Pre-Worlds Part 2: Breaking down OGN Champs Finals G4!!

In my last article I talked about imploring you all to find a way to watch Game 4 of the OGN Champions final. It really was a great game of League of Legends and really showcased the talent of the Korean juggernaut at the moment. The Korean teams seem to really understand something at a higher level than the other regions and the amount of teamwork and planning that goes into picking their comps and how they play them is unsurpassed by other regions. Regardless of the team thought and planning, the standout for this game has to go to the eventual MVP for the game in KaKAO on the surprise pick Nocturne.

The game actually started quite bumpy with a remake that needed to happen after the 3rd set of picks, once KT Arrows picked Nunu and Fizz the casters knew that there was a remake needed. However, even before this there was a bit of surprise, giving DADE Kassadin in the first pick, which, despite his essay of nerfs, is still dangerous in the late game. However, this did create a really good piece of bait for KT Arrows as they were able to land Kog'maw for Arrow, which had easily been his best champion throughout the whole tournament, and the ever-popular Maokai in the top lane for ssumday. This then led into the new-meta bottom of Twitch/Zilean for SSG Blue Deft and Heart, and then into the surprise Nocturne pick for KaKAO. This was then finished with a surprise Kayle pick for Acorn which is questionable at best with her recent nerfs and the expected Yasuo pick for KTA Rookie.

So just to give you the entire list of picks to set the scene: we have KT Arrows with: Maokai, Nocturne, Yasuo, Kog'maw and Morgana and Samsung Galaxy Blue with: Kayle, Rengar, Kassadin, Twitch and Zilean. Basically a pick comp versus a team fight comp. This puts KTA in a bit of an awkward situation because if they don't play a little safe early and then really capitalize on their power-spikes mid-game then the game can just unravel very quickly and they will be taken over by the skirmishing and pick-potential of Samsung Blue. Even as the game begins DoA and MonteCristo were talking about how the team fights would be "explosive" and they really broke down how the team fights needed to play out for both sides (at about 2 min game time).

Apparently the teams agreed as there was a 4 man dive by Samsung Blue at the 3:40 mark as they attempted to cut off ssumday's Maokai and really had him pinned down if it wasn't for the just-in-time appearance of Hatchani's Morgana and KaKAO's Nocturne. KT then regroups and uses a very well timed teleport that sets up a 3 on 1 gank onto Deft's Twitch which, after a long chase, ends in KaKAO getting the first blood onto said Twitch. This just goes to show you what KT Arrows do so well, which is early pressure. They understand how pushing the waves and keeping pressure down on your lane can setup these small engagements that can give your team the advantage. They setup a sneaky play into a bush with no vision that allowed a 3 on 2 that DADE was not able to respond to since he was being pushed in early on Kassadin by Rookie's Yasuo. They take this advantage and lack of summoners and turn it into another gank onto Heart's Zilean and basically have Samsung's ADCarry/Support (I would say bot lane but a double switch in this case made it the top lane) lane shut down at 8 minutes. The one caveat of this is that Acorn and DADE have been farming extremely well and have managed to keep SSG in the game despite being down 500 gold.

KT Arrows after this start seem to be lost as for what to do as they sit on their lead for a while and just reset and farm for a bit which isn't the correct thing for their comp to do (at this point) as they need to keep pressing their advantage or the next move on the wrong side of the map means a free Dragon. This comes to fruition at 15:45 as Hatchani and ssumday setup a gank onto Acorn, which they do get and then book it across the map to try to stop the counter-dragon. However, a mistiming on ssumday's teleport and the movement speed of Kassadin make KT split their focus and the pick-nature and skirmishing of the Samsung Galaxy comp take advantage of the trickling-in of the KT Arrows and turn the fight on its head for a 4 for 1 plus dragon going to Samsung Galaxy Blue. This really sets the KT Arrows far behind and the gold lead has vanished and turned into a 3k gold lead at 18 minutes. This could mean the end of the game for the Arrows unless they find the right engagement to get back into it. Which they do! Ten seconds later! As Samsung's DADE's Kassadin and Spirit's Rengar try to press their advantage a bit too hard and setup picks in the Arrows jungle, however, they choose a bad target in KaKAO's Nocturne who had just a bit too much escape in his Q + flash and Rookie's Yasuo is right in position to get a Q + Exhaust that turns the fight and turns into a 3 for 1 plus a two turrets for KT Arrows that puts them right back into the game. It should be noticed that the main reason that KT was able to capitalize on this fight was that Zilean and Kayle's ultimates were on cool down here, so them taking another fight so soon was really an error on the part of Samsung Blue as they had no way to escape from ssumday's Maokai.

The reason I pointed these fights out is that these fights in the first 20 minutes give us the rest of the game as every fight taken and every objective revolved around this. The teams really needed to pay attention to when each others ultimates were up and needed to have a way to deal with the chase potential and follow-up of each other’s teams. On one hand Samsung has the kite-and chase potential of Twitch and Kassadin combined with the revive of Zilean and can make them turn fights around by a simple miss-timing of an ability of a miss-focus of KT's damage. However, KT has the ability of Nocturne, Yasuo, and Maokai to clean up a small skirmish and still get an advantage off a "bloody" fight and really both teams understanding of this and their ability to adapt is really showcased the remainder of the game. The fight at 20:45 and even the chase turned into dragon fight at 22:55 really show you how well these teams understand these priorities and what they are willing to do in order to give themselves even the smallest advantage that might tip the gold lead back into their favor.

I really want to keep breaking the game down further but I think I would be going into way too much detail and the article would be too long (again =P). Remember I only covered 25 min of gameplay and 3 team fights and the game keeps going for at least 10 more min and at least 3 more teamfights. Please, really, watch the game and listen to what DoA and MonteCristo are saying as they do a phenomenal job of pointing out what is important and why. Needless to say the phrase "my head is exploding" comes to mind when watching this game.

You can find links to the videos on Twitch here: http://www.twitch.tv/ongamenet or on DailyMotion by searching for: OGN KT Arrows vs Samsung Blue. Also remember all the upcoming matches for OGN Worlds qualifiers that will be coming up as talked about in my last blog!

Next I will be switching gears to the EU side of things! See you again in a few days!