Week 6 LPL Review

As expected and announced in the preview, Week 6 contained 24 games full of action and surprises. Let me take you through a few of the games and give you some fascinating facts about them.

by Michael "Tribble" Godani

February 27th

The day kicked off with an expected one-sided victory for Vici Gaming, who completely outclassed the inexperienced Energy Pacemakers. Vici then set out to humiliate EP, taking the second game in under 20 minutes and securing themselves three points for the series.

The second match was between LGD Gaming, one of the favorites for the top 3 spots, and Gamtee, who have improved a lot in their last few games. With the help of smart rotations, LGD won the first game with a strong lead in gold, kills and objectives. Gamtee's new jungler, Hu1, had a somewhat unlucky match, but his debut performance wasn't bad if you ignore the statistics.

Game 2 started off with a surprise for both Gamtee and their fans. Hu1 scored a pentakill after only 11 minutes.

The setup for the pentakill was exceedingly well done. Hu1, on Rek'sai, moved into the first botlane sidebush, waiting for TBQ to engage onto Sinkdream and Tale. On the engage, Hu1 immediately responded with a three men unborrow. Sinkdream dropped to PyL while both midlaners and toplaners raced to botlane. Hu1 picked up a fast double kill and then used the turret as a safespot just to flash in and take out PyL. During this, Xiaohu was putting out as much damage as he could with his ultimate while moving towards the botlane as Hu1 quickly took out We1less, who towerdove Letme and was still getting hit by the turret. Hu1 then chased down Acorn with Xiaohu to get his first Pentakill in his debut in the LPL!

Hu1 quickly turned that pentakill gold into a Sightstone and Giant’s Belt just to be that huge meatshield to carry his team to victory. Despite a 41 minute win for Gamtee to split the series, after the pentakill they were pretty much in control of the game.

The third game of the day was former SSB Spirit’s Team WE vs King. Team WE, being on the bottom of the LPL standings at this point, showed disappointing gameplay from pretty much all lanes. King, who are out of a playoff spot, were not reflecting their way of playing according to most analysts, but they've been steadily improving and were really looking forward to grabbing some points and repairing their standings this week.

The most exciting part of this series was actually game number two. TWE’s Ninja picked up the Cho’Gath mid against King’s Assassin’s Ahri. With an out of meta pick like Cho’Gath, it seemed like Team WE would split the series after losing Game 1 to the LPL newcomers. Winning scrims here and there on the map forced King to get their heads together and produced some heavy 5v5’s. Despite Aluka and his good Sion ults, the teamfighting potential of King took the victory with a clean ace, bringing out WE's surrender. An expected 2-0 victory for King and yet, a very strong performance from Team WE in Game 2.

The big match of the day was EDG vs OMG, take a look at the link below for the review with special guest Reid “RAPiD” Melton.

EDG vs OMG W6G4 review with Reid "Rapidcasting" Melton - LCSFanzone.com

These are the endgame results for Friday, February 27th:

February 28th

For those who have followed me or other LPL watchers on twitter, the second day in our favorite league was injected with the word “unexpected.” That being said, the struggling team of SHRC took one of the teams who hasn’t been able to secure a 2-0 victory yet in the current split, Energy Pacemaker. Energy Pacemaker came out with new energy in Game 1 against the 2014 Worlds' finalists and having their jungler Drizzle on his favorite champion, Lee sin, meant a different EP then we have seen until now or even yesterday.

One big surprise came in the champ select after Raphael locked in Viktor mid, following the trend that LCK’s GE Tigers started the day before. Drizzle tried taking control of Insec’s jungle by invading and taking away big creeps, hoping to force his enemy's Rengar away from the camps. SHRC controlled the first ten minutes, taking first blood after a great gank by Insec onto Raphael’s Viktor using the Lissandra/Rengar CC chain to lock him down, despite having cleanse on his champion. Later on, they secured the first drake in trade for a couple of flashes and Insec's life - and that is where the game started to turn.

EP was smelling blood and blood they found. SHRC was looking for fights in the most uncommon and strangest places which would only benefit EP's composition. Every single teamfight ended up in giving Viktor kills. Viktor, in turn, got massive, as you can expect and took his team by the hand together with the amazing performing Drizzle. The vision game was still pretty bad by EP but the way that they anticipated situations and taking into consideration that they were quite fed, there was no real vision needed to delete SHRC from the map in just 28 minutes.

