Preface

What a mess this day was, with volatile group standings, we move towards the end of group stages as teams claw for the chance to enter bracket stage. Other than the Wild Card games, all of the matches today were rather interesting and show some of the adaptations teams are making after their initial matches. There are two matches I thought were super interesting (I may go into ALL vs NJWS in the later in the week) which were FNC vs OMG and ALL vs C9, so let’s take a look at them.

FNC vs OMG

Pick/Ban phase

FNC 1st Ban Yasuo: A little bit of an odd ban here to be honest, Cool has had a very subpar performance on Yasuo this tournament, with a 0.7 KDA over two games. Ever so vigilant though, Fnatic doesn’t want to risk Cool adjusting with his comfort pick and take this away from OMG. I would have rather seen the Zilean ban first here, as it’s pretty obvious FNC will ban it, and it doesn’t reveal anything about a potential team comp they want, letting them make reactionary bans to OMG’s.

OMG 1st Ban Lee Sin: One of the comfort aggressive junglers other than Khazix for EU/NA teams, pretty standard that we see Lee/Khazix bans at these players.

FNC 2nd Ban Irelia: Fair ban, aimed at Gogoing, this however makes it very likely for him to pick up Ryze since Irelia generally wins the match up post level 6.

OMG 2nd Ban Alistar: Super standard, 4.14 Alistar, etc.

FNC 3rd Ban Zilean: Standard flex ban, however with this, Fnatic leaves OMG a lot of options up in the top lane since Ryze/Maokai are both open.

Thoughts so far: Despite OMG losing a ban, I think Fnatic could have played this ban phase out better. Had they banned Zilean earlier and reactively banned Khazix after seeing Lee sin, they would have taken a lot of power away from OMG’s jungle.

FNC 1st Pick Rumble: This is an good pick, Rumble’s proven that if he can survive past the hellish onslaught teams focus at him during his weak early game, he has huge presence in the mid game team fights and can make it very difficult for teams to engage or disengage with the ever looming threat of his ultimate.

OMG 1st and 2nd Pick Khazix and Thresh: Very good picks from OMG here, despite the losses; Yellowstar performs rather well on Thresh and Khazix is an extremely powerful late game threat and potent counter ganker for the early stages of the game. It’s not as much of a take away however, as Cyanide is comfortable on several other junglers even with Lee Sin banned.

FNC 2nd and 3rd pick Nami and Kogmaw: FNC going for the strong bot lane that scales well here, with Reckkles great csing and Nami to out-trade a Thresh type lane; Kog’maw has a rather free ticket into the mid game. The Nami pick also works well with the Rumble pick, she can support him in a lane when he tries to soak EXP and during the midgame they have a very strong team fight with the combination of their ults.

OMG 3rd and 4th Pick Ryze and Lucian: Avoiding the reveal on their mid lane or top lane by making a flex pick, this is a rather good pick up from OMG, however OMG is dangerously close to making a team comp where they have a very hard time engaging into team fights against Rumble/Nami since they’re all mid-range or melee.

FNC 4th and 5th Pick Syndra and Elise: Astounding pick up from FNC in the form of Syndra, and then they ruin it with Elise. I’m of the opinion that Elise is rather weak right now in comparison to the Lee/Khazix we’re seeing every game, and even when they’re pick or banned; I’d rather see Rengar (Not happening outside of Asian teams) or J4. She works okay in this team comp due to the pick potential off of Syndra, but she just has so little damage when she’s built tank and isn’t the greatest soak either. With no CC other than her cocoon, a very heavy magic damage team out of FNC means that MR will quickly make her near useless in team fights. Syndra on the other hand is perfect here as she zones out Ryze/Lucian very well and with the Yasuo ban, there is no risk of her ult getting nullified.

OMG 5th Pick Zed: A good pick up, but now OMG is locked into the do or die team comp where they have essentially no poke and get zoned very hard by Syndra. This also means Ryze is top, meaning all of the solo lanes are extremely vulnerable during the midgame where Zed is denied farm due to Syndras early lane bullying and Ryzes need to scale up his Tear/Rod.

Overall thoughts and overview

Pick and Ban phase has to go to Fnatic, had they forced team fights in narrow areas such as when teams are dancing around dragon and baron; they would have come out on top more often. With the threats of Rumble and Syndra, OMG has a very difficult time engaging into Fnatic and also doesn’t have any real poke to wear them down with since Nami can keep people healthy against Khazix’s poke and Ryze is short ranged against Syndra. Noticeable though is that OMG lane freezes in the lane swap (FNC has the match up advantage) and FNC doesn’t, they do time a push very well with a dragon attempt, but since Lucian puts damage on the tower at bottom instead of going to secure Dragon, Khazix is able to scare the initial dragon attempt of FNC off on his own. FNC could have gotten a lead IMO had Syndra/Lucian helped out with the efforts. We see a lot of hexdrinkers this game, which is an extremely important point since all of the damage on FNC is magic other than Kog’maws AD. This means that FNC has a hard time finishing off Zed and Khazix because they have no AD to burst them when the magic shield pops, and instead have to deal with the extra chunk of health. As the game drags on to a very late game, we see that Khazix has far more impact on the outcome as opposed to Elise, and that poor positioning is the only way Fnatic really lost their fights.

C9 vs ALL

Pick/Ban Phase

ALL 1st Ban Rumble: Did anyone not see this one coming? This is a high impact comfort pick that Balls has shown to be proficient with, a great first ban from ALL.

C9 1st Ban Lee: If there ever was an easier to predict ban phase, it would be this match up. C9 taking the route of picking on Shook again, given his very poor performance in game 1, they aim to strike ALL where they think they are weak. Shook’s comfort pick and a very strong jungler at the moment.

