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.
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.
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