I’m not ready for this season to be over. Even though the World Finals are this Sunday, I haven’t successfully executed a Pentakill this season in ranked.
In years past I’ve managed to get a Penta (oh so close!) or two despite not focusing on ranked play. This season it has eluded me so far, and with the season waning quickly I need to step up my game and achieve the goal, or miss my chance entirely.
This week LCS regions have swapped schedules. This won’t be a problem, but I need to get an NA prediction up before they start racking up points! Welcome to another week of Riot’s Predictions!
TEAMS
Thursday:
Curse vs Cloud9 = Curse… aren’t scheduled to win a game this week. Cloud9 have been consistently good, and CLG are in a crazy upward spiral, building hype around Rush Hour.
TSM vs Dignitas = Despite TSM sitting tied for 4th place Riot still predicts that TSM will beat tied-for-first Dignitas. TSM picked up a win last week against Cloud9 and Riot is expecting them to maintain that giant toppling power. This will be one of the best match-ups to see, as this places two of the top mids in NA against one another in Bjergsen and Shiphtur (only XiaoWeiXiao has more fantasy points).
LMQ vs CLG = LMQ predicted to win in another clash of titans. Doublelift has the highest fantasy points overall of any NA ADC. However, XiaoWeiXiao isn’t joking around in mid lane. He’s wrecking the best there are and stacking fantasy points while doing it.
EG vs Complexity = No one cares. Battle of the bottom of the bracket. Riot predicted EG to take this one. EG, backed by their new jungler, is showing a lot of promise. If they can get accustomed to playing with one another and build on their foundation they could become a powerhouse. For now they’ll have to settle with beating Complexity to not be last place anymore.
Friday:
Dignitas vs Complexity = Dignitas pick up their win this week vs the last place team. Poor Complexity doesn’t have enough going for them. They are struggling to stick wins, but have had a history of upsetting teams that didn’t come prepared.
TSM vs EG = TSM thinks they are walking into a freebie vs EG, but Helios might change this prediction around. TSM expected to win, but I wouldn’t call this game a stomp.
Curse vs CLG = Curse steal a win against CLG. Curse did just top LMQ, which shocked the world. Riot didn’t predict that one! Blue build Kass too good. Four Randuins works vs AD comp. CLG just won’t have an answer for Voyboy and once he gets ahead he knows how to twist the dagger deeper.
Cloud9 vs LMQ = Cloud9 look to beat the Chinese powerhouse for the second time in three weeks. Hai is extremely outclassed in the mid lane, but hopes to hold his own (probably on Kha’Zix) against the top fantasy mid in the NA LCS.
SUMMARY
Riot is using a bit of historical data to think that Cloud9 will beat LMQ, calling some easy matches, but also predicting an upset. It will be fun to watch, so don’t miss LCS this week! Reminder that NA LCS starts on Thursday at 1:00 PM!
In Season Two a young and talented Moscow Five (later Gambit Gaming) team started their professional careers with eight months (count ’em, eight) of top two finishes. Their dominance under the Moscow Five name began in January at the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Global Challenge Kiev. In the first event they participated in they stole first place away from Team SoloMid.
Team SoloMid was considered one of the best teams in the Season Two meta, but the meta was a delicate thing that Gambit gave no regard for. Gambit were innovators in a stagnant meta. They were quoted to say “We only play OP champs,” and rotated through champions on such a regular basis that it was impossible to keep up or ban them out. Their innovations led to picks such as Shyvana top, Evelynn mid, Urgot marksman, Ignite support, and more.
While Gambit didn’t have the strongest individual players, what they lacked in personal talent they made up for in team play. It was standard procedure to see four members of Gambit Gaming surrounding a lone defender of a turret for First Blood, or for the top-laning Shyvana to roam into the enemy’s jungle and take no prisoners.
These abnormal strategies were quickly picked up on by other professional teams trying to keep up with the hottest team in Europe. It wasn’t long before Gambit was crushing events and changing the meta.
After a brief time as part of Curse, Edward returned to be a part of Gambit and it’s fair to say “Gambit is back!”
On November 24, 2013 Gambit Gaming raced through the rounds of the IEM 8 Cologne event. In the rounds leading up to the final they bested a lesser known team (The RED) and the American powerhouse Cloud 9. Gambit looked like they hit their stride as they managed 2-0 victories over both of these professional teams.
In the finals Gambit was looking to keep their perfect tournament hopes alive, but their daunting foe was Fnatic. Season One World Champions, and a first place in the EU LCS Summer Playoffs, Fnatic is a juggernaut of team play. Led by their mid laner, xPeke, Fnatic has had impressive LAN records since the beginning of League of Legends competitive play. Gambit reunited, ready to change the meta, facing off against one of the oldest and most dominant EU teams really set the stage for these finals.
These teams are no strangers to one another, facing off many times in the EU LCS and in tournaments for the past couple of seasons. In the first game Fnatic banned Kha’Zix, Renekton, and Annie, respecting a pick for Alex, Darien, and Edward. Gambit banned Nidalee, Kassadin, and Shyvana, which is a tip of the hat to xPeke and sOAZ. Fnatic was forced into choosing a mid laner as Gambit saved it for last pick. Without knowledge of who Gambit would be taking mid xPeke decided to play Ziggs, after having a rough game against Ziggs, played by CLG’s Link. As a veteran League of Legends player, I can’t think of a single “good” lane pick against Ziggs. However, Alex didn’t miss a beat. He picked Malphite for last pick and loaded into the first game.
