NJ SWD vs MVP Blue

Game 1

In game one, Najin Sword looked to shut down Easyhoon by sending their bot duo to the mid lane and PraY’s Caitlyn was able to get the first blood on Easyhoon’s Karthus with a timely gank from Watch’s Volibear. After the first blood however, things went downhill for Sword as they did not pick up more kills until 30 minutes into the game. Throughout the game, the global ult combination of ChuNyang’s Nocturne, Cheonju’s Shen and Easyhoon’s Karthus was too much for Sword to handle. Added to the fact that FLahm’s Thresh was making plays with his death sentence and the Box, MVP Blue was able to win every team fight leading to a dominant victory.

MVP Blue (51.8k) 18:3 NJSWD (38.0k)

MVP FLahm (Supp) - Thresh

Game 2

In game two, Najin Sword was finally able to run a comp that they were used to running in the SWL with Kennen performing a protective role for PraY. The match was kept relatively close unlike the last one with each team trading kills. However, in the first real team fight at mid, Watch’s Volibear was caught out of position and Sword was forced to engage in a reactionary manner which ended up giving Deft’s Vayne a double kill in the process. With a 3 for 1 trade. After this fight, Sword members would continually be caught and killed one by one until MVP Blue was able to get the Baron, get inhibitors and win convincingly win the team fight near the nexus towers finishing off a convincing 2:0 domiantion of last year’s champion Najin Sword.

NJSWD (33.8k) 8:25 MVP Blue (48.8k)

MVP Deft (ADC) – Vayne

2:0 MVP Blue

Thoughts on the match

Definitely a statement showing from MVP Blue dominating last year’s champions in both matches. The skill combination from the former GSG members was impressive but they were overshadowed by the great playing from the new comers Deft and FLahm who each won the MVP in the two games. MVP Blue was also able to use a well thought out team comp (well executed global comp game 1, limiting Kennen and Voli through slows, Cataclysm, Knockbacks) in both games to neutralize Sword’s picks while having good synergy between them. It was also impressive that MVP Blue did not have a moment where it looked as if they would be in a position to throw the game which speaks volumes about their calm game management.

On the other hand, Sword looked out of it as a whole and it was especially surprising to see the bottom duo of Cain and PraY playing so poorly. Sword was also using picks that they had been using for all of SWL and it was clear that Sword’s strategy was read beforehand and countered effectively by MVP Blue. For Sword and their coaching staff, they will need to keep this in mind when they face another new team in SKT T1 (2) or they may start off the season with 2 losses. It’ll be interesting to see if MVP Blue can keep up this form for the rest of the season and it will also be interesting to see if Sword can recover from a 2:0 start for the second season in a row

SKT T1 (1) vs CJ Entus Frost

Game 1

The first bout of two kespa giants on the Champion stage began with a first blood from the new member Hermes’ Caitlyn along with an additional kill with the help of Shy’s Olaf as he teleported to help the bottom duo in the top lane. However, this led to a large cs difference between Shy’s Olaf and Reapered’s Vladimir and Shy was no longer able to keep up with Reapered even surrendering a solo kill under his own second turret. After aggressively pushing out all of the outer turrets, SKT was able to catch out CloudTemplar, MadLife and Hermes trying to pressure the top tower and with the three of them dying, SKT was able to take an uncontested baron at the 18 minute mark. After that point it was clear that Frost was unable to deal with all the damage that was coming out from SKT, especially Reapered and the game was ended soon after with a convincing 4 for 1 team fight inside of Frost’s base

SKT T1 (1) (49.8k) 20:9 Cj Entus Frost (35.3k)

MVP Reapered (Top) – Vladimir

Game 2

The second game began with RapidSTAR’s Karthus becoming the victim of first blood by SuNo’s Lux with a great gank from Beelzehan’s Volibear. SKT then went for a relatively quick dragon by the 8 min mark but Beelzehan made a big mess of smiting the dragon and CloudTemplar’s Shen was able to simply walk in and smite steal the dragon. After the laning phase ended SKT’s poke comp, led by Reaperd’s Jayce and SuNo, was able to pick up a couple of kills for SKT through successful pokes at middle. However, Hermes was able to answer with a double kill and the mid outer tower. The game was tipped in Frost’s favour at the 20 min mark when Frost engaged aggressively in a team fight after Shy’s Elise was able to catch out Raven’s Kogmaw with a great cocoon. The cocoon was then followed by a ult and taunt combo from CloudTemplar and a crescendo from MadLife which led to a big loss for SKT and allowing Frost to kill Baron uncontested. Frost was then able to gain advantages by having the split push presence of Shen which allowed them to two man Baron. The ensuing team fight, MadLife was able to hit his crescendo on two members of SKT which was then promptly followed by a flash taunt from Shen leading to a four for none engagement. A final engagement was fought between Frost and SKT in SKT’s base where Frost was able to clean up house with their overwhelming firepower.

