Post-game Analysis: H2K vs EDG Game 1

 P/B:

• Overall:
  • EDG chose to ban comfort picks of Lee Sin and Thresh away from H2K like SKT did
  • H2K ban TF away like BKT did
  • H2K ban Elise which loulex doesn’t play much 

• H2K 1^st pick – Lulu: flex pick mid/top
  • EDG 1^st picks – Darius/Rek’Sai: Rek’Sai mainly a comfort pick; Darius has few counters so OK to blind pick
• H2K 2^nd picks – Gragas/Braum: seems to be forming “juggermaw” comp
  • EDG 2^nd picks – Annie/Kalista: strong Bot Lane duo; Annie brings reliable engage to the team
• H2K 3^rd picks – Tristana/Fiora: Tristana is strong long range ADC with relative safety, good lane counter to Kalista, some kiting potential with ult; Fiora hasn’t been picked much I think specifically because Darius is rarely banned and Darius does well against her in lane, Odoamne chooses this match-up anyway
  • EDG 3^rd pick – Kassadin: most likely player preference from PawN, but not a big fan of the pick; wave clear could be a big issue 

EDG came in with a similar ban strategy as SKT over H2K. H2K made a nice adjustment of banning away Elise where Bengi was the source of most of their problems by snowballing early game. This left up Lulu as 1^st pick for H2K, but its fairly obvious Ryu will play it since Odoamne hasn’t really touched the champion. This leaves Darius for EDG. While Darius hasn’t been that effective so far, he is a constant threat with few lane counters. I expected Odoamne to pick Gnar which seems to be Darius’ hardest match-up since he 1^st picked it blind against SKT, but he chose Fiora instead. I think the main reason we haven’t seen much Fiora so far is because of the Darius match-up. With so many other strong bans needed, Darius is almost always left up and no one wants to lane Fiora against Darius. Its definitely a skill match-up and Fiora can do well, but only Odoamne willing took this challenge after his Gnar got dismantled by MaRin’s Fiora. The Jungler picks were just trading comfort picks. I liked Tristana for Hjarnan; it seems to be his best champion of late and matches well against Kalista and EDG’s comp. I’m wary of the Kassadin pick, but PawN is a skilled enough player to pull it off. 

H2K comp:

• Team-fighting comp with either “jugger-Trist” or “jugger-Fiora”
• Big front-line
• Fiora is split push threat
• Decent wave clear
• No reliable engage; engage most likely from Gragas ult
• Great disengage: Gragas, Braum, Lulu ults
• Probably want lane swap for Top Lane match-up
• Win Condition: survive early game (don’t let solo lanes get fed), group by mid game for objectives, need Lulu to bully Kassadin in lane to keep his CS down 

EDG comp:

• Mostly a pick comp
• Darius, Rek’Sai, and Kassadin are all split push threats
• Good engage with Annie
• Prone to getting kited unless Annie locks someone down
• No disengage
• Very weak wave clear
• Kalista helps secure dragon/baron objectives
• Win Condition: must snowball early game with Rek’Sai early game power and possible TP ganks, Annie ults must be on point to get any kills, split push to win 

Items/Build paths:

• Ryu’s Lulu: I think TP is much better than Ignite in the current meta – adds global pressure to match EDG’s split push and allows you to return to lane often to keep pressuring mid; 2^nd item Luden’s echo is debatable, good for team fights but people usually get Rabadon’s 2^nd item for wave clear and bigger shields
• KaSing’s Braum: again builds 2 Aegis with loulex, could’ve bought Zeke’s which is vital for the “jugger” comps; only Kassadin is AP threat on other team, really didn’t need 2 Aegis
• Clearlove’s Rek’Sai: built Cinderhulk + all armor – great build, needed him for front-line
• PawN’s Kassadin: takes TP to help get himself snowballing by ganking side lanes; maxes E over Q
• Meiko’s Annie: builds Righteous Glory over Talisman, helps with engage and better stats 

Execution in Game:

