Platnium League Breakdown Week 2

Hi all its Storm/CTRL ULT ELITE again and we have finished our 1st week of BOL Platinum. I hope every team enjoyed their 1st set of games. This week we got our 1st real look at all the teams and I'm here to break down how every matchup went starting in the draft. Im going to go over every pick and ban what suprised me and what I thought were mistakes. After that I will have a short recap on the game and then a some closing thoughts on every series. Big shoutout to Benjamins of the stats team for having these numbers I can look at! Im planning on doing another playoff perdictions after week 3 has concluded.

Titan gaming atlas came into draft in game 1 with a clear plan and executed it very well. Don’t let Soulbert have one of his comfort champions and carry. They spent their 1st 3 bans at the opposing ADC. TA Wild Side decided to split their bans on the mains of Titan Gaming, getting rid of Rågnar’s Sett, AU KnuckeD’s Yummi and Hamsandw1ch’s Veigar. Wukong was left open as a strong flex pick and taken, giving Titan Gaming the start of a great mid game team comp. TA Wild Side retalited taking Viktor and Poppy trying to give themselves peel potential from Wukong. Titan gaming locked in Cait Morg stating that they wanted this game over early and they are going to stack drakes. TA Wild Side took Karma and I think this was their biggest draft blunder. Soulbert needs to take here something that can farm safely and has mobility. How on earth do you approach this dragon fight as someone without a dash in this scenario? If not picking a mobile ADC Ornn was also great here, giving you frontline and a comfort pick for TâcoCât.

Titan Gaming capitalise on the Karma pick and ban Zeri, Ezreal taking away 5 marksmen from Soulbert and locking one themselves. Ta Wild Side ban GP and Syndra high burst champions that would delete the low mobility squishies that they have drafted. Soulbert takes Varus and is kind of doomed to opposing CC. Titan gaming then take Sylas as an equalising lane mid who has CC setup for Wukong and Ornn a fnatasic blind pick who gives you the go button that this team needs to close the gap. TA wildside counter Ornn with Shyvana and again is not what I want. Your team has a great pick comp and needs a frontline so I agree you need some sort of juggernaut. But you so far have no winning lanes and poppy needs somewhere to get ahead. Trundle might have worked here pillar giving poppy more avenues to stun players but would struggle with the bot duos cc and zone. Honestly maybe the answer is to just say screw it TâcoCât you are the win condition here's Fiora go split push we can stall push with Karma Varus Viktor.

This game was more or less a stomp. Titan Gaming shut TA Wildside out from every objective. ACIick and AU KnuckeD played their role extremely well, getting 1st blood, having high kill participation and rotating themselves around the map to collect all of the outer towers. Titan Gaming was up 4k at 10 minutes and 10k at 20 minutes. SingularBread was probably the best player for TA Wildside in game 1.

Game 2 the draft felt very similar for Titan Gaming keeping the same 1st bans in Kogmaw Seraphine and Ashe. TA Wildside decided that morgana was the problem of the bot lane push last game and decided to ban it and kept the Sett Yummi bans. TA wildside took wukong for themselves with 1st pick saying we are going to try and stack drakes this game. Titan Gaming simply locked Cait Lux and said were going to push you under tower all game again and not let you walk into drake. I like what TA Wildside did in response. They went all offence taking Blitzcrank Tristana, a classic 2v2 from back in the day with high burst potential. Titan gaming decided that they needed some disengage, taking Gragas an always b tier jungle/top flex pick who can play for picks or look to play bodyguard. I like Gragas. He is flexible being either full AP 1 shot montage music or can be played as a tank with turbo chemtank trying to max out his CDR to provide as much disruption as possible.

In round 2 Titan Gaming no longer had ADCs to ban so they instead chose to ban out top laners from TâcoCât in Shen and Shyvana. Ta Wildside had a draft plan for game 2 and it was attack bot lane so they got rid of Sylas and Vi. Titan gaming took Orrn again as a denial and safe blind pick. Ta Wildside took twisted fate and Lilia top to give the team such much needed AP and roam opportunities. Titan Gaming Atlas then locked in a very scary counter pick in mid to low mobility mages in Aatrox mid. Twisted Fate does not have high DPS early in the game relying on auto attacks to get push for the 1st few levels. This puts him in the danger zone of Aatrox has very high base damage numbers and built in sustain that allows him to be a top laner. When you put him mid vs low mobility champions he suddenly has kill pressure whenever he can land his basic combo.

This game was much more even with both teams being within 1000 gold of each other at 15 minutes. TA wildside got a 2 for 1 trade securing 1st blood at 4 minutes into the game. Both teams scrapped back and forth trading kills and dragons. But at 22 minutes Titan Gaming was able to secure baron and started to siege mid. After taking the tower Titan gaming went to secure their 2nd drake and a team fight broke out. Titan gaming traded 1 for 4 leaving only blitzcrank to defend and were able to finish the game through mid.

What did this series teach us? Focusing on Soulbert of TA Wild Side is for sure the play. Kurido is going to need to step up for Wild Side he averaged 9k dmg in his 2 games which is way too low. Drakas242 was the bright side KDA wise of Ta Wild Side having 66% KP only dying 4 times the entire series. What we learned from Titan Gaming is that their plan works and teams need to respect it. If you let ACIick and AU KnuckeD push for plates and get ahead they will and they can carry the game. AU KnuckeD played amazing doing the most damage or being damn close to doing the most in both games. It's no wonder the duo is currently sitting on top of the player list in the player stats.

If you did not see this was the 1st streamed match of the platinum season on the BOL Twitch channel. I would highly recommend watching game 2 before reading this as it was a banger of a game. Game 1 there was a bit of stream delay going on and the game was not close.

Mystic cats unfortunately did not have their full roster together for this series. They had an E sub for this series in mid lane so they lost their 1st 2 bans for the match as well as CornStar at top lane with their sub ADC Chad Penguin in bot. With their only ban Mystic Cats took away Darius from The Real Oogway, something I fully support. Elementals Maelstrom banned Gwen Seraphine and Renata in the 1st round taking away some scaling picks from Tambourine King and one of the few top laners Cornstar has won with in solo queue this year. The Mystic Cats took sivir as the 1st pick, something last patch I was in full agreement with. Sivir provides exceptional waveclear, quasi engage and late game scaling. Elementals Malestrom countered with their own hyper carry in Twitch deftly’s signature pick. This would have been my other ban choice if I was Mystic Cats but Darius was probably overall the better ban. They also took lulu who unlocks twitchs potential giving him movement speed and protection allowing the plague rat to pop off. The Mystic Cats added Yummi and Ornn to their team, giving the team some frontline and engage but locking in 2 losing lanes. Yummi Sivir is a lane that just wants to go even and win the game once sivir has 4 items. It's almost always down gold and exp at 15 minutes though and Yummi makes it much harder to ward. Ornn blind generally does not lose hard but he doesn't win hard either. Elementals maelstrom answers Ornn with Tryndamere, a nightmare split pusher who gambles the lane with crits.

