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League of Legends Championship Series: Season 5

Hec probably getting ban the 4th game. All 3 games so far he has advantage over other top laner. Didn't matter in game one because Sneaky's Draven was so far behind but last two game it has mattered.
 
Game 3: C9 vs. Team Liquid

C9 don't ban Lulu and TL leave Hecarim up too. C9 take Hecarim with their first pick and let Liquid get Lulu and Janna. Well, we all know what's coming. C9 take Sejuani and Lucian. TL go with Kog'Maw and Nunu, saving Fenix's pick for last. C9 finish off with Corki and Nautilus, giving them a double AD comp with a ton of tanks (good poke too with Corki and Lucian R). TL last pick Sion, therefore they're going with mid Lulu. Not sure I agree with this - Lulu is one of Hecarim's worst match ups in top. Hmm. I guess they wanted Lulu vs. Corki more.

C9 get the standard lanes they wanted, and Meteos, despite playing Sejuani into Nunu, is able to get down and support his lane first, securing first blood for Sneaky on Xpecial and blowing Piglet's flash (IWD should never let this happen IMO). Piglet buys a 6 minute BF Sword. Quas decides to do his jungler's job and gives Piglet a kill, sacrificing his lane. 12 minutes in C9 are ahead, but not snowballing as I thought they might.

Instead C9 play it slow, waiting to get double 15 minute Triforces before taking mid (Balls roams down for free since he is proxying), first dragon and bottom outer. Liquid get farm for Quas and trade back top outer before falling back to their side of the map to stall. I wonder if C9 can afford to play the game out like this.

At 20 minutes C9 are pushing down top while IWD is handing blue off to Lulu. Then they go for a dive on Sion! This is way too far, Meteos uses his flash and ult for nothing, they don't get the tower, and Piglet/Xpecial take bottom outer at the same time. If they lose this game, this passage of play is where they will know they lost crucial ground.

22 minutes and TL group and take down mid outer. Balls is splitpushing bot but unable to trade anything back. C9 react by doing baron! That is one aggressive play! IWD gets in to the pit but misses his Consume/Smite - if he held his combo a fraction of a second this could have been game right there. TL get three kills, including a second for Piglet and take their second dragon.

26 minutes and TL trade 1-1, getting Piglet a third kill and blowing Balls' TP and Sneaky's Flash. C9 are running out of time. IWD fat fingers his Flash. The pressure is palpable in every move - C9 collapsing on TL as they push down mid, but Quas TPing pre-emptively to convince them to give up on the flank.

30 mins and C9 are able to push in to TL's jungle, kill IWD and force baron. This time they get it without losing any kills - Piglet doesn't have enough damage to kill anyone without Blood Boil. Sneaky is at 4 items before Piglet has reached his 3rd. 8 minutes later it's GG. Even though C9 misplayed a couple of times their aggressive objective calls got them a big enough lead for their tanks and Corki/Lucian burst to power through before they got Juggermaw'd.

0.5 - Objective calls/preparation/vision
0.5 - Team composition

Edit: Y'know, if IWD doesn't fat finger his Flash, he doesn't get picked in the jungle engagement, and C9 don't get baron (or they 50/50 it). Jus' saying.
 
TL really seems to be lacking damage due to putting Lulu mid. At this point it will be hard to make a comeback.
Hey our midlaner is doing so well that every single enemy ban was targeted at him, lets put him on a super low-key pick even though we had last pick and many champions to choose from
 
Nah, Kalista is a really low DPS champion. This shouldn't be surprising.

I was more thinking with the %health damage she'd be consistent damage against tanks. I've only played her once though so I didn't realize she was so weak. I see why she fell off though haha
 
Game 4: Team Liquid vs. C9

C9 let Lulu through and won last time; this time they let Urgot through too. TL don't give it a second thought, and first pick Urgot before taking Lulu/Sejuani on the second round. C9 get Maokai, and their typical Corki/Lucian double AD. Liquid give Piglet Kalista and Xpecial Janna to round things off. Lemon brings out Braum. C9's comp is tanky and has a lot of burst, TL's has a lot of kiting power, much the same as game 3. Difference is TL ramp up quicker with Urgot instead of Sion.

