But you can't just wait around as Draven. Brand's W is too strong. If he tries to sit and catch axes all day waiting for you to overextend you just keep landing easy W's and force him away.

Waiting for the Brand to get over-aggressive just sounds like waiting for the Brand to misplay because that's not what Brand should do in that lane. In fact I'd say Brand rarely wants to get overly aggressive/force things, you generally want to poke/zone and do more damage in an all-in. You're essentially saying a good bot lane beats a misplaying Brand.

North2

134 Posts

June 18 2015 08:35 GMT

#42

I don't really see why Draven can't just wait. Draven lifesteals a ton after his first buy.

I'd really have to see it, but we're certainly never going to willingly put Brand support into a Draven lane.

Amarok

Australia2003 Posts

October 06 2015 00:07 GMT

#43

So we finally saw out first Brand support in competitive (at least I think it was the first one). What do we think of PyL's build/performance? LGD played pretty poorly but it's hard to attribute that to the pick itself.

Personally, I didn't like the Mobi boots. Yeah they're cheaper and map mobility is huge in competitive but Sorcs are such an incredible buy that I would have made an exception here, particularly given how much HP there were on 4 of TSM's 5 members and how MR heavy they ended up building. They didn't lose those teamfights by much, a bit more damage would have been massive.

NeoIllusions

United States37500 Posts

October 06 2015 00:36 GMT

#44

For reference, Pyl's build

sob3k

United States7572 Posts

October 06 2015 01:42 GMT

#45

damn, first competitive brand and they lose. If he had won expect it everywhere, now nobody will touch it for a year.

Unimpressed with the fact that he still ran standard AP Quints when magic pen is mathematically superior.

Also do not support no CDR, brand is not oppressive without his incredibly short cd stun.

Amarok

Australia2003 Posts

October 06 2015 02:25 GMT

#46

They wanted the uber slow from Rylai's. They wanted to be able to kite the low range/mobility team long enough for Kallista's damage to build up. It almost worked. If Imp respected Morde's melee damage in that last fight they would have won it.

My problem with the build was that he went Mobis > NLR. I know they wanted the slow but in a game like that he wasn't going to get to Rylai's in any reasonable time. He could have gotten Sorcs > Idol and had more impact for less gold or skipped the Mobi's to rush the Rylai's if it was that critical.

He maxed W btw.

ticklishmusic

United States15977 Posts

October 06 2015 14:41 GMT

#47

Pyl played it pretty awfully, like you said he really should have taken mpen-- I personally prefer 1 movespeed + 2 mpen. Better choice for first item would either be Zeke's or Luden's. Zeke's is easy pieces and you get some CDR with it-- while not particularly effective with Kalista, it's a great mini d-cap for Brand and can be swapped to Diana midgame. Luden's gives you some movespeed, and I like the Luden's + Sorc's combo which gives enough movespeed (then add in runes and masteries) and more squishy popping power.

Brief thoughts on lane:
-Pyl didn't do nearly enough damage, honestly Morde shouldn't even be able to get close to minions
-You can afford to pot up pretty hard cuz of a ton of extra gold from spellthief's
-Early glacial for Zeke's -> more spamming

JazzVortical

Australia1825 Posts

October 07 2015 07:27 GMT

#48

I think the theory was really, really good. Rylai's Brand is a peeling god vs champs with no dashes like Morde. Coupled with Kalista, LGD should have had an untouchable ADC every fight. It's a shame LGD ran it, because they are derping hardcore.

They screwed up in practice. I fully agree with the Sorcs instead of Mobis. I get it, you are a support. You want the extra speed to ward. But you are also Brand, who has high base damage and a non AP scaling damage passive. Mpen is god like on him. I actually didn't mind the idea of Rylai's first, provided the lane went as anticipated. Brand should've dominated that lane, but Pyl got hooked early and never really got the ascendancy. He shouldn't have forged ahead with Rylai's first when they weren't ahead.

