BOL Plat Breakdown Week 2
Hello again to everyone in Blue Otter League platinum. I hope everyone had a great week 1! This week I am going to be doing more of what is a typical article for me. So the basic format of this article and those moving forward is that I am going to do a prediction on the upcoming matches of the week. I will put who I think is going to win each matchup and why, a letter grade on how well I thought they drafted last week as well as what lane I think will be the most impactful next week. I have included the draftlol links so that you can more easily follow along my train of thought. Having to add over 20 images to a post simply took way too much time to format. New this year to my articles I have an interview section. With 16 teams in the league it is going to be next to impossible for me to coordinate with individual players so I am using google forms. Hopefully you enjoy them and it sparks some discussion within the league. Thank you so much to all 22 players who took some time to fill it out.
Looking for some ambiance while you read this massive article? Here is the BOL Bangers playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG2tPWT6dLSGVGPqApLbX0p6KkO0NRtIV
Every song within this playlist is hand picked by a member of our community. I did my best to organize it a little to put genres close to one another.
GE Emerald VS MasterMcNasty
Prediction 2-1 for Master McNasty
Lane to Watch: Top Lane
The first matchup of Shurima features 2 teams that are coming off of a rough week 1. Both GEE and MMN were unable to find a win in their 1st series. On the bright side for both of these teams they were playing 2 teams I am confident will be top 4 within this group. When looking at overall team stats GEE had an abysmal showing in week 1 they only got 1 tower a game and had the lowest CS and kills a game out of every team in Shurmia. MMN had slightly better team stats getting a respectable 4.5 towers a game and a baron. I have predicted Master McNasty to win this series 2-1 and I hope for their sake that they can pull off a 2-0. BOL has a short regular season and every week counts towards playoffs. In week 1 MMN showed they understood draft concepts and played as a team with a cohesive team composition. Top lane is my lane to watch for this series as Papa Cooks have shown they have some very unique counter picks in draft and I still worry about 2006HondaInsight’s champion pool.
Drafts: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/P8JQUgwS https://draftlol.dawe.gg/ofmX0NRJ
In Week 1 I give GEE a C+ from me from a draft perspective. Your draft in game 1 was way better than your game 2 draft. In game 1 you matched lanes properly and grabbed things that you wanted comfort wise. Unfortunately you picked 0 winning lanes in game 1 and had no real way to start a fight. An under level Rakkan trying to start a fight into Lux Varus Maokai sounds like a dead Rakkan. Game 2 you tried to fix that having Sion to start fights and a couple of even lanes. But as blue side you guys had some really strange prick prio if I am being honest. I get you really want the Morde but are you scared OBER is taking it from you immediately? Lilia was a counter to the Sej I get but like why take it now? You can just build your bot lane to beat a lux pick. Sion was also odd in round 2, not the pick itself. I respect Sion Mid. I have played a lot of Sion Mid and uh it's not really blind pickable in comp. In solo que it works blind great as no mage player ever expects you to be mid and then you shove them in and scale as they waste mana trying to kill you. This game it was pretty easy to see where it is and OER took the Azir counter which makes you want to FF as sion. If you guys just sit back and think about the overall direction of draft I think you guys got it.
Drafts https://draftlol.dawe.gg/Z1cMmILb/b0KxRJes https://draftlol.dawe.gg/XDYK34a8/hFU2BP8K
Week 1 in draft decisions MMN gets a B+ from me. Game 1 I really like what your team comp is built to do and how it functions. You fumbled the ball a bit in terms of pick order and your round 2 bans. Taking your support 1st pick is a little strange but sure why not. I think jungle is probably the best blue side 1st pick. Your bans in round 2 should have been focused either way more on supports to counter Naut Samira(like Taric Rakkan the Braum that was picked) or you should have gone after Syndra counter picks if you knew that you were blind picking that mid lane. Otherwise your draft is solid in its simplicity just ult Kai”sa and kill her every fight and let your tanks peel Samira once Kai’Sa is dead. Your game 2 draft again is quite good. I think the Jayce pick was a little too early. Jayce is incredible the higher ELO you go but were platinum players. He's not pick ban for us. I think again you take Naut here instead of the Jayce as it's good into Annie support and you are picking an aggressive marksman anyway. I like most or less all of the rest of this draft.
