Analysis on H2K vs GIA Pick/Ban, Early Game, and Most and Least Impactful Players

I take a look at the ban/picks, early game, and conclude on which player(s) were the most impactful and least impactful for each team. For picks and bans I will look to see if there are better choices for each team. Since H2K was rather dominant in all these games except for game 3 I will be looking at GIA’s picks and early game more. Take in mind that H2K’s picks may change on what I come up with so to say that GIA would win out the pick phase based on what I say isn’t 100%.

Game 1

H2k vs. Giants
H2k-Gaming	1	0	Giants Gaming
Jax	Ban		Kalista
Morgana	Ban		Rumble
Elise	Ban		Sivir
Thresh			Corki
Lee Sin			Nidalee
Tristana			Viktor
Shen			Janna
Ahri			Trundle

Bans

For game 1 the bans were standard on H2K by banning the two pocket picks for GIA and banning out the oppressive 5.14 Elise. GIA ban Kalista, Rumble, and finally Sivir. GIA focused on Hjarnan’s champion pool, but he picked up Tristana which allows him to impact the game still. This ban phase also leaves up Kasing’s two best champions in Alistar and Thresh.

Picks

For picks GIA decided to create a composition that revolved around Werlyb’s split push. Typical split push compositions require the squad of 4 to have strong disengage and reliable crowd control. You also usually want to have some form of engage on the team in case you see an opportunity to reengage or lock someone down for a pick. GIA has no engage tool or strong pick potential tools. All they have is some slows, a few knock-ups, and one stun from Viktor. H2K built a composition that is solely focused on forming picks. GIA’s composition won’t be peeling off H2K because H2K isn’t looking to do front engages. They just want to catch GIA out. Add in the Lee Sin pick who is there to help negate the Nidalee the whole point of picking Nidalee is gone. A better choice would be Gragas or Rek’sai. Both these champions would give a stronger front line. Gragas would offer engage and additional disengage for sieges. Gragas also offers crowd control for ganks for Werlyb and Pepiinero. Rek’sai can use tremor sense to blind check areas that H2K are setting picks up for. Since H2K’s composition is completely built on getting picks Rek’sai could be seen as a strong counter.

GIA could have also gone a different route in the top lane by picking Gnar instead of Trundle. Gnar is good against Shen, can check bushes with his boomerang, offers additional engage, and helps add more AD damage to the composition. We add in Rek’sai or Gragas and GIA have a much more well-rounded composition that can match Shen split push.

Ban/Pick Winner: H2K

Early Game

In the first game GIA made a poor choice in sending just Adryh top lane after both teams killed their first tower and bounced the waves. The reason it was bad is because Odoamne was still able to CS perfectly fine under turret against just Adryh while Werlyb and G0dfred weren’t getting as much thanks to the Thresh and Kog’maw harass. GIA should have either sent Werlyb top to face Shen 1v1 or send G0dfred top lane to deny Odoamne more CS and trade turrets. The problem with GIA’s choice is Odoamne got to shove the wave all the way up to the GIA’s top tier 2. With this pressure in top and how deep the wave is this allowed Odoamne to make any play he wanted without risk of losing too much farm. That’s where we saw him help get first blood and then still make it back to collect the crashing wave at top turret. Around 12:45 Adryh gets caught again and dies to Kasing. From these early picks H2K just snowballs the game by continuously punishing GIA’s poor map awareness and positioning with their high pick potential composition.

Early Game Winner: H2K

Game 2

H2k-Gaming	2	0	Giants Gaming
Morgana	Ban		Kalista
Jax	Ban		Rumble
Elise	Ban		Thresh
Sivir			Viktor
Lee Sin			Gragas
Alistar			Braum
Fizz			Vayne
Orianna			Shen

Bans

H2k bans the same champions again and GIA decide to ban Thresh instead of Sivir. This seems fine since there are ways to beat Sivir and it takes away Kasing’s strongest champion. However, the way GIA go about their picks is what makes this turn into a bad idea.

Picks

H2K takes Sivir as their first pick since GIA switched to banning Thresh. This doesn’t give enough indication on what direction H2K will go so GIA take Viktor and Gragas. Two power picks and both are good blind picks. However, I would have liked to see GIA go with Alistar instead of Viktor. Kasing is best known for his play making supports. He only played Janna twice this split and both games were losses. So this denies Kasing his second strongest pick and most likely put him on Annie.

