Quarter Finals – Post-game Analysis: SKT vs AHQ Game 1

P/B:

• Overall:
  • SKT get to use target bans on blue side and ban away Westdoor’s infamous Fizz and AN who has performed well on Jinx
  • Last banning Mordekaiser meant AHQ couldn’t do a 2 for 1 trade, but they could do it between Lulu, Elise, and Darius
  • AHQ strayed away from the typical red side bans and also used target bans against Faker; the Ryze ban says Westdoor likely wants to run a melee champion mid 

• SKT 1^st pick – Elise: Bengi has been great on Elise and is one of the few Junglers to maximize her early game strengths, by far his most played at Worlds
  • AHQ 1^st picks – Thresh/Kalista: AHQ know they don’t have to rush to pick their Jungler and pick their Bot Lane instead, Kalista is a good denial since Bang is so proficient on her
• SKT 2^nd picks – Tristana/Lulu: SKT immediately counter Kalista with Tristana, pick up Lulu who was still open, Tristana is better Lulu buff target than Kalista anyway; Lulu likely going mid since MaRin doesn’t play her
  • AHQ 2^nd picks – Diana/Rek’Sai: Diana is a comfort pick for Westdoor; with Elise taken, Rek’Sai has been the clear #2 at Worlds
• SKT 3^rd picks – Fiora/Alistar: blind-picking Fiora while Darius is still up is somewhat risky; Alistar is probably Wolf’s best champion and brings tankiness the team desperately needs
  • AHQ 3^rd pick – Darius: counter pick for Fiora 

SKT take advantage of the blue side and get comfort picks across the board. Elise is the obvious first pick after the bans giving Bengi his best champion this patch. With so many bans thrown at Faker at Worlds, Bengi has managed to pick up Elise more than any other Jungler. Just from personal observation, he’s one of the few Junglers that maximizes her early game power by invading and skirmishing the enemy Jungler, taking him out of the game, and still managing to gank for his lanes. SKT also get Lulu in the 2^nd round since Westdoor and Ziv don’t play her along with a counter-pick for ADC. Westdoor was pretty much left with either Diana or TF to play; not sure why he went with Diana against Lulu in lane and against a “jugger-Trist” comp. Blind-picking Fiora is rather rare when most teams have preferred Darius. MaRin has proven he’s one of the few who can play Fiora at a high level. Darius is typically seen as the counter to Fiora, but its certainly skill-based and could go either way. The reason Darius is picked more commonly than Fiora is that he builds tanky after Black Cleaver while Fiora builds more damage. Also, he can still be effective, even when he’s put behind, due to his passive. Alistar rounds out SKT’s comp with a tank presence and Lulu is still there to buff either Fiora or Tristana. SKT was able to counter pick all their match-ups except Top Lane, but they knew Ziv would run Darius if MaRin picked Fiora. SKT seemed to dominate the draft with the help of blue side advantage. 

SKT comp:

• “Jugger-x” comp – x being either Tristana or Fiora
• Fiora is good split pushing threat
• Great tower dive potential with Elise and Alistar
• Great siege potential
• Decent wave clear
• Engage potential with Alistar, possibly Elise
• Decent disengage with Alistar or Tristana ult
• Want lane swap to fast push towers
• Win Condition: use Elise’s strong early game to snowball, lane swap to fast push towers and accelerate the game, group by mid game for objectives, group and siege towers (possibly tower dive) against team with no wave clear 

AHQ comp:

• Team-fighting comp
• Good split pushing with Darius and Rek’Sai
• No wave clear
• Kalista helps secure dragon/baron
• No reliable engage
• Decent disengage with Thresh box
• Want standard lanes
• Win Condition: want to skirmish not 5v5 fight, split push to win, get Diana ahead so she can split push 

Items/Build paths:

• Bengi’s Elise: went Runeglaive despite building tanky
• Faker’s Lulu: Lich Bane helps with tower pushing; Ignite helps bully Diana even more and prevents all-in attempts, Faker did a great job roaming to make up for his lack of TP
• Bang’s Tristana: early Avarice Blade, Asian teams seem OK with getting early Avarice Blade while Western teams prefer Pickaxe
• Wolf’s Alistar: got Mobility boots before Sightstone, not able to make many early plays with it though
• Ziv’s Darius: Sterak’s Gage before DMP for more dueling power against Fiora
• Mountain’s Rek’Sai: no Aegis, more selfish tanky build
• Westdoor’s Diana: Nashor’s Tooth build is for split pushing, not really for kills 

Execution in Game:

