BOL Gold League Week Four Summary (With CTRL ALT ELITE!)
Demacia Division - Week Four Game Summary
Piltover Pokes versus CB Masquerade - Piltover Pokes wins 2-1. An excellent series and competition between both of these teams as a balanced attack in multiple lanes by Piltover Pokes secured a Game One victory. The important thing for the Pokes was that it was not simply the Nikolai K show which was necessary in later parts of the series. Not to be outdone, however, CB Masquerade answered back with a dominating performance in the solo lanes and SG Vesuvius in Game Two. In Game Three, CB Masquerade tried a unique team composition that sadly did not pan out for them but full credit to them for throwing caution to the wind. A very strong showing that was necessary for Piltover Pokes to continue to be squarely in the playoff picture. Special credit to Lamb Astaseul and Lyranea for a crucial performance in Game Three to secure the series for the Piltover Pokes.
TE Genesis versus TSF Retribution - TE Genesis wins 2-1 - Has Kazuha Nakamura shown up to save this team in their darkest hour? It may well be true as TE Genesis was able to eke out a victory over Team ShadowFrost in a critical series for both teams. All systems were go on game one and every lane of TE Genesis rolled over TSF Retribution in a decisive victory. However, like so many series this week, Game Two was a different story and TSF Retribution got their revenge behind CC3025’s Olaf, which was a contested pick in this series undoubtedly. While THECOBER tried hard on Kindred in Game Three, TE Genesis was able to win the deciding game. Special credit again to Kazuha Nakamura for strong performances in all games this series.
CB Shield versus Hyperion Gaming Heretics - CB Shield wins 2-0. While I think Hyperion may feel they left some things on the table and did not play to the level they expect of themselves, they did not have an awful week against the juggernaut that is CB Shield. CB Shield’s botlane was more than a match for Hyperion’s in Game One and the unfortunate matchup of Ornn into Jax meant that CB Shield had a splitpush monster as well in the toplane. Although Game Two was closer and TheFireOfTheFox’s Gangplank was strong, it simply wasn’t enough to hold back CB Shield as they wrapped up the series. Special credit to Cyclone here, pay some respect on their name already. They more than held their own against one of the finest midlaners in the League in TheFireOfTheFox1.
Conduit Esports Goblins versus RCG Abyssal Nightmare - Conduit Esports Goblins wins 2-0. For a series that ended 2-0, both teams ended up combining for the same amount of kills. This speaks highly of both teams in different ways. In regards to Conduit Esports Goblins, this is why they are so effective as they will seize any opportunity and gain advantages wherever possible. On the side of RCG Abyssal Nightmare, they did not make it easy on Conduit and pushed them heavily in both games. They just were not able to ultimately win out and, as such, the series result did not reflect the effort that they put in. While they are 1-3, I do believe in a path to the playoffs for this team but they now have barely any margin of error. Special credit to BaaaMM for strong carry performances on the Jinx and Zeri.
Demacia Division Power Rankings
CB Shield - Different week, same result. Just a dominant team to the core who comes in facing another substantial challenge. It may be their last challenge for a bit.
Conduit Esports Goblins - Major challenge this week as they face CB Shield but I doubt they will drop below second for the remainder of the split. Powerful team.
Hyperion Gaming Heretics - Still comfortably in a playoff spot but were caught lacking this week. Still potent and many players on the team know how to be a factor in the game.
Piltover Pokes - Piltover Pokes continue to do exactly what they need to and, if they win this week, playoffs surely becomes even more of a reality.
TE Genesis - They continue to take care of business and are on the right track, this week will be massive for them. If they win over the Pokes, playoffs will come down to the wire.
Team ShadowFrost - Basically a playoff situation with this team this week. They have pushed numerous teams to the limit in this Division.
RCG Abyssal Nightmare - The sun hasn’t set on them but a loss this week may be the end of their playoff hopes. I do believe they can best Team ShadowFrost, though.
CB Masquerade - Full credit for playing hard and throwing curveballs at teams, even if the results just have not been there yet.
Demacia Division Week Five Predictions
TE Genesis 2-1 Piltover Pokes
Hyperion Gaming Heretics 2-0 CB Masquerade
CB Shield 2-1 Conduit Esports Goblins
RCG Abyssal Nightmare 2-1 TSF Retribution
Series to Watch:
CB Shield versus Conduit Esports Goblins - One of the marquee matchups this week and perhaps one of the best ones in this Division this split, this matchup is one that both teams have probably circled on their calendars since the schedule was released. Undoubtedly two of the strongest teams in the Division, this matchup could have massive playoff implications. Conduit Esports Goblins has quietly put together an impressive split and met every challenge thus far but they do go up against one of the strongest teams in the entire League in CB Shield. This is a regular season match for the ages. I look forward to what both teams bring to the table and am curious if there will be any unorthodox picks from either team here.
