Pre-game thoughts

TSM is quickly turning out to be what I like to call an “SKT style” team: A dominating mid laner, a strong top laner given the chance, a struggling jungle, and an inconsistent bot lane. This is particularly problematic for the international stage because the 3 Korean teams that are poised to do very well in the tournament are extremely acclimated to playing against and dealing with the very best team in that style, SKT T1 K themselves. It is crucial for TSM to take this game since they obviously want to avoid SSW. In this particular match-up the difference in junglers is very noticeable: Insec excels at playing the counter gank style type of jungler in Khazix and Rengar, while also being known for his play-making Lee Sin. Bjergsen and Dyrus seem to be the pillars of TSM at the moment as Turtle can be inconsistent at times, which leaves us with a clear divide of team strength of the top half of the map (assuming standard lanes) to TSM and the bottom to Royal.

Pick/Ban

TSM 1st Ban Rengar: An obvious decision to make and they have no real reason to hide it until a later ban. Amazing doesn’t play Rengar and Insec’s performance on him in the first TSM vs Royal game demonstrated the need to take this away. With strong counter ganks and mobility, he perfectly suits Royal’s play style of allowing Uzi to aggressively dominate bottom lane and draw in ganks which Insec can foil.



An excellent counter gank from Royal in Game 1

Royal 1st Ban Maokai: General strong top lane champion that has rooted himself into the meta. Given that TSM has first pick, it’s a sensible ban.

TSM 2nd Ban Zilean: Lustboy favors Nami as his support which makes a Zilean flex pick unlikely for TSM; Bjergsen tends to perform better with Xerath/Ori/Syndra/Zed anyways. The other thing to consider here is that Royal tends to focus on Uzi/Insec. Zilean is an amazing utility mid laner and doesn’t need to win his lane in order to assist Insec in diving in or Uzi in staying alive.

Royal 2nd Ban Elise: Amazing’s comfort junglers are Lee Sin, Khazix and Elise. Taking away Elise pressures TSM towards a Jungler first pick as Amazing, while able to play Khazix, isn’t as proficient (If Royal picks Lee then Amazing is somewhat forced into Khazix). An interesting ban considering his performance in game 1, but not completely without its merits. Personally I would have preferred to see a Nami ban to hit Lustboy’s comfort pick and ability to aid Wildturtle in surviving the Uzi onslaught, or a Rumble ban (TPA picked up on this) for Dyrus considering his crushing performance on him.

TSM 3rd Ban Lucian: A strong ban that takes away some of the carry power from Uzi if TSM picks up Trist, although given that TSM will almost 100% first pick their jungler, this also takes away TSM’s option of picking Lucian into Trist if Royal picks her first. Recently we’ve also seen Corki picked up to capitalize on Trist’s mid game deficiencies making this somewhat of a disagreeable ban in my opinion.

Royal 3rd Ban Alistar: 4.14 Alistar is still a monstrous force to be reckoned with as he retains his ability to auto attack after a headbutt; he pushes out the vast majority of top laners and has an extremely large presence in team fights. Dyrus has shown he can play Alistar proficiently, making this a sensible ban. Overall, bans are in favor of TSM in my opinion.

TSM 1st Pick Lee Sin: TSM hovered Janna but recognized that giving Lee Sin to Insec and forcing Amazing onto Khazix would be a very poor choice. Lee is Amazing’s stronger champion while Lee/Rengar are Insec’s. An obvious and sensible choice, however this leaves Janna/Trist open which is why TSM hovered Janna in the first place.

Royal 1st/2nd Pick Ryze/Janna: Oh geez. This is where it starts to go south for Royal. The Ryze blind pick was completely unnecessary and everyone expected the sensible Tristana lock in instead. Janna was an obviously excellent pick up for Royal’s bottom lane but while Ryze is a strong flex pick, you need a team to support it. TSM’s Lee Sin pick causes problems for a top lane Ryze. Additionally Insec is almost guaranteed to be playing Khazix who can’t provide the early support Ryze needs. I cannot stress how confusing it is that Royal would prioritize this Ryze pick over Tristana when they put so much emphasis on their bottom lane. My guess would be they’re afraid of TSM’s Ryze/Xerath comp but that’s just a stab in the dark.

