End Game Stats
 
The Match
Draft Phase
Neither teams draft is downright bad as there are reasons for why each team is picking each champion but there were some questionable decisions from both sides.
Staring with Cloud 9’s draft the only thing I don’t like with their draft was first picking Darius. Darius has had a really poor showing at worlds because teams don’t help the champion at all to make Darius relevant. C9 top lane Balls has also been struggling and the team tends to deny him in lane swaps to get Sneaky ahead so it was a bit weird to give him a champion that can struggle once he falls behind in certain match ups. The only reason I can think of why C9 would take Darius is that they didn’t want to risk giving him to Huni. Besides that C9 can go back to their style of pushing and rotating for objectives.
Then Fnatic has a combo team fight composition but there are two things I dislike about their draft. The first is leaving Tristana open for Cloud 9 when C9 has shown they like for fast early towers and for their rotation style of play. Leaving Tristana up also gives C9 less reason to look for team fights against FNC. The other issue I have is picking Yasuo and then sending it top lane against Darius. Darius can sustain Yasuo’s poke early on and he can use his Decimate to deal damage to Yasuo. Darius can also use Apprehend to pull Yasuo back towards him for extended or force trades with Yasuo and then it ends up being a really hard lane for Yasuo to do well in. Yasuo is good for the combo of ultimates FNC has but it is hard to get him to relevancy safely so he can be useful.
In Game
Now early game Cloud 9 gets to play their style of lane swap where Tristana ended up in bot lane. They leave Tristana to push solo, Darius and Morgana keep four Fnatic members busy in top lane, and Lee Sin gets to farm the jungle. C9 once again gets to play their style and it works well at they keep Yasuo top while Tristana gets to deny multiple waves of farm to the bot tower while getting solo gold and experience. Both teams do get their tower kills they were pushing for. In the first 10 minutes the gold swung back and forth as both teams trade kills.
Roughly around 10:30 into the game C9 gets into a skirmish in the top side consisting Yasuo and Gragas versus Darius, Morgana, and Lee Sin where Darius ends up getting a double kill because C9 gets a catch onto Gragas with a Dark Binding. They kill both Yasuo and Gragas but what really matters is that Darius got both the kills and got to keep the wave frozen in top lane which forces Yasuo to roam around the map because he can’t over extend for farm safely and is forced to wait for the wave to push out again.
After this Cloud 9 started their rotation game around bot and middle where they have pink wards littered in their own bot jungle. Around 13:20 Fnatic tries to pressure dragon but when they tried to get dragon C9 sent Tristana middle for the tower and the rest of the C9 cut off FNC’s route to their second tier middle. C9 does take a bit of damage in a small skirmish but they do get middle first tier and damage onto the middle second tier. Then C9 got the dragon after rotating from mid back to river and then rotated bot lane after dragon too set up a siege for the FNC second tier tower bot. They do get the second tier tower bot because they rotated much faster than FNC. Only once during all of this FNC tries to start a fight with their composition but they ended up just letting C9 run around the map.
Fnatic does try to dive Cloud 9’s bot lane and jungler around 16 minutes for two kills but during this Darius was in the top lane split pushing. During the FNC dive Darius got the first and second towers top because Morgana acted as a distraction after the dive. I wanted to bring this up because it shows when FNC doesn’t do anything they lose something and when try to make a play they lose something because Darius can just keep splitting and C9 has a bit of creative shot calling when they are losing something. C9 when they lose something they always try to find some way back into it.
The gold lead stayed in Cloud 9’s favor until roughly 23 minutes where C9 tried to go for Baron but Fnatic finally gots the team fight they had been looking for all game. C9 tried for Baron because they want the buff for the minions so they can siege for inhibitor turrets and the inhibitors. FNC decided to take the fight at Baron and did end up getting an ace against C9 but C9 still gets the baron kill because so they end up with gold to help make up for the lost team fight. C9 did try to make a pick at around 29 minutes while Sivir is splitting top lane but it ended up with all of 4 FNC members disengaging and having Yasuo teleport top to group with Sivir where they took the top inhibitor tower and inhibitor. After that FNC just can’t find any more fights that they want for the rest of the game.
Next Cloud 9 went for another Baron around 31 minutes but this time around they have members that survive with the baron when Fnatic had shown up. FNC tried to contest but they failed to combo their abilities together like Yasuo only using his ultimate on one target because he tried to chain abilities to early with Alistar. It also didn’t help that Gragas and Orianna where not in the fight when it started to stop C9’s members from surviving or finish the Baron. These types of misplays allow C9 to keep Baron on three members including Tristana, Azir, and Lee Sin and to trade back three kills on FNC.
Then the final swing as Cloud 9 started to siege around 39:30 and this forced Fnatic into a desperation fight because they can’t find another way to force a fight and are not willing to try to contest a third Baron. This fight went extremely poorly and costed FNC the game because they played the fight poorly. Alistar started the fight by flashing and using Pulverize Tristana and Darius but the issue is Yasuo was the only immediate follow up and he got Exhausted once he went in which allowed Tristana to survive. Once Orianna could use her Shockwave on Azir and Morgana Black Shields barely protects Azir so he can continue to use his soldiers for damage but Morgana does die along with Azir shortly after. Darius was able to get into the middle of the fight once it started where he started finishing off enemy champions for his Penta Kill because there wasn’t any peel to get Darius out of the FNC team. Darius, Lee Sin, and Tristana all survive the fight after getting an ace on FNC this allows the surviving C9 members to push in the middle lane to secure the win.
Final Thoughts
The game is worth watching to see Cloud 9’s shot calling and how they find creative ways to get back into the game. Fnatic stumbled around too much in game and didn’t play to their win conditions and this let C9 get back into the game. Questions I’m left wondering about is if Darius will still be as valued next week or if teams will play around him more?
(I will be slowly down on these so I don’t kill my voice again since I killed voice after trying to work many different things. Any feedback can be sent to my twitter @NAiSoapy).
Published: Oct 6, 2015 10:10 pm