[OGN] The Champions Summer 2012 - Page 40

With 1 group left to be played in the group stage for Season 2 of the OGN Championship we have seen 2 foreign teams getting knocked out, Dignitas and Na'Vi both going home on 1-2 results. We also saw a rerun of last season with the B team better than A team, Najin sword made it through their group but the brothers In A-team Shield was kicked out. Najin Sword has a lot on the line as they placed poorly last season (losing to Azubu (then MIG) Frost in the round of 8, and not having a major victory since (they lost in the Nicegametv Battle royal). They need to prove that they are still a force to be reckoned with and hopefully for them little brother Sword and Maknoon might help them with that.

Meanwhile in Group C we did sadly see one of the European hopes get knocked out, Na’vi could sadly not completely match startale and Xenic Storm who passed through the group with 3-0 and 2-1. What was interesting with this group was Startale, pretty much an up and coming team with Locodoco as captain, who beat Storm the group favorite. They did not ban Shen nor Anivia against a team that knows how to use both, and instead forced Storm to play with a standard lineup. In return for giving them this they picked up Morgana for solo bot lane, and Twisted Fate/Caitlyn mid lane. If you haven’t seen this game yet I really do suggest it, it was literally like watching a very well pulled of cheese strategy that no one saw coming.

Grabbing the enemy red at lvl 1 for caitlyn and just starving Manyreasons Anivia mid lane ended up working perfectly, and Startale pulled of more action in the first 8 minutes than you will see in the length of a standard game. Picking up turrets left and right and ending the game shortly around the 20 minute mark. It was truly an interesting match, opening up for other possible cheese strategies being used later on in the tournament.

And while I want to talk about the last group (the one that many might see as the most exciting one), I want to drag up some numbers that I feel are important.

Looking at the top 5 players that have qualified for the round of 8 these last few weeks I want to particularly note Captain Jack on Azubu Blaze.

With an astounding record in the 3 games played so far he holds the top spot on kills, least deaths in the top 10 and an amazing KDA of 54. Yes, that’s right, during the 3 games of the group stage he died one time and got 26 kills and 28 assists. The closest person in KDA is May with 19 KDA, the closest person in kills is WE’s Wx with 25, however he does have 6 deaths and “only” 20 assists. Over all Blaze has a really strong presence in the top 5 players, capturing spots 1, 4 (Reapered) and 5 (Ambition). While we should not judge to much from the group stage it does seem like Azubu Blaze is ready to grabbing another title this season. Much will depend on who they meet in the round of 8, with both Frost and Xenics Storm (while they did take a loss to Startale) looking like solid teams for top 3 positions from the Korean teams that have qualified so far, Najin sword also looks like a contender that could take on Blaze.

Another really interesting thing to note is WE’s presence in the top 5 list, grabbing spots 2 and 3. Wx, as previously mentioned, with an impressive 25 kills, 6 deaths and 20 assists, overall a 7.5 KDA. His CS is always worth mentioning as the highest currently with 918 over 3 games, that’s 306 average per game. Impressive to say the least as a trend in Korean games lately have been to grab early towers and force an end to the lane phase early. The other is Misaya with 17 kills, 15 deaths and 29 assists. His KDA might only be 3.1, but that does not change the fact that he has been there to help secure his teams 2 victories.

And now for the group of Foreign Death:

Group D, the group of CLG, LG-IM and MVPBlue, regardless of who wins this group we should be sure to see some very good matches.

Both CLG teams have something on the line, CLG.na wants to make up for last seasons loss in the round of 8 and to show of a good tourny with Voyboy on toplane, meanwhile CLG.eu are there to defend the European and Norwegian honor (CLG.eu is listed as a Norwegian team on the Ognlol.com webpage for unknown reasons). Of course both teams are hungry on the 1st place spot, and tearing Blaze down from their throne of dominance.

And what better way to start the group than having CLG face off each other in the first match. The winner of this match will be extremely important, as CLG.eu are playing all 3 matches on one day and losing the first match might mean devastation should they lose to LG-IM later, or have the group go into a three-way 2-1 tie. CLG.EU cannot play on the friday matches, which is why their all their regular matches have been put to Wednesday (courtesy of OGN), because of the ESL Poland event that starts on Friday. The Poland event is the last in the European region to give out circuit points for the Riot Season 2 finals. And CLG.eu have chosen to prioritize this tourney understandably, however, this means that if the group did go into a three way tie, CLG.eu will be forced to forfeit.

And a three way tie in this group is not completely impossible, LG-IM and the CLG’s are all three very strong teams, MVP being generally favoured to not make it out of this group and probably endind up 0-3 is a very likely event. If CLG.eu wants to secure a spot in the round of 8 they will have to preferably win all 3 matches, or hope for MVP blue to beat either clg.na or LG-IM. Seeing as the latter is an unlikely scenario, CLG.eu probably hopes that they can pull off wins against their sister team CLG.na and proceed to go from one win to another against MVP Blue and then LG-IM.

LG-IM is no team to go easy on thought, sporting a 4th place result in last season under the flag Team OP, they have shown a lot of potential and regullarly beat other very strong Korean teams such as Xenic Storm. Lilac is probably very confident in his ability to beat his former NA server comrades in CLG.na and hopefully wants to prove that he is better than Yellowpete and krepo bot lane. LG-IM is showing a generally strong lineup with Mid King in mid lane, if he can beat Froggen will be interesting to see. last season 100-0% xpeke killer and Soulstealer Kassadin Cornsalad has been moved top and has showed that he can play other things than Kassading at a really high level. Meanwhile Paragon is ready to take on both Doublelift and Yellowpete in botlane, but will the Koreans finally get to yell doublelifts name while he plays Vayne? Guess we will see soon enough!

Locodoco and Startale shows a lot of faith in CLG.eu: (credit to Maggstar for the picture)

Group D will be played on Wedensday 25th at the usual time (06:30 EST), and half an hour earlier on Friday the 27th (06:00 EST).The reason for the time change on friday is the change of venues, Fridays matches will be at Estars Seoul in Coex, a much larger venue.

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