CJ Entus Frost (58.4k) 16:7 SKT T1 (1) (41.9k)

MVP Shy (Top) – Elise

1:1 Draw

Thoughts on the match

This match was an entertaining set with each team taking a dominating victory in each game. In the first game, the forced teleport from Shy and CloudTemplar’s inability to make an influence in the game caused the whole game to snowball out of control. That being said, the relentless pushing and snowballing by SKT was reminiscent of Blaze in the old days. If the TP by Shy was the turning point of game 1, the nonchalant smite steal by CloudTemplar was the turning point in game 2. From there, Frost seemed to have regained their former self and they were able to beat SKT in every team fight through hard engages effectively nullifying SKT’s poke composition.

Frost as a team hasn’t changed a lot even with a change in the ADC position. They were still a great team fighting team and they were still vulnerable early game because of CloudTemplar’s herbivore mentality. Frost’s season will still depend on how Templar plays in each game. If he is as ineffective as he was in game 1 of the SKT set, then Frost will struggle mightily against every team but if Templar can exert himself OR if his laners can win their lanes even without jungle pressure Frost will still be a feared late game team.

SKT T1 (1) was also the team that we were used to seeing. SKT is a team that can win by being very aggressive during all phases of the game but as we saw in game 2, the over zealous playing caused SKT to lose the game. Another worrying sight for SKT was that Raven was found in a horrible position almost all the time and it was seen that this kind of a mistake never goes unpunished with a team like CJ Frost. Raven will have to be more mindful of his surroundings in SKT’s next outing or risk losing the game for the team again.

Fun fact: CJ has lost every single one of their first games since the start of the Summer season of OGN

MVP Ozone vs KT A

Game 1

In game one, MVP Ozone was the one to get ahead of KT A by getting first blood on Vitamin’s Renekton through the use of requiem. The turning point in the ghame came from a beautiful flash crescendo by Mata which led to a 4 for 2 advantage for MVP with a triple kill from imp on Kogmaw. From there, MVP was able to beat KTA again on a contention for dragon and in ensuing skirmished throughout the game, Karthus and Kogmaw was too much for KTA to handle. The last nail in the coffin came on a team fight at Baron where KTA was starting off a desperation Baron when Nocturne engaged on KTA immediately and the resulting team fight led to a 4 for 1 exchange in the favour of Ozone. From there Ozone was able to bully their way into the KTA base leading to a KTA surrender vote.

MVP Ozone (60.0k) 21:7 KT A (51.4k)

MVP Mata (Supp) – Sona

Game 2

Game two saw a classic brawl by both teams and it saw more than one kill per minute during the whole game. The first blood came in the bottom lane where Hiro’s varus was able to get the first kill on DanDy’s Xin Zhao but the kill was answered by Homme’s Shen who was able to kill Me5’s Sona. As the game progressed, each team was trading blow for blow but most importantly, imp’s Vayne was able to secure a triple kill top to expediate his growth. Even with Vayne’s growth, KT A was able to stay ahead in the global gold count by securing the dragon but in the ensuing team fight, the great engage by dade’s Diana and Homme’s Shen allowed MVP to come out ahead in the team fight. However during the next team fight, a great untilmate combo from Varus and Sona led to a 4 for 2 exchange for KT A. A seemingly great engage occurred for KT A in the next team fight when they were able to instantly burst down Diana with a well placed over the wall crescendo from Me5 but even with Diana dead, a free dealing Vayne was able to wreak havoc on the KT A team. From that point onwards, Vayne was too much for KT A to handle and aside from being caught out in the jungle, Vayne was able to deal tremendous amounts of damage every fight to lead MVP Ozone to a victory.