Ionia Division Week Four Summary
Hey everyone new writing voice here this is CTRL ULT ELITE the platinum writer. I volunteered my services to help out with your content this week as Feathers and Fur is very busy. I chose Ionia as it looks like the league with the closest match scores. Keep in mind I do not have time to watch every game I am just going to be looking at your guys drafts, overall record and post game stats.
Week 4 Recap
TE Phantasm vs Mythical Esports Hydra
Mythical Esports Hydra 2-1 TE Phantasm
Game 1 of this series was a dominant win for TEP. Despite the game taking over 30 minutes TEP was able to nearly shut out MEH from every objective on the map only allowing them to take 1 turret and no neturals. Draft for this series was absolutely wild as TEP 1st pick A Sol with none of his classic counters banned by either side. TEP somehow picked 3 winning lanes on blue side. MollyWhops in mid for the side of MEH kept their team in this game at least picking up 6 kills and having 70% KP. As far as the MVP overall for game 1 I am going to go with Grim Dafrye on Ezreal for TEP as they had an insane 81% KP, the most money in the game and a 11.0 KDA.
Game 2 of the series was the closest and had the blue side win once again as MEH bounced back thanks to an incredible bot lane performance of a Jinx Lulu by Arsenal and IEnders off a front to back team comp. Gragas 1st pick was taken as a flex baiting TEP into taking GP in round 1. MEH was then able to pick Cho and Sylas into GP making sure that he had no side lane threat. TEP played much more of a pick comp but was unable to get to the squishy hyper carry of Jinx often enough.
For Game 3 both teams went nuts. IDK if this is normal for gold but 62 kills in 30 minutes is not normal in Plat. Again MEH was able to take the game this time on red with a counter pick. TEP went back to their poke comp idea for game 3. MEH simply played for hard engage with Malphite top and Sylas jungle. MollyWhops was MVP in game 3 on Cho mid eventually as they fed enough to the point where they did not care about all the poke and simply walked at TEP.
So what are my key takeaways from this series? As MEH you need to make sure your early game does not doom you. You need to have lanes that win in isolated matchups. Game 1 both your bot and top lane are into losing matchups and you cannot get out of the early game. Looking at your team stats you guys are playing for Hearld trading away dragons. That's great if you are winning but when you are losing it's just making sure that you are forced to fight earlier in the game.
For TEP you guys need to work on your isolated deaths. 24 deaths a game is way way too high. You guys have above a 3.0 team KDA(barley) and that's the number that to me says you are a real team. In plat you guys would be top 3 in deaths a game(and we have several teams who are without a game win). You need to have a frontline for your team. Playing tanks sucks but your team needs a way to enter objectives. If the enemy team is drafting more and more beef you cannot try and counter it with more and more damage. You don't need to pick Ornn/Sion every game but maybe look at bruisers instead of the hyper scalers in top lane. I mean just imagine an Aatrox into Cho, sylas and Malphite. You would drain tank them forever.
Going Ghost VS Degenerate Esports Eternal
Going Ghost 2-0 Degenerate Esports Eternal
Game 1 of this series has GG on the blue side and DEE on red. GG based their entire 1st draft around Sejuani jungle taking very strong melee lanes to gank for that hard snowball with Olaf and Sylas and an independent scaling bot lane of Zeri Janna who play for each other and try their best not to die. DEE on the other hand has a very bizarre comp. It's trying to do too much of everything from teamfight AOE, to picks to poke. Wukong is not the early game snowballer he relies much on teamfighting and most of DEE’s comp needs to get ahead to function. This comp is also picked into an olaf who can just ignore all the CC you have drafted. Game 1 takes just over 30 minutes and DEE are only able to get 12 kills and 1 tower compared to the 30 kills and 9 towers of GG. Belesaurus on Zeri for GG gets my mvp as they had a 15.0 KDA and 260 CS having the most gold diff in the game.
Game 2 of our series has GG on red side with counter pick and DEE on blue. DEE take the blue side strongest jungler in J4 setting up a draft featuring lots of early game ganks with the idea to win every lane hard and snowball. GG on red drafted much more to kite backwards and disengage with things like Ezreal, Ahri and Nami trusting in their split push Jax to win out in the side lane vs a Volibear. Minibeast in Jungle on Wukong is the clear MVP of game 2. They died the least of every player in this entire game and still had a 77% KP.
This series showcases what makes a team at the top of the standings different then one at the bottom. Going Ghost has a better read on the gold meta playing comps that make sense ensuring they have CC, clear carries and engage options. DEE are trying to do too much in the draft. Flex picks are welcome for teams but you need to have a point of them. If you end up having to play Pantheon into one of 2 different lanes that lose, that was not a good pick. Find your key carry and ensure they are set up for success. With this loss DEE are out of playoffs in Gold.
