FREE VOD (Korean commentary): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZJRvrEzQ-Y&t=4h29m26s

English commentary VOD (requires subscription) http://www.twitch.tv/ongamenet/b/419843665?t=4h32m48s

Setting the scene

The OGN Champions qualifiers was the setting for the game that we are looking at today. The winner of this best of three would advance, claiming a spot in the 2013 summer season of the prestigious Korean LoL tournament.

While many of the qualifier games had been one-sided, this series held potential to be more competitive. Gods of LoL (GOL) was the team responsible for knocking out MaKNooN and the KT Rolster Arrows out of the running for this season of Champions. Although it was a best of one, any team to secure a victory against a team like KT A deserves respect. Their opponent was MiG Blitz, coached by former CJ Frost member Woong, known to have been the brains behind Frost’s intelligent picks and bans, when he was on the team. GOL started strongly winning game 1, and now had the opportunity to knock Woong’s team out and secure their place in Champions Summer.

I chose to analyse this game because Blitz played an extremely entertaining game, strategically out-picking and dominating GOL from champion select. This game is a showcase of the Korean scene, with the picks, and in particular the strategies, being very representative of Korean competitive play currently. The strategy that Blitz implement is the tri-lane split-push, and this is what will be analysed in this article.

Note: this game was played on patch 3.7, when jungle camps still spawned at 1:40. This strategy was not affected by the jungle changes however, so analysing this game is still relevant to present competitive play.

Picks and bans

MiG Blitz (Blue): GGoGGo – Caitlyn, Apple - Kha’Zix, WonSeoK – Zed, Prime – Nasus, Ryuna – Fiddlesticks.

GOL (Purple): Like A Wind – Kennen, Chaos – Thresh, modas – Orianna, Donghyunism – Zac, y0shi – Twitch.

Both team compositions had very clear objectives, with each team holding no secrets about what they planned to do. The picks will be explained in the context of this game, in regards to how they work with each other, and how they work against the enemy team.

In order to explain why Blitz’s picks were so intelligent, I will discuss GOL’s picks first. GOL picked for massive AOE team-fight damage and CC, with champions like Kennen, Orianna, and Zac excelling at this. Twitch is also devastating in a team fight, with the potential to hit multiple enemies at once with Spray and Pray. Thresh rounds out the composition, providing pick potential with Death Sentence and peel for Twitch. An optimal team fight for GOL would be a 5v5 where they can chain all of their AOE over as many of Blitz’s members as possible. However, as you will soon see, Blitz’s picks and strategy will make it very difficult for GOL to achieve this fight.

While discussing Blitz’s picks, I will break them down into their three pushing “units”: 1. Caitlyn, Fiddlesticks and Nasus, 2. Kha’Zix, and 3. Zed.

Unit 1: Caitlyn, Fiddlesticks and Nasus

The Caitlyn and Fiddle lane is a very standard fast pushing lane in Korea, with SK T1 #2 [Judgement Day] (3rd in OGN Champions Spring 2013) notably using it throughout the previous season of Champions. The lane provides great pushing with Caitlyn Peacemakers and Fiddle’s Dark Wind, great disengage with Snap Traps, 90 Caliber Net, and Terrify, and decent all in potential with Crowstorm. We have seen this lane numerous times in Champions Spring and while it is a good lane, the addition of Nasus jungle makes it terrifying.

Nasus primarily brings pushing, turret sieging and defending power with his E. Nasus is the best jungler for this, as other junglers, such as Nautilus or Sejuani, are required them to be in close proximity when they are clearing waves; Nasus, however, can clear minion waves safely, at range. Nasus also brings amazing disengage and pick potential with Wither. He saw much play in Champions Spring 2013, with the 2nd place CJ Entus Blaze using him as the foundation of their tri-lane split push strategy for much of the season.

The combination of Nasus, Caitlyn and Fiddlesticks makes for a beastly turret siege combo, being able to clear minion waves almost instantly with Spirit Fire, Dark Wind, and Peacemaker. They can then begin to siege a turret with Caitlyn’s long range, and are also able to poke enemy champions on their turret, with their previously mentioned minion clearing abilities. In addition to this, they are insanely difficult to engage upon, thanks to Wither and Terrify – two of the strongest CCs in the game.

Units 2 & 3: Kha’Zix and Zed

The second and third units of the team composition, Zed and Kha’Zix, function very similarly and thus they will be discussed together. Both of these champions specialise at split-pushing and duelling, with MVP Ozone (1st place in OGN Champions Spring 2013) playing Zed in all three of their grand final games, to devastating effect. If placed in the long lanes (top and bottom), they can out duel any individual member of GOL’s team; Orianna and Kennen have decent duelling potential if they can poke the enemy down first, however thanks to Zed and Kha’Zix’s gap closers, this will not be an issue for Apple and Prime if they play correctly.

