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.
Showing posts with label ProMeta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ProMeta. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
v8 vs Epik - Game 1 - Curse Invitational
The Curse Invitational started this weekend, giving me a great chance to get a fresh look at some of the NA teams I haven't seen in a while.
Bans:
Unknown as the vod starts late. The tournament bracket doesn't list bans either but hopefully I can track this down.
v8 picks:
-Udyr
-Ahri
-Shyvana
-Sivir
-Leona
Plenty of damage from Sivir and Ahri, with great additional damage from Shyvana and Udyr. Damage mostly physical. Light on range meaning they need a hard engage. Tanky with Udyr, Shyv, and Leona. Hard cc from 3 champs (counting Ahri's taunt because it's insane) Leona has 3x cc with her ult. Decent amount of splash damage in close quarters but not a ton of large range aoe. All champs scale well into lategame.
Epik:
-Gankplank
-Orianna
-Amumu
-Corki
-Soraka
Great damage from Corki and Orianna, with solid additional damage from Pirate and Amumu (Amumu's sustained damage is substantial though not everyone realizes it). Decent range with Corki and Ori. Can poke with sustain from Soraka, Pirate steroid, Ori shield. Tankiness from Amumu and Pirate. Hard cc from Mummy and Ori ult, pretty light considering Corki and Soraka don't even have a slow. Good aoe with Amumu, Ori, and Pirate plus Corki's spam. Champs scale well into lategame, not 100% sure on Ori as I haven't seen her in so long.
Top Lane:
I haven't seen a lot of Udyr vs Pirate but Elementz pointed out that Udyr turtle counters a huge amount of Pirate harass so he expected Pirate to have a tough lane. Lane Udyr's tend to max Tiger first so Pirate shouldn't have trouble getting pushed.
Pirate took flash/teleport while Udyr took flash/ignite. This gives a lane advantage to Udyr but a Dragon control advantage to Epik.
Mid:
Orianna hasn't been played for a long time since she was nerfed, but still has plenty of damage. I believe she'd be a reasonable against Ahri because she has great range and can farm safely. Ahri is very strong right now, she has damage, cc, escapes, and sustain.
Both champs took flash/ignite, very standard.
Bot:
Leona isn't a very common support but her cc can be devastating, combined with Sivir's damage I can see it working. Corki/Soraka will tend towards farming, Corki has a nice escape and with Soraka's silence plus sustain this lane shouldn't lose.
Leona: exhaust/heal, Sivir: flash/ignite.
Corki: flash/cleanse, Soraka: flash/cv
There is a lot of experimentation with summoners in bot lane right now. Chaox indicated that in EU most ad's take flash/heal so he has shifted to that. The Leona/Sivir lane is extremely aggressive with exhaust and ignite. The ignite on Sivir is nice against Soraka. Corki has very safe summoners and cv on Soraka is helpful for the whole team, including keeping her lane safe.
Jungle:
Shyvana has become very popular with M5's recent success, she clears fast, moves fast, great counter jungler, and doesn't need blue buff. Amumu has become a rare pick, he clears fast, ganks well, duels well (in my opinion, though this may not be shared), but doesn't counter jungle well because he has no spike damage. Both contribute tankiness and damage to a teamfight, Amumu has much better initiation and can devastate squishies.
Shyvana: smite/exhaust. Getting an extra aggressive summoner from your jungler is excellent, it also helps for ganks, especially Shyv who has no utility/cc of her own.
Amumu: smite/flash. Mummy has a lot of aggressive utility with flash (tower diving, initiation).
Execution:
v8 snowballed very hard in this game, making it challenging to assess the viability of Epik's comp.
Top:
Udyr dominated Pirate top, as Elementz predicted, turtle stance > Pirate q. Even after losing his turret Pirate couldn't safely farm because Udyr was 5-0 in teamfights and outfarmed him.
Mid:
Ahri charm plus Shyv gank earned Ahri the first kill mid, though Ori held up well and farmed evenly.