KT A (39.0k) 20:30 MVP Ozone (43.4k)

MVP imp (AD) – Vayne

2:0 MVP Ozone Win

Thoughts on the match

Dade and imp showed that they can be carry forces in both games playing a huge role in their teams’ 2:0 victory. It was also interesting to see that MVP Ozone’s team comp in both games were specialized for isolated skirmishes which could speak volumes about their teams concept and MVP Ozone’s answer to their relatively weak team fighting. The 2:0 score line was definitely good for MVP Ozone but despite this score line, both of the sets were closely contested and MVP Ozone showed some weaknesses in their game management.

On the other hand, KT A definitely looked improved compared to last season with the addition of Kakao but Vitamin remained a liability in both of the games. Vitamin’s inability to effectively go on imp during the second game especially was a huge problem for KT A throughout the game and it allowed imp to be their downfall. For KT A to avoid last place, they will need Vitamin to step up his game. In addition, it was quite unclear if KT A was trying to go with as team fight comp or a skirmish based comp in both games since they were unable to dictate the flow of the game in both games.

In their next matches, both teams will need to improve upon their games and limit the mistakes that they made during the set. For MVP, their ability to snowball and finish a game convincingly will be put to test by a more experienced team like Blaze. For KT A, their weakness in the top lane will likely be exploited by other teams in the tournament for their remaining matches. It’ll be interesting to see how both teams respond in order to remedy their issues.





Najin Shield vs LG-IM

Game 1

In the first game, Najin Shield’s wombo combo composition of Lux, Kennen, Jarvan, Miss Fortune and Sona paid dividends for Shield as they were able to win team fights after team fights with lux binding, cataclysm, crescendo and bullet time along with slicing maelstrom. After Shield won a team fight, they would push down towers as a group or take dragons as a group and they eventually won the game by winning the final team fight near baron with double kills from Save and Locodoco. While MidKing tried his best on Karthus to do the most damage that he possibly can, Shield’s aoe team comp was too much in the end. While the team composition of Shield was incredible, the way they played the game was also something to notice. For the majority of the game, Locodoco would be building damage items before building any attack speed items and Save would be building pure AP damage items instead of CDR items. By building this way, both Loco and Save were able to maximize their burst potential. In order to complement this incredible burst, Expession also built a Rylai’s and an abyssal scepter. Finally, Shield’s methodical approach to managing the game was also notable.

LG-IM (51.5k) 9:21 Najin Shield (65.4k)

MVP Save (Mid) – Lux

Game 2

The second game saw an exciting affair between the two teams which ended in an unbelievable fashion. LG-IM was able to get thing started quickly when Wolf gave up first blood for the second game in a row to Smeb’s Rumble. However, even with the first blood Smeb was performing much worse than his counter part Expession’s Nidalee who was in a 2 v 1 situation of his own in the top lane and one point, Expession had almost double the cs of Smeb. As the game went on, Shield was able to secure their second dragon by the 17 minute mark and Expession was able to split push at will all the way up to LG-IM inhibitor turret. After a prolonged chase by LG-IM, they were surrounded by Save on Twisted Fate coming in with destiny and Expession coming down from the top lane which ended up being a four for naught trade in favour of Shield. At this point Shield seemed to be cruising their way to victory in the second set with a 7k gold lead by the 23 minute mark but then the possible candidate for throw of the season occurred when Shield decided to split push both top and bot lanes with Expession and Locodoco on Caitlyn. Seeing this split push, IM decided to five man push mid and they were able to get the mid inhibitor with ease. The throw happened here as LG-IM tried to retreat and save their base, 3 members of Shield inexplicably engaged on 4 members of LG-IM leading to Sona and Twisted Fate being killed. Making the situation worse was that Expession was soloed by Smeb while trying to get the inhibitor in the bot lane. While Loco did manage to get the top inhibitor, he was prevented from recalling by Smeb and LG-IM was able to take down the nexus and win in a thrilling fashion.

Najin Shield (49.2k) 8:7 LG-IM (44.8k)

MVP MidKing (Mid) – Jayce

1:1 Draw

Thoughts on the match

The end result of a draw definitely left both teams awestruck. Shield will feel that they have been robbed of a 2:0 win. They came out with a good game plan in both of the games and almost executed their strategy to perfection in both games except for the last minute of game 2. It will be interesting how this loss affects Shield mentally. Aside from the large mishap however, Shield showed good objective control and they showed the ability to play with a well thought out team comp. If Shield can prevent themselves from making such huge errors from now onwards, they could be a competitive team in the wide-open group B. The LG-IM match also showed the growth of Save as a player and he showed that he may not be such a liability for Shield as originally thought.