TSM 2nd/3rd Pick Tristana/Nami: Not even questionable. TSM doesn’t want to blind pick their mid laner nor reveal their top laner quite yet as they don’t know if Ryze is top or mid. Tristana is an obvious lock in and Nami, being Lustboys comfort support, is the easy decision.

Royal 3rd/4th Pick Khazix/Caitlyn: This actually works out quite well, still leaving Ryze as a flex pick and not revealing solo lanes. As mentioned before Khazix is one of Insec’s stronger champions, and the Caitlyn pick suits Uzi perfectly here as it allows him to be dominant in the lane and aggressively push. However, the issue with the Caitlyn pick is that she requires a fair amount of farm to carry and does get outscaled by Tristana; Uzi generally needs to be on a mid game dominant champion or a late game hyper-carry. With Lucian taken away (The questionable Lucian ban working all due to the Ryze lock in) his other option would have been Corki.

TSM 4th/5th Pick Orianna/Rumble: Not knowing what Royal has for their mid laner quite yet, Bjergsen is making the safe Orianna pick which does well against the mid ranged Ryze should he go middle, as well as other potential mid laners. Also worth mentioning here is Corn’s comfort on Orianna, with this pick takes that away from him. Dyrus has performed well on Rumble, who has a very noticeable power spike at level 6 against Ryze as long as he gets past the rough early laning phase. Overall TSM’s Pick/Ban was very well planned out this time around.

Royal 5th Pick Fizz: Corn’s signature power pick, which I’m not too familiar with. however it has been banned against him very frequently and it definitely suits Royal’s aggressive play style. The match up tends to allow Orianna to bully Fizz early on, however his roaming power is not to be underestimated. This pushes Ryze to the top lane who can come out on top on Rumble should he get the lead.

Overall Impressions of Pick/Ban Phase: Definitely in TSM’s favor. Royal had a very questionable ban and a VERY questionable first pick. TSM recognized the threat of Insec and quickly took away two of his more impactful champions, then secured themselves a very strong team fight oriented line up with a hyper carry Trist. It is important to note that Royal has extremely poor poke and wave clear in comparison to TSM for the late game, which makes it rather difficult to eliminate the Tristana threat.

Game Overview/Analysis

0:00-5:00

Standard starts, standard lanes, neither team really wanting to push for an invade due to the strong counter engage from Nami or Janna, no lane swaps either since Royal has absolute faith in their ability to 2v2 and TSM doesn’t want to send Rumble into a 1v2. Overall correct decisions made by everyone at this point and time. Fizz grabs a flask start to help sustain against the harass he will take for any CS he goes for. Both Khazix and Lee start top side, recognizing that bottom lane will be the crucial focus of the game, Royal likes to maintain their lead on bottom lane however this somewhat creates the issue of Ryze’s vulnerability despite his strong early game. Caitlyn/Janna obviously fast push, Nami creates an initial favorable trade, but with Janna’s shield on Caitlyn, Trist is pushed back after taking a peacemaker and thus sets the tone of the lane in Royal’s favor. While Janna takes a significant amount of damage, she is the support and is thus loaded up with health potions, compared to Tristana taking an almost equal amount of damage and only having the one health pot. As bot lane progresses, it’s clear that Cait/Janna are able to control the lane as Trist misses a vast majority of the first two waves and the first siege minion. Looking at items we can see that Rumble has used his health potion early on at top while Fizz is completely out of potions at middle, but in return they are even in CS in their respective lanes.

5:00-10:00

Lee Sin has impeccable timing arriving at bot as a ward runs out, Tristana makes an aggressive move however Lee Sin misses a crucial Sonic Wave ending the gank attempt in failure.

