Post-game Analysis: OG vs TSM Game 1

P/B:

• Overall:
  • TSM stuck to the traditional top tier bans; OG has chosen to target all their bans at Bjergsen, with TF being banned for the 2^nd game in a row against him
  • Top picks left open include Lulu, Elise, Darius
  • Fiora is an odd last ban by TSM, but it left up 3 top picks I mentioned above meaning TSM could trade 1 for 2 

• OG 1^st pick – Kalista: OG have highly emphasized Kalista for what it allows Mithy to do; OG needs Amazing and Mithy to be role players while the other 3 play carries, Kalista allows Mithy to play aggressively and be an initiator for the team
  • TSM 1^st picks – Darius/Elise: TSM decide to forgo Lulu (since Bjergsen typically plays carries rather than supportive picks) and get Darius for Dyrus
• OG 2^nd picks – Braum/Lulu: OG still get Lulu despite taking Kalista 1^st pick, seem to be forming a “juggermaw” comp
  • TSM 2^nd picks – Alistar/Tristana: with Braum taken, Alistar is the other top Support pick; Tristana goes well into Kalista
• OG 3^rd picks – Rek’Sai/Anivia: Gragas could be argued for disengage over Rek’Sai but Rek’Sai has the better early game; blind-pick Anivia, but with LeBlanc banned makes it a little more palatable, offers incredible zone control against a team with little engage and fairly short-ranged
  • TSM 3^rd pick – Viktor: Anivia can actually still play decently against assassins, but really struggles against strong early wave clear so Viktor seems to be a better choice than Veigar who he was hovering 

So Day 3 seems to be when teams finally diverge away from the same “OP” bans every game and we start to see team-specific strategy. OG knows TSM is the Bjergsen show and banned out his top picks. Its curious that TSM chose to ban Fiora and took Darius in their 1^st round of picks when Darius hasn’t been the most effective champion and has proven to be minimized by Gnar or Renekton. Of course TSM would save their last pick to counter mid rather than top, but banning Darius and picking Fiora leaves fewer counters assuming Dyrus can play Fiora. Also, for the 1^st time Lulu is actually flexed, she goes Top Lane. While it is scary to blind-pick Anivia, with LeBlanc banned its not as risky of a pick anymore. OG already see the majority of TSM’s comp and can see their only real engage is Alistar. Anivia’s zone control kites Darius and her wall can prevent Alistar from ever engaging. Seems like a very smart defensive pick for OG. 

OG comp:

• “Jugger-Kalista” comp
• With Lulu top, less front-line than traditional “juggermaw” comp but in exchange get more wave clear and zone control from mid
• Super strong wave clear
• Strong zoning potential with Anivia and Braum
• Strong split push with either solo lane + Rek’Sai
• No reliable engage
• Strong disengage with Braum and Anivia
• Kalista brings objective control to baron/dragon
• Probably want 2v2 lanes: while Kalista is weak to Tristana, Braum handles Alistar well; Lulu is also a poor double jungler and matches well against Darius
• Win Condition: survive early game, group mid game for objectives, get to objectives first to take advantage of zone control; split push to win 

TSM comp:

• Team-fighting comp
• Good wave clear with Viktor (could be negated by Braum though)
• Strong tower dive potential in Elise and Alistar
• Darius is split push threat
• Alistar provides decent engage, less reliable but Elise can too
• Weak disengage with Alistar or Viktor W
• Want lane swap
• Win Condition: use Elise’s strong early game to snowball, want lane swap and use Tristana’s fast pushing power to take early towers to get gold lead, ramp the game speed by taking early towers before OG has items for wave clear 

Items/Build paths:

• Amazing’s Rek’Sai: favored DMP over Randuin’s, Junglers seem split on which is better so its just player preference so far
• xPeke’s Anivia: taking TP was crucial in letting her survive Viktor’s strong early game wave clear without surrendering her tower; 3^rd item Liandry’s Torment is a little debatable
• Dyrus’ Darius: had to build Spirit Visage 2^nd item since against double AP comp, not being able to get DMP hurts
• Santorin’s Elise: chooses not to build Aegis but a more selfish Spectre’s Cowl instead, Aegis helps against double AP and having 2 isn’t a bad thing
• Bjergsen’s Viktor: not able to have blue buff control so had to get Morellonomicon 1^st item, delaying his power spike; Heal is a debatable spell, Cleanse may have been better 