• Lane swap occurs
• ~4 min: AHQ get top outer tower – AHQ give tower gold to Ziv and Albis; SKT slight error leaving tower at low HP, teams go to standard lanes
• ~5:45 min: Bengi invades AHQ bot side jungle around blue buff, places deep wards then ganks from behind; SKT finish off low HP bot outer tower then get double kill
• ~9:20 min: SKT steal blue buff then get their 1^st dragon
• ~10 min: SKT group and siege mid, get mid outer tower
• ~13:20 min: Albis camps in side brush, gets great catch onto Bang for a kill
• ~13:50 min: Bengi caught out clearing out AHQ defensive wards for another kill
• ~15:30 min: SKT get 2^nd dragon
• ~17:45 min: AHQ good rotations to catch up on towers
• ~19:45 min: Ziv pushed up far in lane, SKT collapse on him and Mountain; SKT get 2 kills for 0
• ~22:10 min: SKT start dragon but AHQ contests, Wolf defends but SKT focus on Westdoor in the flank; AHQ win fight 2 kills for 1 and get their 1^st dragon
• ~23:05 min: Mountain ults to gank Faker mid with Westdoor but Bang in position to counter; SKT get 2 kills for 0
• ~28:30 min: MaRin pushes out bot lane while Ziv camped in side brush, both teams collapse bot lane but SKT react first; AHQ win 1 kill for 0 but chunked low, SKT get their 3^rd dragon
• ~31:10 min: Westdoor pushes out top lane without vision, caught out for kill
  • SKT get baron and 2 kills afterwards
• ~33:30 min: SKT siege with baron buff, Bang chunks out AN so no one to defend, SKT get mid inhibitor
  • MaRin homeguard TP in, jumps on Westdoor in the flank for a kill; SKT push to win 

AHQ put up a decent fight, but SKT’s vision control set up their victory. AHQ was actually winning both side lanes early on while Faker was winning mid. Ziv continued his early game advantage by shoving in top lane to the inner tower with support from Mountain and deep warding. SKT however, controlled the bottom side of the map and started stacking dragons. Despite AHQ getting more towers early, SKT had great wave management and pushed out their lanes, allowing them to get dragon uncontested. I felt SKT could’ve pressed Tristana’s strong early game tower pushing power by continuing to lane swap, but SKT chose to settle into standard lanes. This move alone with failing to take the first outer tower initially allowed AHQ to pull ahead in the side lanes early game, but SKT made a great dive for a double kill onto AHQ’s Bot Lane. The game stalled for a bit, but AHQ gradually made good rotations and got all the outer towers before SKT. With outer towers down for both teams, vision control became more crucial. AHQ had good vision control in both sides of SKT’s jungle which allowed them to take the outer towers, but afterwards SKT managed to take vision control back and didn’t let go. SKT got defensive vision then slowly moved it outwards and dominated sight around baron. AHQ was unable to get deep vision for the rest of the game causing them to be unable to split push safely. Eventually, this led to fights with Ziv and Westdoor getting caught out with the latter giving baron to SKT, allowing them to close out the game. I felt SKT could’ve been more aggressive with sieging for towers, but they chose to be risk averse and play a slower, more patient game. AHQ losing deep vision in SKT’s jungle stunted their ability to press advantages. AHQ had to make use of split pushing to win, but lacked the vision to make it word. AHQ couldn’t get deep vision after mid game because SKT had good wave management and shoved multiple lanes simultaneously. Mountain and Albis didn’t roam together to get deep vision, but they also realistically couldn’t with their lanes pushed in. Good rotations throughout mid game by AHQ though, sending Westdoor to a side lane to apply pressure. AHQ was also unable to make any TP plays which could’ve allowed them to take more towers. Again, this boils down to vision control as its hard to make TP plays without wards to TP to. AHQ played fairly well, but couldn’t keep up the split push advantage they needed to win.

Statistics:

Very high damage dealt by Darius, very unusual for a team. An effective Darius usually only does ~20-22% of a team’s damage. Westdoor was always split pushing and wasn’t in fights or forced out while on the flank. Honestly there weren’t many actual team fights, typically just a player caught out. This is probably most of the reason for the disparity, but AN and Westdoor need to be way more effective for AHQ to win.

Vision control dictated this game and SKT denying so much vision allowed them to come out on top. 

Statistics pulled from leagueoflegends.com match history and gamesoflegends.com. All credit goes to them.
(http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/TRLH3/1001400066?gameHash=7f2c732d646434da&tab=overview&participant=10)(http://gamesoflegends.com/game/gameshow.php?id=2235)