In round 2 Elementals Maelstrom Target Support Player who is subbing in mid removing Sylas and Azir. The Mystic Cats ban Graves and Talyiah trying to make sure that they have less early game focused junglers on the map. Elementals Maelstrom take Sejuani with their blind pick, a champion with great ganks and someone who can look to pressure top side with Tryndamere. The Mystic Cats then take Trundle and Kayle. I think Trundle was an awesome pick here giving you a winning matchup and a point of pressure. I honestly think Kayle was a troll blind pick. Your team has very little hard CC and you already have late game on lock. I think the pick here was some sort of control mage like Viktor or Orianna to give you some more CC to stop Tryndamere from just running at you. Elementals Maelstrom simply pick Vicktor and have a winning Top, Mid and Bot lane.

The game 1 was a stomp. The only objective secured by the Mystic Cats was a single drake that was a trade as Cornstar died to a Sejuani gank while it was happening. Elementals Maelstrom had a 4k gold lead at 10 minutes and the game was over by minute 22. Mystic Cats simply did not have any proactive plays they could make taking an almost full scaling team comp. Ornn was never able to group and start fights as tryndamere would simply end the game if he ever stopped matching him.

Game 2 in draft featured the same bans for both teams in round 1. Elementals Maelstrom took

sivir as 1st pick in this game. The Mystic Cats decided that they wanted to shut down Sivir and went for Leona Miss Fortune as their 1st 2 picks. A staple solo queue pairing if Leona can ever catch Sivir MF can easily kill them. Elementals Maelstrom went with Braum Graves for their last 2 picks in the 1st rotation. Braum is a fantastic answer into MF being able to ult her out of her own ult and provides great counter engage with concussive blows. Graves was an interesting pick here; he is one of L9 SKOOTIN’s most played champions so perhaps they just wanted comfort picks. Graves has the benefit of gaining extra armour so he won't get 1 shot by the MF ult in teamfights acting as a sort of drain tank front liner depending on the build. The Mystic Cats grabbed Azir for Support Player with this free opportunity. I think Azir was great here. It gives you some engage opportunities and matches some of the late game scaling of Sivir.

In round 2 The Mystic Cats banned Mordekaiser and Viktor where Elementals Maelstrom banned Lillia and Yorick. The Mystic Cats then took Diana giving counter pick to Cornstar. Diana synergizes well with this team giving more AOE wombo potential as well as someone who can match Graves in clear speed. Elementals Maelstrom then take Ahri and decide to blind pick Sett. I think Ahri is a good idea, you need a champion with mobility to avoid the wombo set up and Ahri also provides pick potential with Graves. Sett as the blind pick is pretty good with Mordekaiser and Darius gone and he allows you to toss an ulting Diana out of your team and those are 2 of his toughest matchups. Mystic Cats answer Sett with Aatrox and have a game plan. The plan is to dive in the back line and kill Ahri and Sivir. Both teams know this Elementals Maelstrom team is all about disengage. Let Ahri ult away let Sivir run away with spell shield and ult, braum is one of the best disengage picks in the game.

This game was an absolute slobber knocker, a blood bath, a fiesta whatever you want to call it this game was it. Elementals Maelstrom again get off to an amazing start The Real Oogway dives Corntstar at level 1 2 and a half minutes into the game. There are some more picks and by 8 minutes we have 9 kills and 15 kills by 11 minutes. The game at 12 minutes looks to be another easy win for Elementals Maelstrom having 2 drakes and a 7 kill lead. But then Mystic Cats starts to claw the game back. They get 4 unanswered kills in a row and then trade 1 for 1 giving a shutdown to their ADC. So at 15 minutes the game is now 12-9 and both teams are even. Following a disaster of a drake fight it's now 14-13 at 17 minutes and Mystic Cats take dragon. Another skirmish, another fight and it's now 32 kills before 20 minutes. By the time the next drake has spawned it is now 40 kills. The following fight at baron is complete pandemonium 30 seconds later. There is a 3 man Azir shuffle into a MF Bullet time and top laners dive ADCs. Mystic Cats however try and get too much after the fight, committing to a dive on graves at his tier 1 tower giving over a huge shutdown. Elementals Maelstrom then set up vision around the baron and are able to secure a pick onto Washing Hands yet again. A 4-0 fight in Elementals Maelstrom favour at minute 26 makes this game 27-25 in kills. Unfortunately Elementals Maelstrom ends the game on this baron push.

What we learned from this series is confirmation that the top side of the map for Elementals Maelstrom does in fact contain good players. TheRealOogway can solo his opposition and will look for risky plays. L9 SKOOTIN more or less took game 2 on their back doing the most damage in the game to players and objectives and was also the richest player in the game. Nèzumi also had a fantastic series with an 8.0 KDA playing safe and was doing 800 damage a minute. Mystic Cats proved at least there is a fight in them. They will not go down quietly and CornStar impressed me a lot in game 2 with their Aatrox. Hopefully this roster will be able to get their full team together soon as they do not have a bye until week 6. Washing hands died too often for my liking in both games. They are going to have to make sure that they always have a warding buddy and need to stop face checking.

Draft 1 of NwE Nebula(NEB) vs Ta Tropics(TAT) if completely different in terms of prioritised picks from every other draft this 1st week. Maybe it's because these teams rescheduled and were playing on a different patch. Or maybe these teams just think that comfort is more important than solo que data suggests. NEB are blue game 1 and they ban Wukong, Poppy and Lissandra wanting to get rid of disengage options. These bans make sense when you look at their overall draft picture in game 1. NEB had a plan and it was early aggressive laning to snowball the game and by god do I hate their draft. TAT on the other hand banned Sivir, Lillia and Gragas. Wanting to pinch the jungle pool in retaliation. NEB then 1st pick Yummi. I don’t think Yummi is that strong and is an odd 1st pick. I also hate the cat. TAT then draft Nautilus and Mordekaiser. I love both these picks. Naut is great into Yummi in lane and brings enough CC to try and burst down whoever the cat attaches to. Mordekaiser is a flex pick here and another great answer to Yummi. Simply ult the parasites carrier and dump the kitty out and beat up the loot pinata. NEB then take Twitch and Gangplank. Twitch pairs fantastic with Yummi giving you respoistion options while stealthed and can lock down people for Twitch's ult to ensure it doesn’t miss. GP is great as a lane answer into Morde as you can cleanse his ult but the Saltwater Scourge is not in a good place right now. Pro play nerfs have gotten rid of the strong early lane GP enjoys and now must play for late game 1 shot with barrels. TAT end round 1 on red side with Samira looking to punish Twitch Yummi as hard as possible.