If we go with pick phase where GIA takes Alistar then H2K would most likely take Annie and Lee Sin. GIA can answer with Maokai and Corki. Right now GIA’s team would be a bit magic heavy, but if H2K decides to stick with Fizz and Orianna then GIA can grab Varus last pick. Now GIA’s team can siege effectively and spike hard in the mid game. If GIA can apply massive pressure in the mid game to deny Odoamne’s Fizz a chance to create his own pressure then GIA can close out the game. Saving the Varus last would also help keep in account of a Braum pick if H2K wanted to go that route.

If I continue on the regular pick cycle then H2K takes Lee Sin and Alistar in the second rotation. Lee Sin is an early jungler that offers pick potential. This is looking similar to last game. GIA decides to take Braum and Vayne. These are two good picks for a few reasons. Braum can deny Sivir’s boomerang and ricochet. Vayne can condemn Lee Sin and Alistar away while also being a slight counter to Sivir. H2K finishes their composition with Fizz and Orianna. So now GIA know H2K wants to split with Fizz and if denied the opportunity they still have some team fighting capabilities. GIA last pick Shen. Shen will get out split pushed by Fizz eventually. However, Shen does have two teleports which means GIA would have to find punishable mistakes by H2K through the use of their second teleport. A safer and more reliable choice would be Maokai. Maokai can deal with Fizz early on, becomes a stronger tank compared to Shen, and can lock down H2K more easily.

Ban/Pick Winner: Tied. Game depends on the early game. If either teams loses the early game it becomes much harder to come back.  

Early Game

In game 2 we had an even bigger strategic mistake by GIA compared to game 1. H2K decides to invade red jungle while GIA goes with the spread set up where they cover all entrances to their jungle. The problem is GIA’s duo decides to place both their wards pre-55 seconds in the river instead of waiting to see if H2K invades. This means H2K gets unpunished by gaining information versus GIA’s receiving none. Since GIA has no idea if H2K is lane swapping or what side they are even starting they should be double jungling to minimize a risky start. Even if it’s standard lanes Werlyb might lose a few CS which isn’t a big deal. Instead, GIA have Werlyb top lane right away, give gromp to duo, and Fr3deric has no leash for blue. This isn’t bad on its own, but because H2K is lane swapping Fr3deric needs to finish blue quickly so he can get top. It takes him too long to get top and H2K beats them to the tower. This leads to first blood for H2K and Odoamne teleports to bot lane to collect the crashing wave. This whole event accelerated Odoamne’s split push prowess and gave him the pressure in top lane.

If GIA started double jungle they would see the lane swap and could rotate down towards bot side to just trade turrets. It also would have helped to get the counter invade wards from GIA since this would tell them where Loulex is starting. If they know Loulex is starting on his blue side then GIA can start their blue and rotate towards H2K’s red since it will be open. Then when they enter the tower trade they know there will be jungle camps available to kill while taking the turret. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you can have your jungler counter jungle while you take turret then it increases your lead versus just doing 4-0 the turret.

Finally, the nail in the coffin for this game was GIA’s failed turret dive. They decide to focus Kasing who is level 6 with Alistar and end up wiping due to the massive damage reduction. GIA easily could have just focused down the tower with a number advantage and if Kasing engages he won’t have the mana to use his ultimate. This gives GIA the opportunity to turn the fight.

Early Game Winner: H2K

Game 3

Giants Gaming	0	3	H2k-Gaming
Kalista	Ban		Jax
Rumble	Ban		Morgana
Thresh	Ban		Azir
Sivir			Alistar
Evelynn			Elise
Braum			Fizz
Trundle			Tristana
Twisted Fate			Karthus

Bans

H2K bans out Jax and Morgana again with the new addition of Azir. I presume they banned Azir because he is a very safe blind pick. GIA ban the same champions as game 2. I would have liked to see GIA ban Sivir and leave up Kalista. This may force a Kalista ban from H2K and if not then GIA get a strong early game ADC.