Literal Monkeys vs TE Eternity
Literal Monkeys 2 -0 TO Eternity
MKY are the blue side for game 1 and pick a very solid front to back team with Sivir and Viktor as the primary threats. TEE on the other hand are playing an absolutely wack team comp going for Veigar Leona bot and rumble top with Kindred and Panth to bring the AD and early game. Unfortunately, Kindred is not able to invade all game and get ahead in the jungle. Pyramid boy in mid on Viktor gets MVP of the game for me having a very high KP and not getting shut down by the pantheon mid flex.
Game 2 TEE is on blue and they go with Seraphine 1st pick. They again have a nonsensical team comp in my eyes taking almost no winning lanes, few ways for Kai”sa to ult and no clear engage options. This team is playing for Jax to win on the side and win the game I guess? MKY on the other hand has like every engage option in the game plus the kitchen sink to throw at TEE. This game is a banger, it goes for 47 minutes and is incredibly close. Both teams take barons and MKY win out thanks to claiming an elder dragon.
My Key points from this series
Work on pulling the trigger for MKY. You guys had way too much engage for game 2 to take 47 minutes. If Jax wants to split push anytime fater 25 minutes let him and go ace the enemy team. Like I don’t know if its not synching up ult timers or what but game 2 you have legit everything imaginable to start a fight. At dragon find where this team is and press your buttons together and game 2 is a wash same as game 1.
For TEE try to ensure that your lane combinations make sense. Viegar bot is great but Leona is not who he wants as his support. You want something that interacts with the cage, Alistar, Naut, Pyke. Seraphine needs an ADC with slows to be a real support. Ashe, MF, Twitch.
Conduit Esports Spark vs Mystic Cats Gold
Mystic Cats Gold 2 - 1 Conduit Esports Sparks
So I am going to start this series off by saying these 2 teams are drafting absolute nonsense this week. Teams are not comps; these are just a selection of picks. Also whoever uploaded this make your pics bigger these are like images for ants.
Anyway game 1 MCG lose on the red side playing a front to back team comp. I am very surprised to see Morde jungle as I thought his nerfs to that role made him terrible at it. This team also has an Ori with like 0 Ball delivery. Sej is almost never able to fully jump on people and my guess is Zeri for CES just needles everyone until they all die. MVP for game 1 is Batman0308 on trundle jungle for CES.
Game 2 I hate the CATS DRAFT SO MUCH. Why on earth do you ban Zeri, Aphelios if you are 1st picking Yummi? Why do you have an entirely melee DOT style top side of the map? Lucian Yummi is a lane I have never seen and it dominates into Kai’sa Naut somehow. CES into a team of only things that want to run you down has like 0 anti engage somehow. They have immobile squishy things that if Singed presses W on them they die. Dragon eventually forced CES to come fight the CATs and they lose off of it.
Game 3 CES Bans Singed bravo. That is the best part of the draft. This draft again makes 0 sense whatsoever. IDK who is doing this but both coaches or players drafting are deranged. So for Spark you have a team with really hard core engage and poke damage taking really safe carries. But this team's mid game damage is absolutely abysmal. Corki is not a real champion until he gets like 3.5 items. You have 2 super tanks in top and jungle and Xayah who wants her team to be as front loaded on damage as possible as she self peels. So CES teams sucks. Cats are playing counter picks the team. Nothing makes sense together. There is no engage except the Rakkan flank or bowling ball sleep. This team has very risky waveclear. There is 1 knock up for Yas. I hate almost every aspect of this draft. Cats also crush this game. It's not close. Coach Eggboi on Yasuo runs a train on CES. They secure dragon soul 2 barons every Rift herald and all 11 towers in 29 minutes.
So my key takeaways:
Both teams try to come into drafts every week with some sort of overall plan. It can be as loose as we are playing Yasuo plus a knock up and looking for 5v5s to more nuanced of we are going for pushing lanes plus Kindred to prey on early weak jungle picks.
Pay just as much attention to what your team can do as a whole then what the enemy team can
For Spark please just focus on getting your CS numbers up and your kills down. Despite having plenty of teams with similar game times, all of them are making so much more money then you. It takes 5 minutes a day in practice tool for a week to get the 1st 3 waves of CS down to a science that you can do in your sleep. I do not have to tell you that 3.5 towers a game is bad. You know it, I know it. If a dragon fight is looking bad try to trade for a tower at the very least.
Ionia Division Power Rankings
Going Ghost would be my pick for number 1 in Ionia. They are sitting with 23 points the same as the Literal Monkeys and possess superior team stats to Literal Monkeys. They average more kills, have a higher KDA and get more objectives every game on average. Both these teams get a chance to prove once and for all in week 7 who is superior as they play one an