In round 2 both sides focus their bans on mid getting rid of Ahri, Neeko, Sylas and Twisted Fate. TAT have 1st pick for round 2 and take Fiora revealing that its Mordekaiser jungle and saving counter pick for mid. Fiora vs GP is a very volatile matchup Fiora has auto resets to kill barrels and the chase down potential but miss time a parry or have GP detonate a barrel in your face and you can get 1 shot. NEB then pick Pantheon and LeBlanc going for all out early game aggression. With total scaling lanes in the rest of the map I get needing early game but Pantheon falls off a cliff. Pantheon needs to 1 shot with cheese ganks and the only lane that has the damage or CC to do that is LeBlanc. So your cards are kind of showing if Monix 11x can survive early this game is doomed. Monix 11x then takes Vex a pick that is all about punishing dashes, which is LB’s main trading pattern.

This game 1 is not what NEB wants. In 15 minutes they are down 500 gold and 2 dragons. Paneer then takes over in teamfights and just hard carries. They end the game with 15 kills getting their team soul and baron. Fiora for Fyth is not good, probably being the weakest link on this winning team in game 1. On the bright side for NEB Seppti played great on GP.

Game 2 TAT are on blue and ban Gragas, Lilia and GP. NEB on red ban Sivir, Naut and Wukong. TAT decided that they wanted a strong early game ADC again and picked Miss Fortune to start the draft. NEB decide to match the early game pressure and take Kalista Amumu. This lane has incredible kill pressure with Kalista having some of the highest DPS in the game with rend and Ammumu can lock down targets with his 2 q charges. At 6 you have a nasty AOE wombo that can let amumu play almost suicidal for engage. TAT then decides to take as much disengage as they can, grabbing Alistar and Poppy. Alistar does really well vs Amumu but not so much vs Kalista. If you are not able to burst Kalista in the lockdown window often times Kaltisa can just hop you down. NEB finished off round 1 with Olaf a top/jungle flex who is great into all the CC that TAT just drafted.

For round 2 both teams again focus on mid lane bans taking out Vex Lissandra Viktor and TF. NEB make sure to ban the more decisive picks as they blind Sylas who has some great ults to steal in Alistar and Poppy. TAT then takes Trundle and Ahri flexing the Poppy/Trundle until they know what NEB picks top. Ahri has a great ult for Sylas to take and is not the greatest pick but it is safe and you need something safe here blind. I would have considered Orianna here instead. NEB then finish draft with Gwen who has a great matchup into tanks and can outduel Trundle if the troll king is forced to build for teamfight instead of the splitpush. It turns out its Poppy top when all is said and done and I think that was the wrong choice. Once Gwen has 2 items you can never match them on side lanes.

Game 2 is all about Goati running people down for NEB. As Olaf Goati does the most damage in the game gets 1st blood and just runs amok. Poppy does really well early vs the gwen solo killing them twice. Kalista does not exactly have a pop off performance but hey you won the game! Just buy a pink ward next time or your coach will scream at you.

Game 3 in this series features even more strange picks. These teams have an interest in innovation it seems. NEB are blue side game 1 and ban Wukong, Naut and Lulu. Targeting supports from Jackie Moon 33x is an interesting idea. They do have quite a wide pool and your 2 bans are not at the same type of support so I am very curious why they went with those 2. TAT ban Olaf, Sylas and GP. Olaf and Sylas ran you over in game 2 so those bans make a lot of sense. Game 1 GP played exceptional so I can see that ban as well. NEB take Sivir pick 1. Again as long as sivir has a frontline and peel you are generally set up to win. TAT take Lilia and Twitch for their 1st 2 picks. Lilia is a flex option who can win teamfights by themselves whatever lane they are in. Twitch is great at picking people off and can absolutely crush Sivir if her Summoners are down. NEB then take Amumu Rumble. Rumble is Goatis most played. Amumu from the last game let them win dragon fights so why not take it again? TAT then take Nami looking for burst to hopefully get Twitch ahead as well as disengage from the Sad Mummy.

For Round 2 NEB again bans Lissandra Vex trying to force Monix 11x onto something less safe. TAT ban TF and Gwen wanting to not have Fyth get as hard countered. TAT blind Ornn here. You have a hyper carry already and your team needs engage and frontline Ornn is like the perfect pick. NEB then grav Gnar and Yasuo. This team has nasty AOE wombo combos. Imagine getting Amumu ulted then Gnar scoops your team into a wall with Yasuo, Sivir and Rumble following the damage up. TAT then take a completely wild pick in Pantheon mid as a Yasuo counter. Pantheon absolutely destroys Yasuo early just being able to threaten all ins at any time. If Yasuo decides to just play safe you then roam and look for kills with your CC and huge damage. Again Pantheon falls off a cliff in terms of scaling so if you are unable to leverage your lead the pick is not worth taking.

This game 3 worries me for NEB. You play this early game almost perfectly. You have a 5k gold lead at 15 minutes and by 25 minutes you stretch that all the way up to 10k. You are playing one of the best team fight skewed comps I have ever seen in my life and it takes you 15 more minutes to close the game out? How? Does Lilia just start landing 5 man ults onto your team? Does Twitch and Pantheon assassinate Sivir at every opportunity? Like this game was dead even in kills and looking at the damage it was not close. Rumble did 9k more than Lilia, Sivir did 10k more than Twitch and your other lanes were even in damage. For a 40 minute game the amount of pink wards you guys are buying is not enough.

So the biggest thing I learned while researching this series is to watch out for Paneer when playing TA tropics and Monix 11x. Paneer had games where he dominated like game 1 but game 2 when they got stomped was totally ineffective. Jackiemoon 33x had great vision score every game and really helped macro wise.

Nwe Esports Nebula is a team it turns out this is all about Goati. In their wins Goati was the richest player on the map who also dealt the most damage. In their game 1 loss his Pantheon pick was basically worthless. Despite having a game where they would get reported in solo queue(I don't know how you Junglers do it respect for the mental fortitude) Goati was still a top 30 player stats wise. However Goati is playing for themselves, not the team. NEB only got 1.7 dragons a game which is the lowest out of every winning team this week as well as only 1 rift herald a game. I was expecting way more out of Duck but rubber this series hopefully they can step it up in later weeks. Seppti also had a great series on 3 different picks.

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The draft for ABS(Absolute Esports) vs RIA(Revolution Ice Age) began with ABS focusing their bans on Twiz banning their Vex, Viktor and Serpahine. RIA spread their bans out banning Aatrox, Diana and Senna. ABS was able to secure Sejuani as their 1st pick something that Angry Cookie excels on and I think was a great 1st rotation pick. Revolution Ice age did not have their full roster together and were playing with Meekish and Caliburn 2 of their sub players. They decided to give these players comfort and drafted Samira(Meekish’s best solo queue champ) and took Morgana, who is a flex pick for this team. I’m not sure that was wise as Samira wants the enemies to have low CC so she can freely channel her ultimate but Samira is also a takeaway pick from Arts and Crafts. ABS then took Yone and Vayne. Yone has great synergy with Sejuani but I do not know why you would blind pick your mid like this. Are you scared that Yone is going to get taken from you? Maybe scouting revealed that Twiz does not have an answer to the pick. Vayne here is also a questionable pick. Samira almost always outlanes Vayne and there are other ADCs that do better vs Samira. Why not just take a disengage support if you want Vayne that you drafted later anyways? RIA seeing all this AD take Malphite keeping flex opportunities available and having a Yone counter and something to hard engage onto Vayne so the team has a 1 shot opportunity.