Both teams lane swap, but this time neither can get a huge edge off an early level 2. This lane phase is probably the most even so far, allowing Lulu an edge over Maokai in a favourable matchup. As usual, it's Meteos who breaks things up, getting first blood for Sneaky on Piglet, punishing Piglet's greed in not Flashing as soon as he showed. Fenix and Hai fight each other to a stand still in mid lane, Meteos coming in to gank but whiffing his ult. A couple of minutes later Hai loops around bottom and secures a kill for Balls. 2-0 C9.

Piglet's staying greedily in lane when he gets chunked to sub 150HP by Sneaky, who baits himself with that damage into getting ganked and netting TL their first kill. TL swap lanes back and Piglet pulls off a cute gank on Balls, killed by the second Q from Quas' Pix. TL take dragon but Fenix wastes all his cooldowns for nothing and C9 trade back. This game is tense and messy, only Quas, Lemon and Hai performing strongly so far.

IWD needlessly takes a kill from Fenix on 22 mins after he pulls off a nice swap to trap him. Sneaky has three items at 25:40 - that is crazy farm. He bases right after C9 takes down two towers. With Righteous Glory done you'd think they're as ready to fight as they'll ever be...

And they go for Baron! They get it, calling TL's bluff as they sneaked dragon. But they get sucked in to a long poke war afterward, only for Hai to get swapped in by Fenix after IWD landed a huge Sej ult. Three kills for TL - C9 can't deal with Urgot's tankiness and DPS. C9 recover quickly and push down mid inner, retaking the gold lead, but you sense their comp is running out of gas against Lulu's and Urgot's reserves of HP and shields.

But Meteos just goes off. He spots an opening as Quas is splitpushing top to cut off Fenix and force a favourable fight, securing C9 dragon. Then he lands a superb ult during a teamfight immediately following at Baron, forcing Kalista out of the fight and trapping Fenix in his team. Sneaky plays this fight superbly too - jumping on to the ledge before raining down his damage on to IWD and Fenix.

Still Liquid aren't beaten, able to fight off the Baron without losing their base. Then they pick off Meteos, blowing his Flash in the process. They can't get anything, but it shows that C9 isn't in control of the game despite winning repeated teamfights.

And then Balls TP's directly into the middle of Liquid's team, lives for an hour while tanking five champions and C9 wins the game. Team Liquid look utterly dejected. They were so close in both games 3 and 4. C9 aren't playing especially well, but they're grinding out the wins.

1.0 - Teamfighting
 

Edwardo

Member
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Graves wouldn't do any better than Kalista against that comp - too short range and too reliant on burst. Good options are Jinx and Kog'Maw, but they are immobile and therefore extremely vulnerable to the point & click hard CC. Vayne is also an option, but she has to get through lane phase against Lucian.

Honestly though, Liquid would win fights if Fenix lived for a while and did his DPS rather than being split off and instagibbed.
 
Graves wouldn't do any better than Kalista against that comp - too short range and too reliant on burst. Good options are Jinx and Kog'Maw, but they are immobile and therefore extremely vulnerable to the point & click hard CC. Vayne is also an option, but she has to get through lane phase against Lucian.

Honestly though, Liquid would win fights if Fenix lived for a while and did his DPS rather than being split off and instagibbed.

Graves is short range but with his passive he's the tankiest of the ADCs and might survive longer in these extended fights. A Graves ult + buckshot on top of a Sej ult can absolutely chunk people, we saw it in the TL vs CLG match it was a dangerous combo. I don't think Piglet plays Jinx, he never played her in Korea or so far in the LCS iirc.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Report LemonNation for being a 1v2 bully in the jungle at level 1. No one wants to get close to Nautilus.

*edit* I do agree the Lulu pick 3 games in a row is kind of weird. Maybe mix it up a little just as a gamble at least?
 
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