Summoner School Scrims

Summoner School Game Review (5/21/2012)

2012-05-30T21:07:00.007-07:00

Gameplay Review for Summoner School on 5/21/2012.

Before we start, I would like to introduce myself a little bit, as I am new to the summoner school blog. My handle is Dr Kasper, and I'm extremely excited for the opportunity to help players and teams get better in a competitive LOL environment. Observing and critiquing a game is vastly different from playing. This is due to the fact that while you are playing, you are expected to make lighting quick, error free decisions; and many professional LOL players will tell you, this does not happen overnight.

Enjoy the game synopsis, and always strive to do better.

Blue Team Bans & Picks

Bans:

-Shen

-Olaf

-Morgana

Picks:

-Ezreal (Bot-AD carry)

-Janna (Bot-Support)

-Vladimir(Top-AP carry)

-Nautilus (Jungle)

-Ryze (Mid-AP carry)

Purple Team Bans & Picks

Bans:

-Twisted Fate

-Warwick

-Lee Sin

Picks:

-Varus (Bot-AD carry)

-Malphite (Top-Bruiser/Tank)

-Soraka (Bot-Support)

-Talon (Mid-Anti AP carry)

-Jax (Jungle)

Analyzing player Counter picks

Mid lane: Ryze vs Talon

Talon is commonly considered a great anti AP carry, due to his high burst and his silencing ability that allows him to essentially dodge an AP caster’s ability, much like Katarina’s shunpo, and should have the advantage early game versus Ryze.

Ever since Ryze’s Q distance nerf, it places him more in harm’s way when trying to harass the enemy. If Ryze can play passive and farm, he will be a force to be reckoned with mid to late game.

Jungle: Nautilus vs Jax

Both jungler’s have excellent initiates (Nautilus with his ultimate/dredgeline/root combo and Jax with the flash/stun initiate) but the edge would go to Nautilus’ CC. Jax after level 6 has a faster clearing time in the jungle, and will get more farm, so Nautilus has to get those early assists/kills to catch up to Jax’s late game farm.

Top: Vladimir vs Malphite

This was a pseudo mistake by Purple team, choosing your top lane right away is never recommended. And choosing a Malphite is just asking for trouble as Blue team did exactly what they were supposed to do and counterpicked him with a Vladimir. Malphite may be tanky, but he’s built more effectively with armor stacking, which is completely pointless against a Vladimir. So Vladimir should win his lane by a decent margin.

Bottom: Ezreal vs Varus

The picks here are fairly even, both are mana hungry poke champs that scale reasonably well into late game. I do feel that the early EZ pick by team blue was a little premature, and that allowed the counterpick by purple. Varus’ Q has a very long poking range, and he can outpoke EZ all day long.

Support: Janna vs Soraka

A Janna lane tends to be more aggressive, and a Soraka lane a lot more passive. Unfortunately EZ did not take advantage of this in order to harass Varus a lot more in early game, to get him out of lane. Soraka provides both health AND mana to Varus (which he needs), Janna’s utility lies in teamfights and peeling of the enemy team from her carries.

Team comp matchups:

Both teams have their strengths and weaknesses in team fights, and giving the advantage to one team or another before the match starts, would be folly.

We’ll now go into the match, the picks have been analyzed, the matchups deconstructed. It’s time to see how these teams fared in battle.

The best way to explain how the game progresses is to divide Early Game (Laning phase) from Mid Game (A turret goes down, and players roam) and Late Game (Teams move together as one, teamfights are the norm)

Early Match Synopsis (Laning Phase)

1:00-4:00/ The game starts off fairly safe for both teams, with each jungler taking their blue buff, and a defensive ward placed by Janna at wraiths to prevent Jax from stealing Naut’s jungle. The ward would have been better placed at the enemies wraith camp, as Jax does not clear jungle particularly fast early game, if it were a Mundo or Shyvana, who is a lot faster at both moving and clearing camps, this would have been more warranted.

At 4:00 you see the importance of keeping track of the enemy jungler by warding their wraith camps. Jax jumps into Ryze, and talon follows suit, getting first blood.

6:45/Blue team answers back with a gank mid of their own, the kill going to Nautilus.

At this point, it is extremely important to mention the discrepancy bot in CS, with Varus at 53 and EZ at 33.

Top lane we have Malphite with a Chalice, which is a great item for Malph vs an AP champion. With the mana regeneration, Malph can spam that Q quite a bit in lane and win those trades against Vlad.

8:31/ Jax purchases an Oracle’s Elixir, which will put map pressure on Blue team, and allow Jax to gank much more freely than before.

9:00/ Ryze plans a perfect ambush in the mid lane brush, surprising Talon and picking up the kill. It stands to reason that poor map awareness and lane route did Talon in. You never go through the mid brush when going back to lane, you always go around through your side. It may take you 5 extra seconds, but you are much less likely to be engaged. Oh, and he burned flash in the process.

11:30/First dragon goes to Purple team, with Jax clearing out wards, and blue team getting caught out of position for the dragon. At this point in the game the gold difference was negligible, but with dragon, purple team pulls ahead by the global 1000 gold.

Ten seconds later, Janna gets caught out of position, but a really clutch ult + flash just barely saves her, with the last tic of ignite leaving her clinging on to dear life. Neither team loses a player in the exchange, with both Jax and Janna barely escaping the confrontation.

The Baron Awakens! (15 min recap)

Gold difference 1300 gold lead for Purple team.

Kills are tied at 2-2

CS is even in mid and top lane, but bot… Varus is out CS’ing EZ by 30!

The advantage goes to Purple team at the 15 min mark.