Jungle:
v8 took Amumu's blue buff and even though they left their own blue open, Mummy didn't take it. After getting a slow start he died early trying to defend blue buff and struggled for the rest of the game. After establishing some control mid, Shyv/Ahri took Mummy's wraiths several times.
Bot:
v8 got a quick kill against Corki bot, didn't see the fight but Corki still had flash and cleanse up indicating a pretty bad fail.
Builds:
Mummy built a WoTA (Will of the Ancients) after Philosophers and Heart of Gold. This is a weird build and he didn't tank at all, causing him to melt in every fight. He also added a blasting wand after his first negatron, the game was almost over at this point but an Amumu without any health is no Amumu at all. I've seen Dan Dinh build Amumu this way in solo queue but it won't cut it in competitive, especially when you are the primary tank for the team.
Only other thing to note is that Pirate got beat top which meant he also wasn't tanking very hard, leaving Epik extremely squishy.
Takeaways:
Poke comps generally do well against hard commit comps, however in this case the early game advantage allowed v8 to snowball very hard for a quick victory. Udyr definitely managed Pirate in the top lane, and Amumu getting so far behind meant Epik had absolutely no backbone during teamfights. One important part of a successful comp is that everyone needs to perform their role, having a tank on paper won't cut it. It's important when analyzing Epik's comp to note how badly their early game went based on a few bad plays/decisions. Epik had a winnable comp but v8 showed up and executed very well.
The VoD
Props: Elementz gave an excellent team comp overview while shoutcasting which helped me articulate this post. Thanks!
Bans:
Unknown as the vod starts late. The tournament bracket doesn't list bans either but hopefully I can track this down.
v8 picks:
-Udyr
-Ahri
-Shyvana
-Sivir
-Leona
Plenty of damage from Sivir and Ahri, with great additional damage from Shyvana and Udyr. Damage mostly physical. Light on range meaning they need a hard engage. Tanky with Udyr, Shyv, and Leona. Hard cc from 3 champs (counting Ahri's taunt because it's insane) Leona has 3x cc with her ult. Decent amount of splash damage in close quarters but not a ton of large range aoe. All champs scale well into lategame.
Epik:
-Gankplank
-Orianna
-Amumu
-Corki
-Soraka
Great damage from Corki and Orianna, with solid additional damage from Pirate and Amumu (Amumu's sustained damage is substantial though not everyone realizes it). Decent range with Corki and Ori. Can poke with sustain from Soraka, Pirate steroid, Ori shield. Tankiness from Amumu and Pirate. Hard cc from Mummy and Ori ult, pretty light considering Corki and Soraka don't even have a slow. Good aoe with Amumu, Ori, and Pirate plus Corki's spam. Champs scale well into lategame, not 100% sure on Ori as I haven't seen her in so long.
Top Lane:
I haven't seen a lot of Udyr vs Pirate but Elementz pointed out that Udyr turtle counters a huge amount of Pirate harass so he expected Pirate to have a tough lane. Lane Udyr's tend to max Tiger first so Pirate shouldn't have trouble getting pushed.
Pirate took flash/teleport while Udyr took flash/ignite. This gives a lane advantage to Udyr but a Dragon control advantage to Epik.
Mid:
Orianna hasn't been played for a long time since she was nerfed, but still has plenty of damage. I believe she'd be a reasonable against Ahri because she has great range and can farm safely. Ahri is very strong right now, she has damage, cc, escapes, and sustain.
Both champs took flash/ignite, very standard.
Bot:
Leona isn't a very common support but her cc can be devastating, combined with Sivir's damage I can see it working. Corki/Soraka will tend towards farming, Corki has a nice escape and with Soraka's silence plus sustain this lane shouldn't lose.
Leona: exhaust/heal, Sivir: flash/ignite.
Corki: flash/cleanse, Soraka: flash/cv
There is a lot of experimentation with summoners in bot lane right now. Chaox indicated that in EU most ad's take flash/heal so he has shifted to that. The Leona/Sivir lane is extremely aggressive with exhaust and ignite. The ignite on Sivir is nice against Soraka. Corki has very safe summoners and cv on Soraka is helpful for the whole team, including keeping her lane safe.