The biggest surprise for Game 2 was that SHRC did not ban Viktor (who was picked by Raphael again) to which they had no answer and strangest of all, they didn’t ban or take away Drizzle's Lee Sin. Instead, Insec took the Jarvan IV, a champion who he is not that impressive on. This time, EP did manage to improve their warding around objectives and what also helped was that X1u was really showing up on his Thresh with some amazing backward flays. After dictating the lanes, great rotational ganks and a fast push of the outer turrets, EP managed to take a pre-22 minute baron with a 7-0-7 Viktor and a 4-1-5 Graves. EP, surprisingly enough for a team that hasn't won a series yet, closed out the game extremely fast and ended the game in 27 minutes with Raphael’s Viktor having a perfect 9-0-11 game, participating in 20 of the 22 kills. 

The second game of the day was between Masters 3 and the surprisingly well performing Snake Esports. Snake went into this confrontation being the only team to have won a set against the LPL powerhouse EDG. Snake did well by taking Baka’s Xerath away from him by putting Dade on him, yet the Azir was taken by Baka, which surprisingly got him quite the CS lead early against the under-performing midlaner from M3.

After taking the first two dragons against the odds, M3 was done giving away free objectives and turned on the heat by taking the next two without any real trouble. The botlane from M3 showed up with some incredible plays and, being part of 9 of the 11 team kills at around the 20 minute mark, really learned that they were the ones carrying their team through this game. With a comp to really poke their opponents, not a lot of vision was needed and so they did siege up to the tier 2 turrets with success. Putting Snake on their back with a 35 minute win in Game 1 only meant that Game 2 was going to be a do or die for Snake if they wanted to secure that second spot in the standings after this week.

Game 1 really showed that the current #1 spot for MVP, Kryst4l, is a bit overrated. He didn't show up in Game 1 and the Draven pick for Game 2 wasn't doing wonders for him and his team either. The decision to take Draven against such a mobile champion as Kalista (who was combined with the Leona) while having two assassins on their team with Dade’s Zed and DreamS’s Rengar, was a risky pick to say the least.

Baka was performing decently on his Kassadin with picking up a fast five kills but he didn't seem enough to deal with Looper’s Lissandra and the power botlane of Carry and Lovecd. After losing baron and some big scrims and teamfights, despite the gold lead, M3 did manage to push their gold lead towards a very clean 2-0 victory over Snake. Looper and the botlane, formed of Candy and Lovecd, really showed up with their incredible abilities of carrying the teamfights, while Dade was not to be left aside for his beautiful assassination plays on the Zed.

Candy is really playing a terrific Kalista and he and Lovecd seem to become stronger by the week. After EP shaking things up earlier today, followed by the ace of Masters 3 over Snake, would this be the time for Team WE to finally take their first series of the split?

Team WE left me with a good feeling. Even after losing the series to King, they seemed to have improved their teamplay and shotcalling and appeared ready to fight in the series against IG. Ninja, who hasn’t been performing well, jumped onto the Ezreal while Spirit took one of the tickets for the Nidalee jungle hype train and with success!

Slow pace and limited action really marked this series. We are talking about 18 kills in an almost 34 minute LPL game. What was strong this game was the dragon control by TWE, having that poke comp with the Nidalee, Ezreal and Corki while also having that big Maokai for the frontline and the Janna for the disengage. Making sure that they had the exact timer for the dragons resulted in a five dragon game while most of them were uncontested and otherwise the players of IG were poked down too low to be of any value to contest the objective.

The second game wasn’t much of a difference, only this time TWE didn’t have a poke comp and Aluka jumped onto his favorite champion, Sion. Another five drake game by TWE resulted in a beautiful and well deserved 2-0 victory over Invictus Gaming. We can only hope that TWE will continue this form of teamplay and objective control so that we will see a very different TWE for the last end of the split.

The final results for Day 2:

March 1st

On the third day of the week, the day of draws, there were a few games that are really worth mentioning. Let’s start off with Edward Gaming against King.

King already took four points out of the possible six in the last two days and were really looking forward to giving the now mortal-looking team of EDG a strong fight. The first meeting between these teams was very close, although EDG did take the 2-0 in that series.

Game 1 was an incredible show of map control by EDG. They did not focus on the early dragons as we had seen against OMG earlier this week but instead worked on controlling the lanes and everything in-between. The way that EDG responded to a tier 2 turret siege from King at some point was by taking away their mid tier 1 turret and top tier 2 turret which forced the remaining four members of the team to recall and defend their base before EDG would take it in their wanted base race.

