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 goin