TA Capybara VS Oblivion Esports Ruby
Prediction 2-1 for Oblivion
Lane to Watch: Bot Lane
So despite OER taking a dominant 2-0 Victory in week 1 over GEE and TAC failing to win their series against SHZ I think that this should be a close match. A stomp that hard means I have rated one of the two teams of OER or GEE completely wrong. With more games being played tonight we will have more of a clear idea did I seriously underrate OER? I think that TAC are a decent team and I am excited to see if they can show up and bounce back from a series loss. Neither of these 2 teams focused very much on Hearld and were much more focused towards dragons so expect a lot more teamfights and less side lane threats. As far as individual stats go Ravensman for OER was the standout player of everyone in week 1 and his support KneoStorm was also in the top 5. I expect these numbers to go way down this game as they are simply unsustainable. So bot lane I think becomes the lane to watch to see if OER can continue their domination down there and prove me wrong.
Drafts: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/P8JQUgwS https://draftlol.dawe.gg/ofmX0NRJ
Draft in week 1 I give OER an A. So in game 1 the whole point of this draft for both teams is top side for both teams scale and early game is all about bot lane. You have the much stronger bot lane early and the much stronger side as the game goes late so you did really well for yourself. Couple of things I think you could have waited on the A sol pick. Lux is a flex pick kind of. You could take a jungle here and mid is much safer later. Like GEE could have locked early pressure with like Vi, Yone or something to that effect where you are just praying you do not get dove on repeat. Otherwise great draft. Game 2 draft was great again. Sivir pick I guess was taken for the option to kite away with Sivir instead of going forward so I get it.
Drafts Game 1 pick ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/HBbqd404 Game 2 pick ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/K_fL1G3g Game 3 pick ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/WxMGxsv9
Draft for TAC gets a C. Things started off good with some minor problems and drafts just started getting worse and worse as your series continued. Game 1 draft I think is way too hard to play If I am being honest. It looks easy but your entire team's damage is just from Viktor and Varus. Normally thats fine but those 2 are immobile. They have like 7 key things they need to dodge and keep track of every fight. So things to watch out for: Rakkan Engage, Wukong Flanks, Xayah Feathers, GP Barrels, Talyiah combo, Talyiah wall to block escape. Game 2 draft on both sides is a mess and you won the game convincingly so I guess good job but I just have so many questions. The Jayce pick as flex was the best pick of this entire series. I would not want to be playing Jayce in a plat league but that's your choice. So Shadowz is playing a full run into you team comp and you're playing some sort of anti engage kite back poke comp? Why pick Rakkan? Xayah is banned and if you need to engage onto Sivir lots of better stuff like Alistar. My main question is why is your team playing Vlad? Fights in this game are all going to be over in like 5 seconds and you already have a side laner in Jayce. Vlad is best when he gets to combo off multiple times and sort of drain tank. IDK you won this game so hard? Was it just mid gap? Game 3 draft just gets stranger. Both teams in round 1 take like the most powerful possible AOE team fights and then in round 2 play absolutely wack counters to those things. Why are we going for Olaf mid into Viktor? Why not just play a normal mid here man. If you want that aggressive run it down kill him play Diana its good into Viktor and lets you combo off your engagement. I mean you are getting outscaled in this game for sure. Seraphine support when ROA that's how much scaling that team has and we got Vlad again. I think as TAC you need to keep in mind you need winning lanes for your jungle. Not every lane needs to but you need some or the pressure will just mount until it breaks you.
New World Esports Orion VS First Class STREAMED Games
Prediction 2-1 for Orion
Lane to Watch:Mid
I think that these 2 teams are easily going to be top 3 within Shurmia so I think that this series will be very close. I feel this is a playoff preview more than a regular season match. I favor NWEO in this series for a couple of reasons: Most of these players have played together before and developed synergy with one another longer than FC has, they showed more variety within draft in week 1, have a cap exception player and I think they are more active with the amateur community playing in more leagues and thus are better practiced. Both these teams had nearly identical stats in week 1. NWEO has much higher KDA, slightly higher stats across the board simply because they did not lose a game. FC interestingly enough did not take herald once in any of their 3 games and looked like they needed multiple barons to end a game. Mid lane I believe will be the series with the most impact this week. Last series for FC they put a lot of emphasis on early picking their mid every game in draft and FC solem was the best play on the team across the series rewarding that early draft focus. Eazy the mid for NWEO has better numbers across the board for their 1st series and drafted for counter pick. Who is going to come out on top between the two?
