Misfits Qualify for the NA Challenger Series

Introduction

(Image taken from https://www.facebook.com/misfitsgg?fref=ts&ref=br_tf)

UPDATE: Misfits have since changed their name to Renegades.

For those who don’t know, the Misfits are a League of Legends team near the top of the ranked 5s ladder made up of:

• Mid – Alex Ich
• Jungle – Crumbz
• Support – Remilia
• Top – RF Legendary
• ADC – Jebus (Currently being filled by subs due to Visa issues. This week, Maplestreet was the sub)

Over the past two weeks, the Misfits have competed in the NACS Summer Split Qualifier Tournament with hopes of ultimately making it to the NACS and then to the LCS. Details on the tournament can be found at http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/2015_NA_Challenger_Series/Summer_Qualifier. This week, the team faced off against Magnetic in the final round of the tournament, with the winner qualifying for the Summer Challenger Split.

Here’s a breakdown of this week’s matches:

Game 1

Misfits: Kalista, Thresh, Irelia, Nidalee, Maokai

Magnetic: Sejuani, Nautilus, Sivir, Gnar, Ziggs

With Kalista, Thresh, Irelia, and Nidalee locked in, it made sense that the Misfits’ next pick would be something Alex Ich could play in the mid lane, but when the Misfits locked in Maokai, it was clear that Magnetic had been juked. The Misfits would be playing Irelia mid against Magnetic’s Ziggs, and from the beginning we knew that this would be an interesting matchup.

Surprisingly, we didn’t see too much action from the mid lane in the early game. First blood goes to Remilia’s Thresh on a jungle invade hook over the wall to help Crumbz catch Sejuani, but the kill was soon answered by a Ziggs ult to clean up what was left of Crumbz’s Nidalee after the jungle brawl. Soon after, a four man dive from the Misfits in the bottom lane secures RF Legendary a kill off of his teleport, while Magnetic answers by taking mid turret. Side lane pressure continues, and a one for one trade in the top lane off of a Crumbz gank allows the Misfits take top tower while Magnetic takes Dragon and bottom tower with four of its members.

The game quickly became all about small skirmishes and applying pressure in choice areas of the map, as Magnetic turned to take top tower while Misfits took mid to even up the turret score, with each team losing all three outer turrets. However, the entire time that this was happening, the Ziggs vs. Irelia matchup in the mid lane slowly fell into Irelia’s favor as Alex Ich farmed up to a Trinity force.

At about 20 minutes, Magnetic kills their second Dragon, but the Misfits are able to catch the team split up immediately afterwards to go four for nothing in a jungle fight. The Misfits rotate to Baron, securing the first one of the game at about 21 minutes. With Baron, the Misfits group as four to push mid while Irelia split pushes in the top lane. Crumbz’s spears mixed with Baron buffed minions are able to defeat the Ziggs waveclear to allow Misfits to take the second tier mid tower. Content with the turret and afraid of initiating a team fight against Magnetic’s fight-based composition, the Misfits back off to ward up for the next Dragon spawn.

Right before the 3^rd Dragon of the game spawns, the Misfits group as four to shift focus from Dragon prep to the top lane and take the tower for free, catching Magnetic unable to respond quickly enough to the quick priority change. At the same time, Alex Ich is able to get a solo kill on Ziggs in the bottom lane, barely escaping with his life from the collapsing Magnetic team. This allowing the Misfits free reign over the Dragon pit to pick up their first of the game.

Continuing to play the split push objective game, Alex Ich splits bottom lane, ultimately giving his life to pull four members of Magnetic into the bottom jungle. However, this seems to be in line with the Misfits’ plan, as they decide to start Baron with only Magnetic’s Gnar able to contest. Gnar gives his life to pull the Misfits off of Baron, and the rest of Magnetic show up to fight, but Crumbz manages to launch a timely spear at a half health Sivir before any fight breaks out to force a Magnetic retreat and give the Misfits their second Baron.

Although the Misfits are 12k gold in the lead at this point, they still realize that Magnetic has a much better team fight comp, so they continue to send Alex Ich’s Irelia to split push, avoiding the 5v5 and still applying pressure to the side lanes. With their second baron, Alex takes the bottom tier two tower, and the Misfits continue to apply pressure to mid and bot inhibitor turrets. Alex spots an opportunity to kill Sivir under the bottom turret, but fails to secure the kill, leaving him at low enough health to bait Gnar to leave the Magnetic base, where Alex and Crumbz secure the kill. Now in a 5v4 situation, the Misfits dive Magnetic under their bottom inhibitor turret, coming out on top with a successful team fight, an inhibitor, and their second Dragon before backing.

