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Plat Breakdown Week 3




Hey all, it’s CTRL ULT ELITE here again with another Platinum Breakdown. I have been doing a lot of writing these past couple of weeks, and I hope you are all enjoying it! I am starting a much stricter development cycle at work, and it's unfortunately going to cut into my writing time. Instead of going through every series (9 a week), I’m going to try and commit to doing 1 match every division and trying to avoid covering 2-0’s (around 3 or 4 a week). If I have time to cover more, I will (and I hope to!). My plan next week is to redo my power rankings, talk about additions to starting rosters, and predict who will make playoffs. Big shoutouts again to Benjiamans of the stats team for providing us with stats to look at. Also, huge thanks to Manatsu who is going to help me out with some editing.




Game 1 of Elementals Maelstrom (EM) vs Titan Gaming Atlas (TGA) started with some unusual bans. EM banned Brand, Seraphine, and Caitlyn in the 1st round on blue side, focusing their bans on the bot lane of TGA. Brand was a ban at Hamsandw1ch who plays the pick midlane. It is also a flex for AU KnuckeD who does play it, but he plays other poke supports much more often such as Zyra and Lux and has superior win rates on those picks. Seraphine was a weird ban to me as well. As far as I can tell, almost no one on TGA actually play the pick, and they banned it themselves last week in both their games. Caitlyn is a ban I am totally down with and expect teams to do a lot vs TGA. TGA banned Darius, Tryndamere, and Lulu round 1. TheRealOogway does love to split push, and these 2 bans make sense if you are trying to look to play more for teamfights. EM started the draft off taking Volibear, an early game focused jungler with tremendous dive potential. TGA take Wukong and Amumu into it. Wukong is a flex pick that goes even with Volibear while in the jungle and provides the same level of dive threat for back lines. Amumu blind support is pretty spicy. Amumu offers tremendous hard engage and CC in bot lane, doing very well into most enchanters but struggles into other tank supports. EM then take Sivir Braum to round out their blue side round 1. I really like EM’s first 3 picks: you have a solid frontline for Sivir, engage options, lots of CC, and a great lane to gank for Volibear. TGA take Twitch to match Sivir’s scaling. Twitch Amumu is a bit of a strange lane to me and not something I would want. If you can shove in, I guess you have some really deadly roams but no way are you out shoving Sivir.


For round 2, TGA keep focusing their bans on split pushers, getting rid of Kled and Jax.

EM also decide to ban top laners getting rid of Sett and Shen. TGA with the blind pick take Ornn, looking to build more on their hard engage. I'm not crazy about Ornn here as Braum can always block your ult. You need some sort of blind pick frontline, and Ornn is probably the best pick left. EM then take Urgot and Sylas. I think Sylas is crazy here as you already have 3 game changing ultimates to Hijack. The Urgot pick I am less keen on. Urgot is great disengage but needs to be ahead to be able to survive teamfights. Ornn can simply sit in this lane and build early armor to nullify Urgot's laning strength. Urgot can never really freeze due to his passive either. Your team is not that high on burst so I don't think you can fire your ult early and look for a fear disruption. Titan Gaming Atlas with counter pick then take Gwen. This pick came out of nowhere and is crazy good. The only real answer for Gwen with this team is to combo Braum passive with burst from everyone. The problem with doing that is if you are hard forcing onto Gwen then you are going to be bunched up for the wombo combo of Amumu and Wukong with Twitch peppering you.


This game 1 has a very slow start with first blood not taken until 9 minutes. TGA take an early dragon around then in trade for a Rift Herald. There are a couple of skirmishes with kills traded back and forth until the next dragon spawns. There is a fight for it, and TGA manage to trade 3 for 1 and secure the dragon. At 15 minutes, both teams group up again and fight for Hearld, and Gwen gets a triple kill. The game has some more close fights after that, but Gwen is unleashed and takes over the game. Hamsandw1ch ends game 1 with 13 kills and only 2 deaths. Aclick also played extremely well in this game, only dying once and doing the same damage as their fed mid laner.


Game 2 has the same 1st round bans as game 1 for TGA. EM keep their Brand and Cait bans but decide to ban Volibear instead of Seraphine. It’s a good change to get rid of a strong jungle, but I would have gone after the Wukong. Vxpir did play well and provided plenty of CC in teamfights. TGA take Wukong 1st pick. It was good last game so why not take it again? EM then take Poppy and Seraphine. Poppy is another really good early game jungler and can get rid of Wukong in teamfights. Seraphine is a flex pick; it's very strong in 3 roles and gives you some lockdown with Poppy. TGA take Twitch again and pair it with Renata Glasc. This duo is not about the laning phase but teamfights: Renata ults giving Twitch space to auto freely. EM then take Lucian before the bans come through. Lucian, while technically a flex, is the bot laner paired with Seraphine. Lucian wants his supports to shield or heal him and likes hard CC. Seraphine fits that as she just has much longer cooldowns than Nami albeit more focused about teamfight again than the lane.


