[IEM] Kiev Discussion - Page 137

After the great response from my last post and getting mentioned on stream, (thanks Joe and Deman!) I decided to do another post. Here are some thoughts on why the games went the way they did, and some finals predictions.

SK vs. M5

http://iemkiev.leagueoflegends.com/match/semi-final-1-moscow-five-vs-sk-gaming

M5 has amazing early aggression which is leading to them being able to make snowball plays throughout the game. I can’t stress the importance of these early plays enough, because without the small early advantages M5 acquires in all of these games none of their aggressive plays afterwards would be possible.

In game 1 the early play was Sona cutting off Rammus at blue, harassing him down just low enough so that Shyvanna could steal the red buff. This was all made possible by M5s stellar picking strategy. Sona is allowed to roam at level 1 thanks to Soraka not being an aggressive laner. Since they are planning on a red invasion, GP is allowed to take their own red to make up for the first wave of XP he'll miss in a 2v1 lane bottom. Then they lane Kennen + post roam Sona top and crush Irelia.
Cutting off Rammus’s red buff and keeping him at level 2 does wonders for every lanes aggression.

In game 2, the early play was another Gangplank buff steal ala group stage. This time it was red buff instead of blue, and they had the added bonus of taking 3 wraiths to further deny SK’s jungle. Laning against a GP who has cloth, 7 pots, and a buff at lvl 1 isn’t fair in any way. Thanks to the GP buff steal, M5 was able to win top lane almost immediately.

Now what’s brilliant is how well Diomondez and the rest of M5 capitalize on these early advantages. It’s actually fairly formulaic, as they have done nearly the same strategy in all of their games.

Step 1: Gain early advantage, usually at level 1. Split up the team, have Shyvanna + 1 do normal jungle, while having the other 1 to 3 players grief the enemy jungle. This assures that Shyvanna will have an early lead, and also may benefit with a lane getting a substantial edge

Step 2: Steal the buff which the enemy started at (red or blue depending on enemy jungler) at 7:15, using your jungle advantage + the lane which has the advantage (GP lvl 1 buffmaster top).

At this point they have given 3 people large edges. Top lane had the buff, Jungle has the levels and XP, and Midlane doesn’t have to lane against enemy buff holders. The rest of the game is just M5 forcing fights around objectives of their choosing. The enemy team has to make choices with no positive outcome. They can either concede the objectives to M5 and extend the lead, or they can contest and likely lose the engagement.

M5 is REALLY REALLY GOOD

TSM vs. Dig

http://iemkiev.leagueoflegends.com/match/semi-final-2-team-solomid-vs-dignitas
Game 1

This game was a catastrophe for Dig. Nearly every lane lost early.

The early jungle invade by dig was a misguided attempt to gain early advantage which backfired terribly. TSM had the ward on blue buff and OddOne used his experience to cut Skarner off at Wraiths, which in turn allowed him to steal his red. From there Skarner had no avenues to get back into the game.

Starting Dorans blade, vs. one of the highest harass lanes in the game, with no sustain on your side is complete ignorance. They lost the lane at the shop screen. I really hope Imaqtpie mistakenly bought that item out of habit.

Regi used OddOne’s advantage to push mid without recourse. Cassio is stronger than Veigar early and the Skarner had no way of punishing.

Voyboy tried to place a forward ward at blue buff, which was another misguided attempt at coming back into the game. You place that ward when your jungle has an advantage, because you can force blue steals if you have a small lane/jungle advantage. He got caught by the already-ahead Lee Sin and essentially lost the lane at that moment.

Everything that happened after this in the game was just standard execution by TSM. They took their gigantic early game advantage and turned it into a decisive game 1 victory. Extremely solid play by TSM but mainly they were just reacting to dig’s mistakes.

Game 2

Great play by OddOne early. He got an extra special pull on blue buff which allowed him to save smite for a safer red invade. Amazing patience to wait in the red bush, and the high risk play of the red invade on Maokai gave him a great early jungle advantage.

From here TSM just kept pushing TOO’s advantage. There was some extremely clever play while stealing blue where OddOne waited in the proper bushes and Ryze cleared back to mid. After that he snuck in for the easy smite steal and kill on Maokai.

TSM did such a great job winning their lane matchups that once GP took a lead in the jungle, even Maokai ganks couldn’t result in reliable kills. It was a complete team victory for TSM, everyone individually won their matchup and both games snowballed into huge victories.

Overall Summary and trends

In both semi-finals, counter jungling was the name of the game. In 3 out of 4 games the enemy red was invaded and stolen within the first 3 minutes of the game. Stealing red at that point is absolutely devastating for a jungler, and none of the junglers today were able to recover after that point 3 minutes into the game.

The effect of counter jungling like it was seen today has huge impacts on the rest of the game. I would argue that the impact of a crushed jungler is even larger than successful ganks. I’m not sure why counter-jungling has been stressed this tourney, but it has easily been the most successful form of gameplay.

Teams and players have gotten better at noticing ganks approach in lanes and top ganking champions have fallen out of favor thanks to nerfs and superior warding. As a reaction to difficult to gank lanes, these teams have simply ran into the enemy jungle and forced fights there. The jungle invades provide an extreme amount of pressure on the enemy lanes; furthermore, if the enemy jungler gets shut down every lane gets to play with impunity. Counter jungling like this can win 3 lanes, while ganking can usually only win 1.

What about the finals?
I will say from experience that TSM and EG were the most difficult teams for me to counter-jungle against. Don’t expect for TSM to fall for the same tricks M5 has been using thus far, and don’t expect M5 to try the same shenanigans against TSM. The level 1 meta is something that had completely died before this weekend, and M5 have brought it back with a vengeance. I look forward to see what both teams figure out and bring to the table when the clock strikes 1:40

Early Game: So much hinges here for both teams. M5 have won nearly all of their games this tourney in the early game, and TSM took the early game to Dignitas even harder than M5 did to their opponents. I think everything hinges on how they attempt to counter-jungle each other and how each team reacts.

If you remember, TSM wrote the book on stealing blue at 7:15. They stopped doing it because too many teams began punishing them for overextending for buffs. Don’t expect them to forget how they were punished. If Diomondez is planning on invading TSMs starting buff at 7:15 he may be in for quite a surprise.

Picks:This is really exciting. I expect a sona first pick or ban, because both of these teams have been picking her early all tourney and punishing teams for having inferior supports. (if the other team doesn’t pick Soraka, they punish with Sona roam and passive 1v2, if the other team brings no sustain the punish with high harass)

I’m expecting a Shyvanna ban, I don’t think TSM is arrogant enough to allow Diamondez to play the champion he has been hot on all tourney. Also, Expect TSM to pick Gangplank early or ban it. A lot of M5’s strategies thus far have worked closely around gangplanks utility and his abusiveness while holding buffs.

But TSM lost all their scrims, how do they have a chance?

TSM has never played their best in scrims. Back when I was scrimming with Dig we actually decided to stop playing TSM because of the way they approach scrims. Solomid will never play their best strategies in scrims. They seemingly only scrim to figure out how other teams play optimally and figure out what they can do against them in tourneys. Pay attention to it next time they scrim, they intentionally let the other team get their money champions just to see how to deal with it/figure out what they are. It's smart.

So with everything in mind, I actually like TSM’s chances. I’d put it around 55% TSM 45% M5. It should be a fantastic finish.

**Edited to reflect less negatively on TSM's scrim practices, if I were still playing competitively and had a team on the east coast, playing A5's ladder would be the best way to spam practice. Also every team plays sub-optimally in scrims, TSM just plays comparatively worse than other teams