The kill lead goes to Blue a minute and thirty seconds later, when Nautilus ganks mid and in conjunction with Ryze takes Talon down. Top lane had a chance to pull ahead a bit before this play, unfortunately Jax does not initiate with his E for some reason, instead opting to jump in and THEN activate his E. The mark of a truly great Jax jungler, is the ability to initiate with the stun, not to follow up with it.

At this point I cannot tell if bot has asked for a gank yet. It could be that since no kills have been traded that the Blue jungler feels everything is OK bot, unfortunately this couldn’t be further from reality. EZ is suffering under turret, missing last hits on every single creep. A Naut gank could have dissuaded Varus from pushing, and helped the lane pull a little more even. Even if no kills were traded, the enemy team feeling the presence of the other teams’ jungler hovering around bot, is more than enough to help push the lane back from turret.

17:48/Bot turret is taken down. Game will now transition into mid game, with Varus and Soraka able to roam. Purple team at this point holds a 2k lead over blue team.

Mid game Synopsis

18:50-19:41/ Malphite leaves his team hanging, as blue takes dragon from right under purple’s nose, and a skirmish ensues. Talon is caught by a Nautilus ult, which gives the much needed kill to EZ. Varus follows up with impeccable positioning, ulting 3 members of blue, and getting the kill on EZ. Malphite is relentless in his chasing of Janna and picks up the kill on her at mid turret, as she goes down to his ignite. The gold lead therefore diminishes for a brief couple of seconds, as purple and the Talon kill pull Blue closer, but the unfortunate demise of both EZ and Janna up purple’s gold lead back to 2k.

Mid Game Item recap

Blue Team

Picks:

-Ezreal (Bot-AD carry)

Berserker greaves, BF sword, Doran’s blade X2, vampiric scepter

-Janna (Bot-Support)

Philo Stone, HOG, boots

-Vladimir(Top-AP carry)

Hextech revolver, Chain vest, Blasting wand, boots of lucidity

-Nautilus (Jungle)

Philo stone, Merc Treads, HOG, Ruby Crystal

-Ryze (Mid-AP carry)

Merc treads, Blasting wand, Tear, Catalyst.

Purple Team

Picks:

-Varus (Bot-AD carry)

Berserker greaves, dorans bladesx2, IE, vampiric scepter

-Malphite (Top-Bruiser/Tank)

Merc treads, chalice, FH

-Soraka (Bot-Support)

HOG, Philo stone, boots

-Talon (Mid-Anti AP carry)

Merc treads, dorans bladesx2, BF sword

-Jax (Jungle)

Merc treads, HOG, Wriggles.

20:15/ Blue teams blue buff gets handed off to Ryze.

20:26/ Jax grabs purple teams red buff

21:10/ Nautilus takes his own red buff as well

This was a cooling off period for both teams after a harrowing team fight, akin to a reset. Both teams catch their metaphorical breath, and prepare to continue the game.

At this point I will give a detailed analysis of the ensuing team fight

21:20-22:30

After a close fight at dragon, left the kill score tied at 4, and the gold lead about 1000 for the red team, the red team decided to dive Ryze and Janna at mid turret. Malphite and Jax came in from the top, Ryze flashing away the instant he saw the enemy team diving, causing Malphite to completely miss Unstoppable force, and escaping the reach of Varus’ ultimate. Nautilus had already reached mid at this point, but got stunned by Jax as soon as he came in. Janna was left binded by varus’ ultimate, but a clutch typhoon separated the red team, as Varus and soraka were excluded from the 4 on 5 team fight, making it an even 3-3 when EZ joined the fray, and trapping 3 members of the red team in the midst of the two middle turrets. Janna fell to the last tick of Talon’s Ignite, as Vladimir came down to join his team from top lane. EZ’s ultimate down mid lane forced Jax and Soraka away from the fight due to low health, while Nautilus tanked Varus’ attacks, leaving Malphite and Talon alone fighting 3 members of the blue team. Malphite immediately fell to a combination of Vladimir and Ezreal, while the hard CC of Nautilus + Ryzee combined with Vladimir’s ultimate finished off Talon. With 2 members of Red team down, and Jax porting back to base, Blue team proceeded to take down a tier 1 mid turret.

Teamfight analysis

A great initial flash from Ryze to get out of harm’s way, and a very clutch Typhoon from Janna allowed the 4 on5 team fight to even out. Red teams poor decision of engaging and staying between two mid turrets cost them the mid tower. Malphite and Talon should have immediately disengaged, as Jax was caught between 3 enemy champions and 2 turrets, trading a kill for a kill. Instead, they’re delay cost them a tank, a carry, and a tower for a support, the exchange clearly going in blue teams favor.

Player analysis

For semantic purposes, I will utilize each individual summoner’s champions name instead of their summoning name, as it amounts to the same.

Blue team

Ryze and Janna were holding their own mid, and quite possibly the last thing on their minds was a gank between the two mid towers. Nautilus’ fortuitous nexus retreat, and EZ’s map awareness and mobility helped them come out on top in this team fight. As for their individual roles, I will elaborate:

Ryze – Overall an excellent job of reacting fast enough to flash away in order to avoid Malphite’s ult, as well as avoiding Varus’ ultimate. His presence in team fights, utilizing Rune prison to hold Talon in place to secure the kill at the end of the team fight was invaluable.

Janna- Unfortunately her flash was down, and her exhaust was just coming up so helping Ryze hold mid tower was the right move. In general her awareness in the team fight was perfect, using her ulti to push both Soraka and Varus back away from the team fight was the factor that decided the outcome. She fell to an ignite, but even then, falling to a summoner’s spell (even though that wasn’t her intention), ended up being the perfect move.