In round 2, EM ban Gwen and Sett. Gwen rolled you so banning that makes sense. Sett is Rågnar’s most played by far this split and his best solo queue champion. TGA ban Kled and Ahri. Kled gives teams a great go button and is honestly a pain to lane against so I see that ban. Ahri is a fine safe blind mage. She would provide good pick potential with Poppy so I’m not upset about this ban either. I feel however you should have just banned 2 mids. We can assume that EM are saving counter pick for top, and Kled does struggle into tank matchups. EM take Viktor blind. TGA then take Sylas and Ornn, more or less drafting the same comp as last game. Sylas has Seraphine and Viktor ult to steal which are both fantastic in teamfights. EM then take Jax as their counter pick for top. The idea behind Jax into Ornn is that you force Ornn to match you on the side lane and deny the engage. If Ornn ever leaves you, you simply take towers too fast.


This game 2 is all about Nèzumi on Viktor and TherealOogway on Jax. Jax is able to take 6 towers this game while side laning, and Nèzumi just kills everything in front of him. Game 1 was slow and controlled, but this game was fast and wild. There were 40 kills in the 29 minutes game and was in favor of TGA early. At 15 minutes, they had a 3k gold lead but a Rift herald fight at 19 minutes was the tipping point.


Draft in game 3 keeps a similar pace. EM ban Brand, Cait, and Volibear again. TGA ban Tryndamere, Darius, and decide to get rid of Seraphine like in game 1. EM take Viktor blind round 1. Nèzumi did just have an incredible game so I get wanting to take it again, but last game you took Viktor as a counter pick after seeing the whole draft. This time, you have no idea what TGA might take into it. TGA change up their draft for the first time this series, taking Viego and Syndra while forgoing Wukong and Twitch. Viego and Syndra are a great duo. Both are not that popular in solo queue but play well with each other. Syndra is all about bursting a target, and Viego wants to finish off opponents and play for resets. This is for sure a 2v2 that can look to punish Viktor. EM then take Wukong and Yuumi, trying to create lots of zone control in team fights. TGA then finish with round 1 with Sivir, denying a hyper carry from Yuumi and giving some extra wavelear to the side of TGA.



In round 2, TGA ban Twitch and Jax, trying to make sure that Yuumi does not have a win condition to attach herself to. EM ban Sett and Amumu. Again TGA needs some hard engage so banning Amumu makes sense. TGA take Morgana, giving top lane counter pick. Morgana is a pick I don’t feel strongly about. She feels oppressive when she can chain CC you and acts as an engage deterrent with soul shackles but does not have anything really important to black shield this game. EM then take Ezreal and Gangplank looking for poke. My problem with taking the draft this way is twofold. One, your team has like 0 frontline whatsoever. If you ever lose vision, it's almost a death sentence. Two, TGA has poke as well. It’s not a 1 sided shooting gallery. They have Morgana snares, Syndra scatter the weaks, and Sivir boomerangs. TGA then pick Ornn for the 3rd time wanting frontline, engage, and something that can sustain through the Gangplank poke.


Game 3 was close until it wasn't. The 1st 13 minutes of the game are dead even. At 14 minutes, both teams group and fight over Rift Herald before plates fall. TGA trade 4 for 2 and get Hearld and 2 turrets. Syndra completes the Pen mage trifecta with Ludens, Sorc Shoes, and hextech alternator and just starts melting people. Pelli is totally unable to contribute to this game as Wukong, only dealing 5k damage and just gets annihilated by the poke wars. TGA slowly choke EM out of the game, taking every tower, 2 barons, and soul.


Notes from this series

  • Nezumi can pop off and drag his team to a win when given Viktor and early attention

  • Rågnar is going to keep playing Ornn unless you force him not to

  • Look out for Hamsandw1tch to play some hard counters like Gwen

  • AClick is looking like the strongest ADC in this entire division, you should probably try to start playing towards bot and make sure they cannot scale for free

  • In wins Titan Gaming Atlas play heavily for drake, normally getting soul or being on Soul point

  • AU KnuckeD is on top of the league stat wise don’t sleep on this support player

Literal Monkeys vs Mystic Cats

This series was a 2-0 and I do not have time to cover it in full. Couple of points of interest.

  • Literal Monkeys did not have their full roster for this series.

  • Mystic Cats were dominant in wins both games but took their time making sure to get baron before committing to the final push

  • Mystic Cats took Yasuo game 1 and flexed it to ADC.

  • Corn Star dominated both games this series same with Washing Hands.

  • Wunderworld did a good job keeping up in CS both games despite being down so much in kills.

Ta Wild Side vs TA Tropics

This series was a 2-0 and I do not have time to cover it in full. Couple of points of interest.

  • Soulbert got some of their traditional carries as they were not targeted with bans but were unable to carry.

  • In game 1 TA Wildside had all their eggs in the Soulbert basket; they were literally their only threat with a Ornn top and a Seraphine mid.

  • Game 2 was close TA Tropics were just 1 dragon away from claiming soul and even got a baron. They should look to emulate this draft more with Kurido and TacoCat providing a threat so that Soulbert does not have to try and 1v9.