Picks

GIA take Sivir first round to deny it from Hjarnan and is an overall strong pick. However, H2K gets Elise and Alistar. Elise is a top tier jungle pick in 5.14 due to her long stun and high burst damage along with the Alistar which Kasing just performed very well on. GIA decide to go with Evelynn and Braum. Braum can deny damage from a lot of ADC’s and Evelynn is a full early game jungler. The issue with Evelynn is Fr3deric isn’t that good with early game junglers since he rarely makes things happen. Evelynn also gets out scaled quickly so if Fr3deric sits back he just gets out scaled. A better choice would be Rek’sai who still has a good early game, but also brings a global and scaling. We combine Rek’sai with Twisted Fate and this allows for very strong map movement early on. If GIA didn’t want to go a heavy rotation based composition then they could take Gragas for better disengage. Another thing to note is since GIA go trundle again they have no way of locking down Fizz for ganks with an Evelynn. Gragas or Rek’sai would bring more effective crowd control.

Now looking at the next picks H2K takes Tristana and Fizz. The Fizz was predictable and the Tristana pick isn’t actually that bad into Braum. Tristana can stack her explosive shot onto Braum and it will still do full damage to him and anyone around him. Finally, GIA take Trundle and Twisted Fate. This overall composition GIA created has a stronger split pusher, but much weaker 4v4 and team fight. With such low amounts of ensnares and stuns they have low chance of locking anyone down. Factor in the first 4 picks by H2K have damage reduction or escapes this makes the picks by GIA worse. H2K then seals the deal with a Karthus pick. This is the easiest target to pick on H2K, but because of Karthus’s passive this makes targeting him hurt GIA. Any team fight should be in the advantage of H2K.

Ban/Pick Winner: H2K

Early Game

Game 3 was the game where Fr3deric finally started doing some work in the jungle. He was able to apply pressure in different lanes, but none of them resulted in kills. The main benefactor for the improved early game was GIA getting the lanes they want and Werlyb being able to solo Odoamne. GIA could have pushed their early game further if they utilized Twisted Fate ultimate better. Especially against a jungler with no LAN experience GIA should exert more pressure to throw BetongJocke off. I will also like to say if not for Werlyb GIA would have easily lost the early game in this game.

Early Game Winner: Tied. H2K starts winning past the 15 minute mark, but that is when the game starts entering the mid game.

                                       Giants Gaming                                                                                                        

Least Impactful

Adryh and Fr3deric

I decided to go with both these players since they both played poorly. Fr3deric missed several chances to aggress in game 1 and 2 with Nidalee and Gragas. He never took advantage of Odoamne over extending or actively looking to harass lanes in game 1. Game 2 his Gragas had similar problems. He got off one gank that blew a flash and the rest is history. Meanwhile, Adryh constantly over extended and went in areas without necessary vision to die for free. This theme continues in game 2 which screws GIA again. Finally, game 3 both of them play a bit better with Fr3deric being more aggressive early on, but he starts to make some bad decisions in the early mid game and Adryh can’t survive the high damage by H2K.

Most Impactful

Werlyb

Game 2 Werlyb wasn’t able to impact the game as much as he would like partially because of the early choice by GIA to not double jungle and think H2K won’t lane swap top. Werlyb dies and is already set to a bad game. Game 1 and 3 Werlyb’s trundle was the only one able to apply constant pressure and create a problem for H2K. However, game 1 GIA made a blunder after trading turrets that caused Werlyb to be behind creeps and when he started catching up Odoamne made a play bottom.

H2K

Least Impactful

Loulex

Loulex did a standard job in games 1 and 2. He wasn’t aggressing too much as Lee Sin. He primarily was used to try to negate/match pressure by the Nidalee, keep Odoamne safe in game 2, and be used to help get picks since their team comps involved pick potential each time. He did his job, but never exceeded to impact the game as well as his 4 other teammates.

Most Impactful

Ryu and Kasing

This one was very hard for me decide so I will just give it to both of them. Kasing and Ryu tied in impact in game 1 since they both were the primary initiation in the picks with Ryu assassinating Pepiinero multiple times and essentially securing the baron while Kasing caught Adryh several times early on and landed several good hooks. Going into game 2 it was clear that Kasing had a bigger impact since he was the main engage with Ryu as follow up. However, game 3 I found Ryu to be more impactful since not only did he get ahead in CS in the mid lane for the 3^rd time, but he was landing most of his Q’s and pouring in the damage. Kasing was essentially used as the engage again, but I found Ryu’s Karthus to be more impactful since Kasing wasn’t doing much besides engaging. So because of this I would say both these two players stepped up and took control of this series.

Credits towards lol.esportspedia for using their ban/pick table, truceieplmht.com for the picture, and lolesports for the VODS.