Queue the fancy OGN shots, and cute hand clapping! Oh wait, okay never mind.
This is my weekly series of short articles picking out my favorite game of the week from all of the premier regions. I'll be taking overall gameplay, the importance of the game within the region, and unique strategies all into consideration. If you disagree with me on anything, let me know why!
LCK - ROX Tigers vs. MVP - (Bo3)
Best Game: Game 2
This week’s game of the week saw the ROX Tigers battle it out against MVP. Both teams were looking to bounce back after a disappointing week one, especially the Tigers, as they looked uncharacteristically poor across the board in their 2-0 loss to Samsung.
Game One was all about the top lane as both teams were focused around getting their top laners ahead. Despite an early first blood, Smeb struggled to keep his lead with some rather arrogant play costing him his life on more than one occasion. However, Peanut was almost always a step ahead of Beyond and that led to a considerable CS lead for Smeb, which the Tigers leveraged to a rather clean 30-minute victory.
The real curveball in this series came in the second game as Beyond pulled out a full AP Amumu jungle pick to complement a team composition that was brimming with Crowd Control. With Ekko, Amumu, Varus, Ashe, and Alistar, you’d be forgiven for thinking that MVP would play safely in the early game and scale towards team fights. Beyond had other ideas, however, as he tore the Tigers apart, out pathing Peanut’s Rek’sai and ganking lane after lane. The Tigers seemed disjointed in their efforts, and despite some missteps, MVP’s team fighting composition proved to be too much for the Tigers to deal with.
Both teams took a new approach into the third and final game, as the Tigers chose to target Ian’s champion pool with three mid lane bans including the Varus that MVP utilized in their victory in the previous game. MVP, on the other hand, chose to target Peanut’s champion pool with three jungle bans. Small incremental leads in every lane eventually broke MVP, as the Tigers leveraged Lucian's mid-game power spike to end the game in just 28 minutes, and secured their first series victory of the Summer split.
Come on in!
If you enjoy frauds spouting League of Legends nonsense, register on LiquidLegends.net and join us in the discussion on our forums!