Execution in Game:

• Lane swap occurs, TSM Bot Lane steal enemy Krugs
• ~2:13 min: due to lane swap, Mithy roams to gank mid and burns Bjergsen’s Heal + wastes his potions by using Ignite
• Dyrus only does 2 camps of double jungle to hit lvl 2 then goes to lane while Soaz continues to double jungle; Dyrus gets to lane but OG send 4 man top, forcing him to recall without accomplishing anything
• ~4 min: TSM get 1^st tower (bot outer), then lane swap so Dyrus can farm bot now with tower safety; teams now 2v2 lane
• ~10:15 min: TSM rotate 4 top and get top outer tower; Dyrus shoved bot lane hard to prep this while Soaz froze bot lane; Dyrus stays to farm lane after tower goes down
• ~11:20 min: OG get 1^st dragon
• ~12:40 min: TSM prepare to gank bot lane with Bjergsen rotating down before xPeke with his better early game wave clear, TSM get behind OG, OG take down bot outer tower and escape but Soaz caught when he teleported in; TSM win fight 1 kill for 0, 1^st blood to Bjergsen
• ~15:20 min: OG 4-man push top and get top outer tower
• ~17:40 min: OG get 2^nd dragon; get the objective because they were there first, TSM zoned out from contesting
• ~19:35 min: OG 4-man push mid and get mid outer tower
• ~22:45 min: TSM trying to get ward control on top side of map around baron and OG blue buff, OG collapse on them, Dyrus TP in and TSM re-engage but Lustboy fails Alistar combo so retreat; OG win fight 1 kill for 0
  • OG get vision control around baron and start baron but TSM contests, TSM then move down to get vision around dragon as it respawns but OG counter by pushing mid
  • TSM chooses to engage but Anivia wall prevents WildTurtle from getting into fight, Lustboy engages before team and dies immediately without ult up and used Exhaust on Lulu, Dyrus early ult with Darius so no resets (Lulu ult messed with this); OG win fight 2 kills for 1, get mid inner tower and 3^rd dragon
• ~26 min: OG establishing vision control over baron again with Soaz split pushing bot lane (OG TP advantage); TSM engage onto Mithy 4v4 (burned Alistar W, Darius E, and Elise cocoon) but he’s simply pulled out by Kalista and OG re-engage and chase down TSM; OG win fight 5 kills for 1
• ~27:50 min: OG get baron uncontested; siege mid inhibitor tower, get tower but no inhib
• ~30:20 min: OG about to siege top inner tower then rotate mid and get inhibitor before TSM rotate back in time to defend (TSM denied vision of their own jungle); OG get 4^th dragon
• ~33:30 min: OG getting vision around baron again in prep for its respawn, TSM grouped pushing out mid lane, Anivia wall catches out Lustboy and he dies (had flash up to escape but didn’t use)
• ~35 min: TSM trying to get vision around baron, Bjergsen out of position as OG collapses in, OG win fight 3 kills for 0 then push to win 

