In the World Cyber Games Taiwan Finals, Ahq e-Sports played a unique composition in game 2 against the other finalist, Yoe Flash Wolves (containing 4 out of the 5 members of the Gamania Bears). Ahq decided to use this strategy when their tournament life was on the line against for the spot to represent Taiwan in the WCG 2013. Although considered unorthodox, ahq opted to forgo picking a marksman and instead ran a double bruiser composition.

Bans:

The Flash Wolves banned out Nidalee, Zed, and Shen because of their current standings in the meta. These three champions have been the highly contested picks all over the world so there is no surprise to why those were the bans. Flash Wolves have consistently banned out these 3 games throughout every game of the series.

On the other side, ahq banned out Vi, Orianna, and Vayne. Vi and Orianna are also highly valued champions in the current meta due to the utility and pressure they are able to offer throughout the game. Vayne has been a targeted ban against Neverloses and banned in 2 out of the 3 games in the series. Except for Vayne, Vi and Orianna were banned all 3 games from ahq.

Picks:

Due to the buff on Trinity Force, Jax has risen to be one of the most picked top laners around the world along with Renekton, Shen, and Shyvana. Instead of picking or banning Jax some teams have chose to first picking Renekton to shut down Jax in lane. For that reason, Flash Wolves opted to first pick Renekton while predicting a Jax pick up by ahq. Ahq in return first picked Shyvana and Jarvan IV securing the top and jungle positions. In the next rotation Flash Wolves picked up Zyra who has been the most played support for SwordArt. Ahq followed up by picking Ziggs and Thresh giving which was a surprise due to the lack of play Ziggs has seen in the competitive scene. On Flash Wolves’ last rotation they locked in Fizz and Caitlyn. Fizz who has been the go to pick for Maple in this tournament while Caitlyn could establish lane dominance against the current Trinity Force carries. Ahq did not give out their composition until the last possible moment by last picking Jax.

Ahq was able to last pick Jax because they knew that Flash Wolves are one of the only top Teams in Garena that has not been playing with a double bruiser composition. Since Flash Wolves first picked Renekton there was no contest on the Jax it allowed ahq to last pick it. It also allowed ahq to secure Shyvana and Jarvan IV as they have been a key part of the double bruiser strategy.

Composition:

In Garena the double bruiser composition without a marksman has been rapidly increased in popularity with teams like TPS and TPA. The composition consists of very specific picks for each position. The most popular bruisers in the solo lane have been Shyvana, Jax, and Tryndamere. Aatrox and Jarvan IV have been the popular picks for the jungle position due their high pressure and utility throughout the game. To fill the AP role, pro teams have been running a range of champions including Nidalee and Orianna. These AP carries have been running in a duo lane as if they were the marksman along with supports who have engage and disengage such as Thresh and Fiddlesticks.

Ahq’s composition consisted of Shyvana, Jax, Thresh, Jarvan IV, and lastly Ziggs. Ziggs and Thresh formed the duo in the mid with Jax and Shyvana in the solo lanes. Ideally giving Jax a solo lane to let him farm is the best option but when a team has an aggressive jungler like Jarvan IV or Aatrox it can create dangerous 2v2 situation with a high kill potential. The AP carries with the support often ends up in the mid lane due to their abilities to counter jungle and shut down the enemy laner. In this game ahq brought out the Ziggs pick with Ghost and Flash as the summoners due to the fact that Ziggs does not have a reliable escape and having those summoners will give him a bit more survivability. Zigg’s passive allows him to take down towers fasters and having him in a 2v1 lane definitely takes a full advantage of it.

Key Components:

The two bruisers in these compositions have very different roles despite both being in a solo lane. One of the bruisers will typically focus on being the immovable object who can dive into the other team like Renekton and Shyvana. While the other bruiser is considered almost a “hyper carry” status like Tryndamere and Jax. The tanky initiator fills the typical role of a top laner in other compositions while the “hyper carry” makes the composition more optimal in a late game scenario due to the fact that the traditional marksman scales better.

The AP carry takes over the position of the marksman in a duo lanes with the support. Typically the AP carry has either heavy poke or utility like Orianna or Nidalee. TPS has even ran Malzahar for the wave clear and suppression his ultimate provides. The support has been typically filled by Fiddlesticks and Thresh. Overall Fiddlesticks has been the choice that most teams have prefered for the support position due to his Fear and Silence. Generally AP Carries can follow up Fiddlesticks better than some of the marksmen can due to the diversity of their kits.

Aatrox and Jarvan IV has been the key jungler for the composition with their early aggression and ability to snowball the solo laners. In most situations Aatrox or Jarvan IV will be able to win a 2v2 fight with the laning Shyvana and Jax making it a threat throughout the early stages of the game. Later in the game, these junglers also provide hard crowd control and initiation; in a teamfight the jungler along with the two solo laners can all dive into the enemy team and reach the backline quite easily.

Similar to double bruisers, in the recent past TPA ran a double AP composition against their sister team TPS. Their composition consisted of Shyvana, Fizz, Jarvan IV and Orianna in the duo lane with Fiddlesticks. Even though TPS got an early lead in the laning phase, TPA was able to win all the team fights from the mid game and so on. The composition provided multiple sources of crowd control and heavy AE damage. After chunking down the team with Orianna’s Shockwave, Jarvan’s Cataclysm, and Shyvana’s Burnout, Fizz came in and easily cleaned up the entire enemy team several times in a row. In this composition Fizz served as the “hyper carry” of the team in place of Jax or Tryndamere.

Final Thoughts:

Even though the popularity of the double bruiser composition has been growing it isn’t necessarily stronger than the current meta. Yoe Flash Wolves showed us that by playing standard they were able to beat both ahq and TPA in a best of three. In the NACL Curse Academy has also played these double bruiser compositions multiple times even with slight variations such as a Brand mid, and not every game played resulted in a win. It also seems that these compositions can be banned out or taken away because of how inflexible the champion picks are. Nevertheless, we will be seeing Yoe Flash Wolves representing Taiwan on the international stage once again as they represent Taiwan in the 2013 World Cyber Games starting November 28th in Kunshun, China!