• H2K invades EDG red buff top side; EDG seemed to predict this and waited for the invade
  • Level 1 fight breaks out, EDG get surprise engage with Annie landing 3-man stun; EDG win fight 1 kill for 0 – almost all summoners burned by both sides, weak to early jungle pressure
• Seemed to be standard lanes, but H2K get to lane first and shove 1^st wave to tower, recall for lane swap; both teams double jungling
  • Possible miscommunication by H2K, Odoamne went bot lane with Tristana, had to use TP to go top
  • EDG shove in lane then lane swap to match-up 2v2 again
• ~5 min: loulex counter jungles and challenges Clearlove, gets deep vision in EDG blue buff side
• ~7:40 min: Meiko clears out H2K vision in their jungle then gets deep vision in H2K jungle red buff side
• ~9:15 min: EDG challenges H2K blue buff, Clearlove steals away, fight erupts but Odoamne roams down before AmazingJ; H2K win fight 3 kills for 1
  • Fiora got 2 kills, advantage of Darius – Tiamat vs Phage
• ~10:50 min: loulex spotted clearing wards in bottom half of river, EDG respond with Jungler and Bot Lane roaming up and catch him out 3v1 for a kill; EDG get 1^st dragon
• ~13:30 min: EDG Bot Lane recall, H2K push and get 1^st tower bot outer with Tristana pushing power despite lane disadvantage
• ~14:40 min: EDG gaining vision control in river around dragon while H2K prevent any deep vision in their jungle, Kalista sentinel spots out Braum and EDG immediately collapse 3v1 for kill (loulex and Hjarnan nearby but not together); kill allows EDG to get deep vision
• ~15:15 min: PawN jumps onto Ryu 1v1, fight breaks out with H2K responding first, but great play by EDG leads to them winning fight 2 kills for 0; EDG steal blue buff
• ~17:40 min: EDG get 2^nd dragon, invade H2K jungle and catch out loulex for another kill; Ryu’s Lulu was farming bot (TP could’ve helped)
• ~19 min: EDG begin 1/3/1 push with Kassadin bot, Odoamne aggresses onto AmazingJ with Ryu roaming top, team fight erupts, EDG responds 1^st and PawN TPs in; EDG win fight 4 kills for 0; EDG get top and mid outer turret
• ~22:45 min: great rotational play by both teams
  • EDG roam top to gank Fiora who is pushed far in lane, Odoamne moves forward rather than retreating to evade while H2K shove mid
  • EDG then collapse mid 5v4 (Tristana left to shove out bot lane since no one can match Kassadin’s split pushing
  • EDG win fight 1 kill for 0, immediately go for baron; catch out and kill Ryu checking on them alone, kill loulex shortly after – no idea why H2K thought to check especially one at a time with Tristana still bot lane; could’ve gotten bot inner tower and traded objectives instead, but did get EDG off baron; EDG get 3^rd dragon
• ~26:40 min: H2K trying to get vision control around baron back, EDG engage with PawN TP, catch out and kill Hjarnan
  • EDG baits baron, H2K loulex and KaSing about to check while Ryu/Odoamne push mid; EDG engage and kill loulex and KaSing
  • EDG get baron
• ~29 min: EDG split push with baron buff 1/3/1, EDG get all 3 inner turrets
  • Poor positioning by Ryu when defending mid inner turret, burns Lulu ult on himself; kaSing decides to engage as tower goes down, only loulex dies
  • EDG get 4^th dragon
• ~31 min: Ryu in mid lane at river, way too far out, easily collapsed upon for another kill
• ~32 min: H2K camp in bush to gank PawN’s split pushing, 3-man long chase, eventually get kill
  • Meanwhile AmazingJ does same trick in top lane, catches out Ryu
  • Loulex only one left in base, EDG 3 man dive him for kill
  • EDG get mid inhibitor turret + inhibitor
• ~34:45 min: EDG get baron again uncontested to close out game 