Nautilus- While his arrival to the battle was more luck than anything else, his root CC helped secure a kill on Talon. He was stunned by Jax, so that was a point against him, as seeing Jax helicoptering his weapon, should’ve clued him to wait for the animation to end. He missed a root on Talon early, right as he enters the fight, and just when talon had taken tower aggro. His ulti was already up, it should’ve been used before his Q, in order to dredge line the jax back to tower, and root him there. It would’ve been an insta-kill. The fact that talon ran into him again was a matter of pure luck, not perfect positioning, as he had chased after varus, and was tanking his autoattacks. Overall Nautilus is a very strong champion, with the perma CC he has, but this fight could’ve netted at least 1 more kill if nautilus had played it properly.

Ezreal- He entered the team fight late, coming from bot where he was farming, due to Varus out-ccs’ing by 40 creeps. This put his team in an awkward position, as we all know that AD carries need gold to get those great damage items. He played way too passively against a Soraka lane, as that Soraka lane and Varus’ range will out sustain a Janna + EZ lane. The trick here is to be aggressive early, and deny Varus that cs before he hits level 6. With that being said, he interrupted the red teams team fight after the Janna ulti, hitting his W on Jax, which slowed him, but missing his Q. He provided extra damage in the team fight, and helped secure both the Malphite and Talon kill for his team.

Vladimir- Evaluating this champion puts me in an uncomfortable position, He saw Jax destroy his ward top with an oracles, he saw Malphite pushing his minion wave and he did see that they had no vision in the river, he should have alerted his team at mid immediately of the probability of a gank. He instead turned to turret and cleared not one, but TWO waves of minions before deciding to join his team. He did get the last hit on Malphite, after his teammates had damaged him considerably, and helped secure the Talon kill. He arrived at just the right time to make a difference, but not letting his teammates know of the impending situation they were facing, is just not acceptable in a team game.

Red Team

Where to start? The gank should have not happened in the first place. Ganking from between two mid turrets is never okay, as you draw turret aggro with ease, and puts your team at risk. If they wanted to gank, it should’ve been from mid, if you see the replay, they had the opportunity, and securing only one kill then getting out. They got greedy, and they paid for it. Malphite’s ult whiffed completely, albeit from a good flash from Ryze, but that is always the problem with Malphite’s ult, I would much rather have waited for Varus to land his Ult or even jax to jump in and stun at least to opposing members, then secure Malphite’s ulti scoring a direct hit… instakill.

Malphite – That miss was terrible, and pretty much decided the team fight before it started. That being said, he did focus down Janna, but he should’ve understood when he missed that the fight was over, and he should’ve backed into the jungle.

Jax- Took too long to activate his W, as it should’ve been activated before in order for him to jump-stun or flash-stun instantly and not have to wait for the animation to end. He got a couple of licks into Janna, which secured the kill, and he did save Oracle’s (although this was due to Nautilus’ error rather than skill), His Wriggle’s was active, and he should have used a ward to jump to safety, either in EZ’s direction, or towards mid tower, he would have escaped with more life, and maybe they would not have lost mid tower. C- (only for escaping with oracles)

Talon- He jumped in at the wrong time, and should’ve waited for Varus’ ultimate. He was the only one of his team that retreaded to outside of turret range to recharge his abilities. Talon is a high burst damage but squishy champion, and he should’ve waited until either varus’ ulti, malph’s ult, or Jax’s stun took effect before jumping in with his ult. He did get chased down by a late Vlad coming to the fray, and if he had waited before jumping in, the burst potential could have secured more than one kill for his team. But I reiterate they should not have dove between two mid turrets.

Soraka- She didn’t die, and her silence canceled Janna’s ult prematurely. She did heal her team, but overall she was kept away from the fight thanks to Janna’s ult.

Varus- Farmed like a madman early-mid game, and his damage output with an Infinity Edge would have decimated the enemy team if they had chosen to initiate and fight in a different scenario. That being said, his Ult could’ve been used earlier to snare Ryze and secure a Malphite direct hit, followed by a Jax stun. He instead, used it on a support, while then getting blown away. Give credit to Janna, for taking Varus completely out of the team fight, and allowing her team to face the enemy without the daunting task of taking on a pretty fed Varus. His position in the team fight left a lot to be desired, but it wasn’t entirely his fault.

The aforementioned teamfight pulls blue 300 gold ahead of purple.

And we start shifting into late game… (25 min recap)

2 towers are now down (1 on each side) and top tower is close to falling. 2 dragons have been slain, and teams are building or have finished building some late game items. The gold lead stands almost even, with the kill score 6-5 in favor of Blue team. Varus is outstripping the pack, with a whopping 216 CS, 50 cs more than EZ, his lane counterpart, and 35 more than the highest on the enemy team (Vlad). It’s about now that any loss of a teammate or two could result in a baron + multiple towers (maybe even inhibitor) being taken by either team, and team fights will be fierce and engaging, it’s shaping up to be an epic lategame…

25:21/ Purple team does a quick dragon, uncontested from blue team,

25:53/ Purple team waltzes in and takes down mid turret from blue team

26:30/ Varus is given Purple teams red buff

28:00/Blue team takes down a tier 2 turret, due to purple’s team indecision, as soon as they saw purple going for mid, they were in position to take down baron incredibly quickly with Varus and Jax. Their hesitance cost them a tier 2 turret, no kills, and no baron.

30:36/ Purple team attempts baron, and red team engages baron rather well, with Malphite ulting 4 members of blue team as Varus’ ultimate catches the same players. Talon falls ridiculously fast to Vlad, and Janna comes through with yet ANOTHER clutch ult, separating purple team, and leaving Varus out of the team fight once more and allowing blue to focus down individual members. The resulting engagement was an ACE for blue team.