Khazix counter jungles a little bit top side given Lee’s presence bottom, and Royal puts up wards in bottom river which scout his second gank attempt. Orianna now with some items, fully utilizes her lane advantage vs Fizz and freezes the lane so he goes off to farm Wolf/Wraiths while it’s frozen. Ryze has the CS lead but Rumble hits 6 and has that ultimate available, with the creep wave on his side; he throws out a good ultimate on top of Ryze and his creep wave, forcing Ryze to flash to safety.

Khazix creeps into bottom bushes however Nami/Trist are wary as Caitlyn is playing unnaturally passive, trying to draw them forward. Janna/Khazix attempt to burst Trist down but Caitlyns Peacemaker misses and Trist jumps to safety. Fizz at middle attempts to clear a pink, seeing Orianna come in, he uses Playful/Trickster and catches Lee Sin who was on the way to pincer him, seeing that Khazix is in the area they commit to the fight for first blood. Janna heals the entire team up and they secure Dragon with ease.

10:00-15:00

Rumble smartly places a Pink into the river bush, knowing that he’s forced the flash on Ryze and calls for Lee Sin to come in, Ryze however gets to the pink before Rumble is in position to close in on him and escapes with his increased move speed when Lee Sin attempts to initiate. Lee Sin then secures vision control of top with a sweep and moves into the topside bushes for a camp; followed by an easy kill at the tower knowing that Ryzes flash is still down.

Khazix roams in bot for a gank attempt but an exhaust puts a stop to it, important to note here is Fizz’s roaming that isn’t accomplishing anything. This is setting him behind in both CS and experience, which cements his inability to stay middle. Also important to note, is the dominant ward coverage TSM has over on the top half of the map with the pinks covering the river, (Top side power vs Bot side power as mentioned earlier.)

15:00-20:00

Royal’s Bot lane pushes TSM’s back and secures the tower but then makes the mistake of pushing up even further, huge teleport comes in from Rumble and Nami lands a critical double bubble right as Janna ults, Rumble uses his Equalizer to zone out Royal’s reinforcements and cut off one path of escape for Janna/Cait, Caitlyn is promptly killed as is Khazix after jumping in, however Fizz arrives and secures a kill on Lee Sin for chasing too far (Rumble and Trist are both super low) and Ori arrives to prevent Fizz from chasing down the aforementioned members.

Royal attempts to go for dragon with their respawning team members, but important to note is Orianna’s harass on Khazix , taking him to half health and then pushing Royal away from dragon as TSM begins to collapse on it. Dyrus meanwhile has gone up middle with his return from base and with the direction Royal takes to escape TSM, Orianna rotates back to middle and TSM takes a free turret. At this stage in the game, Royal’s poor wave clear is starting to show.

Royal attempts another dragon, Lee Sin makes a critical steal with his Sonic Wave/Smite combo, Rumble then throws down an Equalizer to zone once again, this time Khazix jumping in a little prematurely with his allies behind the Equalizer and gets quickly killed before they can help. Fizz lands a Chum the Waters on Rumble and hops over the Nami Tidal Wave to secure the kill, while Janna flashes forward to displace both Orianna and Lee Sin into her team with Monsoon. Royal focus’s down Ori while Tristana cleans up Janna, Nami secures the kill on Fizz and Lee falls to Caitlyn, in the meanwhile Tristana continues her rampage and finishes off Ryze then finally aces Royal Club with the kill on Caitlyn.

Important to note here is the immediate loss of Khazix and Tristana being virtually ignored after coming in late. Caitlyn also cancelled an auto attack, although charging her passive, which could have gotten her the extra kill on Nami. Considering just how low Trist was from the exchange, I feel that Caitlyn could have focused Trist right after the Lee Sin secure, rather than Nami; given that she had used her cool downs and was low on mana.

