The OGN Champions Summer tournament is quickly coming to an end, and the semi-finals are almost upon us. The first semi-final features two veteran teams of the Korean scene: CJ Entus Frost and the KT Rolster Bullets. With the teams already drawing 1-1 in their group stage match, it is quite fitting that they get a chance to settle their score in the playoffs. Both teams will be desperate for victory, as the placing in this tournament helps to determine final circuit point standings, which will be vital in deciding which Korean teams are going to the World Championship.

In order to preview this great matchup, I’m going to be analysing game 1 of the teams’ group stage match. Highlighted in my analysis will be picks and bans, the theoretical interaction of the two compositions, and how the game actually played out.

Highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56mvnrw3F_A

English commentary VOD (requires subscription): http://www.twitch.tv/ongamenet/b/432699662?t=2h13m30s

Pick and bans:

The teams are:

KT Rolster Bullets (Blue): Insec – Malphite, KaKao – Elise, Ryu – Orianna, Score – Vayne, Mafa – Nami.

CJ Entus Frost (Purple): Shy – Shen, CloudTemplar – Zac, Ganked by mom – Jayce, Space – Ezreal, MadLife – Sona.

Note: I will not discuss all the picks and bans, just the strategy and mind games that I found interesting or significant.

Frost attempted to ban out Ryu by getting rid of Ahri and Twisted Fate, two of his strongest champions. Ryu responded by picking Orianna, the only champion that Ganked by mom (GBM) had played in OGN thus far. With the Bullets themselves banning two potential mid champions, Ryze and Kennen, I feel that GBM’s champion pool was severely diminished in this game, from the very beginning.

With this in mind, Frost responded by choosing Jayce for GBM in their second pick rotation, leaving Madlife’s support pick for last. This was very unusual because it revealed Frost’s double AD strategy, when the Bullets still had two picks to go. Frost may have been forced into this in fear of InSec picking Jayce away, leaving GBM with few other champions to play. Although InSec had only played tanky initiators up to this point, he did play Jayce in a future OGN match; it is therefore likely that Frost was aware that he was able to play it, from solo queue or scrims.

Frost’s strategy was very clear, running Jayce and Ezreal for poke, with Shen providing split-pushing pressure. The Bullets were now in a perfect position to counter-pick Frost, if they had a double AD or split-push counter up their sleeves.

The Bullets decided to pick Malphite for InSec in the top lane, which was an excellent choice in the context of this game. Firstly, InSec was a new top laner, who looked most comfortable on tanky, dive-oriented champions like Zac and Shen; Malphite fit the bill well in this sense. Most importantly, however, Malphite countered Frost’s poke and split-push strategy superbly.

To counter both poke and split-push, Malphite provides a reliable form of hard-initiation with Unstoppable Force. Poke compositions crumble if they are engaged upon, as they are generally squishy and have poor team fighting capabilities. Frost’s split-push was also countered by Malphite’s engage, as the Bullets could simply five-man mid and all-in the four members of Frost, potentially killing someone before Shen could arrive with Stand United. Lastly, the armour-heavy build of Malphite will all but nullify Frost’s double AD threats in the late game, making InSec very difficult to kill.

Overall, the Bullets came out on top of the picks and bans with a slight compositional advantage. It was certainly too early to rule out Frost however, as their composition was still superior to the Bullets’ in one key aspect: the mid game.

Frost’s mid game monster

Frost’s game plan was crystal clear; they would run a 4/1 split-push with Shen, sieging and poking with Shock Blast and Mystic shot from Jayce and Ezreal. The ideal scenario for Frost played out like so: the Bullets would be too damaged from Frost’s poke to fight, with the dive pressure from Zac pushing them away from defending turrets. If Malphite grouped with the rest of his team and was not present to defend Shen’s split-push, Frost would disengage, and Shen would take a tower.

For Frost to be victorious, they had to take advantage of their composition’s strong mid game. As with any double AD composition, Frost had the pushing edge early on, and needed to take fast towers to achieve an early gold lead. Because all of Frost’s damage came from their two ADs, the success of Space and GBM was paramount.