35:00/ Purple team engages rather puzzling unto blue, with an Ulti unto Varus by Nautilus. The problem with this team fight, was that Varus and Soraka left the team to die essentially, they were split up, with blue team stuck between purple. Varus leaves the teamfight with very decent health and Soraka follows suit. Purple team has the higher damage output, but terrible team positioning and early fight disengaging by Soraka and Varus, eventually doomed Purple teams turrets.

38:16/ Purple team’s fate is sealed. Blue team engages baron, while purple team AGAIN looks undecided as to what they should do. I do not know who was leading the team, but somebody has to make the call to engage. What happens? They engage poorly, and unorganized, with Varus caught completely out of position, and EZ having excellent position (hence his Quadra-kill) in the team fight, and the ensuing ace + GG.

Game Recap

Winners: Blue team

Blue team had a horrible early game in bot lane. Yet they transitioned into mid and late game beautifully. They had better coordination in teamfights and better fight engages than purple team. It seemed that Blue team’s knowledge of their champions ranges, abilities, and limitations was better handled that purple’s, but in the end it really only comes down to one thing: Decision Making.

Purple team had no clear decision making, and multiple instances of hesitancies on their part that cost them the game. LOL is a team game, and every team must have a leader. This leader must be prepared to suffer the consequences if they lose because of his calls, or bask in the glory of a victory.

Lane by Lane analysis

Top

Vladimir definitely came out on top in this matchup. Vladimir was an excellent counter pick to Malphite, and his presence in teamfights and item build was stellar. Unfortunately Malphite went full tank, and while his E and Q do decent damage, you really need to build some AP items to take full advantage of his kit.

Mid

Talon and Ryze were even pretty much throughout the match, but once Ryze went into lategame it was no contest. Talon just did not have the burst damage to be a presence in teamfights.

Bot

Varus out CS’d EZ by a tonload, yet it was EZ who had the biggest impact in the game, as his excellent positioning helped his team come out on top on almost all the teamfights. Purple should have pushed their advantage a lot more in mid game, with the amount of damage Varus was dishing out, it was perfectly feasible to have taken down at least a couple of tier 2 towers.

Support

A support is judged by the impact they have on the game, and how game changing their plays are. The clearcut winner is Janna, as her ults were simply clutch in at least 2 teamfights. Soraka kept Varus in lane farming away (as a Soraka lane is supposed to), but in teamfights she couldn’t heal her team fast enough to counter the damage that Blue team was raining on her team.

Jungle

Nautilus’ kit is a lot better than Jax’s, it has a lot more CC and a great initiating ultimate. Jax is a lot faster, and can dish out a lot more damage. Unfortunately, Jax had the habit of jumping into the fray without his Counter strike previously activated, and as I already mentioned, the mark of a great Jax jungler is his ability to do precisely this.

May 20th, Intermediate Match I

2012-05-25T14:32:00.005-07:00

SNS - Intermediate Match Analysis

Written by: Mikempty

Disclaimer: First off, I will say I am very verbose. I write mostly like I speak so I hope you enjoy the read.

Blue Team:
Top: Lee Sin
Mid: Viktor
Bot: Soraka & Corki
Jungle: Mundo

Purple Team:
Top: Irelia
Mid: Morgana
Bot: Janna, Ashe
Jungle: Skarner

Right off the bat I give the advantage to purple with that team make comp. I just think end game, their champs will end up doing better than blue but I've been wrong before and usually am, just ask the misses.

...And the game begins.

Item Analysis:

Purple is full of boots and pots other than Janna who smartly started with wards and a charm. Blue is more or less the same, other than Corki who decided to go damage with his sustain support and rocks the Dorans Blade.

The game starts with a possible action play with purple invading blue, at well, blue. Mundo was a bit of a slow connector and purple decided to try to gain from that. So lets get to the break downs.

1:00 - Viktor hts the bush with the entire enemy team just in the other bush. Skarner burns his flash a long with Viktor and nothing gained other than spent summoner spells on each side. At this point, blue should have invaded and taken their blue. All in all, it wasn't really as much of an invade as it was just a nuisance I think. If they had invaded they would have scored a Janna first blood most likely.

3:00 - Lanes are getting into a rhythm and jungle is doing its then, however Skarner went very low on his red. Mundle walks up to take it, but should have moved a bit noticing the damage the smaller minion had on him. That would also have been an opportune time to get a kill. So we get a blue for a red.

6:00 - Mundo takes the enemy blue which was sitting there waiting to be taken. Skarner and Morgana were at wolves and should have immediately gone to blue however the delay however slight cost that the buff.

Soon after Viktor pushes onto Morgana and ults to not much gain. Morgana holds him in place with a binding. I believe if Mundo had been setup properly to gank they would have scored a kill or burnt a summoner at the very least.

Bot sees a little action with Skarner heading down but again Mundo is right there and it's more a stand off. People fear 'raka bananas. Deadly.

7:30 - Current Standings:

Blue Team - 160 Total CS and 8k gold
Purple Team - 125 Total CS and 7.2k gold

No kills, no towers. Advantage goes to blue team.

And we finally get to our first serious fight shortly after the 8:30 mark.

Skarner heads top and face checks Lee Sin in the river brush. Lee kicks and follows Skarner around the rear while Mundo and Viktor head from mid to assist. Irelia begins to head in to help but a clutch ult by Viktor lands first blood for the under used robot on Skarner. Irelia being quite mobile lands on top of Viktor and ends up taking him out leaving Mundo and Lee Sin.

A wild Morgana appears and ults between the two landing a 3 for 1 trade in purples favor. Gold is now also in purples favor by 400.

10:00 - Current Standings:

Blue Team - 198 CS 10.6k Gold, 1 Kill, Zero Towers
Purple Team - 191 CS 11.1k Gold, 3 Kills, Zero Towers

Advantage - Purple.

Now, lets break and talk current items.