I hate the idea that this might mean it isn't picked again, because it has merit.

ticklishmusic

United States15977 Posts

October 07 2015 14:37 GMT

#49

I would lean more towards "if your strategy to stop Morde revolves around having an item-based slow on your support you're gonna have a bad time". LGD had a ton of slow already with Glitterlance, Tramsogrify, Snowball and Absolute Zero. Given Morde is very much a priority target, I don't really see a problem with burning some CC/damage on him from other positions.

Crystal Scepter is nice from top or possibly mid as an early item as a mix of survivability and AP, but it's risky with support's income-- doing a very rough estimate, Pyl got 8.6K/35 mins, which means an income of 245 gold (we can assume that it was lower during laning phase and was inflated by teamfight assists and global tower gold) meaning it takes 12 minutes (as a low estimate) to build it. Oh, and Pytl dicks around and builds a sightstone, mobis and buys wards before, so he is literally useless as anything but a wardbot until he gets his NLR at 20 minutes... at which point his team is down 6K and then his Rylai's at 25 minutes... at which his team is down 9K. Yeah.

NeoIllusions

United States37500 Posts

October 07 2015 17:00 GMT

#50

I think Support Brand is an improvement on Support Kennen. It's all about CC, all the way down to the Rylai's rush for both champions. The reason why I think Brand is actually better is because he's not entirely ulti dependent to get into team fights and his stun isn't reliant on the three tick system Kennen's is. Sure Kennen can possibly hard CC the entire enemy team while Brand can only target one but I think Brand's kit is a bit more flexible based on his QWE skills.

Amarok

Australia2003 Posts

October 07 2015 21:09 GMT

#51

I agree that picking Support Brand on the basis that he is amazing with a 3k item is risky at best. It even showed in game, with Pyl only picking up Rylais after LGD getting that good fight at baron catapulted him into a chunk of money.

I've said it before, I'd prefer teams look to Support Brand when they're low on magic damage late in the draft, are planning playing standard lanes, are facing a team with low levels of dive, don't need initiation from the support or some combination of the above.

I found it funny that people made a big deal of Brand doing more damage than Mord. Brands damage was actually pretty low, understandable given everyone on TSM built multiple MR items and he didn't have Mpen till the last fight. If they actually knew what the pick was capable of they'd be commenting on how low Pyls damage was.

ticklishmusic

United States15977 Posts

October 08 2015 03:23 GMT

#52

I was gonna write some commentary on the LGD TSM game, but LGD was just bad. It looks like a silver duo botlane trying really hard to look like pros by doing rotations and stuff vs a plat duo

Sufficiency

Canada23833 Posts

October 08 2015 05:33 GMT

#53

Figured this is relevant

Amarok

Australia2003 Posts

October 08 2015 09:02 GMT

#54

No Velkoz?

ticklishmusic

United States15977 Posts

October 08 2015 16:02 GMT

#55

On October 08 2015 14:33 Sufficiency wrote:
Figured this is relevant

https://twitter.com/SufficientStats/status/651604465703878656

I bet I contributed pretty heavily to that, lol.

NeoIllusions

United States37500 Posts

October 08 2015 17:18 GMT

#56

Zyra Brand, hue.

Sufficiency

Canada23833 Posts

October 08 2015 22:21 GMT

#57

On October 08 2015 18:02 Amarok wrote:
No Velkoz?

Ops.

I think I set my sample size threahold too high (3 k games) - so Velkoz got filtered out.

ticklishmusic

United States15977 Posts

October 08 2015 22:28 GMT

#58

I guess that means cheese picks like Lee or Lux didn't make the cut either-- you have the ability to filter champ games by positions?

Sufficiency

Canada23833 Posts

October 09 2015 16:23 GMT

#59

On October 09 2015 07:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
I guess that means cheese picks like Lee or Lux didn't make the cut either-- you have the ability to filter champ games by positions?

Basically, Riot has a way of identifying the positions. I just piggyback off their data.

And no, since there are 3k+ games per champion, you probably did not contribute that nuch