After pushing the lanes and forcing Magnetic to dedicate a resource to the bot lane until the inhibitor respawns, Misfits take their 3^rd baron, but a well-timed Sivir ult allows Magnetic to catch Crumbz in the jungle and hold off on losing any more turrets under the Baron buff.

The next objective focus is Dragon, which Misfits are able to secure while Alex Ich pushes bot lane. The team joins Alex after Dragon for a 5v5 seige, and Remilia’s lands a Thresh hook on Nautilus to allow the Misfits to once again take bottom inhibitor. Even with bot inhibitor down and a 15k gold lead, the Misfits still fear the 5v5 fight against Magnetic, and continue to send Alex to split push, ultimately securing the mid inhibitor turret while the rest of Magnetic overcommit on what looked like a caught out Crumbz Nidalee before he takes a Thresh lantern to safety.

The rest of the Misfits back up to take their 4^th Baron, and then their 4^th Dragon while Alex Ich split pushes top, continuing the ever present pressure in the never ending game. With Baron and Dragon secured, Alex continues to split top while the rest of the team sieges an unprotected mid inhibitor. The push is slow, as Misfits still don’t want to engage against a team fight composition while Magnetic don’t want to engage with a 17K gold deficit, but the baron push allows Misfits to take mid without any team fight breaking out. The Misfits then rotate to the exposed bottom inhibitor, and Alex Ich decides to finally engage on Magnetic at the inhibitor while Remilia lands a hook to have the team burst down Ziggs. The Misfits continue on to win what seems like the first 5v5 fight and push down the nexus, closing out game one at just under 48 minutes.

The fact that this game went on for so long because the Misfits were never confident picking a 5v5 fight did not seem to be lost on them, and they adjusted accordingly to pick a different team composition for game two.

Game 2

Misfits: Gragas, Janna, Urgot, Varus, Maokai

Magnetic: Nautilus, Sivir, Rumble, Sejuani, Jayce

Game 2 starts off with a lane swap, with Magnetic sending their duo lane top, resulting in both teams engaging in a double jungle. After clearing out some the top side jungle, Magnetic’s double jungle fails in an attempt to gank Alex Ich in the mid lane, while Misfits clear out the bottom side jungle and dedicate their resources to take down the uncontested bottom turret. With bot turret down for Magnetic, the lanes swap back, and Maokai faces Rumble in the bot lane while the duo lanes both remain top.

In the top lane, Magnetic’s level two Nautilus gets caught overextended and an outplay from the Misfits duo lane secures first blood for Maplestreet on Urgot. Shortly after, Alex Ich and Crumbz secure the game’s second kill on the mid Jayce with a Varus ult followed by a Gragas body slam. Seeing that Jayce used his flash during this death, Crumbz comes back mid to kill Jayce again while RF Legendary wastes some of the Magnetic resources in the bottom lane, living through a 2v1 dive. The game of simple outplays continues when Alex Ich on Varus roams top to get a kill on a recalling low health Nautilus.

With the game slowly spiraling out of their control, Magnetic attempts to set up a death brush near dragon, but RF Legendary takes top turret in the meantime while Alex pokes out Magnetic, forcing them to back and awarding Misfits the first Dragon of the game.

At about 17 minutes, Remilia’s Janna runs into four members of Magnetic in the jungle, seemingly getting caught out in what turns into a sacrifice for a great engage. Misfits trade two for two in the fight, but Alex Ich’s Varus continues to connect as he snipes two low members of Magnetic during their recall for a double kill to allow Misfits to take the bottom tier two turret. Afterwards, the Misfits continue to siege with a blue buffed Varus to poke out Magnetic and take mid tier two turret without a fight.

The teams back and continue to keep up wards, but the Misfits catch Nautilus in the jungle and a pink ward spots Sivir bottom, so the Misfits push 5v3 through to the mid inhibitor, taking the inhibitor along with a kill on Jayce.

With a 10k gold lead and Rumble bottom, Misfits go to start Baron, but engage on Magnetic when Rumble teleports to take a four for nothing fight and push straight through to the nexus with all five members, securing the win and joining the 2015 North American Challenger Series.

Next Up

Next week, Magnetic faces CLG Black to determine the last team to enter the NA Challenger Series and join the Misfits, Team Coast, Winterfox, Final Five, and Cloud9 Tempest. The first games of the NACS begin on June 23^rd. Follow @UgawaLoL for more articles and updates!