Game 1 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/Z1cMmILb/b0KxRJes Game 2 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/XDYK34a8/hFU2BP8K
Orion got an A- for me for week 1 for drafting. In game 1 Orion plays a bit of an odd comp and I think they probably would have lost if they were not clearly the better players and team. You have 2 dedicated side laners with Kassadin and Camille, and the rest of this team is trying to avoid being engaged on. Master was playing a ton on engage. I'm surprised you went with Kassadin last pick. Kai’Sa & Braum were crazy value for this team as the bot did not get 1 shot. Nunu and Maplhite were really behind the entire gold lead in game 1 was in these 2. Game 2 you play much more of a standard team fight comp and I liked your draft better. Keeping the Annie as a flex in round 1 paid off and let you play Annie into Jayce which is a very winning matchup for Annie. I don't know what else to say this team had clear engage options with Zac, there was follow up CC. Peel was there for your hyper carry via Lulu.
Game 1 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/UG1_PDL3/ Game 2 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/JVDS6TEq/ Game 3 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/ZPsYbFqr/
First Class drafting gets a B- for me for week 1 for drafting. Game 1 and game 2 both teams more or less draft the same comp. First Class takes a run at you comp and TEA played to peel. I just don't get the 1st pick Syndra. Why? Lots of things up that are flex picks for traditional teams. Lots of ADCs that are quite strong. Syndra is pretty vulnerable early and that's the major gripe I have with the game 1 draft. You won this draft more for the fact that TEA screwed up than for doing something smart. Game 2 draft is more or less the salty runback. The only thing that changed this game was that TEA played a real peel tool in the jungle and you guys went for Rengar into 3 squishy ADCs. The major problem with both game 1 and game 2 drafts is that you have no front line whatsoever. Like Xin can create a frontline with ult up or if hes fed like in game 1. In game 2 you guys can sprint full on into Sej, Trist, Varus,Ashe all you want your just not killing them fast enough. In game 3 both teams changed it up a lot. FC ends up playing a pick comp with a Yone on the side and TEA is playing for full teamfight. I like taking the Vi 1st pick. It sets you up for a lot of things and gives strong early fights. She does get outscaled but pick comp does anyway point is to end the game by 3rd items. I have 0 idea how you guys were able to counter pick on blue side both solo lanes but you did good job.
ShadowZ Plat VS TE ABYSS
Prediction 2-1 for TE Abyss
Lane to Watch: Top
I think that Abyss, despite losing their 1st set of games, will be able to take this series over SHZ. It should be very close however. The reason I favor TEA as a team have a higher KDA overall and got 2 rift heralds every game. This tells me that TEA has a clear macro game plan in the early game. With both teams having low dragon counts this can be a huge spike of power and shows that K7 can play for himself even when put on tank duty. Both teams went to 3 games last week and both teams had 1 game where they fumbled in draft. Top lane is the lane to watch this series. Yung Rat on the side of SHZ has started to play lots of powerful strong side picks like Aatrox and GP. It will be interesting to see if K7 Showoff will decide to stick with his K’sante or go for a more aggressive, less safe laner like I thought they would in my pre rankings.
Game 1 pick ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/HBbqd404 Game 2 pick ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/K_fL1G3g Game 3 pick ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/WxMGxsv9
For SHZ I have been very critical of their drafts in other leagues that I am writing for. This week I think they have majorly improved on draft and I give SHZ a B+. I like your draft a lot in game 1 and mentioned it earlier in the article but TAC has only 2 threats that are immobile. The team you play has tons of flank options and is slippery enough to avoid engage. When you do want to pull the trigger there are plenty of tools to do so. Great game 1 draft. Game 2 I think your draft makes very little sense. Overall you have 3 people who want to sprint with Sivir Ult and go in and 2 flank assassins. I recognize Eve is a personal preference pick and something you have confidence on but this was not the point to take it. I believe that Eve needs to be picked more in round 2 than in round 1 you need at least 2 high value targets, maybe even 3.Picking Olaf into J4 is also quite questionable in this draft. For game 3 you guys brought it back nice job. You had clear initiation, follow up, side lane threats and winning lanes.
Game 1 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/UG1_PDL3/ Game 2 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/JVDS6TEq/ Game 3 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/ZPsYbFqr/
Ok so TEA you guys get a B for draft for this week from me. Game 1 you guys play a teamfight comp relying on Ashe to start fights for you. It’s not a bad draft. I like taking your flex picks and trying it out but they seemed like obvious call outs to me. My issues with draft in game 1 are as follows: Trist pick was way too early taken should be taken at round 3 in the draft, I know they 1st picked mid so you can match it and trist is a “flex” but I think it's fairly obvious that is going mid. Sylas jungle pick I was also not a fan of at all. There are very few good ults to steal from FC and none of your lanes are like guaranteed kills that Sylas needs to snowball. You never really fixed your engagement problem. Ashe ult is great to start fights but the only person you want to hit is Syndra. Rakkan can always jump from it, Sivir can spell shield, engaging onto a xin sounds bad and camille can dodge it. Game 2 you guys fixed the major issues in running it back that game 1 draft had. You had a much easier engage option with Sejuani, better ganks(Sej Kstante early is too much CC and generally gets a kill) and FC had no real way to interact with your deathball; they are entirely reliant on flanks and split push. Game 3 you guys played a teamfight deathball comp and screwed up the draft pick order I am sorry to say. Sej and your mid is fairly questionable as it's not melee synergy round 1. I would have taken the Sivir as a take away instead of the Viktor. You guys picked Aatrox on 4 why? Just take Lulu and give yourself at least 1 counterpick and make sure you have a winning top side of the map. All the bans in this game are focused here, just give counter and get ahead so your teamfight can win.
