I wanted to provide some informal information about some of the Chinese and Korean team compositions that we’ve been seeing this weekend since some fans may not be as familiar. While I won’t cover all the bases, I’ll touch on the more unusual aspects to give those interested some background before the matches tomorrow!



The Chinese “Freight Train”

What is the Freight Train?

The Freight Train is a composition developed by OMG in the latter half of the LPL that revolves around Hecarim, Thresh, and Graves. The champions excel at both creating picks and punishing poor positioning, which makes it exceptionally dangerous and unforgiving for enemy teams. While variations existed earlier with either Sona or a different AD carry, this particular combo is the most versatile and deadly.

The rest of the team can either be filled out with further heavy AoE/CC champions like Rumble/Diana/Malphite, or with a clean-up like Kha'Zix. OMG won against WE late in the LPL with the precise composition that we saw at All-Stars in game two against the GPL team, fielding Hec/Graves/Thresh/Diana/Rumble. Given that the Chinese All-Stars scrimmed against OMG to prepare for this weekend, I’m sure they learned a lot about using this comp.

Why is the Freight Train effective?



The Freight Train is exceptional due to its incredible power to create picks and/or punish even slight positional errors. It provides many tools to engage upon an enemy team (Onslaught of Shadows/Flash-Box/Death Sentence) and immediately separate one or more members to be targeted for Graves burst and top/mid follow-up damage. These abilities can hit over terrain, making it so that no location is truly safe. You’ll notice that supplemental or alternate comp choices -Diana/Rumble/Malphite/Hecarim/Twitch/Caitlyn/Sona - also possess the power to dish out damage over walls.

The ideal combo of Thresh/Graves/Hec gives many options to the team running the Freight Train due to the nature of Onslaught of Shadows - namely that it creates predictable movement after the moment of impact. Targets are easy to Death Sentence or run into The Box, and Collateral Damage’s cone-shaped field can spread to hit targets fleeing away if it first impacts a champion running toward Graves. The burst from Buckshot and Collateral Damage also gives Hecarim immense heal while he splits an enemy team.

The power of the comp also comes from its versatility, since the Freight Train team can use ultimates either to create single picks or in 5v5 teamfights. A lonely target caught alone by the Freight Train will die nearly instantly, creating a 4v5 power play and easy objectives due to the good wave-clear provided by the comp.

It’s also quite safe in the laning phase, especially since Graves/Thresh is a dangerous lane in 2v2 or 2v1. The burst and tankiness from Graves combined with zone and auto-harass from Thresh makes the lane a real menace. Graves’ short range in teamfights is nullified because he should only deal with targets separated by Hecarim and never be subjected to a true 5v5 engagement.

The Freight Train picks up speed in the mid-game, typically about the 18 minute mark, and requires extremely heavy warding to monitor due to its ability to catch a team over terrain. It is very scary, and a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

Why do you call it the Freight Train?



Because it runs you over like a god-damn freight train. Choo choo.

CJ’s Top Lane Ryze



Where did top lane Ryze come from?



Top lane Ryze was debuted very recently in OGN by both CJ Blaze and Frost. Flame and Shy used him to devastating effect in their recent quarterfinal matches, helping to carry their teams to victory with the champion’s immense damage output and late-game tankiness.

Why use top lane Ryze?



As a noted late-game powerhouse, Ryze is a desirable pick in the mid lane, but typically doesn’t see top lane use due to various short-comings. Ryze can farm safely against many traditional top-laners with Rune Prison to shut down all-in attempts, but can struggle with ganks in the longer top lane. He possesses no escape mechanism except for Flash, and he can only Rune Prison a single target, meaning that most ganks will result in his death. He also takes time to ramp up, which can mean sacrificing early objectives and avoiding teamfights before he is ready to rock.

Ryze’s extreme damage in the late-game will bear fruit if you can get him there, which is why the CJ teams love him as of late. It also adds in good AP damage with a team comp that selects an AD champion like Zed, Kha, or Jayce for middle lane.

How do you Ryze above these shortcomings?



In order to keep Ryze safe and farming, he’s typically paired with a powerful early-game jungler like Lee Sin or Nautilus to either counter-gank top or force the enemy jungler elsewhere with gank pressure. Both of these junglers synergize fantastically with Ryze into the late game due to Dragon’s Rage or hooks by moving enemies into Rune Prison range, which almost always nets a kill. Since Ryze is a fantastic duelist, as long as you can keep enemy junglers off him he should be able to farm and get the items he needs.

If, for whatever reason, the team fixates on killing Ryze, it’s still a pretty potent pick. Since he’s a great duelist, it nearly always takes two or more enemies to deal with him, which creates opportunities to take objectives for the team with top Ryze. In this instance, the Ryze player can over-extend and die as long as he keeps creating split-push pressure that allows his allies to move around the map 4v3. Flame died multiple times as top lane Ryze in the OGN quarterfinals and still carried the game since he got objective gold from his teammates’ play while SKT overcommitted to ganking him. In essence, killing a top Ryze multiple times nets less and less gold while his team continually feeds him towers and dragons. By 20-25 minutes, top Ryze becomes a threat nomatter what and destroys you.