In round 2 ABS ban supports fully thinking that RIA are taking Morgana into the jungle. RIA ban supports as well taking care of Renata and Amumu. RIA then take LeBlanc and throw the draft away. Leblanc does not have a good matchup into Yone(acoording to solo queue data at least) and you have now left your top on a blind pick Maplhite. ABS takes Mordekaiser and Braum. Mordekiaser into Malphite is such a free matchup it's crazy. Most top laners in solo queue would just dodge this game but those who play it out are down an average of 1k gold at 15 minutes and only win 45%(5% less than normal) of the time. RIA finished the draft with Trundle, the classic Sejuani counter pick in the jungle. If RIA simply just picked trundle in LeBlanc's spot I think this game became at least close. ABS probably takes something like Ornn or Shen blind as it’s Peaceful Player’s most played. If they did take Mordekaiser you just simply play Trundle top into it(a brutal matchup for morde) and draft another jungler or take a different support the options were all there.

In the actual game RIA get out to an early lead. They secure 1st blood in bot lane and are able to get a gank top to kill morde and Samira picks up another kill. Le Blanc even starts to snowball and by 10 minutes RIA have a solid 2k gold lead(Maplhite is down 1k at 10 mins so this lead should be higher) and have 2 dragons. But at 15 minutes ABS have stabilised the game and are 600 gold ahead putting the game at dead even. They even trade 2nd rift herald for Dragon delaying the soul win condition. At minute 20 RIA start looking for baron vision and Yone gets a triple kill when they facecheck him. At 24 minutes the next dragon is spawning and both teams group up for a 5v5 team fight where RIA are clean aced. ABS are able to take dragon and baron off of this and suddenly have a commanding lead with a team comp that heavily out scales. ABS gets 5 towers with this baron ballooning their gold lead by 4k in 2 minutes. With their gold lead ABS camp a bush and catch RIA out on their way to dragon and finish the game off.

In game 2 the bans remain almost exactly the same with RIA banning Diana instead of Aatrox being the only difference. With round 1 RIA takes Morgana again as a flex pick. ABS answered with Yone and Sejuani again trusting in the teamfight prowess of the duo. Again i'm not sure of the Yone but RoseofGold did do the most damage in their 1st game so what do I know. RIA decided to go with Caitylin and Urgot for their final 2 picks of round 1 of the draft. Cait Morgana is a fantastic push lane as shown by Titan Gaming. Blind Urgot is a strange choice as the Crab doesn’t do fantastic into tank picks and ABS already has Sejuani. Ornn is then locked in for peaceful player and Shenghai is going to be forced into tank buster Urgot.

In round 2 RIA focused their bans on ADCs trying to make sure that Meekish can have some positive impact on this game. ABS ban Trundle and Leblanc 2 picks that gave them trouble from game 1. ABS opt for Twitch as their marksmen wanting to see where the morgana is going before they lock their support champion in. I would have given some thought about drafting something non traditional here like Ziggs or Seraphine to give you some AP to your team but a hyper carry with a huge frontline is always a good idea as well. Turns out this was AP Twitch. Things now make sense. RIA then went with Nautilus and Orianna for their final 2 picks. I’m not big on Ori here as you have no ball delivery(I guess you can have Urgot walk at them menacingly with it on). And Nautilus Cait does sound like a lane where Twitch might struggle, especially with no Morgana or Renata Glasc to provide him with safety. ABS then finishes the draft with Leona deciding that they are going to match fire with fire and the bot lane is now all about kills.

Game 2 is a much more 1 sided game. Absolute Esports got a lead and kept the pressure up. ABS was up 2.5k at 10 minutes and 7.5k by 15. With such a huge gold lead RIA just got beat by the weight of ABS’s wallet. Once baron was secured the game was over quite quickly.

So we can learn from this game that you should probably be ready to counter pick Sejuani Yone or ban one of the two vs Absolute Esports. Arts and Crafts showed they are willing to play hyper carries as well as early game aggression. Can’t Boil Water had an insane KDA of 16 in their series. I’m not sure just how much credit I can give the ABS botlane they were playing vs two subs one of which was silver. I think that this win honestly should have been more dominant. Your team had more deaths a game then I would want to see when playing arguably the weakest team in your group. For RIA its simple get your full squad together and make sure that you play for objectives. Trading objectives when behind is fantastic but when you're ahead like in game 1 it's never worth it to look for herald for dragons trades unless someone dies. Twiz looked incredible in game one, maybe try and play more for them?

GE Emerald(GEE) entered draft and looked to ban out picks they identified as a problem spreading out their bans, whereas NEWT(Net World Esports Titan) thought to focus their bans onto Maxîmum who was subbing for GEE but also included the Anivia ban that I recommended. Shockwave53 was feeling themselves and GEE 1st picked Vex. I think that this was not a good idea for lots of reasons. Vex is strong in solo que but is better suited for that environment as Vex relies on 1 shooting squishing carries. She also loses to Viktor who I consider to be one of the best mid lane competitive picks. Vex also is best when the enemy team has lots of dashes so she can utilise her passive to the fullest, something you're not sure if the enemy team has if you are the 1st champion locked in. NEWT counter with Viktor and Sejuani. I think Viktor is great here(I’m almost always going to say that TBH) and Sejuani gives your team some engage and hard CC. It's also technically a flex pick as Sejuani is a stronger top laner in solo queue then in Jungle. GEE then decides to take Cait and Volibear to round out their 1st rotation. I like Volibear as it gives you a strong 2v2 mid with CC chains that hopefully leads into kills on a low mobility target like Viktor. The Cait pick I’m not sure of your team has little siege potential and Cait struggles when she cannot get the push advantage. I guess the idea was to deny it from Porotomorph? NEWT decides to lock in Jinx to answer the Cait. Jinx is good here you have a frontline and CC to ensure her safety with your current picks. I think Sivir was better here but Protomoprh went with their preference.

In round 2 NEWT ban Darius and Leona. GEE narrows the support pool down further, taking out yummi and soraka. With Fiora banned I can see the appeal in banning Darius especially when your top laner is getting counter pick and most of the Darius counters are do not fight this champ early. Leona also makes sense as you want to protect Jinx. NEWT take Braum again a good pick. Braum makes it so Ornn is not nearly as good of an option as a blind top pick and it also counters Nami, something that Maxîmum plays a lot of. GEE locks in Blitzcrank and Kled, looking to force early fights before Jinx and Viktor have a chance to scale up and become problems. Kled gives your team the go button that you needed and lets you potentially win top. I think it was a great pick for GEE. NEWT take Sett as their counter to Kled. This team has enough engage and damage so I think a juggernaut like Sett is the right call over something more classic of a Kled counter like Maplhite. I think Shen was also a great pick here as well.