Their purpose in this game was to stay in lane, split-push indefinitely, and hunt down any member of GOL who tries to stop them. If more than 1 enemy champion comes for them, Blitz should be able to punish GOL by taking an objective elsewhere because of their numbers advantage.

Blitz’s strategy relies on never actually grouping up to deal with GOL’s AOE team fight. The most logical solution is therefore to split as much as possible – in all three lanes. If this is achieved, the absolute worst case scenario for them is to be 3v5 in the middle lane, with Zed and Kha’Zix pushing the side lanes. This would still be a winning scenario for Blitz, due to how difficult it is to push against, or dive Caitlyn, Fiddle and Nasus.

It should now be clear that if Blitz plays their composition correctly, they should not lose. GOL’s composition relies on Blitz being grouped up to be damaged by their AOE, whereas Blitz’s plan is to never group up. Mistakes can happen, however, especially considering that it is quite difficult to communicate a tri-lane split push. All of the lanes must be pressuring at the same time, or GOL will be able to respond without being punished. To Blitz’s credit, they pulled off the strategy extremely well, with few major errors.

Course of events

1:09 – Blitz ward red and golems. This was to keep track of GOL’s jungler and top top laner, Kennen. Kennen is confirmed to be laning top when he was spotted by the golems’ ward. This was vital information for Blitz because they needed a 2v1 in order to fast push. Interestingly, GOL’s bottom lane wanted a 2v2 as they went to the bottom lane on purple side, starving themselves of the golem advantage (this was patch 3.7 when golems spawned at 1:40).

2:14 – Because of their wards placed earlier, Caitlyn and Fiddlesticks catch Kennen in the tri-brush. They trade exhaust for his flash, and also force him to recall and heal before he gets to lane. They proceed to push the lane as hard as they can. This was a great catch by Blitz that gives them an early pushing lead, resulting in the tower being at ¾ health at just 3:00.

3:28 – Both junglers arrive at top lane. This was a necessary move by Zac, due to the damage that GOL’s tower took early on and also the superior pushing power of Caitlyn and Fiddle, compared to Thresh and Twitch. Interestingly, Nasus also decided to head top in order to push. This was an aggressive move by Nasus, preferring to push a tower with their amazing pushing trio, rather than to defend bottom turret with Kha’Zix.

4:13 – Blitz successfully kills the top tower, while Zac almost dies from the poke. At this point, Blitz’s own bottom tower was still at ½ hp, with Kha’Zix being very healthy also. At 4:30 you can see the GOL bottom lane actually freezing the wave. This was an error on their behalf, because if Blitz had chosen to rotate bottom they would have had one turret up on GOL for free.

5:17 – Blitz decide to continue to push top. At just 5 minutes, they again have Kennen and Zac almost dead, and the 2nd tier turret on half health. GOL has to respond with another member as the pressure is too great, so Orianna heads top.

7:18 – Caitlyn, Fiddle and Nasus rotate middle. GOL responds by sending Orianna, Zac and Thresh, a good decision considering Orianna can wave clear best against Blitz’s pushing trio. Importantly, this leaves Kennen in the top lane against Kha’Zix, and Zed in the bottom lane against Twitch. This is beneficial for Blitz as Kha’Zix and Zed can both out-duel their lane counterparts.

8:03 – Caitlyn gets caught by an Orianna ult and a Thresh hook. She has to burn both summoners to escape, however the fact that she did escape after being caught by these two huge abilities in a testament to the Nasus and Fiddle disengage. This was a positional error by Blitz and delayed their push slightly, but it is largely inconsequential.

8:37 – GOL try to take a dragon or force a fight with Caitlyn back and Kha’Zix top. Blitz easily pokes them with Dark Wind, Spirit Fire, and Shurikens, successfully pushing them away 3v5. In the meanwhile, Kha’Zix is pushing top and destroys the 2nd tier turret at 9:00. With the empty lane farm and turret gold and experienced he received, he can almost certainly duel any single member of the enemy team.

9:56 – With Kennen clearing the top lane, Kha’Zix roams to middle and Blitz pick up an easy first dragon, thanks to Nasus’ Fury of the Sands being exceptional at neutral objectives. Blitz only has a 2,000 gold lead on GOL currently, however with GOL’s middle and bottom towers both being very low, the gold lead has the potential to exponentially increase very quickly.

11:14 – Kha’Zix kills Kennen for first blood in the top lane, despite being the one initiated upon. Kha’Zix can now, with no doubts, duel any individual on the enemy team. This first blood was vital because now GOL must commit at least 2 members to Kha’Zix, whilst already needing at least 3 to deal with the pushing trio. They therefore currently need 5 players to deal with Blitz’s 4, without even considering Zed.