On the other hand, LG-IM proved everyone that League of Legends is a tower breaking game and as long as you can break the other teams nexus, you win no matter the gold count or kill count but they were still struggling with the game management issue and strategy issues that have been ailing them since the team’s inception. One saving grace from this Bo2 with Shield was that if you manage to throw a game as badly as Shield did, even a team like LG-IM can make the appropriate decisions and take advantage of it. In addition to this, Smeb showed late game heroics by being able to defend LG-IM’s base on both sides and showed considerable game sense by preventing Loco from recalling to guarantee the victory.

KT B vs ahq Korea

Game 1

The first game saw KT B going into the game with a considerable disadvantage during the pick and ban phase as KT B chose a team of one dimensional initiators such as ssumday on Renekton and inSec on Volibear while ahq chose to play a strong disengage team led by HooN on Ryze, Trace on Elise and Loray on Sona. In the early game, KT B was in the driver’s seat led by Ryu on Diana who was able to get the first blood on Sona and KT B was also able to grab he first dragon of the game. In the ensuing team fight in the dragon pit, KT B lost out heavily in the exchange going 0 for 3 in the fight. In response, KT B was able to 5 man pressure the top tower and kill Elise and Ryze in the process but they were forced to take heavy damage to their mid tier 2 turret in a counter push. The tipping point in the game came in the 13 minute mark when ahq decided to team push the top outer turret and a team fight ensued. Even though Ryu was able to get a great engage with moonfall and Kayle ult on him, KT B ended up losing out on the trade with a great Sona ult from Loray and a triple kill from Promise on Varus. From this point onwards, members of KTB started getting caught out of position and ahq was able to take the mid towers and a dragon as a result. The team fights which occurred afterwards was a testament to the champion mismatch that happened as a result of a poor pick/ban by KT B. With a fed Varus wreaking havoc in every team fight, KT B was simply unable to hard engage on Promise due to the amount of disengages on ahq. The game ended with a final team fight just outside of KT B’s base when Diana was able to successfully engage in on Varus but the simple difference in power level was too much for KT B as they lost ssumday, Ryu and Mafa during the fight and ahq proceeded to end the game.

ahq Korea (46.9k) 22:11 KT B (37.6k)

MVP Promise (AD) – Varus

Game 2

In the second game, KT B was able to have a much more successful pick/ban phase compared to the last game when they were completely counter picked. It was ahq who tried to pull off the first move by stealing the enemy blue buff but Actscene’s Vi was caught out during the process and was killed by inSec’s Nocturne for first blood. From there, the game was all downhill for ahq as they frantically tried to match Promise’s Vayne in a favourable situation by constantly swapping lanes but this lane swapping caused KT B to dominate ahq in terms of cs and there was a considerable cs difference between the two teams as the game went on. The game remained largely passive until a fight broke out in the ahq jungle and KT was able to come out with a 3:0 trade along with the mid inner turret. During the next dragon timing, another fight broke out near the dragon pit where KT was able to come out with a 4 for 2 trade and the dragon. With a 6k gold advantage, KT did not squander the lead by relentless engaging into yet another team fight at mid which was able to net KT a 5 for 1. The final fight was fought near the Baron area where KT B was able to win out a 5 vs 4 fight and steal the Baron thereby ending the game.

KT B (48.8k) 20:9 ahq Korea (36.4k)

MVP Score (AD) – Caitlyn

1:1 Draw

Thoughts on the match

This set was definitely an eye-opening set where ahq was able to take a set off the current favourites KT B. For KT B, this match revealed their vulnerability as when ssumday is shut down, the whole team is in trouble because KT B loses considerable team fight presence when ssumday is shut down. The biggest problem was that when ssumday did get shutdown, there was nothing that Score could do as he was effectively taken out of the game along with ssumday even though Ryu tried his best to fulfill the tank role in place of ssumday. It will be interesting if other teams start to aggressively go after ssumday to try and shut him down in their future matches. The saving grace for KT B was that in the second game when they were able to start off evenly during the pick/ban stage, they were able to outplay ahq and show their dominant force which made them so successful before the Spring season.