Game 1 is fairly 1 sided. 1 icecream guy 1 is solo killed twice within 5 minutes. The 1st tower of the game falls in 15 minutes. The rest of the early game is fairly quiet. NEWT trades a rift herald for the first dragon around 10 minutes. When the next dragon set to spawn both teams posture for vision. When it spawns at 15 minutes a team fight breaks out and NEWT trades 3 for 1. After this fight it's a commanding 5 k gold lead and at 23 minutes NWET take baron and end it. Both Volibear and Vex were ineffective that game, each only dealing about half the damage as their opposition.

In draft for game 2 both teams kept their 3 first bans completely the same. Same order, same champs and I think that was a mistake. As GEE are you really that worried about a 1st round Fiora when you have counter pick? 1 icecream guy 1 does play champions that go even with the deadly duelist like Camille and Riven. Protomporgh last game absolutely took over. Maybe consider banning a hyper scaling ADC or two like Jinx or Sivir. Or focus more on the jungle if you are scared of early ganks ban Jarvan and Zac as well as Sejuani. Winning draft makes winning the game a much easier task. NEWT take Viktor with 1st pick. Again I do not like blind picking your mid 1st round, I don't see why you would. Viktor does have counter picks like every mid laner and with low mobility can easily be camped. High utility picks like Zilean and Serpahine enjoy laning vs Viktor as they freely scale. Like what happens if GEE takes something like J4 Galio and just chain gank mid lane? Or you get Zilean Olaf and just hyper run Viktor down? Anyways GEE take their bot here with MF Leona. I mean MF Leona is a great combo but im not sure why you are taking it here. Leona does offer great engage but it's straightforward and can be stopped by picks like Janna or Thresh. I think GEE should have simply taken the Mid counter and blind picked jungle. NEWT take Sivir Seraphine to round out the 1st round giving this team all the scaling it could ever want. NEWT simply tell GEE if this game goes to 3 items its doomed. GEE decides to take hard engage with Diana building up a wombo combo team with the 3 AOE teamfight ults. I think this is the best pick of the draft so far from either team.

Round 2 NEWT ban Yasuo and Darius. Yasuo to deny some AOE potential and Darius as the king of fighting top side champions. These are both great bans. GEE ban Sett and Sejuani in round 2. I agree with the Sejuani ban as you need NEWT to not have as much of a frontline but I think you should have doubled down and banned another tank like j4 or poppy. GEE then take Camile as their blind pick. I don't think Camille is the answer here. Why not simply just match mid laners? You have a counter pick for a reason and are waiting for 1 icecream guy 1 to play strong side. Camile can provide engage with her hookshot but Camille is squishy and she wants to follow someone else in. Camille also is not super strong early game like the rest of your comp. As 1 icecream guy 1 i would have looked more at Tahm Kench or Riven in this spot. Maybe NEWT has already drafted too much disengage and you need to play for the split push win con is the right call though. NEWT rounds out their comp with Shen and Wukong giving them even more disengage options. GEE then take Xerath as their final pick.

In Game 2 1 icecream guy 1 is able to get the early solo kill this time around at 5 minutes. At 15 minutes NEWT is up 3k but a massive fight over Rift Herald closes the gold gap down to only 1k. Unfortunately this is the last fight that GEE win. Camille is unable to get enough done in the side lane only securing 1 turret in their loss. NEWT take baron at 25 minutes and closed this game out from there.

So what can we learn from these 2 relatively uneven games? Hopefully GE Emerald are able to fix some of their draft issues or I foresee a lot of the same problems. 1 icecream guy 1 showed in game 2 that they are not a weak point when given a favourable matchup. Diana looked great for Deeeyo as well. But man whoever got drafted early in these series more or less got thrown under the bus. For New Worlds Esports Titan this game proved that they have a solid macro plan. Protomoprh was their best player this series and one of the best players statistically out of everyone. I would try and make sure that this player is not comfortable. NwE Trigger also played out of their mid only dying twice a game while being the main initiator.

Draft for game 1 had Crustacean Nation(CN) focus their bans mostly onto Orphic with bans in Wukong Olaf and Garen in round 2. They also denied Zeri from Sunflower. Sensei Squad Susanoo(SSS) banned Sivir, Volibear and Talyiah. Both teams banned things at the right time SSS did not ban an ADC until Zeri was gone and they could no longer trade a power pick. CN took Mordekaiser with 1st pick, a flex option for jungle top. SSS took Renta Glasc and Trundle in response. Both of these were great picks here a safe support who can play aggressive or defensive and a flex of their own that counters Mordekiaser. CN then take Ezreal Zilean, another potential flex in Zilean and a super safe ADC that Teegarden is excellent with. SSS round things out with Kalista a pro play staple and Ezreal counter pick. Kalista is an incredible champion early who provides you with objective secures and is able to bail out their support letting them play very risky. Kalista also spikes on 2 items like Ezreal does so there is no power gap between the 2 picks.

In round 2 SSS take Viktor after banning Cassiopeia and Aatrox. Keeping Trundle as a flex option and giving you top counter pick this was a great pick. CN rounded out the blue side with Azir and Sett as their blind pick top laner of choice locking Mordekaiser into the jungle. Azir, another pro play staple gives your team some engage options and matches Viktor scaling. Your team needs a frontline and Sett is good for it. SSS then take Darius for Orphic as their counter pick of choice. The only issue I have with Darius is this team has very little engage options into the poke hit and run playstyle of Ezreal Zilean Azir.

Game 1 between these 2 teams is one of the longest games in all of week 1 for BOL plat at almost 40 minutes. This game started and was all Sensei Squad early. At 4 minutes there was a fight top lane with both teams top and junglers and both Orhpic and SQD Vaulter88 got a kill. At 6 minutes TehSplash was able to get a dragon but died to SQD Vaulter88 for it. By 11 minutes SQD Vaulter88 had secured dragon and herald and by 16 minutes SSS was 6k gold ahead. CN were not panicking however they had picked up a few kills of their own and traded 2nd drake for second herald. When the next drake spawned CN were able to win the fight and dragon and get mid pulling the game back. The rest of the game was back and forth teamfights but Ezreal and Zilean managed to remain safe and Kalista was unable to deal with the front line. This game took 2 barons to finish.

Draft for game 2 was also excellent for both teams. SSS with blue side decided that they got outscaled in game 1 so they were going to play more for late. SSS banned Talyiah, Mordekiaser and Zilean looking to play a wombo combo scaling team. CN banned Zeri Wukong and Trundle. SSS first picked sivir and CN answered with Renata Viktor. With Zilean banned and Azir not doing tremendously well the 1st game I can see throwing down the gauntlet in this scenario.I think taking Ezreal there(its what they pick 3rd) was probably a bit better. SSS then lock in Diana Yasuo. Ezreal is taken into this(surprise) as you need someone that can be safe and land damage without autos.