11:37 – The pushing trio destroy middle tower. In only a minute, the gold lead has doubled to almost 4,000.

13:00 – Zed completes his Brutaliser and Cutlass, having received the red buff earlier. Left alone to farm, he has the highest CS in the game and, along with Kha’Zix, the ability to duel anyone on the enemy team. A look at the current situation for GOL is dire: Kha’zix requires 2 members, Zed requires 2, and the pushing trio require at least 3. GOL’s only opportunity will be if Blitz decides to group up for a team fight, which they have no need to do; Blitz can split push GOL to death.

13:49 – Zed heads top and the pushing trio destroy the outer bottom turret. They have a 5,000 gold lead at this point. With all of the outer towers destroyed (as well as the top inner turret), Blitz can now begin to fully take control of the game. Having the outer turrets destroyed allows the 2 duelists on Blitz free reign, and with the ability to duel anyone 1v1, they can essentially sit in lane and push indefinitely.

14:06 – Blitz actually groups for a team fight, with all of their team except Zed, against all of GOL’s except Kennen. This gives GOL their best opportunity of the game, thanks to their superior AOE team fight potential. I actually don’t like this move; Blitz could have continued to push the lanes in a 1/3/1 format very safely. However, due to Kennen (the biggest source of AOE damage and CC on GOL’s team) being preoccupied at top lane with Zed, Blitz is able to win the fight 3 for 1, thanks to the fed Kha’Zix. Meanwhile, Zed kills Kennen top and destroys the inhibitor turret.

At this point, Blitz has complete and utter dominance of the game, with an 8,000 gold lead at 15:00, 25k to 17k. Because I feel like the early/mid game was the important part of this game, I will not continue to timestamp important events. There are a few more interesting points, however:

18:11 – GOL commits 3 members top to kill Zed. They successfully kill him, but Blitz respond immediately by destroying GOL’s inner middle turret.

You can see how hopeless the situation for GOL is; they require multiple people to kill either of the assassins, but assuming that all lanes and pushed and pressuring at the same time, GOL cannot make any move without being punished. If they try to defend, they will eventually get poked down and lose turrets as we saw in the early game. If they take a finger from Blitz by killing a solo lane with 3 members, Blitz takes an arm from GOL by destroying a turret. It is truly a no-win situation.

The last point I want to make is probably the most interesting of the game. At 22:20, Blitz decides to change from their tri-lane push, to the normal 4/1 split that we have seen commonly in traditional split pushes. The gold difference at this point is 39k – 25k. GOL is able to catch Caitlyn, and go all in on Blitz, resulting in a 3 for 4 trade in GOL’s favour. They outright won a team fight while being 14k gold down at 20 minutes. This demonstrates how important Blitz’s strategy in this game is. Blitz were so far ahead, but they still could not group and 5v5 GOL’s superior team fight composition.

All of the game is very interesting, however I only discussed the vital moments of the game, so definitely watch the whole thing. A free VOD, commentated in Korean, is linked at the top of this post.

Post game analysis

So what could have GOL done to stop Blitz from splipushing them to death? As MVP Ozone showed in the Spring 2013 finals against CJ Blaze, the answer is to go all in with heavy dive. Ozone picked Zed every game of the grand finals in order to achieve this, along with a combination of good diving champions like Zac. The strength of Blitz’s split pushing comp is that it is actually resistant to this weakness of other split pushing compositions. The disengage that Fiddle and Nasus provide is so high, that it makes it almost impossible to dive Blitz’s pushing trio. Choosing to all-in the solo lanes, Kha’Zix and Zed, is also very difficult, as they are two of the slipperiest champions in the game.

As commentator MonteCristo pointed out, GOL could have reacted better by sending Zac into top lane earlier, pushing Caitlyn and Fiddle back before they could get damage on the turret. Zac was unable to do this because he started at the red buff on purple side, meaning he then had to clear blue and walk all the way back up to the top lane. To add to GOL’s woes, Kennen being forced to recall at level 1, meant that the tower started taking damage almost immediately.

Blitz executed their strategy very well with few mistakes. Because of this, I personally don’t think that GOL had much of a chance in this game no matter what they did. Blitz picked perfectly to counter GOL’s AOE centric composition, and executed very well. They warded intelligently early on, allowing them to achieve the 2v1 lane that they wanted, and ran away with the game from that point.

Conclusion

This game was a showcase of the Korean scene and meta currently, with popular champion picks and strategies from both teams being displayed. Blitz managed to craft together an exceptionally strong team composition and strategy, taking signature aspects from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed teams from Champions Spring, mashing them together to great effect. I hope that this article shed some light on some of the dominant picks and strategies currently on display in Korea, the region that has constantly been shown to innovate and come up with fresh, new, interesting ways to play competitive League of Legends.