Jayce and Ezreal are both champions who have a good early game, thanks to the high base damages on their abilities. They reach their peak in the mid game, once they have completed their Muramanas (this game was played on the 3.8 patch, so Tear of the Goddess stacked quickly). Once they both had finished Muramana, Frost’s composition would hit a huge power spike, and would be incredibly strong for 5-10 minutes; this was their timing window. For Frost to be successful, they needed to capitalise on this massive power spike by accruing a large enough gold lead to make the Bullet’s late game irrelevant. If they were unable to achieve this, or if the game dragged late, Frost would be in for a rough fight.

It is important to note that despite AD carries being known as late game powerhouses, double AD compositions actually have a very poor late game. With all of Frost’s chips in the physical damage basket, Malphite and Elise can simply stack armour and take no damage from the AD threats of Frost.

The Bullets’ beastly late game

In contrast to Frost’s split-push and poke composition, the Bullets chose an all-in teamfight comp. With Malphite initiating with Unstoppable Force and Orianna’s Shockwave to follow it up, the Bullets were looking to catch as many members of Frost as possible in their AOE ultimates. If these spells were used correctly, Vayne would be able to skirt around the edges of the battle and clean up. Nami and Elise were simply strong general choices for their roles, with Nami providing valuable disengage with Tide Wave, and Elise offering a secondary form of initiation with Cocoon. Malphite would ultimately be the key to his team’s success or failure; if he was unable to land a good Unstoppable Force, the Bullets would eventually be poked into submission.

The Bullets had a great late game team composition, with Orianna, Vayne and Malphite all scaling very well with items throughout the game. Their weakness, however, was their mid game, with Orianna and Vayne – the damage threats – being comparatively weak to Jayce and Ezreal. Orianna hits a power trough in the mid game, where her base damage alone is insufficient and also lacks the items to make up for it. Vayne is similarly lacklustre in the mid game, dealing good damage, however being vulnerable to Ezreal and Jayce, outranged and able to be bursted.

While it has been mentioned previously, it should be emphasised that Malphite will be an exceptional late game threat to Frost in this game. While this would not necessarily be the case if Frost had mixed damage threats, Malphite will be extremely disruptive to Jayce and Ezreal because they both deal physical damage.

What made this game so interesting was how contrasting the compositions, objectives and timing windows were for both teams. Frost were looking to split-push and poke, never directly engaging. The Bullets, on the other hand, were looking to group and teamfight, with Malphite at the front, diving in. Frost needed an early advantage, leading to a swift victory. The Bullets, however, needed a long game to ramp up. It was going to be an excellent contest either way, with teams of such a high calibre competing for the victory.

The game

1:55 – Frost gives their blue buff to Jayce, sending him to the bottom lane to 1v2. This allows him to safely farm at range with Shock Blast, without worrying about mana issues. Frost is able to do so as they have Zac, a manaless jungler.

With Jayce laning 1v2 bottom, Frost sends their duo lane mid. This meant that Frost were able to get valuable damage on the middle tower, being the hardest to siege after the laning phase (this was exceptionally important due to the Malphite initiation that could come from many angles in the mid lane).

2:37 – Sona uses her position in the mid lane to assist Zac in stealing the Red buff away from Elise; this was made possible thanks to a good ward placement in an early invade. This meant that Zac was still able to secure two early buffs, while sacrificing his own blue to Jayce. It set Elise a full level behind, which was additionally detrimental considering she started with a Doran’s Blade. Starting Blade usually only pays off if early kills can be gained from it, which was now unlikely due to how far behind she was.

5:00 - The early game was slow for both teams due to how the lanes played out. In the top lane, it was near impossible to gank either tank. In the mid lane, Ezreal and Sona simply pushed minion waves as hard as possible, trying to get free tower damage. In the bottom lane, Vayne and Nami had the same idea, pushing Jayce to his turret. Elise may have been able to dive Jayce in the bottom lane, or apply more pressure middle, but the early red steal from Zac ensured that she had to neglect ganks and farm to keep up.

7:25 – Jayce and Ezreal both purchase their Tear of the Goddess at the same time. This ensures that their power spike will be roughly synchronous, in order to increase its potency.