OG certainly out-drafted TSM, but TSM’s continually weak early and mid game prove to be their downfall. Its no secret that TSM has the longest average game time and this usually occurs because they’re stagnant early and mid game, choosing just to farm lanes. They make no proactive plays, don’t get any wards past river, don’t gank, don’t roam, and rarely lane swap. TSM actually had a good start to the game; they got the lane swap as desired, but Dyrus only double jungled for 2 camps then tried to lane against 2 with a potential 4-man tower dive. He got zoned away from tower and wasted a lot of time. Against a team with Lulu as their double jungle, he could’ve easily kept jungling with Santorin with much faster clear then came to help fast push towers with his Bot Lane. They still got the early tower advantage and continued this at ~10 minutes when they got the 2^nd outer turret compared to OG having 0 towers taken. OG made a great call to take dragon while TSM recalled after taking their 2^nd tower which helped them snowball their comp. Most teams like CLG would’ve sent their Bot Lane middle to take the final outer turret, but not TSM. They continued to farm side lanes and play safe for the next 10-15 minutes rather than press their advantage. This lull in action allowed OG to get 3 outer towers and 2 dragons while TSM stayed stagnant with still only 2 towers taken. They failed to make use of Tristana’s strong sieging and allowed OG to pull ahead and Anivia to get farmed. TSM rarely get deep vision past the river because Santorin and Lustboy never pair up to do it. This means they don’t know where the enemy Jungler is and can’t make plays accordingly. TSM should’ve used their early advantage and invaded the enemy jungle allowing for an easier siege on mid outer tower with possible flanks. Anivia has an incredibly weak early game where she doesn’t have the items to wave clear yet. TSM should’ve also invaded the enemy jungle to steal away blue buffs – denying xPeke from free farming mid and stacking up Tears and ROA. If TSM was able to deny blue buffs and get them onto Bjergsen, he wouldn’t need to buy Morellonomicon 1^st item and build straight damage for an even bigger advantage mid game while Anivia was still trying to scale. I like the Anivia pick, but I feel it works specifically against TSM due to their weak early and mid game. They don’t punish a pick that needs lots of resources to scale. Between minutes 11-24, OG managed to get 4 towers and 3 dragons despite TSM having a 2 tower lead. Its as if they just stopped trying and just auto-piloted to farming. OG did a good job of playing to their strengths; establishing vision control and getting to objectives first allowed them to use their strong zone control with Anivia to secure the objectives. OG makes good use of their advantage mid game and never let go of vision control around baron. TSM eventually gets choked out then make poor desperation plays. The fight at ~26 minutes was the most glaring this game as TSM attempted to force a fight around baron by engaging onto Braum that’s paired with a Kalista. They chose to engage without WildTurtle present and Soaz teleporting in for a 4v5 fight. They blew Alistar combo, Darius E, and Elise cocoon on Mithy who simply got pulled out by Kalista then thrown into TSM with no means of disengage. This makes 2 games in a row where TSM forced a fight around baron and made poor target selection calls that got them aced. OG played great with the gifts they were given (TSM not pushing any mid game advantage) and capitalized with great zone control around objectives leading to their victory. They had great side wave management and Soaz did a great job of split pushing. While OG did have double TP, xPeke used his TP exclusively to keep returning mid lane without getting punished in farm. The wave management allowed them to get repeated dragons and towers throughout mid game. A small note I wanted to make is that OG is the only team that’s run double AP comps. Every team has stuck to juggernauts or tanks, but Soaz’s broad champion pool gives OG more comps to work with, so props to them for being unique and pulling it off well. I do think OG have played well so far at Worlds, but both opponents have made glaring mistakes in-game with poor target selection in team fights. OG has also out-drafted both opponents. 

Statistics:

There weren’t many fights this game and the few that occurred were very one-sided so take these numbers with a grain of salt. Dyrus had the lowest contribution of anyone, but I wouldn’t place all the blame on him – the comp OG constructed countered Darius hard, he was zoned out of fights and TSM had no way of engaging to help him out. I’m not sure when TSM did their damage this game because there were so few fights and mostly just someone getting caught out (most notably Lustboy, seems to be a trend). Bjergsen was again the heavy favorite in damage dealt, but I feel it was mostly done in lane trying to bully xPeke.

TSM places many wards, but it never feels like they have vision control. Almost all of their wards are defensive and rarely get past river. Once OG got a lead, they never let go of vision control around baron and in TSM’s jungle allowing them to freely rotate to take towers then bait baron.

Statistics pulled from leagueoflegends.com match history and gamesoflegends.com. All credit goes to them.
(http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/TRLH3/1001380391?gameHash=949fd30c4ad5d712&tab=overview)(http://gamesoflegends.com/game/gameshow.php?id=2196)