Gamers 2 vs Origen Pick and ban analysis
Bans:
G2: OG:
Kalista Azir
Morgana Cassiopeia
Zed Kassadin
G2: First ban Kalista on blue side shows their unavailability to use this champion and also shows they do not feel comfortable playing against it either. Kalista is a contested ban, and G2 had blue side, they should have left the Kalista for final ban. But in their first match Niels carried hard on Kalista so they were scared.
OG: Second ban Azir, this game was played on patch 5.2, this was the patch previous to the Azir nerfs, the fact they banned this so early shows they understand his influence in this patch, They know xpeke will be able to play whatever he needs to for his team to win, and Azir worked against their team comp no matter how awful it was.
G2: Second ban morgana, this is due to the fact G2 wanted to pick a trio ap comp and Morgana is a hard counter for CC based ap comps especially vs Elise.
OG: The cassiopeia ban was most likely targeted towards SmittyJ (top laner for G2), but a cassiopeia would have hurt the all in burst comp that OG was setting up, had G2 noticed this by now they should have rethought their picks as a burst comp is the perfect counter to what they’re planning to run.
G2: Gamers 2 use their final ban on Zed, this is most definitely targeted towards xpeke, he loves to play zed, it would allow him to split push which G2’s comp has little answer for due to the wave clear of the corki, G2 would not be able to hard push vs a split pushing Zed, plus there was no one on G2 who would ever be in a strong enough position to take on Zed in a direct fight without getting insanely fed. This ban makes sense too.
OG: OG used their final ban on Kassadin, this is due to the final ban Zed from G2 which would force xpeke onto an ability power based champion, to prevent the first pick Kassadin from G2’s side OG final ban it.
In summary I don’t think G2 had a terrible ban phase, it left open Ahri or Nidalee for first pick but if they left Kalista open and picked it then either Ahri or Nidalee (whoever didn’t get banned) would have been second picked for OG, this shows that G2 value Ahri over Nidalee and Kalista which may have played a part in the result of this game.
Picks
G2: First pick Ahri, Gamers 2 decided that they should pick Ahri over Nidalee, which is a huge mistake, there is much more counterplay to Ahri mid then there is to jungle Nidalee in it’s current state, therefore I feel that this was their first of many huge mistakes G2 would make in this pick and ban. I mean seriously who leaves jungle nidalee open in 5.2?
OG: Origen replied to this by instantly picking Lissandra and Nidalee, Lissandra is a even lane vs Ahri, her mobility is lacking but Lissandra is very hard to kill in one shot due to her ult. This is a key point of the pick and ban phase seeing this G2 should have thought “We need more damage as Ahri can’t snowball” but alas no, they instead thought “Let’s put everything on ahri and build a weird TF comp” great thinking G2.
G2: Now here is where it got weird, they now pick up Lulu and Elise signalling the enemy that they were building a team fight or protect the ADC comp, at this time they did not know whether it was lulu support or top so Origen would have to play around this in their next pick. Now I’m not saying Elise is bad, but yeah she’s a weaker version of other champions in the meta, I mean Vi and Jarvan IV was open, why the hell do you pick Elise with Vi and Jarvan IV open? What season is this?
OG: Origen now pick up the godly Annie and Corki, Corki is arguably the best adc in the game on the live patch, this allows OG to poke out the enemy before they can fully benefit from the weird teamfight comp that they’re currently running. Not really much to be said about these picks, the annie works against their reasonably expensive mobility.
G2: Final pick for G2 and for whatever reason they think picking Kennen over a tank and Ezreal over a strong ADC like Sivir is a smart idea, seriously what terrible decision making on G2’s part. Gamers2 now have no potential for damage and really I don’t see any win conditions other than absolutely appalling from Origen. Even if G2 won lanes by a huge amount, OG would find it easy to force a teamfight with their comp and win the game that way.
OG: Lastly Origen picked Sion, which is was the final nail in G2’s coffin. With a full tank like Sion, OG would have to work hard to lose this game, G2’s team comp has no answer to a large HP tank such as Sion.