EDG continued to rotate inbetween the lanes to put out pressure onto the remaining outer turrets and inhibitor turrets with some stylish teamplay of Samsung superstars, Pawn and Deft. A high kill game from part of EDG that only gave away five kills in 36 minutes, of which one was a suicide into the enemies' fountain by Koro1. The 4-0-12 Twisted Fate of Pawn and 5-0-12 by Clearlove's Rek’Sai really impressed and this was by far one of the most dominating performances of this week.

Game 2 didn’t seem to be much different, only that EDG was looking for more and faster kills then in Game 1. The first show of power by King was around the 20 minute mark when Assassin, Nlxg and Leym were waiting in the river bush in the botlane to punish the arrogance of Pawn and Meiko running down the river over the scuttle crab that was in control of King by going for a 3-1 trade and taking the bot outer turret. King’s Assassin told the journalist of the LPL after the game that after going 1v2 against Deft and Meiko on the botlane, coming out with two kills for him and sacrificing himself to Clearlove so that his team could secure the baron was the moment that he felt like they had this game.

Assassin’s Zed was the highest level champion in the game and looking terrifying with wielding a Black Cleaver, BOTRK, Brutalizer and a Last Whisper after only 30 minutes. The proper items to simply delete a squishy target of the map. Nonetheless, the dragonfight that occurred several minutes later ended up in an easy 4-1, tier 2 turret and inhibitor for EDG, yet they lost the drake to King after Nlxg kicked Clearlove out of the pit with Lee Sin’s ultimate - securing his teams' fourth drake of the game.

After some vision control swaps around the baron between EDG and King, EDG came out on top and having that mid inhibitor down only meant that they were the ones that should be able to pick up this baron quite easy and uncontested.

Having wards everywhere in King’s red jungle and having super minions pushing into the nexus turrets, King didn’t hesitate to protect or, better say, steal this objective away from EDG, who clearly was not respecting the Fiddlesticks that was brought out by Leym as a support. When Leym ulted into the baron pit, Nlxg followed right after just to steal the baron away from EDG. While escaping, Skye put down the equalizer and burned through the heart of this EDG line-up - which left Pawn and Koro1 behind with very low health bars.

Deft being the only one to survive and being picked up later with only a little more then a minute remaining for a possible fifth drake for King only got this game looking more and more exiting. King made the wise decision to take away the inhibitor turret in the middle from EDG and then rotate back towards the dragon pit so that they could place their wards down to have full vision for what would be one of the "do-or-die" moments of an already fantastic week. The drake spawned and was started by King, which would result in a 50/50 smite fight between Clearlove and Nlxg - who was a level higher so 20 more damage on his smite. Nlxg came away again with the objective and this meant a fifth dragon plus baron buffed team that stood in front of EDG. King didn’t hesitate and deleted EDG in no time, with only Clearlove managing to escape.

This meant a fifth point out of the possible nine for King, knowing they did split against the number one of Korea and maybe the world, meant this was a great performance from this King team.

There were obviously more matches being played this weekend, they were all worth watching, yet I had to make a choice of which games to cover as a report and these were the ones. The Day 3 SHRC vs M3 is also a very interesting match to watch, highly recommend that if you love objective steals that you watch this series between SHRC and M3.

Standings after Week 6:

Upcoming Games for Week 7:

Day 1:

Master3 vs King
Star Horn Royal Club vs LGD Gaming
Team We vs Snake
OMG vs Vici Gaming

Day 2:

King vs Snake
Invictus Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker
Team WE vs Master3
OMG vs Gamtee

Day 3:

Vici Gaming vs Energy Pacemaker
Master3 vs Gamtee
Edward Gaming vs Snake
OMG vs Star Horn Royal Club

Samsung White : 2014 League of Legends' World Champions

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Worlds 2014 has been a roller coaster of plays, tears, upsets and high flying performances, but in the end, it was all down to Star Horn Royal Club’s second consecutive finals appearance against Samsung White, who crashed out in groups last year as Samsung Ozone. A lot had changed for both teams, and their respective rides to the finals were both fairly similar in being overlooked by some in favour of other teams from their region as well as being predicted winners by others.