After respawns, TSM establishes vision control over baron, Khazix and Ryze attempt to take red but TSM comes up to stop them, not stopping it soon enough, Ryze gets caught by a shock wave and Nami Bubble for an easy kill.

20:00-25:00

TSM Splits 4-1 knowing that Rumble can 1v1 very well at this stage of the game, Royal has poor wave clear options and Rumble has teleport up. Ryze gets caught out and solo killed by Rumble whilst TSM is pushing bottom, allowing nice pressure on towers. TSM grabs mid inner tower, and I feel like they could have continued the 4 man push bottom as Dyrus pushed top and either forced a 5v3 and pushed for inhibitor, or taken top and bot at the same time. In the end though, they do grab mid tower which gives them a positional advantage towards pushing Royal away from Baron.

TSM rotates up to top whilst Royal attempts to push down middle before realizing TSM would push faster, TSM manages to take a huge chunk out of top turret before backing out as Royal arrives to defend. TSM backs all the way up and recalls as a team, Royal clears out some baron vision but doesn’t attempt it, given that they could have warded top river entrance and bailed out as soon as they had vision of TSM, I find it odd they made no attempt whatsoever to baron there as it would have been free with all the TSM recalls. Instead they move for Dragon with only Khazix and Ryze, Rumble coming back from his recall spots the slow dragon and pushes them off of it, securing dragon for TSM once again.

25:00-30:00

Fizz sneaks up into top brush and catches Rumble out farming, TSM then shows several faces in the bottom side of the map and Royal instantly moves for Baron this time, Nami throws out a wave and Lee Sin attempts a steal, but Khazix secures the Baron and Royal picks up the kill on Lee. Wary of getting caught out again like that, Rumble clears top lane safely near his tower instead of moving past river. Royal finally secures outer mid turret, followed by top lanes outer turret.

30:00-35:00

Royal’s Baron buff has worn off and TSM rotates to push down middle as 5, Royal is cut off from defending after attempting to clear some pinks near bottom river. Royal however makes the best of their situation and surrounds TSM from behind, forcing them to escape upwards, not before taking a significant amount of AoE damage from Khazix and Ryze. Fizz attempts to assassinate Nami with a flash but comes just short, Janna pushes all of TSM against the way with her Monsoon but in doing so, makes Fizz’s Chum the Water miss the mark completely. Caitlyn and Ryze are packed together and get erased by Rumble while Lee Sin cleans up Janna. Worth noting here is that I’m not 100% sure if Janna pushed someone out of the way or if the Shark was 100% off the mark, Janna however has consistently been using aggressive monsoons, sometimes to the detriment of her team.

With 4 members of Royal down, TSM easily picks up the inhibitor (Worth noting here that Lee Sin misses a Q on Khazix who comes up to defend, which could have resulted in the ace for potential nexus turrets.). TSM secures dragon and goes back to base. After basing and some baron posturing + vision securing, TSM rotates top while Rumble zones out Khazix and Fizz in the jungler and secures top inner turret.

I mean I really don’t like picking on a single player, and don’t get me wrong, Amazing has had some good moments in this game; but by far he’s been the most inconsistent and gets caught out the most.

Mid Inhibitor is down and bot minions for blue team is pushing hard, so Royal doesn’t really capitalize nor are they able to at this point. Some more vision control is being fought over and Janna gets caught by Rumble, with a great Equalizer they pick up the kill with ease. TSM attempts to convert into a Baron, but Fizz and Ryze flank them and pick up a free kill on Nami, Fizz hourglasses so he doesn’t get killed by Tristana and Caitlyn pops heal to continue the chase, Tristana gets a great disengage off with a 3 man Buster Shot. Rumble then chases but runs into a Yordle Snap Trap (I know they’re tasty man but come on) which was very aptly placed by Caitlyn, and gets killed without being able to retaliate. Fizz and Ryze attempt to catch out Ori after an attempted pick off on Khazix but an hour glass saves her life as Tristana once again performs clean up duty and takes out Fizz. Given TSM’s positioning, Royal decides to rotate down to mid turret and secures the inner turret with Janna zoning out Tristana/Ori.