This game can be summarized by EDG playing to their win conditions and H2K not. H2K failed to group this entire game while EDG consistently picked off loulex and kaSing, roaming together with Clearlove, Meiko, and Deft. EDG seemed well prepared for the match, scouting out that H2K like to invade top side at level 1 and waited in a bush to ambush them. H2K scrambled to get a lane swap afterwards, but EDG was able to match up well. After the level 1 skirmish, almost everyone had blown flash. Loulex still had his flash, but failed to gank any lane. He had an opportunity to gank Darius top when he didn’t have vision, but chose not to for whatever reason. Gragas body slam + flash is a great tool to gank with and loulex really dropped the ball by not putting any pressure on EDG’s exposed solo lanes. EDG’s Bot Lane dominated H2K; the CS disparity wasn’t gigantic, but Hjarnan was forced into buying Avarice Blade 1^st item then Pickaxe while Deft already completed BORK. Both supports left to roam to place wards with Meiko arguably roaming more, so Hjarnan was really just out-matched. Odoamne to my surprise actually handled Darius 1v1 very well. He managed to have the lane frozen in his favor and get ahead by 10 CS early game in just a 1v1 lane. Loulex seemed more proactive this game, at least early, without having to fend off an Elise, so great adjustment by H2K with that ban. Ryu however, seemed to be H2K’s biggest folly and played a pretty terrible game. He lost to PawN’s Kassadin in lane, failing to win in CS or put on tower damage, and even got bullied out before Kassadin even hit level 6. He then repeatedly pushed out or farmed lanes with no safety and paid for it with his life. At ~31 minutes, he died mid lane after EDG pushed with baron buff but didn’t recall yet. He then died a minute later when trying to push out top lane. Ryu not taking TP also allowed EDG to press their split push advantage; PawN repeatedly pushed bot lane starting mid game and no one on H2K could deal with him. Even with Ryu playing poorly in lane, if he had TP he could return to lane quickly to keep applying pressure to Kassadin, quickly returning with full mana to always push the lane and whittle down the tower. H2k managed to get the 1^st tower of the game; they should’ve rotated Hjarnan mid afterwards with Lulu bot to allow Tristana to push in heavily against Kassadin who has no wave clear. This could’ve pressured mid lane tower and opened up the map for H2K. They may have been reluctant to do this since Ryu had no TP so to send him bot lane may have hurt.  No TP on Ryu meant EDG forced favorable fights across the map or Hjarnan was alone bot lane while EDG won a 5v4 fight. While Lulu is an incredibly strong pick, Ryu did not execute and play her to her potential. PawN’s Kassadin had no business winning mid lane 1v1, but he pressed his advantage by split pushing bot lane then teleporting around the map. I still don’t think Kassadin was a good choice for picks and bans, but PawN played really well and Ryu underperformed pretty hard. EDG did a good job of contesting blue buff from H2k and repeatedly denied it from Ryu even at the cost of a lost fight. Without blue buff, Lulu isn’t able to bully Kassadin as hard and allowed PawN to come out strong. EDG had a great 3-man roaming group with Clearlove, Deft, and Meiko that consistently caught out loulex or kaSing when they tried to get some vision control back. H2K didn’t group like EDG did, with loulex and kaSing warding separately rather than together, allowing EDG to pick them off. H2K made improvements in with Odoamne and loulex from their game against SKT, but Hjarnan and especially Ryu played exceptionally poor this game. Great game by EDG with PawN and Meiko leading the way.

Statistics:

Even gold distribution for both teams. Hjarnan should’ve had a higher percentage to be effective, but he underperformed in lane. Odoamne’s Fiora was H2K’s only real advantage, but AmazingJ did well in keeping even in lane while the rest of his team was gaining advantages. 

PawN was the clear leader, but Meiko deserves big props for handing EDG just about every kill they got. Hjarnan’s pathetic damage output shows H2K’s inability to group and getting dragged around the map by EDG’s split pushing.

EDG seemed to dominate ward control and the number of wards shows it. After Meiko got deep vision in H2K’s jungle at ~7:40 minutes in, EDG retained vision control around dragon throughout mid game, then shifted it to baron control the remainder of late game. H2K couldn’t get vision control back as loulex and kaSing repeatedly got caught out since they wouldn’t roam together.

Statistics pulled from leagueoflegends.com match history and gamesoflegends.com. All credit goes to them.
(http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/TRLH3/1001380314?gameHash=1bed0ef3797cea08&tab=overview)(http://gamesoflegends.com/game/gameshow.php?id=2190)