Pick/Bans:

The ban phase from both teams throughout the four matches that were played was static at best. Samsung White was relentless in their commitment to remove Lee Sin and Lucian from all games played while Star Horn Royal Club also shared the same conviction in continuously banning out Alistar and Zilean. Staying on the topic of trends, Star Horn Royal Club also showed a very strong belief in Tristana and Ryze, who both featured in every game for them except game three. I believe their desperation in trying to outscale SSW is what ultimately led to their downfall in this series, as they were taken apart before twenty minutes in every single game except game three. Had Royal Club opted to try and pick a more early or mid-game peaking team comp, they may have had the opportunity to fight back the aggression and sheer dominance of SSW led brilliantly by Dandy’s map pressure.

Samsung White’s picks were successful because they always went for a team comp that had mid game power spikes and could pick individuals off with ease. They played around Dandy’s ability to perfectly execute ganks and skirmishes while continuously punishing the time it took for SHR’s comps to scale. Game 3 was the only one where their picks didn't particularly synergize and the Singed never did have as much impact as when Looper was on Kassadin, Maokai and Rumble. Similarly to how SHR relied a lot on Tristana as an ADC pick, Twitch was also taken by SSW in three of the four games and put to a much greater use than the Tristana pick. If anything, these games certainly stood out as a demonstration of exactly how you put down and keep down a Tristana, even in comps designed to prioritize her.

Games:

Royal Club, in game one, tried to go for a standard “Uzi protection” team comp that relied on Tristana hyper scaling into the late game with Janna and Orianna shields to prevent her ever being taken down. While this had worked in past games and Uzi is undeniably one of the best AD Carries in the world, Samsung White’s early to mid-game domination was simply too much for SHRC to handle and their Hyper carry comp never really got a chance to breathe. First Blood was secured at around 1:20, Dandy wasted no time controlling the enemy jungle with wards and pinks which then allowed for an easy second kill on the bottom lane. By fifteen minutes the score of the first game was 0/6, which went on to also be the story of games two and four. Insec’s performance was particularly lacking in the face of near perfection in Dandy and the pressure really seemed to get to him the most out of all the players on Royal Club. In game one he was killed by the same Jayce shockblast combo twice in quick succession; in game two he failed to secure an easy to kill on Pawn because he decided to walk away and let Damage Over Time deal the killing blow instead of simply attack one more time which allowed for Pawn to escape with a last second Janna shield. Insec’s failure to be relevant in any way compared to his counterpart is only the worst example as every member of Star Horn Royal paled in comparison to the Koreans and even Uzi who was really hyped up failed to put up any kind of relevant showing in games one, two and four. Once he finally got a chance to scale, though down to SSW’s questionable and overconfident picks and choices in game three, he showed what he’s known for but the beast was tamed whenever Samsung White had their feet on the pedal.

If I had to pick a standout performer of the series I would have no choice but to pick Dandy. He completely suppressed Star Horn’s lanes with well-timed ganks, counter ganks and flawless vision control. A lot of Samsung White’s ability to be so frightening is down to how well he and Mata light up the map, his ganks were covered by his team as well as circles of vision to ensure no blank spots could allude to potential danger. It was as close to perfect jungling as I’ve ever seen in my time watching professional League Of Legends, in both synergy and single-handed brilliance.

The question now is what will happen to Samsung White in the coming months, if they can maintain this level of beautiful gameplay it's more than possible that they can be the first team to re-qualify for worlds after winning it. But there is every chance that they could go down the route of SKT T1 K who many also thought were absolutely unstoppable, Only time will tell.

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by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Twice is Nice; SHRC Make Second Straight Finals Appearance Against Heavy Favorite Samsung White

by Matt “It’s Pure Luck” Lee

New name. New roster (mostly). Same result for Star Horn Royal Club; a trip to the League of Legends World Championship finals. It has been a fairly surprising run for Royal as they were somewhat of an afterthought in this tournament. Before Worlds began, the general consensus about the teams representing the LPL was that if any of them were to make the finals it would have been Edward Gaming. Yet, in the end, it would SHRC who took down EDG in five games, avenging the loss they suffered to them in the LPL regional qualifiers to determine the region’s top seed.



Star Horn then moved on to face off versus another LPL opponent, this time it was surging OMG. OMG looked brilliant in dismantling Najin White Shield in their previous series. This showing had people leaning on OMG as a slight favorite to win this series, but once again SHRC had other ideas. They won what was a very entertaining, back and forth series in five games, including a dominant performance in game five to close OMG out.