35:00-40:00

Ryze gets caught out, but unloads a huge load of damage in an AoE on Nami and Ori, Fizz’s Chum the Waters catches Nami finishing her off, as Ori is forced to use Hourglass + Flash to escape. Rumble puts down an Equalizer to isolate Fizz from his team and after his hour glass he just barely escapes with a flash of his own after dashing through Rumble. Janna lands a crucial Howling Gale and the fight disengages. With Royal so low, TSM picks up mid inhib once more. Royal notices TSM heads towards dragon and decides that with their healed members and a Ryze with TP, to go for baron. They secure it easily with two TSM members back in the base, and attempt to catch TSM out with a homeguard teleport, but Lee and Trist easily escape the situation. Royal back off and TSM catch another dragon.

40:00-GAME FINISH

Pretty apparent Royal can’t brute force a tower, so I’m not sure why they even tried to 5 man bot, they knew this earlier on and pushed all of the lanes whilst making a pick on top to gain the first Baron, and suddenly they decide to throw all of that out the window. Baron wears off and TSM groups up for mid inhib, with Tristana fully farmed and max level (Theres the out scaling), they easily grab it. Royal rotates through TSM’s top lane and their lack of vision allows Royal a free tower whilst TSM is too far to threaten any other objective. Royal recalls and TSM preps for baron, Rumble zones whilst Tristana and Lee attempt it, once Royal arrives, Rumble throws down an excellent Equalizer to zone out Caitlyn while Khazix who moved upwards to scout baron is trapped. Ryze and Fizz flank TSM and manage to kill off Rumble, Nami and Ori, however Trist and Lee return the favor by killing Janna, Ori finishes off Fizz before she dies and the midrange Ryze is no match for a fully farmed Trist, Caitlyn just barely escaping off of buster shot, but still unable to out duel Tristana once she makes it back, signaling the end of the game.

Post game thoughts: TSM really utilized their pick/ban phase win and dominated the top side of the map, on the other hand, Royal suffered for making a few critical team fight errors, in particular Insec jumping the gun at the dragon fight really set Royal back which probably sealed the deal for them had TSM played flawlessly from there on. Once Tristana outscales Caitlyn, there is very little Uzi can do to out play Wildturtle once all the fights boil down to 1 vs 1’s. Uzi could have focus’ed Trist instead of Nami in that same dragon fight but instead didn’t get the Nami kill and died to Trist. TSM nearly threw however with their lack of vision control on the top side of the map. While their vision game has improved vastly with the arrival of Lustboy, they need to not only secure the vision, but use it to their advantage and enforce it; never letting it go. Both times Royal had a chance to come back into the game were due to faulty vision/poor rotational calls on TSM’s behalf. Overall, TSM played this game very well, and won a hard fought victory; the MVP of this game is undoubtedly Dyrus due to his very strong solo lane performance and excellent decision making with Equalizer placements. Had he not had such a strong impact on top and great team fight ults, it is very possible Royal would have overwhelmed TSM with their initial lead. Royal failed to recognize the danger in their team comp as TSM outscaled them very well, and as such one or two errors allowed TSM to secure the lead back and control the pace of the game.

This was a lengthy analysis, thanks for sticking through with it, please leave any criticisms/suggestions (More pictures? Less? More focus on certain things in game? Go over certain things I may not have in this analysis?) and comments, more will be coming as I will be covering at least 1 game a day for the next set of group stage matches and all of the bracket stage games. Hope you enjoyed/possibly learned about the game and apreciate the value of strategic decision making, while mechanical skill is very important, you can see from even this game alone how important pregame (Pick/Ban) and in game (Vision control, rotations and team fight strategies) strategy is.

-Louis on League