My second pro meta post will look at a game played at the OGN Invitational in Korea between Maximum impact Gaming (MiG) and Startale in late January. The Korean teams have come out of the gate strong in the competitive scene, especially MiG who beat CLG.na and won the invitational.
MiG Bans:
-Ahri
-Nocturne
-Shaco
Startale Bans:
-Rammus
-Kassadin
-Graves
Because I don't know these teams well, it's tough to say whether any of these bans are targeted towards particular players. Rammus, Ahri, and Kassadin, and Shaco were all standard bans in high elo solo queue at this time. Locodoco for MiG called out Shaco specifically as a must ban, which is interesting because he was not considered a threat at Kiev. NA pros have stated hes meh in competitive because he's a snowball champ, careful teams will starve him a leave him useless late game. I'll speculate that the renowned Korean mechanics are responsible for Shaco being feared even in a pro setting. Nocturne is another champ who wasn't picked or banned in any of the later stages of IEM Kiev, demonstrating further distinction in the Korean jungle meta. Graves was a strong pick/ban during Kiev, matching well with that ban.
Note: Picks are listed based on lane position, not pick order. The lane comparison will discuss matchups and cover counterpick situations.
MiG Picks:
Kennen
Brand
Skarner
Corki
Sona
Attributes: Poke, Ap, Squishy, Aoe, 4x cc
Tons of damage from Kennen, Brand, and Corki with good bruiser damage from Skarner. Double ap in solo lanes plus ap from Skarner, leaving Corki to bring the ad. Good range with Brand, Corki, Kennen, and even Sona. Also great engage with Kennen, Skarner, and Sona plus Brand/Corki followup, huge aoe. Great all around composition, fairly squishy but because of great engage and cc they should be fine, Kennen could pick up Zhonya's to guarantee a full ult. Strong lategame scale.
Startale Picks:
Morgana
Ryze
Maokai
Vayne
Alistar
Attributes: Ap, Tanky, Single Target, 5x cc
Solid damage from Ryze, Morgana, and hypercarry potential from Vayne. Also running double ap solo but Vayne dishes out a lot of ad and true damage. Okay range, Morg's puddle can clear waves and Ryze q is decent. No champs can poke, requiring a committed engage. Tanky with Mao, Alistar, and Ryze plus Morgana's shield. Excellent single target damage with Ryze and Vayne plus a huge amount of cc, team can leverage this by catching champions out of position. Very strong lategame scale. Comp has all the right pieces, however without any poke it's difficult to control space. This makes positioning for map objectives and sieging towers difficult.
Top Lane: Kennen manages to beat Morgana in cs because she's not puddling carefully and roams a bit too much. Poor execution by Morg.
Summoners: flash/teleport for both
Builds:
-Kennen goes WoTA/Rylai's, sustain and health with solid damage but not pure hate
-Morgana goes tanky with early Catalyst into RoA. Goes for Rabadon after this but is very far behind.
Mid Lane: Brand and Ryze tie on cs, good job by Ryze to keep up.
Summoners: flash/ignite for both
Ryze: Standard tanky mana build, Tear of the Goddess, Catalyst, Glacial Shroud. Adds Negatron for more mitigation.
Brand: Double Dorans into Rabadons, had to get Mercs.
Bot Lane: Fairly even on cs early, Corki's poke is effective at keeping the aggressive lane at bay.
Summoners: Corki/Sona have both aggressive summoners, while Vayne takes cleanse. Cleanse counters exhaust however this leaves her open to cc from Sona or Skarner.
-Vayne: flash/cleanse, Alistar: flash/ignite
-Corki: flash/ignite, Sona: flash/exhaust
Builds:
Vayne: Bloodthirster, Zeal, takes Zerks (Berserker Grieves)
Corki: Dorans, Vamp Sceptor, Triforce, adds QSS (Quicksilver Sash). Takes zerks
Neither team takes cv, preferring summoners to help in the lane. This leaves open level 1 bush ganks which startale takes advantage of, picking up first blood in the bot lane. This also leaves the top lane a lot more exposed to ganks which gets MiG in trouble a few times.
Jungle: Both junglers focused on ganking, made possible in part by the lack of cv. Very little counter jungling, Skarner helped control dragon and pushed lanes, picked up an early oracles.
Summoners: Both take flash/smite. Great for Skarner ult, allows Mao some extra aggression to chain with his root.
Builds:
Mao: Philo, HoG, Giants Belt and Negatron, takes Mercs. Pure tank, does what he does.
Skarner: Philo, HoG, Aegis, Sheen. Takes Mercs. Mostly tank with nice damage boost from Sheen.
Execution:
Game felt somewhat sloppy. Champions caught out a lot with many isolated kills during the laning phase. Part of this might be the mechanical skills of the players in maximizing damage. For example, watching Jarvan gank from the jungle in the first game it was surprising to see how much damage landed all at once. I think these players are superior in skill ordering and getting every last point of damage out very quickly. This plus the lack of cv and players are a lot more likely to die early game.
MiG got behind on kills but kept up on farm, capitalizing on every opportunity to grab map objectives. MiG establishes an early gold lead by taking drag and two towers. They used their range by grouping early to siege turrets. Skarner allowed them easy dive opportunities, and after first baron they picked apart towers by poking from range and chewing up tower hp. This allowed them to snowball the rest of the game, gaining a 10k gold advantage at 24 minutes which allows them to close out the game.
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