For ahq they were successful in their debut with a draw against perhaps the strongest team in Korea right now. Ahq was impressive not only with their high skill level but also with their tactical preparations which allowed them to completely outplay KT B in the first game. Ahq’s sharp initiation from their jungler ActScene and top laner Trace was definitely impressive to watch and it gave room for Promise to deal some good amounts of damage. On top of this, Loray lived up to expectations and was able to play well in the support role. However, the question mark still remains with HooN. HooN performed decently but his control was subpar compared to the rest of the team and it still remains to be seen if Shield was justified in letting him go.

Match of the Week

SKT T1 (2) vs CJ Entus Blaze

Game 1

This was a statement game for both sides. For Blaze, they were looking to show everyone that they are the team to beat this season with a dominant victory and for T2, they were looking for the opportunity to live up to their hype.

In the first game, Blaze opted for a standard team comp with Flame on Rumble, Helios on Nasus, Ambition on Khazix, Capt. Jack on Varus and Lustboy on Lulu while T2 went for a poke comp by having Impact on Jayce, Faker on Nidalee, bengi on Jarvan, Piglet on Caitlyn and PoohManDu on Fiddlesticks. T2 was the one to draw first blood as a great gank from bengi allowed ManDu to pick up the first blood on Capt. Jack. In the mid lane, Ambition made an amateur error by evolving his spikes in plain view of Faker who immediately saw the chance to flash in and execute Ambition. Faker then roamed bot lane where he was able to pick up a triple kill, giving him a score of 4/0 by the 7 minute mark. With the huge advantage T2 was able to play their poke comp to a perfection dealing large chunks of damage while seizing Blaze’s turrets. Against the poke comp in addition to the Cataclysm, Crowstorm, Blaze was unable to hold their turrets but even with 2 inhibitors down, Blaze was able to continually farm and gain kills in team fights when they decided to hard engage with the Equalizer from Rumble. For a while, the game looked to be on the balance and T2 seemed to be on verge of throwing the game away but a mistake from Blaze near Baron allowed T2 to kill Capt. Jack and Ambition and ending the game.

CJ Entus Blaze (45.0k) 6:16 SKT T1 (2) (54.2k)

MVP Faker (Mid) – Nidalee

Game 2

The second game of the set saw T2 playing an aoe magic damage comp with Fiddlesticks support, Karthus mid and Kennen top. While Blaze was running a more traditional comp with Diana mid, Khazix top, Jarvan jungle and the bottom duo playing the same champions as game 1. First blood was drawn again by Fiddlesticks again when he was able to kill Helios on a counter gank. The first big fight of the game came near the dragon area where Blaze seemed to have an advantage but Karthus’ requiem was able to net T2 a double kill evening out the team fight. The game was really tipped in favour of T2 on a team near T2 outer mid tower when Helios made a bad play leading to a double kill from Karthus then T2 proceeded to dive Blaze under Blaze’s outer mid tower resulting in four kills in total, a tower and a dragon for T2. From there, Blaze was constantly looking for opportunities to engage in an advantageous team fight but each time the fire power from T2’s team comp was too much for Blaze to handle.

SKT T1 (2) (58.2K) 23:11 CJ Entus Blaze (48.1k)

MVP Faker (Mid) – Karthus

2:0 SKT T1 (2) Win

Thoughts on the match

For the second year in a row, Blaze fell victims to the upstart candidate of the tournament in SKT T1 (2). The T2 line-up showed great individual skills and they were able to dismantle Blaze in a convincing fashion. In addition to their mechanical skills, their team composition and game strategy to play against a team like Blaze was also well executed. However, one are that they did show a lack of experience was in overall game management as there were tense moments in game 1 even with a seemingly insurmountable gold lead when it looked as if Blaze was poised to make a comeback and even in game 2, the instance where Jarvan was allowed to steal Baron will not go unpunished in the future. Despite the mistakes, T2 definitely made a statement by beating Blaze 2:0 much like MVP Blue. For Blaze this was a wake-up call game. This set showed the predictability of picks from Blaze and it allowed T2 to make a counter strategy against the likely picks that Blaze would throw at them (though this was a problem shared by all of the 4 top teams who struggled in the first round). In addition, the criticisms that the doubters of Blaze had before the tournament started (unreliable jungler, weak laning by bot lane) hasn’t been solved by Blaze yet so it will be interesting how Blaze will fare against all of the aggressive bot lanes in their group (aside from Hiro & Me5). As well if Helios doesn’t regain his form soon, Blaze could potentially find themselves knocked out during the group stages.