In round 2 CN ban garen and Taric. Taric would make it so that you can never ever teamfight this team and Garen is simply a respect ban to Orphic. CN then take olaf as a flex pick. Being immune to CC makes the Yasuo Dinana combo much less scary for yourself. SSS finished the draft building the ultimate late game team taking Seraphine Ornn. Taking these picks gave SSS multiple enage angles, a front line and lots of utility. CN then take Renekton as their last pick which is a brilliant choice. Renekton is an incredible lane bully, a stat checker and a classic counter pick to things like Yasuo. CN simply put Viktor into the top lane against Ornn and Olaf into the jungle.

Game 2 of this series was still very close. SSS played the early game better again, getting the 1st 3 kills of the game unanswered. But at 16 minutes just as Drake spawns CN get a great fight before Ornn can join their team. They get 3 quick picks and even finish Ornn off after he TP’s while securing the drake. At 20 minutes another fight goes heavily for CN and they secure baron more or less on spawn. The games not over at this point as CN is only up about 3k gold at 20 minutes. SSS get their wombo combo giving Yasuo a triple kill and ending the baron siege. 2 minutes later without flash they are unable to find the play at dragon and get wiped leading to another baron soon after and are unable to stop the seafood kings from finishing the game.

What can we learn from this series? Both these teams are fantastic. Crustacean Nation has an incredible Ezreal player in Teegarden. I would not be surprised if some teams look to ban the pick out in future series. DragonMoonCake also only died once in this entire series that lasted over 70 minutes. It looks like the bottom of the map for Crustacean Nation is just as scary as the top side, maybe even more. I would be shocked if we dont see CN in the finals. Sensei Squad Susanoo are a team with amazing early game and teams are going to have to be ready for it. I think only a team of Crustacean Nation’s skill level would be able to teamfight and bring the game back like they did. I still fully expect that SSS will finish in the top 3 in this group. They have another tough matchup this week vs Absolute Esports and this will show if they have what it takes to make the playoff run.

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Ice Born Chaos vs CB Rush

In game 1 Ice Born Chaos(ICE) spread their bans out. They took away Camille from Pipp, Sylas from CBR Rutledge and MF from Gl4cial. CB RUSH(CBR) banned much towards the midlane, getting rid of Azir, Vex and Diana. Azir and Vex both make sense. I don't expect that Mikewiwi will be allowed to play these champions often due to his high game count. Diana is also a good choice to ban on the red side as it's a strong safe 1st pick for the jungle. ICE decided to take Gnar as their 1st pick trying to give Stunna time in the draft to see if they could get themselves an advantage. Gnar is a fine 1st pick with both Camille and Sylas gone. CBR immediately counter-picked Gnar with Aatrox and took Sivir, the strongest ADC of the patch for their 2nd pick. I don’t know about the Aatrox counter. Gnar is very squishy early but the later the game goes he will just start to kite you endlessly at some point. Aatrox also does not like hard CC in teamfights and Mega Gnar is all about that. Sivir with a frontline already 👍. ICE take Jinx as their hyper carry of choice and Wukong in jungle who is someone that can look to threaten Sivir and gives you more AOE in teamfights. CBR finish out the 1st round of picks with Poppy. A jungler I'm surprised we are not seeing more of. Poppy has devastating ganks and great disengage in teamfights.

For round 2 CBR ban more midlanes of Mikewiwi with Cassiopeia and Syndra. ICE also focuses some bans mid and take away Corki and Vel'koz showing that they want something fairly short range from Mike. CBR takes Alistar as their 1st pick of round 2 and this I think is why they lost the game. ICE draft Karma Lissandra. Now as Alistar is a fantastic roamer who excels at CC setting up kill combos on squishy champs, who do you roam and kill? Gnar? Your team lacks damage, you have tons of CC already, you need some utility like Zilean or Karma or lulu, something that allows CBR to catch up to ICE. CBR then take Swain as their last pick and I still dont know how this team ever kills Jinx. If you just run at this team with sivir ult Karma with mantra E and battlesong can just kite it out. Poppy and Alistar must be looking for flanks but good luck trying to run through Lissandra and Wukong.

Game 1 Jinx does indeed pop off. QLUU dealt 40k damage and only took 15k showing that they more or less got to free hit in team fights. Aatrox was unable to do much in this game, only dealing 17k(ganr did 29k). Swain was able to drain tank in fights dealing the most damage for their team but it was a rough game to start the series for CBR. This game was close in the early with both teams being within 1k of each other for the 1st 15 minutes and being even on drakes. But once full on 5v5 team fights started the game was blown wide open by ICE.

Draft in game 2 has CBR keep their same mid lane bans and they swap out Diana for Gnar. ICE kept the Camille and MF ban but decided to ban wukong themselves not wanting to give away a strong flex option for 1st pick. CBR then took Sylas as their 1st pick. I’m not sure why Sylas is your 1st pick. It's not great into Cassiopeia which is Mikewiwiw’s 3rd most played champion this split. Maybe something in game 1 made them do this as Cassio can be weak to early camps. ICE then took Cassiopeia and Jinx. Cassiopiea has a great matchup into Sylas and Jinx was amazing last game so that pick also makes sense. CBR took Xin Zhao and Ashe showing that they are going to try and pressure early in this game. Xin Sylas is a really strong early 2v2 and Ashe is a classic answer into the Jinx. Your utility as Ashe does not let Jinx get to huge early leads and you can always threaten to engage onto the immobile hyper carry. ICE then takes Trundle to round out their team, giving them a chance to fight the early 2v2 and something that can freely fight Xin.

For Round 2 ICE banned Seraphine and Nautilus wanting to make sure to limit engage options onto their immobile back line. CBR also banned supports getting rid of Karma and Lulu trying to limit the mobility of ICE. ICE takes thresh something to provide peel and neer unmatched utility. Thresh unfortunately is a bit out of the meta having been nerfed repeatedly. CBR decided to take Braum Sett for their final picks giving the team tons of CC. ICE takes a strange pick here in Illaoi. This is a Sett counter pick but your team needs someone who can sit in front of them. Illaoi is probably one of the best split push champions in the game but they need time to set up their tentacles they cannot just TP to teamfights. Your team also does not have the greatest wave clear or a good way to blind check bushes so I do not think you have enough time to let Illaoi split. Jinx Cassiopeia kills anything, they are probably 2 of the highest DPS champions you can possibly draft but they need peel and I do not think they have enough.

This game is incredibly 1 sided for CBR they only lose 1 tower and Gl4cial shows that they are just as hard of a carry as QLUU when given resources to do so. Illaoi dealt the most damage in this game but died 9 times. QLUU still played well but maybe they were playing too safe this game again taking very little damage but only dealing 15k themselves.