Viktor is sporting 2 Doran Rings, Sorc Boots and his non-upgraded module and 2 pots. Morgana is running 2 Doran and Tier 1 Boots. Item wise, The Russian is doing better yet he seems to not do much in trades. Morgana is to easily able to ignore, or lock him down and walk it off. Viktors range hasn't been much of a help and it doesn't appear many slows/stuns have been landed.

Junglers are fairly standard. Mundo went for an early HoG and a regrowth pendant with Tier 1 boots. Skarner has Tier 1 boots, a philo stone, sapphire and wards.

Top laners are going a bit different routes. Lee is sporting merc treads, vamp scepter and cloth armor- the makings of a lantern. Irelia however appears to be going as tanky as she can with ninja tabi and dorans shield which is helping her in trades. Lee just cannot harass her enough to move her from that lane.

Bot, thus far is just slightly in Corki's favor. Higher CS and more damage vs Ashe's mobility with boots.

So lets continue watching!

Skarner goes to gank top, and ults Lee dragging him to the tower and Irelia gets the assist. That was a risky engage with no support on blue team. Ultimately it didn't work out. Irelia is just very hard to push out of lane.

11:20 - Mundo is stealing the enemy blue while Skarner just misses him.Mundo mostly ignores Skarner but engages a bit to late. Skarner is able to keep him slowed and gets another kill and the blue buff. Wards save lives folks.

12:40 - Blown ult by Skarner on Corki. Just wasn't a timely used ultimate that could have been put to better use when they tried to tower push.

13:30 - Mundo with ult down attempts to take out a low Morgana who ultimately pops shield, and locks him down at tower. Skarner was able to mosey down and get the kill giving Morg the assist. Mundo should have just kept farming when he missed the cleaver. Another risky engage.

15:30 After a attempt to gank by Mundo and Lee top, Irelia flashes to safety. Viktor comes in from the try bush and Morgana see's him and attempts to get a binding but misses. Skarner moves in but with Viktors ult he lands the kill.

16:30 - Current Standings

Blue Team - 278 CS 18.1k Gold, 3 Kills, Zero Towers
Purple Team - 303 CS 17.8k Gold, 7 Kills, Zero Towers

Advantage - Purple Team.

More CS, More Kills just slightly less cold. They are slowly getting a level and item advantage.

Top and Mid lanes both lean more toward purple team at this point those lanes have more gold and items than their counter parts. Jungle is included in this, Skarner and setup more successful ganks.

Bot lane is still gridlocked to a point. Damage trades go back and forth, I give bot lane to Corki currently based on items and CS.

18:20 - Corki/Soraka engage on Ashe/Janna and Corki walks away with a kill given with an excellent snipe. I give this lane to Corki still as it stands.

Sortly after Skarner and Irelia land another Lee Sin kill. Poor Lee just keeps taking it in top lane. Dragon is started by blue shortly after. 3 on 3 currently. Viktor ults in on the group and Ashe finally comes from top and takes out Viktor, and then Mundo. Irelia shows up as well, and finishes Corki. Soraka flashes and runs but pauses out in the open letting Irelia see her which gives Irelia enough room to flash and dash in and take her under the tower.

4 kill trade, and they lose dragon. This, effectively is the game.

21:00 - Current Standings

Blue Team - 453 CS 23.9k Gold, 4 Kills, Zero Towers
Purple Team - 386 CS 24.7k Gold, 12 Kills 1 Tower

Advantage - Purple. The team has better items at this point, higher levels and is pretty hard to bully out of any lane. Bot lane is close, but slowly favoring Ashe.

21:06 - Mundo and Lee sin are on the top tower, Irelia stays put and tanks them as Skarner shows up then it happens, the best play in the game. Lee Sin ults Skarner, as Skarner Ults Lee and gets drug with skarner as He gets kicked back. Pro right there. Lee goes down.

Mundo goes to blue with their tower pushed, brings Viktor in who does his slow/stun on the golem and gets engaged on. Mundo seems to have not noticed and keeps running. He eventually turns to help but it's to late and lands Irelia two more kills. plus blues tower. She returns to lane as Lee runs up and attempts to push her out but she's just too built to be pushed around by someone 3 levels below her and pushes him back to his tower with little health.

Corki, Viktor and Raka catch Skarner out in mid and nearly take him out but he escapes with just a sliver of health.

24:00 - Team break down and items.

(At this point I would like to thank Google for the auto-save feature. I just lost power, and I had not saved this yet. Thank you Google. Thank you.)

Top Lanes
Lee Sin: Level 13 - 0/4/2 - 116 CS - Merc Treads, Wriggles, Phage and a Giants Belt

Irelia: Level 15 - 5/0/5 - 149 CS - Tabi, Wits End, Trinity Force - Tons of Damage (c)

Verdict: Clearly Irelia. She has a lot of straight AD reduction, movement speed, and damage with attack speed. She's a beast at this point in the game.

Jungle
Mundo: Level 10 - 0/5/1 - 82 CS - Merc Treads, Heart of Gold, 2x Regrowth Pendants(going for FoN possibly)
Skarner: Level 12 - 7/2/3 - 68 CS - Merc Treads, Philo, Sheen, Heart of Gold, Glacial Shroud and Ruby Crystal.

Verdict: Again, clearly Skarner. He's better built up higher level and a bigger threat.

Mid

Viktor - Level 13 - 133 CS - 2/4/0 - Upgraded core to give faster return on his shield/speed boost along with Sorc shoes, 2x Doran Rings, Needlessly Large Rod and wards.

Morgana - Level 14 - 92 CS - 3/0/5 - Sorc Shoes, 2x Doran Rings, and Rod of Ages with Wards.

Verdict: Once again, purple team is the winner with Morgana. More fed, more items = bigger threat.

