Rockstar Games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, Game of The Year Red Dead Redemption, and more, was our week two matchup in our After Hours Gaming League! I was extremely intimidated.
While I thought we could win, in the back of my mind was the fear that in a best of one series they would have something that caught us unaware. If anyone had a bad game they wouldn’t get a shot to redeem themselves. This became even more of a reality when I heard “Enemy Killing Spree!” from the announcer about my lane opponent.
Even though I had kept Katarina away from creeps and hiding under her turret, I hadn’t realized the potential of the ensuing Maokai gank. The base damage from his ability combo was almost enough to kill me from full, and Katarina was more than willing to assist in finishing off what was left.
I was behind in lane, but knew that I wasn’t the only one. It sounded like bot lane hadn’t started to roll yet. Leona is normally pretty strong at shutting down their combo, or at least preventing an early steamroll. Top was Yorick, which is safe enough that you can never say that you lost the lane. Jungle Mundo probably deserves MVP this game. He had really decent pressure all over the map.
I got a text from Jack that said “You’re behind in kills but ahead in gold” and I knew we would be alright. Kills weren’t losing us the game as long as we stayed ahead in gold and experience. Katarina had been roaming and so I was quite a ways ahead of her in gold and experience. I saw an opportunity to press our advantage.
Mundo, Yorick and I ran top to take a tower. When we saw that Garen was willing to push out I just said “Dive him!” Mundo tanked the tower and dealt significant damage while Yorick and I helped finished off Garen. Katarina reacted too late which resulted in us getting a free tower and kill.
We backed off, but not for long. We swung mid and dropped that turret with equal speed. This cash injection was starting to pay off. 300 gold to each person on the team was swaying the gold lead. We wanted more. We appeared in bot lane and took a third tower.
With our newly acquired gold we all did some window shopping and then had a successful dragon fight. After our team secured the dragon we continued to apply pressure to prevent any of their players to scale into the late game.
Time and again we would see players coming around bad corners. I remember Maokai walking from the jungle into lane to defend mid turret. After I hooked him with Rune Prison, Lux was able to land a free snare followed by a Pantheon Aegis of Zeonia. He was dead before he could move. That’s not the way you want to die. Each time a player on the enemy team dropped we improved our grip on the state of the game.
When my team finally fought at Baron I felt bad because I got pushed away from the team fight and did my best to hurt Garen, but after his ultimate and the ticking ignite I knew it was hopeless; I was going to die. I turned and dealt as much damage as I could, but without my ultimate up I couldn’t spell vamp enough and I died. I looked back at the battle scene to see my team cleaning up the fight. ACE! I was the only casualty for my team, but getting focused had helped to prevent Garen from spinning (and winning) in the middle of my team!
We had already taken middle inhibitor, so we were pressuring top. At this point all of us were so tanky that I pitied the fool who would try to rush our team. Each of us had defensive items, and combined with a Lux shield across all of us, they would have had a terrible time trying to fight us.
Again we were able to catch Maokai in front of his team trying to defend the turret. Lux ultimate finished him off as he retreated. In the ensuing 4v5 we were able to march over their team. As we got to the top lane inhibitor turret we noticed super creeps pouring into the enemy base. We rushed the base turrets and called out “ggwp”. We knew we had enough time and enough creeps to tank that the game would be over before the enemy team could respawn. Dan actually commented and said “Isn’t that a bit early to call ‘gg’? I mean, Maokai is up…” I assumed he was being sarcastic.
It was a great game and a good challenge. The final score doesn’t reflect how hard the early game was and how well Rockstar performed. When they had a one-kill lead at eight to seven it really put the pressure on us to rush some global gold. Luckily we worked well as a team and won out in the end!
Even though Mundo deserves MVP, I cannot forget the honorable mention Lux who didn’t even both to die this game! I guess dying is slower than recalling, so I can understand why he would do that!
