Hey it’s Doublelift, analyst for the World Championships and AD for Counter Logic Gaming, here to give you my thoughts on the fourth day of Groups so far at the S3WC. As always, I’m going to try to get to the point as fast as possible, which is going to create a lot of disparity on the length at which I talk about each game.

Samsung Galaxy Ozone vs Gambit

This match was hugely important for the Korean favorites coming into the group, Ozone could not afford to lose any more games without jeopardizing their ability to make quarterfinals. Everyone was interested in seeing what adjustment they would make, as Dade’s incredibly poor performance has been making it hard for his team to win against Fnatic and Gambit.

However, Dade was put on a comfort pick – Ezreal, and Ozone was able to run a comp that they are quite familiar with. Double AD with Ezreal + Caitlyn is a comp in which once they get going, every tower on the map is going to die. There were a couple strokes of luck that put them in the position to methodically take every tower on the map, and the first one came from bot lane. Genja stupidly face-checked into the bottom brush at level 1 as the minion wave was coming in, and Corki’s delicate lane machup vs Caitlyn was completely ruined at that moment.

There was no way for a Doran’s Shield start Corki to do anything against a Caitlyn after his facecheck and recall, and that allowed Ozone’s bot lane to take the first tower. Meanwhile, the mid skirmish pulled Dade far enough ahead to hold down Alex Ich and Diamond, which effectively snowballed the game into an unwinnable situation for Gambit. Karthus, Aatrox, and Elise simply don’t have enough hard engage to turn the game around against double AD.

Fnatic vs Vulcun

Initially, I had thought that Vulcun’s Lissandra + Elise combo would be enough to hold down xPeke and not allow him to have much game impact. Teleport is not a great laning summoner spell, and puts you at a distinct disadvantage unless you can use it to turn around a sidelane skirmish. However, xPeke CS’d surprisingly well while being camped, even pulling ahead of Mancloud. This is not something that I expected, and Cloud winning midlane is essential to any of Vulcun’s games.

This is not really the reason that Vulcun got stomped however. Their over aggression and give away of their bot lane gank gave xPeke enough time to see the gank being choreographed and TP in to turn it around. Vulcun traded 1 for 3, and at that point they couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes. As I pointed out at the desk after the game, all Vulcun had to do was wait for the time bomb that is Vlad to get the necessary items and become an unstoppable split-pusher against Zac. When Sycho Sid got ganked and lost his 20 CS lead, there really wasn’t any hope for Vulcun considering they then had 3 losing lanes.

Mineski vs Gambit

Not much to say during this game other than Tgee (Mineski’s support) hasn’t impressed me at all this tournament. I see him missing a lot of skillshots and making poor decisions in-game. However, this game, Exo and Tgee did surprisingly well against Genja and Voidle. Picking up kills 2v2 shows that either Mineski’s botlane is stronger than people gave them credit for, or Gambit’s bot lane is weaker.

Fnatic vs Samsung Galaxy Ozone

There’s so much to talk about what went wrong for Ozone here, and how beautifully Fnatic played despite being behind early.

First, Ozone wanted Lissandra to lane vs Zed and for their Zac to lane vs the 2v1. Sending their duo mid to hold down Kassadin was the right move for them. However, they incorrectly guessed Fnatic’s sidelanes, and Lissandra was stuck 1v2 while Zac was unable to stop Zed from farming. This was another show of Dade’s awful performance this whole tournament, because he managed to get Ozone a substantial early lead due to Fnatic overextending top lane early in the game. However, he fed Puszu continuously throughout the early game afterwards because, quite frankly, he is playing terribly.

Imp and Mata had so much potential to impact the game as well, but they mispositioned twice and were randomly picked off when all they had to do was hold down Kassadin and allow Fiddle + Lissandra to get levels, effectively countering Fnatic’s triple assassin comp. It really was sad seeing Ozone throw away their lead after reacting beautifully in the early game to Fnatic’s failed dive.

On the other hand, Fnatic really played a solid game and showed why they won EU playoffs. I really like the way they use brush to create picks, and how xPeke knows how to play from behind. I drew comparisons between xPeke and Faker becaue of their similar versatility and show of skill + play making ability.

Vulcun vs Mineski

Another brutal game to watch, really nothing to point out for Mineski’s games because they are so outclassed by other teams. They do lose gracefully and with smiles on though, which I can respect.