Jayce was now sent to the mid lane, with Ezreal and Sona headed bottom. Frost did this because Orianna’s wave clear was getting fairly strong, and Ezreal and Sona were unlikely to get much more damage on the mid tower.

Shen chose to purchase Spirit Visage first, in order to deal with Malphite’s magic damage. Frost were not be willing to 4/1 split-push without the Sunfire Cape being completed, so the lane phase looked to be extended until this was purchased. An extended laning phase meant the Bullets weren’t losing early towers, whilst Frost was able to charge their Tears; both teams were content with a longer laning phase, in this sense.

11:50 – Possibly becoming impatient, Elise attempts an unlikely gank in the top lane. It proves fruitless, and Frost respond instantly with an uncontested dragon. This was a poor move by the Bullets, considering the unlikelihood of gank’s success, and the certainty of Frost taking a free dragon if she was spotted top.

14:10 – Elise tries to force another gank, this time in the bottom lane. After Elise’s Cocoon misses, the Bullets get caught in Sona’s Crescendo and Ezreal is able to burst down Nami thanks to Ignite. The Bullets may not have been aware of Ezreal running Ignite, a Summoner spell that is now seldom seen on ADs.

15:30 – Malphite manages to kill Zac 1v1 after Shen’s Stand United was baited out, sending him to the bottom lane. While not a game changer, feeding Malphite a free kill against a double AD composition is never a good idea. CloudTemplar possibly underestimated Malphite’s burst, considering he is fairly rarely picked in Korea.

16:53 – Seeing Zac in the top lane, Nami is able to land an Aqua Prison onto Ezreal. Off the back of this, Vayne manages to kill both Ezreal and Sona thanks to the Blade of the Ruined King that she just purchased. This was an important buy as it gave her a huge early game power spike, in contrast to the Ezreal who was charging up Tear.

With no one to defend the turret, Vayne and Nami easily destroy it. Zac is then caught off guard by a four-man gank in lane, with Orianna and Elise rotating down. Crucially, Vayne gets the kill, giving her three kills in only a couple of minutes.

At this point, the gold was essentially even, with Frost keeping up due to the dragon they took, first blood gold, and a slight minion score advantage across the board. Frost were unable to take any large early game advantage through towers or kills, leaving them to fully rely on their mid game power spike for success.

20:13 – Shen completes his Sunfire Cape, and the rest of Frost immediately respond by grouping mid. Because of this purchase, Frost felt that they were strong enough to begin to 4/1 split.

With Shen in the top lane and Ezreal farming in the bottom lane, Malphite manages to catch Jayce and Zac in a great Unstoppable Force and Shockwave combo. Despite Stand United being used on Jayce, the Bullets manage to burn through the shield and kill him before Shen can arrive. With Jayce dead, the Bullets destroy the mid outer turret and back off.

The Bullets managed to pull off their ideal engagement with this move, killing a target before Shen could arrive and subsequently taking an objective. This play was an illustration of how crucial Malphite was to the Bullets’ success. If he could find a good angle for Unstoppable Force – which he did in this case – the Bullets have an easy engagement and a high probability of success.

At this point the Bullets were 2k gold ahead. While it was obviously good for them to be leading in the mid game, their weakest point, it would not mean much when Frost hits their power spike. Interestingly, the Bullets also held a 3-0 tower lead, despite being the inferior pushing team. This was simply due to the advantages that the bullets took in lane, with Malphite out-pushing Shen and Vayne securing the double kill bottom.

21:41 – Jayce completes his Muramana. This was the definite signal for Frost to 4/1 split with the immense poke damage that Jayce could now deal out. Ezreal would not complete his until 2 minutes later, due to how easily Jayce could charge Tear through changing forms with his ultimate.

22:35 – Shen pushes top and forces Malphite to respond, allowing Frost to destroy the mid outer turret. A good move by Frost; if they could preoccupy Malphite elsewhere, the Bullets have no other form of reliable engage to negate Frost’s poke.

25:30 – You can see that the Bullets have full knowledge of Frost’s timing window at this point. They see Shen in the top lane, and let him take a tower without responding to him. Instead, the Bullets decide to push out the middle and bottom lanes, not putting themselves in a position to be poked. Through pressuring the lanes like this, the Bullets were wasting the power spike of Frost, forcing them to simply clear minion waves. The longer the Bullets could delay the game, the closer they were to their late game power spike.