Game 3 and we are all tied up. Its now a 1 game series is what ICE need to tell themselves. ICE showed in game 1 that with scaling options they can easily close late games out but in game 2 showed that they need Taíase to be there with them so that Mikewiwi and QLUU can DPS. CBR now have all the momentum in their favour and just need to repeat game 1 again. Both sides keep almost the same bans as game 2 except CBR ban Sylas instead of MF. ICE first pick Miss Fortune for QLUU wanting to have more proactivity in the early game. CBR then takes Braum and Xin again saying that we just need zone control and CC to win. Braum is a fantastic pick into MF, I really like it. Xin was able to run the early game in game 2 and it was a crushing win so why not re-try to create the comp? ICE goes with Leona and Kindred. Leona MF is just peanut butter and jelly it's not the same without the other there. This is the 1st hard carry from the jungle for Stunna of the series and the team has decided to let their jungler try and be the X factor. CBR take Sett before the next bans come. Sett was a great blind pick last game and Gl4cial has tons of top tier ADC picks left open for them.

CBR ban Cassio and Lissandra trying to put Mikewiwi onto something they are not as practised on. CBR takes Corki blind for mid with so many mids banned one of the only things left for ICE in the mid lane is Ahri. They also take Gragas to give the team the opportunity to punt people out of kindred ult and something to equalise against Sett. CBR then take Ezreal committing fully to a poke style comp with 2 mobile carries and a front line built to disengage.

This game was crazy close between the 2 teams and would be an amazing game to review. ICE were up 4k gold at 12 minutes but at the 3rd drake CBR get a 5-1 for teamfight and swing the gold lead back to dead even at 20 minutes. ICE get back into the game with picks around baron and secure the objective. While sieging ICE commit too hard for the inhibitor tower in mid and get aced on the chase back. Stunna tried their best to carry this being 13-4-12 for ICE. But Ezreal and Corki were just able to freely poke.

This series gives some awesome insights into both teams. CB Rush are a team that showed they have plenty of different options for their laners taking poke eccentric team fights to straight up 5v5 run at you style comps. CBR looked best when they had simple go buttons like Ashe engage. Gl4cial and ˇˉˉˆ were stats wise the best players this series on the team. Corki Ezreal round 2 is something teams need to watch out for counter pick wise. With not enough hard engagement it becomes nearly impossible to start a team fight vs the duo. Look for Pipp to play Sett and have a plan for the pick.

Iceborn Chaos had a clear standout in this series in Stunna who dealt 700 dmg a minute to players despite being a jungler. This is 200 more a minute than most other junglers in week 1. Stunna also played 3 different champions in this series. Mikewiwi had a bit of a rough time in comparison. It's really tough having your 2 best champions banned every series but I don’t see this changing very much. Other people are going to have to step up and force teams to drop bans so that Mike can be given his comfort picks. QLUU had an obvious pop off in game 1 but the entire series they took very little damage. They might need to try and get more aggressive to pump their numbers up ADC is all about playing on the edge.

Round 1 of SG Invictus(SGI) vs Xflow Blue(XFB) had both teams focusing on junglers in the 1st round draft phase. SGI banned Trundle, Volibear and Diana whereas XFB banned Lilia Viego and the only non jungle ban in Senna. SGI then take Sivir first pick who is again great when they have a frontline. XFB then counter with Aphelois and Renata Glasc. Aphelios is a really interesting pick; his guns determine what he is looking to do. Red/White means you are going to melt objectives and anything that dives onto you. Have Purple/Blue you are now the AOE teamfight god. I think that this botlane combo by XFB provides a team with tons of utility and teamfight prowess but is fairly weak early. SGI then take Poppy Taliyah to finish off round one of draft. Poppy is a great jungler, one of the few early game focused junglers left in the pool at this point and I fully agree with taking it here. Taliyah has great synergy with Poppy for early 2v2s and does give your team some side lane options to look for picks. XFB simply grab Viktor mid to equalise in mid giving their team some late game damage. I think both teams drafted very well up to this point.

For round 2 of game 1 XFB ban supports taking away Seraphine and Blitzcrank. I get the Blitz ban as your team is very squishy and susceptible to roams but why Seraphine as well? I think Nautilus was a better ban to give Aphelios some more room in teamfights and Nautilus can roam as well. SGI decided to ban Sett and Shyvana. I think that Sett should have been another jungle ban in this scenario. Sett is a decent blind pick juggernaut but he more or less goes even with whoever he lanes against. Camille, Renekton and everything else STN e dash trade does fairly well into the pick. Wukong is left open and taken as the last of the Meta junglers left and also a flex pick to top lane. SGI then took Renekton and Yuumi. Renekton is a comfort pick for STN e dash trade wanting to play something that has early pressure and good gank setup for poppy. I don’t agree with the Yuumi pick here as your team is already 1 carry oriented. I think something like Karma or Nautilus to ensure CC setup on the immobile carriers of XFB was a better choice. XFB goes with Mordekiaser as their final pick as a counter for Renekton and someone who can isolate Sivir in the death realm allowing his team to kill the parasite.

Game 1 is a complete stomp for Xflow Blue. Wukong and Viktor both get extremely fed and are able to run the game. Wukong is able to stack dragons and XFB had Ocean soul in 23 minutes. Sivir was unable to hit anyone in this game, not having the time to scale up or enough peel only dealing 300 damage a minute. The bright spot of this game was definitely STN e dash trade who despite having a rough lane matchup showed that they knew their pick and was 4-1 with a 50 cs lead.

Game 2 of the series XFlow Blue tried this best to get the same team comp again. It worked so well the 1st game why not simply run it back. They had the same bans as game 1 on the blue side. SGI on red changed their Diana ban for Sivir and kept the other 2 jungle bans that they had. XFB first picked Wukong on blue for XFW Gibb Diff. SGI decided to take away the Taliyah as well as grab Misfortune to try and make sure that they had some early game pressure. XFB again takes Renata and Aphleios. SGI then finishes the 1st round of draft with Leona giving the team engage and MF her besty in lane.

For round 2 SGI ban Morde and Viktor. Mordekaiser so that STN e dash trade does not have as hard of a counter for their renekton which is quickly answered and a Viktor ban to deny a strong mid. XFB ban the Renekton and they choose to ban Kindred away from STN Kubix. SGI blind Gnar not revealing their flex Talyiah picks location. XFB then took Ziggs as their semi blind pick along with Maplhite as the hard engage answer into Gnar. SGI then take Anivia showing its Taliyah Jungle. I’m not sure of this matchup Ziggs has a very low play rate if you look at platinum + ranks there in only like 200 games that feature these picks vs each other. If you filter by all ranks Ziggs actually wins this matchup. I feel that Ziggs just out ranges Anivia and is able to out shove them as well.

This game 2 is also completely one sided but this time its SG Invictus doing the stomping. Gnar does not do very much in teamfights but is always able to draw split push pressure. MF Taliyah and Anivia make it a nightmare for this team to facecheck 1 shotting whoever is forced to. Objectives are claimed mostly for SGI taking Soul 2 barons and every turret and inhibitor making sure to close the game out properly. The only reason the game lasted for 45 minutes was Ziggs for OPKillswitch. OPKillswitch almost does more damage than the rest of his team combined, dealing 76k in 45 minutes(1700 dmg a minute) but is unable to secure the win.