Edward lost his Flash early to a jungle invade by Fnatic, but escaped with his life. First Blood didn’t happen until after the six-minute mark when Darien was able to catch sOAZ too far from his turret. Gambit maintained lane pressure until the nine minute mark when they picked up the first dragon almost unnoticed. Near the 15 minute mark Gambit took both the outer top and outer bottom towers, then rotated to Dragon. Fnatic took the outer mid turret in response.
While the first 23 minutes of this game did result in a farm fest, when the team fights arrived they were full of action. Gambit swung into action after sOAZ caught Diamond in Fnatic’s jungle. While Diamond fell in the pursuing team fight, Gambit were able to trade their jungler for three members of the enemy team, and Baron. Darien and Diamond slipped in a two-man Baron before the 27 minute mark, undetected by Fnatic.
The strength of AP Malphite shone shortly after when Alex was caught in bot lane by sOAZ, Rekkles, and Cyanide. Seeing that he was going to die, he expended the resources at hand and used Deathfire Grasp, Ignite, and Unstoppable Force all on Corki to secure that he would die in a 3v1 situation. Gamers can now get their hands on vanguard hack and make the game a lot more interesting.
When Alex respawned he walked down mid lane, found Rekkles alone, and with a Deathfire Grasp, Unstoppable Force, and Ground Slam combo, was able to change Corki’s screen to black and white. This was the turning point in the game. Alex hunted down Rekkles, and Gambit sieged like Gambit likes to.
Gambit sailed on to win the first game of the Intel Extreme Masters finals in Cologne.
It’s been a long road, and technically Season Three isn’t over yet, but it may as well be for me. I achieved what I set out to do. I am omitting some of the games that I played in this Promotion Series because I don’t want to build up stress or tension for anyone else. Instead I’ll just focus on the good times and show you happy players in happy Platinum.
By this point everyone on both teams is in Platinum. Well, everyone except me.
Our mid laner decided to play as AP Janna. I checked his history and ranked stats and he had never played Janna in Season Three. That’s no big deal, it’s still a solid strategy against a Twisted Fate. If you just push TF into his turret he can’t roam around and get kills in other lanes. This Janna executed that perfectly. We ended up dominating in this game. Fiora became a wonderful target for my healing, and we won one team fight and the game was over.
In my last Promotion Series game I ended up picking Soraka again. The lanes I would have played were picked already and I respected the pick order. I grabbed Soraka. We had a Vladimir, a Garen, and a Jarvan IV, so someone suggested that HnGia play Ashe or Varus instead of Corki. I wanted Corki so bad! Corki and Soraka?? That’s a bot lane made in heaven! I give you endless mana, you spam your endless mana! All the damages! Oh well, endless mana is still cool on Ashe I guess.
Our bot lane was just about irrelevant. By the time we got out of laning phase Garen was sprinting the outer wall of the enemy team’s base, just slaughtering their entire team. I don’t think his chat was working, because when we moved on an objective or tried to organize a team fight he wouldn’t really cooperate. I’ve had worse team mates, because at least this guy was winning lane.
Then Vladimir got out of hand. The fine print on Vladimir’s E says that “Soraka’s heals become bananas.” I was healing that ugly vampire for ~500 health with each W. With that extra armor buff Ezreal, Riven, and Shyvana couldn’t touch him, especially through the amount he was spell vamping.
We had a solid team, and I’m pretty sure we crushed their Nexus with bananas before they could surrender.
I was pretty thrilled to see this!
I was so close to promotion I could almost taste it. I knew that if I won one more game I would be in my qualifier. However, it felt like everyone was trying to win this game. I always hate it when the other team tries to win. It really warps my chances at winning.
We’re pretty sure that Zed is the most broken champion in League of Legends right now. He farms so easily and so safely. His damage scaling is completely ridiculous. His mobility is insane. I feel bad for the other team when I get a Zed on my team. The best is when they talk trash after all they did was farm and press R on people. I remember good ol’ days in mid lane of out-playing my opponent before level six. The game has changed.
The fact that we won this game was nothing short of a miracle. The game went long enough for Zed and me to get to six items. Once that happened we were able to win some amazing team fights and push to win, despite being down in kills and being down almost double in assists.
In my first Promotion Series game I decided to go with Ezreal again. The Trinity Force felt really good on him. I was looking forward to giving it another go.
This win was mostly Sejuani’s fault. Sejuani and Shen were a duo queue. Shen ran Teleport. It was the nastiest combo you’ve ever seen. Sejuani ult would lock up a lane after they saw the Shen Teleport coming in. Then we would have 4-5 people standing in that lane raining on the enemy team’s parade. This was especially effective because Zyra and Caitlyn were just trying to push me under my turret. This resulted in them over-extending in lane. Sejuani would hit Caitlyn once and I’d watch her evaporate. I could hear QTpie in my head saying “DELETED”.
We were able to play relatively safe. Normally when your raid boss dies they will rage at the team and blame them for not doing what they were supposed to or something. When this Sejuani died I think they admitted that they were caught by the enemy team and apologized. 6-1, you’d better apologize! I just realized that the Shaco we had on our team in the game before was the Nocturne in this game. Small world! 21 minute wins are the way to go if you’re trying to rip through a Promotion Series!
This Janna was really great. I added him after the game just to tell him that he did a good job. You don’t get supports who are as competent as this one every day. It was a rare occasion. Thanks again, Bargaincrate.