Bot Lane

Corki - Level 13 - 183 CS - 2/1/0 - 2x Doran Blades, Infinity Edge, Zeal and Zerker shoes.
Soraka - Level 10 - 6 CS - 0/1/2 - Philo, Lucidity Boots, HoG and Wards
Ashe - Level 13 - 161 CS - 0/1/3 - 2x Doran Blades, Vamp Scepter, Pickaxe, Best Friend Sword and Zerker shoes.
Janna - Level 10 - 1 CS - 0/1/3 - Phil, HoG, Lucidity Bootsand wards.

Verdict: I give this lane to Corki and blue team. I believe this has been their most solid lane the entire game.

24:30 - Stand off near mid, towards the ramp to blue's wraiths. Poke going back and forth and someone is waiting for an initiation.

24:45 Skarner goes in with 3 of his team mates and Irelia coming from top of the mid lane. Blue is very fragmented and out of place. Soraka and Viktor in a bush with an enemy ward Corki bot, headed top Mundo around wraiths with Lee Sin between Irelia and her team. Viktor drops his stun/slow and ults the group but with little support it does nothing and they dive him in the bush - and he gets crushed.

Ashe continues her rampage and takes out Soraka and then they trample onto Mundo. Corki catches up and helps Lee Sin escape for a 3 to 0 fight. Purple team heads to dragon and scores an uncontested dragon. They back/return to mid. We have 5 on 5 in mid. Poke goes back and forth again, people playing it safe.

28:30 - People return to get buffs, and farm some lanes the teams spread back out.

29:45 - Purple sets up bait at Baron. They hide in the bush just outside baron waiting as blue walks into the trap. Corki gets Skarner ulted on and engaged and goes down, followed by Mundo, Lee Sin Purple takes advantage of this and starts to baron as the blue folks surrender and it's GG.

Lane by Lane Analysis:

Top: Top ignored each other for a bit to long which allowed Irelia to get a bit to tanky. Overall I believe Lee should have bullied a bit more in the beginning as he has better innate escapes. There needed to be more ward placement top as well, this would have saved some of the ganks and allowed for easier escapes.

Jungle: Mundo is a very fast jungler, nearly Shyvana fast and should have been in Skarners jungle far more often, especially after that first initial invade into his blue. I believe Mundo should have supported top lane a bit more over the other lanes where failed ganks happened. Bot lane was fairly solid through out the game and really didn't need the attempts. We needed to see more Dragon attempts, as it was more or less ignored for most of the game. The global gold would have helped all lanes.

Mid: I honestly feel that Viktor could have taken this lane, but he needed to play a bit more passive and save his slow/stun for clutch moments. I saw it thrown around quite a lot with little gain. This allowed Morgana to get the upper hand and push harder and roam and gank.

Bot: Corki and Soraka did an excellent job. This lane was done quite well and I believe overall they were the winners on the lane side of things. Corki is to easily able to escape or get into place to finish off people with his dash. Soraka with her heals and mana makes it an easy sustain lane vs Janna's lack of sustain.

May 20, 2012, Novice Match Analysis

2012-05-22T18:50:00.004-07:00

SNSS Novice Match Report

Written by Amethyst

Blue Team:

Gangplank top, Maokai jungle, Caitlyn AD carry, Taric support, Ryze mid

Purple Team:

Irelia top, Udyr jungle, Varus AD carry, Leona support, Mordekaiser mid

Team Comps;

Blue: Has a nice mix of CC with Taric, Ryze, Maokai and GP ult. With Maokai jungle you have to accept that there will be little damage coming out of the jungler, he is there to provide CC and be a tank. This necessitates that Ryze must have a good game otherwise Caitlyn will be the only damage provider on blue. Also, Gangplank may have to build more damage than usual to also provide some DPS during fights. Overall with a good, active Maokai this team can set up early ganks and can become extremely tanky late game.

Purple: An interesting team comp. I love love love Varus paired with Leona bot lane, it's just a ton of CC and with Varus able to poke with his Q, there can be a lot of kills at bottom lane. This team lacks a lot of AOE except Leona ult which will probably be their best initiation for team fights. Both Udyr and Irelia do well 1v1 so they can peel carries well in teamfights letting Varus and Mordekaiser deal the damage. A good Leona ult followed by a Mordekaiser ult onto a carry should lead to an extremely advantageous teamfight.

Timeline:

3:30 – Gangplank is pushing top hard which isn't great to begin with as Irelia farms fine under tower, but it also sets up an easy Udyr gank which is well spotted by Purple team. Irelia does her part and jumps on GP, while Udyr makes a fatal mistake and tries to flash stun GP. This is a bad play, not only because it doesn't work, but because all Udyr needed to do was to pop bear stance and attack the unsuspecting GP. This flash was also bad because it gave the wrong positioning in the gank. As the jungler you want to cut off the target's intended retreat path, which for 99% of ganks is their tower. By flashing almost past GP, he now has a clear path to his tower, if Udyr stays behind GP, cutting off his retreat path GP has to juke Udyr and no longer has a direct and obvious path to his tower allowing both Udyr and Irelia to put damage onto GP. As is GP doesn't even have to burn flash to escape, a completely failed gank.

3:50 – Udyr turns around after a failed gank and should really just return to his jungle, his red buff is up and against a quicker jungler who notices that he is top, his red will get stolen. Anyways, Udyr pops bear stance and tries to go back in on GP who is rather close to his tower and Irelia is far to far away to provide any support. GP Q's Udyr in the face and Udyr realizes that he is in trouble. GP goes for the aggressive ignite onto Udyr but Irelia is now in the picture, GP picks up first blood but Irelia easily cleans up GP. I think if Udyr continued to run to tower he might have survived but by turning around he gave his top lane a chance to pick up first blood with the bear stance stun. Udyr survives easily with flash, but he burned it in his gank. This is a good example of how mistakes compound themselves in LoL This is a good play from GP in knowing that Udyr has no escape and he has a good chance at picking up first blood, of course it could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn't.