GP Oranges VS CB Rangers
Prediction 2-1 for Gp Orange
Lane to Watch: Mid
Both CBR and GPO confirmed my worries and initial predictions with their week 1 results. Both teams were unable to pick up a win in their 1st series the same as in Shurmia. This series just looking at the stat sheet should be incredibly close. Both teams across stats are very close to one another having rather abysmal stats. Team wise KDA for CBR was a 1.07 and it was fractionally better for GPO with a 1.13. Both teams averaged 1 herald and dragon. GPO only got 1 tower on average whereas CBR at least got 2 on average. Obviously these teams are both going to have to increase all of these stats across the board to become competitive within BOL. Playing each other someone's stats will dramatically improve and they need to take that momentum with them into their next series. With such a short season and only playing every team once games matter like this a lot. This series can be the difference between qualifying for a wild card spot and not making playoffs, getting a 2-0 and securing that extra point could be a huge difference.I am giving the edge to GPO just due to my initial rankings on these 2 teams. Most of CBR problems last week came from just not being able to go into the game at even footing. At least in game 1 for GPO they had a real game and made it to 32 minutes. Mid lane this series is the one to watch. Bruh Rock in mid for CBR was their worst player in week 1 whereas ImJustinAGame was one of the better performing players on the side of GPO. Both mids played different styles in between the games and flexibility is a huge importance for their lane.
Game 1 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/zMxsDie0 Game 2 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/N9kOsiuK
So for GPO you guys get a C for me for draft in week 1. The drafts are okay but there are some missing concepts. Game 1 the draft is solid. You take some really great teamfight tools in round 1 and some solid counter picks. It’s teamfight with a split top. So why did you get blasted so hard? The easy answer is that where are your winning lanes? Your bot lane does not have push as Seraphine has enormous CDs early, Viktor cannot play too aggressive mid as he is much more vulnerable to ganks and top lane it is a winning matchup but it's completely skill dependent. It’s not like Jax just takes over the game if he gets ahead slightly like a Darius or Aatrox can. Jax needs items and time to scale; he does not get to dive Camille on repeat or anything. The other major issue is that you have very little synergy picks. Stuff that flows together like the Vi, Galio. Your entire team is supposed to kite back and avoid the omega hard engage. How on earth can you do that Vi ult is going to follow through. So game 2 this draft is again 4 man teamfight and top lane is the island of split pushing fighters. You guys did not get any winning lanes again? Again I see very few pairings on this team as well. Jax vs Darius is another complete skill match; on average they are within 100 gold of each other at 15 minutes. They go completely even in lane vs each other. Barum completely nullified your MFs potential early aggression and you took cassiopeia blind and got punished with range. So just to bring up the no synergy things again Cait Seraphine is not a real lane. Karma Sivir you played into was. MF Thresh is also not a real lane. If you swapped those into Cait Thresh and Mf Sera there is some really strong synergy. You also want that out of your 2v2 duos. Sej Viktor not a lot of kill pressure or anything. Sejuani wants you to play with melee characters on your team to stack her passive. Sej Sylas is a lethal combo. Viktor wants his jungle to have early physical damage and a knockup to combo with his gravity field and burst stuff like J4, Xin or RekSai.