ALL 2nd Ban Syndra: It’s important to understand here that ALL is confident Froggen can take on Hai in the mid lane. So while Hai has Zed still open to him, it’s more of a risky pick since Hai will be behind in the laning phase as opposed to being able to play the safer Syndra who has a very strong laning phase.

C9 2nd Ban Trist: Somewhat odd ban in my opinion, while Tabzz does play Tristana, he also plays Kog’maw and Lucian so you can’t really ban him out here due to Alliance having 1st Pick. The only way this ban is reasonable is if C9 is picking a very aggressive team comp and doesn’t want Tabzz to have Trist’s Buster Shot as disengage.

ALL 3rd Ban Maokai: This ban phase is played extremely well by ALL here, with this C9 has to decide between Alistar and Khazix for their last ban, either way this makes it so Balls is on a champion he’s not super accustomed to playing with and ALL will get what they want for their first pick.

C9 3rd Ban Khazix: Given that they banned Lee Sin already, C9 decides that they should follow through on trying to keep Shook from having any impact on the game and ban out Khazix, his other comfort aggressive jungler. Important to note here that this also takes away from C9 Meteos’s champion pool, I would have preferred to see C9 leave both Alistar and Khazix open and take the remaining one. Still not a bad ban, but they’re forced into a bad spot due to ALL playing this ban phase out well and C9 somewhat wasting their 2nd Ban.

ALL 1st Pick Alistar: To the surprise of no one, this is the instant lock in. What is important to note as the casters realized later on, is that Alistar is a FLEX pick; able to support and go top.

C9 1st and 2nd Pick Zilean and Lucian: Zilean FLEX pick, however I’ve mentioned this before groups started that Hai hasn’t exactly had a strong showing on Zilean so it makes it a lot less effective than it normally would be. That being said, he played alright in this game and I think it’s more of a team comp issue than a player issue. Lucian being a takeaway from Tabzz and threatens to be a more aggressive lane comp at bottom.

ALL 2nd and 3rd Pick Rammus + Kogmaw: ALL wants to avoid picking either of their solo lanes right now so they don’t reveal where Alistar is going and also so they don’t potentially get counter picked in both. Rammus here being Shooks adaptation to C9 focusing their bans on him, a very strong jungler once he’s ahead and allows for a lot of pick potentials with the very long taunt.

C9 Pick 3rd and 4th Pick Ryze + Jarven IV: I’ve said this time and time again; Meteos is not a good aggressive jungler. Traditionally he’s always excelled at playing utility and poke junglers, as can be seen in his comfort on Elise and Khazix, and his difficulty being able to accurately assess when to go in can also be seen in his Khazix play. When Meteos was known for his signature Zac, it’s important to note that at that time, C9’s solo lanes would always win which allowed him to support them by being a tanky initiator. In the case where Balls and Hai aren’t ahead, the same strategy just doesn’t work as well. With the Ryze pick as well, similar to FNC vs OMG’s game, Ryze has a very hard time getting into the enemy back line and it’s no different in this game.

ALL 4th and 5th Pick Ahri + Irelia: Froggen on a more aggressive mid laner, Ahri has a strong laning phase and creates excellent picks all throughout the game with her charms, this is again Froggen’s confidence that he can outperform Hai and have more presence on the game regardless of a possible counter pick from Hai. Irelia being Wickds champion of choice, I really feel like C9 complete forgot about Wickd being super comfortable on Irelia and his knowledge of the Irelia vs Ryze match up, after level 6 Irelia destroyed Ryze and largely prevented Ryze from being able to scale up as he needed to. This reveals that the Flex Alistar is a support.

C9 5th Pick: At this point I had a good feeling that the Zilean was going to be mid lane and C9 would pick up Janna. They surprised me instead by picking up Morgana which isn’t without its merits, being one of Lemons signature champions; but I think with the triple threat of Irelia, Rammus and Ahri I would have rather seen Janna who is able to zone Irelia and Rammus out very effectively and able to use Monsoon should they break past her Howling Gales. Both ways, C9 has the dominating early game at bottom and Morgana has the benefit of being able to save allies who are about to get hit by a charm/taunt.

Overall thoughts and Overview

I would say that Pick/Ban massively went in the favor of Alliance. They have a huge mid game power spike which is only made worse by C9’s weak mid game with a double tear composition in their solo lanes. Should C9 make it past that mid game though, they likely have the edge due to the burst of damage they can put out from Lucian and Ryze, with Zilean making trades favorable with his Chronoshift. Morgana shows her inability to be effective when Taunt/Charm are aimed at different targets and she doesn’t get a binding on Rammus coming in, even in the optimal case she can bind Rammus and shield a charm, Irelia is a very real threat and Morgana has no remaining way to reliably peel her off her team. Kogmaw is basically untouchable with only Jarvan able to reach him and Alistar able to zone very effectively with his Unbreakable Will. Wickd showed in game 1 that he can take on Balls in the top lane comfortably, with Shook adapting to C9’s target on him, ALL did a very good job at capitalizing on their mid game strengths and closed out the game convincingly.

Conclusions

The EU teams have shown improvement in their pick/ban phases, Fnatic struggled a little in my opinion in playing their team comp correctly, and was literally one hit from winning the game. Alliance has recovered from their atrocious start, and Shook has pleasantly surprised me with his adaptation, with the turn of events, it’s looking very likely the ALL will be the 2nd team out of group stages with NJWS, and while FNC’s odds are looking grim from their loss to OMG (Potential remake though?) they still have a chance should a couple of things swing their way.

–Louis on League