Draft in game 3 both teams decide that they want late game scaling. SGI focus their 1st round of bans yet again on XFW GibbDiff. However they left Wukong up yet again, something I would have banned instead of Diana(I think something that XFB) was looking to ban themselves. With 1st pick SGI took Taliyah making her the 100% picked champion in this series. XFB then took Viktor Wukong. With Tayliah previously being Mid, Viktor makes sense here and again Wukong is a great jungler who dominated game 1 for your team. SGI takes MF Seraphine, the uber wombo combo dream. XFB answers with Jihn stating that XFB are going to play poke and 1 shot your squishy team before they can set up team fights.

For Round 2 XFB ban Renekton and Gnar, daring SGI to take the Ornn. SGI ban Nautilus and Braum showing that yes they were taking Ornn. Xflow then take Blitzcrank allowing them to have something to pick off all the squishy carries. SGI then draft Ornn and Veigar. XFB then take Fiora giving their team the ultimate split push scenario.

Game 3 of this series is nuts. Seriously bonkers. XFlow were streaming this game and I managed to catch the last 15 minutes and it was awesome. Seriously, go watch it if you have some free time. On one side you have like the best AOE wombo combo team almost possible to draft. On the other side you have a pick comp with a split pusher. Both teams want this game to go late and late it does. In this game there are 6 Dragons taken(2 being elder dragons), 4 barons slain and 11 inhibitors destroyed with wild gold swings throughout just to keep it interesting. These are the games of league you dream about and rarely get to play. In the end XFB took the series.

So to learn from this series we have the following points

1. OPKillswitch is a clear carry for this team(1700 DMG A MINUTE IS NOT COOL)

2. STN E Dash Trade is amazing at Renekton play the matchup to get ready for it

3. STN Lizard did quite well this series only dying twice a game on average when your games are 40 minutes long is a crazy stat

4. Both these teams heavily prioritise dragon over hearld

Again a note I am CTRL ULT ELITE the top for Basement Dwellers and will try my best to be non biassed.

This series started in draft with Basement Dwellers(BD) focusing their bans mostly on KiNG Yeetloaf denying them roam champions in Akshan and Talyiah. BD also banned Jihn a comfort pick for Seven Devils. Hypnotic Gaming(HG) spread out their bans more getting rid of Vayne, Anivia and Bel’Veth. Bel’Veth is one of OGBlobBlob’s most played junglers and is a hyper carry that scales incredibly well if you are looking for late game. BD then 1st pick Sivir trying to make sure that they allow Jayel to carry, with all the farm they funnel to them. HG answer the bot lane pick with Ashe, Lulu looking for utility that will allow their team to shut Sivir down and keep up when she pops on the hunt. BD decide to take Rakkan and Kayn here, giving them some engage options. Kayn when in red acts as a great frontline for Sivir providing knockups and being able to occupy backlines. HG takes Sejuani to answer Kayn again looking for hard CC to pick openets off.

For Round 2 HG and BD both throw all their bans at midlane looking to try and keep both mid laners on non comfort picks. HG take gnar as their blind option, something that GreatJace plays a ton of. BD answers with Maplhite and Cassiopiea. Malphite is an answer into Gnar looking to poke the yordle when in Mini form and look for all in with their ultimate. Gnar does almost entirely physical damage and is normally unable to shove the rock out of top lane. Maplhite also provides this team with hard engage trying to make Lulu and Ashes time on the rift as hard as possible. Cassiopeia provides this team with yet more zone control and gives the team a much needed second damage threat profile now just allowing Sejuani to stack armour. HG ends the draft with Sylas for King Yeetloaf, one of their few picks left after the 8 mid lane bans that have taken place. Sylas has great ultimates to steal this game like Maplhite, Cassio and Rakkan.

In game 1 Hypnotic Gaming focused their early pressure top side onto CTRL ULT ELITE getting 1st blood for Sejuani. They then look for repeat ganks after blowing Maplhites flash and get another kill at 5 minutes putting gnar 500 gold ahead. Kayn paths bot side and is able to do the same securing kills for Sivir. The rest of the early game is even with both teams trading kills and objectives. Gnar is able to rotate to an early Dragon fight and grab a triple kill evening out the gold. At 20 minutes BD blew the game wide open getting a 5 for 1 teamfight and 2 towers. The next dragon fight is another 3-0 and Sivir is officially entering hyper carry mode with 3 items completed. BD pressure mid lane with Maplhite in the side and when Maplhite is engaged on by Sylas the BD go all in on the rest of HG acing them and pushing for the end at 27 minutes.

Game 2 of the series has HG keep their 3 same bans and the BD switching their Jihn ban for Viktor in the 1st round. HG then take Sivir 1st pick. BD lock in Twitch Zilean to counter. Twitch is able to look for cheese kills onto Sivir and when Twitch is able to get an item lead he can look to 1 shot Sivir with his ult and stealth. Zilean provides a ton of safety in teamfights and allows twitch to chase down low hp targets. HG answer back with Lulu Ornn. Lulu gives tons of utility to sivir allowing her to get to late game status sooner. Ornn is a great blind pick like normal especially when the two teams have drafted such bot lane focused comps so far. BD then takes Sejuani as a flex top/jungle pick. Sejuani provides tons of CC like Ornn and can choose to use her cc to cancel the 2nd part of Ornn’s ult. Ornn does deal more damage and gets bonus stats late game outscaling Sejuani the later the game goes.

In round 2 bans are focused mid side yet again for both teams. BD ban Yasuo and Qiyana and HG ban Veigar Cassiopeia. BD takes J4 revealing that it is Sejuani top saving counter pick for NakNak. HG takes Nocturne and Kassadin 2 champions who thrive late game and are quite weak pre 6. BD then take Galio going for the classic J4 ult into Galio team wide knockup dream scenario.

Game 2 is a very bloody game right from the get go. Ornn gets 1st blood at 3 minutes after a botched bait. J4 is able to pick them up a minute later. Mid Lane NakNak takes a tower shot over agressing onto Kassadin and is killed for it. Everything is going HG way they have a 3700 gold lead at 15 minutes and are tied on dragons. But then teamfights start. At 16 minutes both teams trade 3 for 3 over a rift herald. At 18 minutes dragon spawns and BD get a 4 for 1 teamfight off the back of OGBlobBlobs incredible skill shot dodging. At 20 minutes HG look for another fight and this time it's an ace for BD for 3. Both teams continue to brawl at 23 minutes; we have another full on 5v5. BD get 4 and HG get 3. Both teams respawn and run straight for the spawning drake. Another 5 for 3 for BD getting a dragon as well. The map is calm for all of 2 minutes until J4 and Twitch get a pick onto Sivir. Nocturne ults in try and save their ADC and also perishes and BD runs straight for Baron and secure it. With dragon spawning you know where both teams are headed. A 5v5 later and BD have won yet again. This time the death timers are too long and they are able to push down mid and end the game.

From this series we learned that both BD and HG are going to look to fight as often as they can. Despite their games being the lowest on average in the Freljord BD had the highest kills per game out of their group.

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