The fourth season of Digital Crusade League of Legends has brought us four interesting matches, worthy of analysis. Some were contested, some showed us that there is room for improvement, and we got an idea of which teams are the favorites to qualify for the LAN on the 20th-24th of October in Cluj. But let’s not get too caught up and see exactly what happened.
The first match was between Infinite Gaming and Random 5, the Bulgarian team. I expected the Bulgarian team to be among the favorites because I knew the jungler, as well as the midlander, who I knew was Challenger, but the game was evenly matched. First of all, I got something I wanted from this tournament, bold picks that made sense, like Graves mid from LaMzes, the R5 midlander. Royal responded with an Akali. Khantos played Ezreal, and the match went head-to-head in the early stages, but the Bulgarian team was starting to have an advantage thanks to repeated ganks. This resulted in a baron start fairly early in the 22nd minute, and Speedy(Infinite’s beloved jungler) stole the buff which made the match even again. The Romanians were starting to regain control of the map, took few turrets, priority on mid, two thousand gold advantage. It looked good, except that an uninspired fight in the 31st minute on the top side had a disastrous result. Speedy instead of stealing the second baron, died and the match was over in less than two minutes. The Infinite guys were punished pretty harshly for every mistake, but on top of that, it was a very enjoyable match to watch. The evening was off to a good start.
The second match of the evening brought us to the guys from Cyber MD versus the guys from Urban Esport. The match started in a promising fashion from the picks and bans when a Taliyah ban came up. I was a bit skeptical, but then I realized it was a target ban against Vrow, Urban’s midlane. I don’t necessarily like this, although I’m fine with target bans in general. Taliyah is a pretty weak midlaner, and if the opponent willingly opted for this champ, why would you deny him on the path to self defeat? In the end, we ended up with two comps geared towards comfort picks, Ornn for the Tank of Romania, Aphelios for 2Axes (Draven was banned, so yeah), and on the other side Ryze, Jayce, Viego, something pretty standard in the meta, and then Samira. An odd and losing choice, having a disastrous and pretty much decisive early game. CPM had a solo kill, the botlane clearly won, Nocturne pretty much completed everything, covering the map, being in the right place whenever needed. It was over pretty quickly, despite some prideful streaks through the mid-game, and a few kills picked up or rather donated by the Urban guys, who, on top of that, seemed to be in a good form. Maybe they were much better than their opponents, or maybe they’re just really good and are going to dominate the competition? We’ll see in the coming rounds.
The second to last match was between the Ukrainian team Racquestai and the guys from OneTap. Admittedly I didn’t know much about these two teams, but thanks to the commentators (chapeau Holy) I got some interesting information. We’re not going to talk about the Teemo and Shaco bans, but about the fact that it was a settled game, tactical and centered on objectives. Racquestai took the lead after a semi-failed gank on top, where Gwen, played by Maynter, got a kill versus two enemies. After 19 minutes they had 3 dragons and two thousand gold advantage. A minute later OneTap lost a fight around the baron. and RQT followed that by playing well, by making no mistakes until the end. A solid and complete performance from Racquestai. For OneTap, I hope it was a wake-up call. You can’t get into this competition with a weak draft, Senna in the ADC position, and Twisted Fate on midlane. They didn’t have the damage at any point in the game to be useful, and Soraka, while interesting, couldn’t actually help at all. Could be better. OneTap owes us one.
The last match was also the one I was most looking forward to. Nexus, the defending team, and LLH, Lenovo Legion Honved. Nexus seems to have changed their botlane altogether, Vioreleee and Kisze are the new identity, and I won’t lie, they looked good. LLH is the Hungarian champion and there are some good players I was waiting to watch. The comps didn’t disappoint me at all. Graves on mid and Karthus in the jungle for the Hungarians. Tristana mid, Ziggs on the carry position, and Sona support for Nexus KTRL. Just seeing these champions made me happy. The action started on top, where Gankplank, piloted by Septico made a solo kill in the third minute. A minute later, Irelia got her kill back, but being forced to go too far under the turret, she died again. By the sixth minute, Irelia also had two kills and the advantage in the minion count. LLH took the herald following a roam by Rakan on mid. The herald was used for the turret on mid. Next on the list was dragon number two for them, and that made the Hungarians force things on the bot and give the guys from Nexus a loophole, and the situation evened out. In the twentieth minute, they were perfectly even on gold, turrets and only one kill more for the Romanians. Comeback made a mistake for which he died, and LLH started the baron, and Morcovel said thank you kindly, because he went into the barom pit, killed the opposing jungler, took the baron, and died in glory. More balanced team fights ensued, but Nexus was getting a small advantage in the end game. It was a great match, very nice and it capped off a rather interesting first round.
In lieu of a conclusion, I just want to say that this is just a warmup for me. Good matches, nice atmosphere at the lectern where HolyDiver always provided useful and interesting information about the players, the teams, gave context and set the framework of the competition very well. And on the other side, Ketaminol and his good mood completed the duo like no other. It was a good round and I expect the next ones to be even better. To be honest, I can’t wait for Saturday when we will wash our eyes out with some LoL again. I am looking forward to it.
P.S.: The video can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJqCP-2sIrg
Written by LolRN