Samsung White on the other hand has had about as simple a road to the finals as you could ask for. Not because of the quality of opponents they have faced. Rather, they just look so dominant in almost every performance they have. The series win against Samsung Blue was one of the most impressive performances I’ve seen in League of Legends. Samsung White didn't just win; they absolutely dismantled a team that was one of the top favorites to win this tournament. It was all the more impressive because Blue is a team that has constantly given White trouble in the past. The only loss White suffered was a lackadaisical effort versus Team SoloMid when they held a 2-0 lead in that quarterfinal series.



There is no doubt that this has been a great run for SHRC. They have shocked even themselves as Uzi mentioned that even Star Horn players were not sure they could get this far. But winning this series would require a monumental effort from the entire team, both mechanically and strategically. The biggest name on Royal is Uzi and it’s for a good reason. The argument could be made he is the best AD carry in the world. SHRC has been opting to go with the “Feed the ADC” strategy and it has been working but against a team as strategically sound as SSW it will be hard to win on that alone. And let’s keep in mind that as good as Uzi his, the other half of that “Best AD carry in the world” debate will be his opposite number in Imp. Both of these players are highly aggressive and it should be a fun match-up to watch.

Outside of the bottom lane match-up, one of the biggest keys for Star Horn will be to control their aggression. Dandy is so good and always seems to be in the right place at the right time for a counter-gank. If InSec’s decision making isn't on point, or SHRC as a whole doesn't have great vision control, a poor engage can easily spiral a game into Samsung White’s favor. That isn't to say Star Horn want to play passive. That simply isn't their style. But picking their spots is going to be more crucial in this series than ever before.

As much as I would love for this series to go to five games, I cannot see it happening. SHRC has performed admirably to get this far, especially when you consider things such as language barriers between the players and a lack of extended time playing together. But Samsung White is just playing too well at the most important time of the year. Look for SSW to hoist the Summoner’s Cup tonight and take their place as the League of Legends World Champions.

Prediction: Samsung White 3:0 over Star Horn Royal Club

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By Matt "It's Pure Luck" Lee

Season 4 World Championship Finals Preview : Samsung White vs Starhorn Royal Club

by Max

Samsung White and Star Horn Royal Club both entered into the Quarterfinals in the prestigious first seed spots of the two 'easier' groups. White was barely challenged at all, coasting through undefeated. Royal Club dropped a single game to the NA champs, Team SoloMid. So let’s examine the statistics to see how close SSW and SHRC actually are:

Not surprisingly, when you look at KDA ratios at Worlds, the top five players are all from Samsung White. While both teams dropped a game to TSM, that was White’s only loss (holding a 6-1 record), whereas Royal Club did not have an easy path getting to the finals. White dominated all their series with ease; Royal Club’s 6-4 record included two tough series that came down to the final game. If mindset matters, Samsung White will definitely has the upper hand there.

White's laning phase has been completely devastating. Mata's early game roams and Dandy’s amazing counterganks and counterjungling leaves the enemy junglers with no room to breath. Pawn performed really well, teaching Dade how to play that midlane Jayce. It is difficult to analyze SSW's comebacks and how they play with a massive gold deficit, as the team was only placed in that situation once during the tournament (in their single loss to TSM). It was a game SSW arguably lost in the draft phase, by not having any wave-clear and choosing only late game scaling carries.

Star Horn Royal Club has been playing the "let’s get UZI fed" game, and even though it's worked out for them so far, it might not be enough against White. We have seen that if they fall behind without having a hyper-carry Tristana in their pocket, they have absolutely no idea what to do. Besides being famous for his Lee Sin mechanics, inSec is also famous for his playstyle. He looks for fights and then looks for more. When Royal Club is behind, he is still constantly looking for fights instead of farming up in his jungle and waiting to countergank.

The bottom lane is where Royal Club has the greatest chance of winning. Uzi and Zero can dominate the early game, especially against imp’s favorite Twitch pick. Presumably the weaker draft will do a lane swap, and that will show how well can SRC strategically plan against SSW. Hopefully, Royal Club will bring enough of a challenge to keep the Finals interesting and stave off the 3-0 blow out most are expecting. With over 45,000 fans watching this Sunday at the Seoul Olympic Stadium and millions more tuning in from all over the world, we're hoping for a championship to remember!