5:05 – Maokai with his double buff spots that bot lane is being pushed and comes through on a gank. The first problem here is Taric and Caitlyn is too far away. This is the fault of all players involved. Caitlyn and Taric need to realize that a gank is coming for them and start initiating a fight, Maokai needs to ping and make sure that the lane is aware he is coming. They know bot has no wards so they can set themselves in a very advantageous position, starting with either Maokai W or Taric E. However with Caitlyn's range this did not matter as Maokai roots and Q's Varus while Caitlyn follow up with a long range Q as Taric picks up the kill with a nice flash stun. This is the opposite of what went wrong with Udyr, Taric flashed to gap close, knowing that his carry will provide the damage behind him. I'd prefer is Cait continued to auto attack and use Q on a fleeing enemy out of auto-attack range. If Cait had her Q up for the fleeing Leona she might have gotten the double kill. This was a good gank that could have gone slightly better with positioning and communication, but all comes down to a lack of wards from Leona giving them no advanced warning of a Maokai gank.

5:35 – Taric should have probably gone out to ward river at this point. This is something supports struggle with, but in general get out an ward river when it is safe to do so.

8:10 – Maokai and Ryze go to get blue. Obviously you want to give Ryze blue, however Maokai should start blue, allow Ryze to push his lane (or at least not let all those creeps get killed by tower) and then go over to pick up blue. This costs Ryze time in lane, so that is XP and gold lost

9:00 – Varus and Leona go aggro on Cait and Taric. This is good timing because they know Maokai is top. It starts with a Taric E on Varus to allow Caitlyn some free harass. Taric goes for an aggressive shatter as their minion wave is pushing aggro onto Varus and Leona. Yet Varus turns around and now goes aggressive now that Taric has no stun or bonus armour, getting big damage onto Cait. Exhaust goes onto Taric, which is less than optimal (you want it on Cait obviously), however Cait badly missfires her E which instead of getting her to safety puts her back in the way of Varus, however Taric gets his stun up in time to save Cait as they escape. This was a good exchange for purple that would have been a kill had Leona been 6. Caitlyn's E should also be smartcast as it isn't the easiest skill to use in a panic.

10:05 – Udyr comes top for a gank on GP. First off, GP does not get good warning because he has the bushes warded and not the river. This is a classic novice mistake. You want to put the ward in the river so you can see Udyr coming from further away. Udyr gets the stun and the damage from both Udyr and Irelia is too much for GP. Buying wards is good, knowing where to place them is better.

10:20 - Maokai comes bot, as Leona is all alone. Maokai gets his snare but Leona flashes to avoid the Q which was a great play, but in an even better play Taric flashes and stuns Leona. Maokai picks up the kill. Quality play from blue to pick up the kill, but Caitlyn needs to get further forward to provide the damage. She can easily get forward with her E, but she does get an assist.

10:50 – Realizing that Purple team has lost control of bot lane, Blue smartly turn to take dragon. Ryze intelligently pushes his lane and goes to help his team take a safe dragon. This is good teamwork and an opportunistic dragon taken, compounding the Leona kill into 190 global gold for all champs.

11:30 – Irelia kills GP top, the stream didn't catch alot of this but I did see GP taking minion aggro which is never good.

13:00 - Maokai comes bot for must feel like the 400th time. The stream catches this late but when we get view we see Cait ulting a low health Varus. Cait's ult is great, BUT should be used slightly later on a fleeing opponent as there looked to be plenty of time to catch up an lane more auto-attacks (especially if Cait's E was up). Leona valiantly takes a bullet for her carry and Varus gets an ult off to secure his low health escape. Good play from Leona and Varus to escape but Cait again needs to be positioned further forward to contribute maximum damage.

13:30 – Maokai dives under tower to snare Varus as Cait Q's for the kill, however Tower aggro and Udyr running bot pick up the kill on Maokai. Maokai really should have at some point used his ult to reduce incoming damage, I'm not sure if it would have saved him, but that ult has such low cooldown it was worth a shot. GP's ult was not in the best position either but that's not exactly an easy thing to do.

14:15 – Irelia is really mauling GP top, I don't play either of these champions so I won't comment but Maokai should really consider ganking top to relieve the pressure on his top lane

14:45 – Maokai and Ryze come top after getting blue, Irelia's ward has run out. Somewhat unfortunately Maokai takes a longer route which would have been good except Irelia has jumped onto GP and ignited him. Ryze gets a good combo onto Irelia and Maokai lands a snare, and there is not much for her to do as Ryze picks up the kill. GP is extremely manly to go back in, realistically at that low health, he should just go back, don't want to risk a 1 for 1 exchange.

17:30 – Purple tries to take dragon but Blue team is aware, so Purple is forced to back off. Good play from both sides here.

17:50 – Blue decides to start a contested dragon when they know Purple is around. This is pretty much asking for trouble.

18:10 – Purple crashes onto blue team who is really not in a good place to engage, especially taking dragon aggro. A Leona ult and a Varus ult do massive damage and CC to the clumped up blue team. There were no survivors. A 4-0 exchange started off by a poor choice in starting dragon. Blue's first dragon was perfect, use an advantage picked up from a kill to do dragon, this was the opposite. When you do a contested dragon, you better be darn sure that you are ahead enough to take on a 4v4 fight as well as dragon aggro. A lack of GP ult hurt blue team as well. As for Purple, good co-ordination and strong use of ults picked up an easy 4-0

19:00 – With 4 members of blue down, Purple take several easy turrets, the key here is they did not over-extend. They knew which turrets they could get safely and then turned around and went home. Purple is now significantly ahead in almost every way.