Game 1 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/crJMrVYr Game 2 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/aav7hqqi
Ok CBR you guys get a C for draft in week 1 same as GPO. So game 1 you're drafting a team that wants to go as late as possible. You have 3 hyper scalers and AOE jungle who is weak early. So this was kind of disrespectful of you not going to lie. Your team has like nothing early game going for you whatsoever. You have 0 winning lanes. A Sol is new and crazy powerful yes. He also is not a real champion until he gets to 2 items and his stardust breakpoints. Your team has almost 0 answer to getting dove when you are behind which is a major worry you are playing 3 lanes for scaling. Your enemy realizes this and took Alistar Ornn and dove you a lot. Things that should help: stop taking your support in round 2 and get counter picks. Make sure that your bot lane is playing a real duo not just 2 things(why are we playing all in fight to the death with a Sivir Rell against Tristana, Alistar game 2?), have lanes that win so you have time to play the game and not be under enormous pressure from the get go. Game 2 this draft is about going as hard as possible and fighting every minute someone is on the screen about the opposite of what you did in game 1. I hate just about every aspect of this draft. I mentioned before that the Sivir Rell is not good. Amumu Kled also sounds absolutely miserable to play as a 2v2. I mean if Kled is able to push vs Viktor then by all means I am wrong and this could work but does Viktor not just take Aery and Q auto you 24/7? And if you go in he just gravity fields himself sorta like the Fizz matchup. Morde is a very odd 3rd choice as well, especially when you do not ban his counters out to ensure he has a good lane to play into. Morde is about taking things out of a fight. Why are we taking people out of our stellar AOE engagements where they cannot move?
Degenerates Exiles VS Dorado Gaming SIGMA
Prediction 2-0 for Sigma
Lane to Watch: Mid
Listen, I might have underestimated Sigma in my power rankings. I think both Dorado Gaming rosters admitted this split are very strong rosters. Sigma was able to take a clean 2-0 over their sister team and come into this matchup against Degens who also won 2-0. Degens had a very quick series with an average game time of only 25 minutes whereas the Dorado gaming clash was much longer with an average game time of almost 40 minutes. I am favoring Sigma for several reasons. Number 1 is that I feel confident that Sigma is a good team. For DEG you played against CBR who I would rank easily a bottom 3 team in all of BOL you won those games hard sure but like I feel most teams are going to do that. You guys need to prove yourselves to me. Make me eat my words. Number 2 is champion pools. I like the fact that DEG has lots of unique picks in their rosters. I think that's a strength. You guys did not play any of the things I thought you would and instead played safer picks. Sigma at least played some interesting team comps and showed off their champion flexibility playing Yone top week 1 and swapping players in between mid and top. Mid lane will be the lane to watch this series. For DEG you guys had a pop off performance by Coalbox in game 2 and a great series overall only dying the 1 time. On the side of Sigma its really interesting Nuffies and Slooter are flexing their matchups the most and swap in between games depending on matchups. Coalbox is really going to have to adapt this series and be ready for just about anything pick ban wise.
Game 1 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/kyBwwYQf Game 2 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/d9Zu0ALx
For sigma I liked your drafts a lot in week 1 you guys get an A. Just great stuff and nice to see something different from the somewhat solved pro meta that has been established this patch. Game 1 you got yourself a very strong bot lane early and made sure to play things that could threaten dives and roam towards the bot side of the map to support it. Cho does beat Jax in isolation but who cares as long as Jax plays safe he still gets to scale. Taking Gragas as the jungle mid flex in pick 3 on blue was super smart. Sej ended up having great lanes to gank for and you had winning lanes across the board. I wish you could have ended this game before the monstrous A sol came online and made this game 1 close. The game 2 draft was a little odd but it worked well. Your enemy is trying to tank stack and kill your threats and you played for too many threats to handle with lots of supportive picks. I think the Ori with all the ball delivery and shielding targets was great here.
Game 1 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/crJMrVYr Game 2 Pick Ban: https://draftlol.dawe.gg/aav7hqqi
For DEGEN I am not sure what letter grade to give you. CBR played some wack stuff in your 1st series and you just kinda went old reliable on them. Like in game 1 you get to counter pick mid in 1st rotation, jungle counter pick in 2nd and get top counter pick as well. I mean awesome good job your team makes sense but this seemed really easy. Taking Karthus was really smart last pick of Red. Most teams would go oh lets go super all in with Elise or Vi but you just take the fastest clearing jungle who scales like a monster. It’s awesome to see that you drafted enough dive threat but I am not sure against better players that you can pick counter top like that and have the lane go that well. Game 2 I mean good job securing counter picks. Darius into Morde was awesome. Securing yet another strong early jungler of Graves into Amumu is nice to see shows that you are willing to look at jungle matchups. I mean this team had almost 0 ways to start a fight but CBR solved that for you by diving into you.
XG Lightning VS Elysium Blaze
Prediction 2-1 for XG
Lane to Watch: Bot
So I think that this should be the other series that teams that are scouting pay attention to. This should be an incredible series and probably something that is going to be a bit of a playoff preview. Both XGL and ELY are coming off really d