan and that is a great duo lane and Xayah is good into hecarim but we have like 0 idea what the Iceborn comp is. They can easily just play a super strong dive jungle and completely flip into another type of comp. Xayah generally struggles into things that out range her and does well into early aggressive picks like Lucian or Samria. ICE then goes fro Ezreal Karma giving both speed to Hecarim and utility to avoid the J4. SGI finish red side with Rakkan and I’m getting a little worried. I cannot help but think Rakkan is not good into ezreal you can buffer Rakkans knockup similar to blitzcrank's pull I believe and you are generally far away enough that Rakkan cannot simply run at you and catch you with the Quickness. I guess the idea here is that you just say screw it and go in hard core before Ezreal Karma looks to poke you down?
In round 2 SGI continue with the mid bans and get rid of Cassiopeia and Vex. I mean as SGI, why not ban out the mid pool it's worked so far. ICE go with a Veigar and Camille ban, not sure who will get counter pick for SGI. I think both these picks were such a huge problem last game its a good idea to get rid of them. SGI then takes Vladmir blind mid and I am now scared. Vlad does not have CC setup for J4 like you did in game 1. I don’t know what this team comp is trying to do? Is it just full late game scaling? Is it just all aboard the shurelya from Rakkan and just run at them and explode people? These picks just seem more like random things thrown together then anything else. ICE takes Corki and Ornn for their last 2 picks. ICE has a pretty clear comp it's a poke comp with plenty of engage if people stick around after they are poked out. Corki and Vlad laning is just kind of hand shaking going see you at 3 items good sir. Neither of you are ever killing each other and both of you have gank escapes on your w. Ornn I still think is like the best blind pick in general so that was a great pick here. SGI to round out draft in game 2 takes Gwen. I am so confused. Ok so Gwen is great into Ornn in the split push scenarios. But early on the matchup is not like a hard win. Gwen has been kneecapped by Riot to take her out of pro play her early game is abysmal. As Gwen once you reach 2 items Ornn no longer can kill you but like WTF is gwen bringing to this team. Like your team already has Vlad for magic damage and the side lane. Is the idea that your just drag both these characters to a teamfight and go for as SGI? The build for teamfight Gwen is way way different than split push Gwen. I mean if Gwen has no ghost and W she will just get kited to infinity. If you just try to split push I mean your team is screwed. They are just going to get poked down before every fight and be forced to concede objectives. I think that this was the Syvanna game if I have ever seen one. Like just push Ornn around and get ahead and look for flanks. If you pincer attack Corki with J4 you can kill him. Or like Shyvana can throw the poke back at ezreal/corki.
Game 2 is super close objective wise between these 2 teams but ICE ends the game with double the kills of SGI. Alphnexus as Vlad can never get close to Ezreal or Corki they only do 370 damage a minute compared to the 680 a minute of Corki. STN Kubix is forced to build full tank and is no longer a threat. The only reason that this game is close is that STN E dash trade on Gwen is an absolute monster stat wise. Gwen kills 3 turrets and an inhibitor themselves and does the most damage in the entire game at 900 a minute. I hope SGI can draft like they did in game 1 and get this series back under control.
Draft for game 3 starts and SGI continue to attack Mikewiwi in mid with bans. ICE bans are what I think most teams would consider the best blind picks on round 1 Hecarim Miss Fortune and then go with a Pantheon ban as Pantheon ran game 1. SGI take sivir 1st pick again. ICE goes with Jinx and Kindred again and I'm starting to worry for ICE now. Game 1 this did not work ,why are you blinding Kindred. She needs to be taken later in the draft when you can see what the hell the enemy comp is. Like what do you do if SGI goes like Rek'sai and Syndra or something? Just pray that they decide to not invade you? ARGH I hate this pick here a lot, I have 0 idea why you do not take an enchanter support that Jinx desperately wants and you probably pick 3rd anyway. SGI goes with J4 and Amumu. Engaging into 2 very squishy marksmen and stun locking them seems like a good idea to me. Iceborn takes Renata here and yeah it's good but I bet you're kinda regretting Kindred right about now. Imagine you took Renata 1 pick earlier and now you can pick something more brawler based as Stunna like Wukong or Xin or Diana.
Round 2 We get mid bans. What a surprise. Cassiopeia, Sylas, Veigar and Anivia are now all off the table. Iceborn instead of banning Camille, throws the Gauntlet back and takes it blind themselves. SGI have an answer in Jax. This is of course a complete skill matchup. As Jax you need to use your E to dodge the cho ult and try and prolong every single fight. As camille you trade short with your shield passive and whittle Jax down until you dive him or look to outplay with your ult vs Jax e. SGI also has the most ballsy blind pick I have seen in a very long time with blind Annie mid. I know we have like 7 mids banned so we're going down the list a little but Annie is a throwback. I still really respect this pick. Annie is the OG push your lane, go bot get a double and win the game pick. Annie struggles into other early game focused picks as well as things that sit outside her effective threat range. But as Annie J4 you have crazy dive threat and 2v2 kill potential. ICE takes the dreaded Galio pick again in game 3. PepeHands.
I wish I could say game 3 is close an epic end to this series but it’s not. This series goes out from a whimper on the side of ICE not a bang. Ice gets 2 kills in 26 minutes and 1 tower that's it. SGI is up 3k gold at 10 minutes and by 20 minutes they are up 7k. I don’t know what to say about this game ICE just rolled over and died.
So what does this mean standings wise for both teams? With Iceborn Chaos losing the last playoff spot in Mt Targon is now up in the air. Iceborn now only has 2 series wins and 1 series left to play so the most wins they can get is 3. Both SGI and Basement Dwellers also have 1 win under their belt and have 2 series so one of these teams will reach the 3 series wins needed to secure the last spot in playoffs. SGI also has a free win vs Hypnotic in the last week. With Iceborn playing Basement Dwellers in the last week this is going to be a spicy end to the season.
Hypnotic vs CB Rush
CB RUSH won this series 2-1 and I do not have time to fully write out their banger this week.
Game 1 almost nothing goes right lane wise for CBR. They have a losing top, Volibear gets out dueled by Trundle and Cait Lux are unable to push around the Twitch Rakkan.
Objectives and kills wise its not like doomed by any means its 3 towers to 7 they were even on dragons and Rift Hearlds.
GreatJace on Wukong is the MVP of game 1 for HYP doing just barely more damage then Twitch and has 2 more kills then Twitch does.
Game 2 is kind of the domination I was expecting out of CBR for game 1.
GreatJace takes Gragas into a morde and I do not like that at all. Morde is stomping on the top side but oh my god does gl4cial outshine him in bot on Samira. Gl4cial ends game 1 with 16 kills and 1 death and goes 41k dmg they also have 250 CS in 37 minutes as well why not?
Shoutout to Pod for somehow doing 39k in game 2 on ezreal when you are the only person on your team with a positive KDA
In game 3 King Yeetloaf is given his Trusty Xerath Mid and gets countered by a Varus Mid with double support bot.
Kanaina played Volibear for CBR in all 3 games this series. They did not play exceptionally well or poorly in any of the 3 games and that's all you really need from your sub jungler.
Tui and La the jungle for HYP this series had a really good game 1, a bad game 2 and an okay game 3.
So what does this mean standings wise for both teams? CB Rush had already made playoffs so it does not change much for them. Your game this week guarantees you 1st in your group if you win it. For Hypnotic this loss made your playoff path fairly difficult but you still have a good shot. Hypnotic however have chosen to drop out of BOL due to roster difficulties.
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