20:00 – A somewhat scrappy engagement top relatively played well by all.

21:00 – With Varus top, Taric and Caitlyn push to Purple's tower. They need to make a decision to push the minion wave at tower, not freezing it at one of the worst point's possible with their t1 tower down. Without you're tower behind you you need to be careful about pushing, the general rule is to the river and no further

24:00 – The Irelia is pretty far ahead, however she gets killed by GP 1v1, which was not the greatest thing ever. She got tower, but looked to take a lot of tower aggro and was not able to escape GP. That is a good way to let you're lane opponent get back into the game.

24:45 – Blue starts a contested dragon again, which is saved by the fact that Mordekaiser DC's otherwise it would have been another dragon fight disaster.

25:30 – Blue gets dragon but a Udyr gank with Irelia gets GP, pretty even trade.

26:00 – In a risky but successful move, Maokai and Taric steal blue. A great play when you can get away with it.

26:30 – GP ults to clear minions which is not a good use of the skill. What happens when there is a teamfight in the next 2 mins an you need that ability? Not worth the 5-8 minion kills.

27:30 – A quasi teamfight breaks out. Purple gets GP who could have really used that ult.... However Leona gets slightly overagressive and falls to Blue team. It was a decent use of Leona's abilities but without their Varus they should have been happy with the 1 for 0 exchange. Mordekaiser also falls here which is huge as he is an absolute monster at this point. The lesson here? Don't engage without you're heavily farmed AD carry.

28:15 – Blue team pushes to get a turret which is great in theory but leads to them being caught by purple team in a 4v4. Even with Irelia top blue team has no match for purple as they burst down Caitlyn nicely and between Ryze, Taric and Maokai there isn't a whole lot of damage to threaten Purple. A GP ult would have allowed blue to escape but they do anyway, but Morde picks up Caitlyn as a ghost. Yikes.

31:00 – GP makes a nice escape, but 4 blue team members are stealing blue while minion aggro is attacking their tier 3 turret. This is not the best decision making as losing (or even having that turret weakened) makes the defence of you're base, much much harder. Plus, purple could easily turn on to baron at this point and blue team is half a world away stealing one buff.

32:00 - GP does not learn from his last mistake and goes wandering on his lonesome to farm some more. Purple team who has grouped to clear baron, makes short work of him. At this point in the game farming is great, but you need to be able to do it safely, and you cant farm safely is the enemy is all mia and you're team is off doing dragon. A needless death, really.

32:30 – An obvious baron for Purple team that blue has absolutely no clue about, they are pushing bot as 3, which is a decent response....if they knew the opponent team was at baron, which they didn't. (Unless Taric used CV which I am unable to see from the stream). Maokai is sitting in the bush waiting for...someone to come along I guess, he should likely be helping his team clear as fast as possible to get more towers

34:00 – Blue catches 3 Purple members taking a tower and with a nice GP ult start the engagement. However Maokai has been caught up north by the 2 other Purple members. Taric makes a mistake of turning on to Leona when he could continue to peel Varus, which leads to him getting absolutely blown up by Varus who is able to sit in the back. A really well done engage by Purple as they were caught, but protected their AD Carry who proceeded to demolish. Blue team without Maokai really lacked a way to get on to Varus, but credit to Leona who did what a good support does – keep you're carry alive and make YOU the other team's focus.

35:00 – Purple could probably have ended the game but play safe gettin t3 bot and mid towers along with inhibs.

37:00 – Cait gets caught, and this realistically is game.

Lane by Lane analysis:

Blue:

Bot : Taric played extremely well and made some really good plays. Caitlyn played reletively well, knew how to position herself in teamfights but seemed unfamiliar with Caitlyn's E which could have led to some kills and some escapes. The other factor here was getting out CS'd pretty badly. Purple team pushed pretty hard but Cait needs to work better and farming under tower and positioning during ganks.

Mid: Ryze starts boots and 4 pots which means means you have the gold masteries in you're utility tree. The utility tree is obviously great for Ryze but points could be better spent than getting 20 extra gold at the start for 1 extra red pot. There was not alot of focus on mid this game so the one thing to improve is getting more CS. Morde is a CS monster and I expect you to be behind him, but it got somewhat out of control at points.

Top: I don't think GP vs. Irelia is much fun for GP, there were some nice plays especially for first blood on Udyr. Focus on farming as at some points you were pushing the lane and not last hitting. Be careful of when you use you're ult as it has great utility. Being aware of what is going on across the map can make it useful for ulting globally to help teammates.

Jungle: A really strong game setting up great ganks. I'm not sure I love Frozen Heart on Maokai (would have preferred Aegis). I would suggest a more liberal use of Maokai ult as there could have been situations earlier in the game where it would have helped.

Purple:

Bot: Leona starts boots and 3 pots. As the support you must always bring wards to the lane. I know this is going to be an aggressive bot lane, but fairie charm and wards is just a much better opening. It starts you on you're way to the philo stone, plus wards win games! Great farming bot, really harassing the opposing carry. Great work during teamfights, both support and carry played strongly.

Mid: Awesome CS. I don't love the build, especially Zhonyas, but otherwise played really well

Top : The casters commented on this and I will too....stop taking free harass from GP, otherwise you played good, CS'd reasonably well. I'm not sure I love the build you did, but it appeared to work fine.

Jungle: Ganks need a little work as the first gank's flash was poor. I also hate Trinity force on Jungle Udyr. You're blue buff got stolen twice, make sure you work on keeping a timer on you're buffs so you can prevent them from getting stolen.

You can watch this replay here.