TL;DW – LTA North Edition: TL’s CoreJJ Trolls SR in Game 1
Week 7, Day 2 of the LTA North Split 2. TL vs SR. TL is on Blue, SR is on Red. TL’s roster is Impact (top), Yuuji (jungle), APA (mid), Yeon (bot), and CoreJJ (support). SR’s roster is Fudge (top), Contractz (jungle), Palafox (mid), Bvoy (bot), and Ceos (support). TL is 2-1, SR is 1-2. For more information on what early, mid, and late game means, see Terms at the bottom of the article.
Champion Selection: You Dive, They Dive, We all Dive
1st ban phase sees Yone, Kalista, Naafiri, Varus, Ezreal, and Vi taken off the board.
TL is Blue Side so get first pick and choose Taliyah. SR responds with Xin Zhao and Ahri. TL counter with Pantheon and Rumble. SR’s last pick before 2nd ban phase is Ryze.
Nautilus, Senna, Neeko, and Braum were banned out in the second ban phase, heavily limiting the Support pool.
SR starts things back up by taking Alistar. TL round out their team with Jhin and Poppy. SR closes things out with Kai’Sa. TL has drafted a high global mobility team with good engage and long-range follow-up. SR’s comp has strong team fighting capabilities, as well as excellent pick potential.
Team comps are: TL – Rumble (top), Pantheon (jungle), Taliyah (mid), Jhin (bot), Poppy (support) vs SR – Ryze (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Ahri (mid), Kai’Sa (bot), Alistar (support).
Early Game Highlights: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Game starts with CoreJJ being an absolute menace to SR in Blue Side Top Jungle. As a SUPPORT, he pushes Contractz off his Blue Buff, keeps Ceos out of lane for a considerable amount of time, and when he finally gets to land, forces Bvoy to burn his Cleanse.
When Contractz roams back around to try and finally takes his Blue Buff, CoreJJ returns and pushes him off the objective again. Contractz is finally able to take the Buff only after Ceos comes over and literally stands in between him and CoreJJ. As a result of CoreJJ’s antics, Yuuji was able to Steal away several of Contractz’ Jungle camps.
As Contractz takes his Gromp, CoreJJ yet again comes over to harass him, forcing him to have to use Smite to secure the camp. Ceos, meanwhile, almost gets caught out in Blue Side Top Jungle and has to burn his Flash to survive.
Yuuji attempts to gank Mid Lane with APA. Palafox has to burn his Ultimate to get away. After this, Yuuji swings down to Dragon Pit and takes the 1st Drake (Mountain) uncontested, while Contractz, who is a level behind because of CoreJJ, kills his Raptors in an attempt to catch up.
Yuuji starts Voidgrubs on spawn and takes them complete uncontested.
CoreJJ comes in from behind Fudge in Bot Lane and slams him into the Turret. Impact drops and Equalizer on him. Though he gets low, Fudge manages to use Realm Warp to escape.
Early game ends with TL ahead in farm and in gold (1.5k). No kills as of yet.
Mid Game Highlights: PvE No More
Yuuji starts up the 2nd Drake (Infernal). Yet again, he takes the objective completely uncontested.
Contractz and Ceos try to gank APA in Top Lane at the same time that Yuuji, CoreJJ, and Yeon arrive to do the same thing to Palafox. No one dies but TL are able to do significant damage to SR’s members and force them out of lane. As a result of this, TL are able to claim the Outer Top Turret of SR for 1st Turret of the game.
The first fight of the game breaks out over Rift Herald. SR starts up the objective. TL collapses onto them. CoreJJ manages to draw the ire of SR. He gets extremely low and has to Flash out to safety. This leaves the rest of his team free attack safely.
Using Curtain Call, Yeon is able to snipe down Ceos. Right after, Yuuji takes down his counterpart, Contractz. The rest of SR flee, and TL takes Rift Herald. Fight goes 2-0 for TL.
As both teams start setting up around the 3rd Drake (Cloud), Ceos almost dies to APA. He is forced to go back to base. As he comes back down towards Dragon Pit, Contractz starts up the objective. They don’t do much damage, so the Drake goes down very slowly.
After pushing out Mid Lane, TL comes down to the Pit. After a little dancing around as they look for an angle, Yuuji jumps onto Palafox, who is slightly out of position. A fight breaks out. Equalizer gets dropped on Palafox. Though he’s the only one who takes damage from it, it effectively zones him off the fight for a good while.