26:20 – Sona lands a great initiation with Crescendo onto Orianna and Elise. The fight is messy for both teams, with Malphite’s ultimate being wasted on Zac and Shen, and Oriannas ultimate also only hitting Zac. Ultimately, the fight ends with a 3 for 3 trade. The Bullets were extremely lucky to get away with an even trade, forced into a fight when Frost were at their strongest.

The reason that they were able to achieve this was because of how fed Vayne was. Already having three kills, she was able to 1v2 Zac and Shen, coming out with two kills from the fight overall. The five kills that Vayne had now accumulated essentially put her in late game status, able to pick up three major items by 28 minutes.

Frost’s timing window was quickly coming to a close. They only managed to destroy two towers and come out with an even 3 for 3 trade while they were at their strongest. With Vayne getting fed, and Malphite almost completing Randuin’s Omen, Frost had to make a decisive move.

28:50 – With Shen split-pushing in the bottom lane, the Bullets clear out baron wards and start their baron dance. Malphite peels off from the rest of the Bullets and stays near Frost’s red buff, looking to initiate with his ultimate. With Baron being at stake, the outcome of this engagement would most likely determine the winner of the game.

Thanks to Nami’s excellent vision control, Frost are forced to run in blind and face-check the Baron area. Malphite, flanking from the side, manages to land an Unstoppable Force on Jayce, Sona and Zac, sealing their fate. The Bullets follow up well, and manage to kill three members of Frost, only losing Malphite in return. Jayce and Shen unsuccessfully attempt to contest Baron, and end up dying themselves. The Bullets emerge with the Baron buff and 5 kills, giving up only 1 in exchange.

30:00 – At this point it was safe to say that Frost failed to capitalise on their timing window. Vayne reached her late game potential, and Malphite became extremely tanky as expected.

A viewer that was unaware of the compositional interaction between the two teams may have thought the game was still close; a 4k gold difference at 30 minutes is certainly not a significant margin. However, due to the fact that the Bullets simply had a far superior late game team, it was safe to say that, barring a huge throw from the Bullets, the game was won for them.

The Bullets managed to close out 10 minutes later. I chose not to analyse any more of the game because, from a strategic point of view, the Bullets had won the game.

All of the game is very interesting, however I only covered the points that I found significant. You should definitely watch the whole game over at OGN’s Twitch.tv channel, linked at the top of the article.

Synopsis

The Bullets managed to completely negate Frost’s mid game power-spike by either engaging with Malphite, or wasting Frost’s time by keeping them preoccupied with minion waves. This was the most impressive aspect of the game for me; the Bullet’s ability to not only recognise Frost’s power spike, but adapt to negate it in game.

Of course, without great Malphite play this would have been impossible. InSec was very impressive on Malphite, with all but one of his ultimates being superb initiations. InSec, moving to the top lane this season, has shown a remarkable transition from the jungle and always looks solid in his new role.

Another crucial moment in this game was Vayne picking up three kills during the laning phase. Vayne benefits from a huge early game power spike with Blade of the Ruined King, and it caught Space and MadLife off guard. Vayne getting fed allowed the Bullets to emerge 3 for 3 in a fight that they really should have lost. It is a testament to how such small things, like Mafa landing the Aqua Prison in the lane which lead to the kills, can have such large consequences later on.

Frost were simply unable to capitalise on their power spike in this game. It was not due to poor play on their behalf, but simply due to excellent play from the Bullets. Frost revealed their team composition too early, which allowed the Bullets to effectively counter-pick with Malphite.

Settling the score

With Frost winning game 2 of the series, the two teams drew even in the series. The semi-final is a chance for the teams to settle their score, particularly with the Bullets knocking out Frost’s sister team, Blaze. It is anyone’s guess as to who will come out on top, with both teams looking strong and in-form, coming into the match.

Thanks for reading! Your feedback is appreciated. You can discuss the article here: http://www.reddit.com/r/summoners/comments/1krkzq/ogn_kt_rolster_bullets_vs_cj_entus_frost_match/