Disclaimer: Week 4 coming soon

Game 1:

Overall Strategy: Don’t let Xag pick his cancer shit.

Phase 1

Xag Bans: Spirit Breaker/Night Stalker

Xag utilized his first pick advantage to ban NS instead of clock like most people have been doing. Forcing me to either ban clock or let them have it.

Clare Bans: Warlock/Clockwerk

Warlock is the cancer shit.

Xag Pick: Sand King

Strong hero with versatile laning options

Clare Picks: Venomancer/Jakiro

I like Jakiro, tanky support with damage, lock down, and push. My team wanted to try a quicker paced draft this week so I decided to try picking the ever popular Venomancer. Additionally blocks Xag’s Veno.

Xag Pick: Invoker

Legendary GachiMuchi Superhero Kanye West Invoker. Blessed.

Phase 2

Clare Bans: Drow Ranger/Juggernaut

Drow is more Xag cancer I didn’t want to deal with. For the second ban I was unsure of what to do at first I considered banning Razor or Earthshaker that they had a history of picking but figured Jugg would give us more trouble pushing early on. Probably a mistake.

Xag Bans: Nyx Assassin/Tidehunter

Nyx is a problem for Invoker. Tide gives us insane teamfight.

Clare Picks: Kunkka/Faceless Void

Kunkka is a comfort hero for me that gave us low cooldown teamfight and a cheesy push sustain with teleport x. Void looked very appetizing with how much we could throw into chrono.

Xag Picks: Earthshaker/Riki

The earthshaker was expected. The Riki was surprisingly greedy but annoying none the less.

Phase 3

Clare Ban: Sniper

High ground was now our main concern and Sniper would cause us the most issues with that.

Xag Ban: Queen of Pain

Annoying mid laner.

Xag Pick: Weaver

I’m not convinced this was a good pick. Weaver doesn't have the health pool to survive all our damage if he gets chronoed or Poison Novaed but it worked for them so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Clare Pick: Legion Commander

Mid Legion for Ryrk.

Game Analysis

Neither team had much of an advantage during laning phase. We hoped to push and fight our way through the mid game but after failing to win multiple team fights we lost barracks and the game.

Game 2:

Overall Strategy: Don’t let Xag pick his cancer shit. But don’t play Veno ourselves either.

Phase 1

Xag Bans: Razor/Night Stalker

By not banning Spirit Breaker I could assume they wanted it. I was fine with that if we got clock in exchange.

Clare Bans: Warlock/Shadow Fiend

I decided to ban SF in case they tried to do the Clock SF combo which they have done in the past.

Xag Pick: Spirit Breaker

Surprise Surprise.

Clare Picks: Clock/Jakiro

I’ll take clock if I can get it. Has some nice synergy with Jakiro too.

Xag Pick: Invoker

All hail Gachi.

Phase 2

Clare Bans: Earthshaker/Venomancer

Earthshaker did a lot more work than expected last game regretted not banning it. Don’t want to deal with the poison banana.

Xag Bans: Nyx Assassin/Queen of Pain

Chose to get rid of the QoP earlier this game.

Clare Picks: Legion Commander/Silencer

The legion is pretty common for us at this point but the Silencer is new. Derpy wanted NP or Silencer for carry which I was originally hesitant about but after thinking about it for a bit I decided Silencer could actually work out pretty well. We wanted a range hero to deal with Phoenix egg and the global silence is always a powerful tool to have available.

Xag Picks: Phoenix/Drow Ranger

Drow is a Xag classic so no surprise there. The phoenix seemed odd since the hero feels very weak right now but it does have some nice combo potential with invoker.

Phase 3

Clare Ban: Puck

With the Drow pick a ranged offlaner seemed like a safe assumption. Puck offers that as well as lots of lockdown that could combo well with the egg and quickly get on top of our Silencer.

Xag Ban: Sniper

Sniper high ground is a bitch.

Xag Pick: Sandking

The SK proved useful game one and gives them the teamfight and egg combo they were looking for. Only downside is he doesn’t benefit from Drow Aura.

Clare Pick: Ember Spirit

A somewhat more traditional midlaner for Ryrk this game.

Game Analysis

Laning phase didn’t go brilliantly for us as me and Greg accomplished very little in the first ten minutes and were very under-leveled as a result. The fights however, went very well this game. Silencer ulti was devastating and our team felt more united and organized than before. Very happy to tie up the series with a 1–1 score.

The Ryrk Challenge Thus Far