Yeon opens up his Curtain Call and snipes down Palafox first. Impact then takes down Bvoy, while Yuuji secures the Drake. Yeon then snipes down Fudge, Yuuji kills Ceos, and APA deletes Contractz for the ACE. Fight goes 5-0 for TL, who are now on Soul Point.
Mid Game ends with TL retaining the farm lead and growing their gold lead to 7.3k.
Late Game Highlights: Yeon, Best Sniper in LTA North
Yuuji gets caught out in Red Side Top Jungle. Bvoy secures the kill (the first one for his team in almost 20 minutes).
SR tries to collapse onto APA, Yeon, and CoreJJ in Red Side Top Jungle. They chase them all the way to Mid Lane. Impact arrives and drops an Equalizer into the middle of SR’s team. This allows Yeon to kill Palafox. Impact, meanwhile, duels with Bvoy in the background and kills him.
Contractz jumps onto CoreJJ and uses his Cresent Guard to zone the rest of TL and get his revenge for the Early Game. Fudge Steals the kill from Contractz, who dies almost immediately after his Ultimate wears off, to Yeon. Impact chases after Fudge and Ceos, but they get away. The fight goes 3-1 for TL.
In the aftermath of the fight, TL takes both Atakhan and Inner Mid Turret.
APA gets caught out in Bot River. Kill goes over the Contractz. Yuuji, who was hovering around, gets jumped on and is eventually taken down by Bvoy. SR charges towards the rest of TL, looking for more.
Yeon opens up his Curtain Call and chunks Palafox low, but he has to cancel the Ultimate to avoid a Charm. Impact arrives and drops an Equalizer on top of all members of SR. Palafox is immediately incinerated.
TL chases after the rest of SR, who try to hold them back unsuccessfully. Contractz is cornered and killed by Impact in Dragon Pit. Yeon meanwhile, deletes Bvoy, snipes down Ceos with a Flourish, and explodes Fudge (who had just killed CoreJJ). The fight goes 5-3 in TL’s favor.
After everyone has respawned, Contractz gets caught out in Mid Lane. Thanks to a well-placed Weaver’s Wall, he can’t escape and get killed by Yeon. The first of SR tries to collapse onto Impact and Yuuji in Bot River. Palafox manages to kill Impact, but the rest of TL arrive.
Yeon obliterates Bvoy’s Health Bar, but Yuuji Steals the kill. This does not stop Yeon from turning his attention to Palafox and deleting him, however. Using Grand Starfall, Yuuji dives onto the retreating members of SR.
Ceos manages to keep Yuuji from reaching Fudge and even dodges 3 of Yeon’s Curtain Call Shots, but still ends up dying to the 4th. Fight goes 4-1 for TL, with Fudge managing to run away. TL immediately turns to the 4th Drake, securing it and claiming the Cloud Soul.
TL start Baron on spawn and secure it, you guessed it, uncontested. With Baron Buff and Dragon Soul, TL breaks open SR’s base, takes Base Top and Mid Turrets, as well as Top and Mid Inhibitors.
Ceos and Bvoy are both caught out in Bot Lane. Yeon snipes down both of them with Curtain Call. TL marches down Bot Lane, taking structures as they go. As they start attacking the Nexus Turrets, Yuuji takes out Palafox, and Impact evaporates Contractz and Fudge. TL throw some poke at Bvoy and Ceos, who have respawned, but ultimately, just end the game.
Post Game Analysis: Small Ripples Become Massive Tidal Waves
TL ends the game at 28:33 with a 13.7k gold lead. The final score is 25-6 for TL.
This game could be described as a contrast in Supports. Where CoreJJ caused massive havoc that had long-reaching benefits for TL, Ceos was far less impactful and got caught out of position several times, which led to his team only getting further behind. CoreJJ’s proactivity and smart aggression effectively led TL to victory.
Once Contractz fell behind, there wasn’t much he could have done on his own to get back into the game. Perhaps if his team had grouped up around him and helped him out, he might have been able to contest some of the objectives or, at the very least, delay Yuuji from taking them.
It should be noted that SR did have an opportunity to potentially come back, but they squandered it. The pick they got on APA and Yuuji could have been an opportunity for them to take a Drake, but they chased too far and got destroyed. Hindsight might be 20/20, but, honestly, when is running face-first towards a Jhin ever a good idea?
Terms
Early Game: Any time before 10 minutes, first outer tower down, or first level 10 (whichever comes first).
Mid Game: Between early game and either 20 minutes, 2 inner towns down, half the players are level 16, or 3rd dragon killed.
Late Game: Any time after mid game.