Jungle:
Shyvana has become very popular with M5's recent success, she clears fast, moves fast, great counter jungler, and doesn't need blue buff. Amumu has become a rare pick, he clears fast, ganks well, duels well (in my opinion, though this may not be shared), but doesn't counter jungle well because he has no spike damage. Both contribute tankiness and damage to a teamfight, Amumu has much better initiation and can devastate squishies.
Shyvana: smite/exhaust. Getting an extra aggressive summoner from your jungler is excellent, it also helps for ganks, especially Shyv who has no utility/cc of her own.
Amumu: smite/flash. Mummy has a lot of aggressive utility with flash (tower diving, initiation).
Execution:
v8 snowballed very hard in this game, making it challenging to assess the viability of Epik's comp.
Top:
Udyr dominated Pirate top, as Elementz predicted, turtle stance > Pirate q. Even after losing his turret Pirate couldn't safely farm because Udyr was 5-0 in teamfights and outfarmed him.
Mid:
Ahri charm plus Shyv gank earned Ahri the first kill mid, though Ori held up well and farmed evenly.
Jungle:
v8 took Amumu's blue buff and even though they left their own blue open, Mummy didn't take it. After getting a slow start he died early trying to defend blue buff and struggled for the rest of the game. After establishing some control mid, Shyv/Ahri took Mummy's wraiths several times.
Bot:
v8 got a quick kill against Corki bot, didn't see the fight but Corki still had flash and cleanse up indicating a pretty bad fail.
Builds:
Mummy built a WoTA (Will of the Ancients) after Philosophers and Heart of Gold. This is a weird build and he didn't tank at all, causing him to melt in every fight. He also added a blasting wand after his first negatron, the game was almost over at this point but an Amumu without any health is no Amumu at all. I've seen Dan Dinh build Amumu this way in solo queue but it won't cut it in competitive, especially when you are the primary tank for the team.
Only other thing to note is that Pirate got beat top which meant he also wasn't tanking very hard, leaving Epik extremely squishy.
Takeaways:
Poke comps generally do well against hard commit comps, however in this case the early game advantage allowed v8 to snowball very hard for a quick victory. Udyr definitely managed Pirate in the top lane, and Amumu getting so far behind meant Epik had absolutely no backbone during teamfights. One important part of a successful comp is that everyone needs to perform their role, having a tank on paper won't cut it. It's important when analyzing Epik's comp to note how badly their early game went based on a few bad plays/decisions. Epik had a winnable comp but v8 showed up and executed very well.
The VoD
Props: Elementz gave an excellent team comp overview while shoutcasting which helped me articulate this post. Thanks!
Pro Meta Analysis
I decided that in addition to my Art of LoL posts, I'm adding a series on analyzing the meta on pro matches. Most of my knowledge has been acquired by studying the pros and because I've read several forum requests for this topic I decided to go for it.
The challenge in meta analysis is composition versus execution. I have won a scrubby ranked 5s match with five ranged ad champs (ez jungle, kog mid, trist + vayne bot, cait top). The fact that we won speaks to the fact that my team was far more experienced than the other team, not that this comp is viable. Many pro games will snowball when the team with the early lead presses their advantage and doesn't make big mistakes. For this reason you can't determine what comps are viable based purely on which team wins.
The format look at a team based on picks, bans, and team characteristic, then touch on the in game performance, including item builds. For the sake of being concise I won't provide a play by play, just a few game changing highlights that effect the outcome.
The challenge in meta analysis is composition versus execution. I have won a scrubby ranked 5s match with five ranged ad champs (ez jungle, kog mid, trist + vayne bot, cait top). The fact that we won speaks to the fact that my team was far more experienced than the other team, not that this comp is viable. Many pro games will snowball when the team with the early lead presses their advantage and doesn't make big mistakes. For this reason you can't determine what comps are viable based purely on which team wins.
The format look at a team based on picks, bans, and team characteristic, then touch on the in game performance, including item builds. For the sake of being concise I won't provide a play by play, just a few game changing highlights that effect the outcome.
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