TL;DW – LTA North: Game 2 of FLY vs C9 is Scrappy
Week 3, Day 1 of the LTA North Split 2 Playoffs. FLY vs C9. C9 is on Blue, FLY is on Red. FLY’s roster is Bwipo (top), Inspired (jungle), Quad (mid), Massu (bot), and Busio (support). C9’s roster is Thanatos (top), Blaber (jungle), Loki (mid), Zven (bot), and Vulcan(support). FLY won Game 1. For more information on what Early, Mid, and Late Game means, see Terms at the bottom of the article.
Champion Selection: Raw Power vs Technical Skill
Neeko, Vi, Rumble, Yone, Taliyah, and Azir banned out during 1st ban phase.
C9 takes Gwen as their 1st pick. FLY opts for Kalista and Renata for their 1st champions. Lucian and Milio grabbed next by C9. FLY locks in Sett before the 2nd ban phase begins.
Jungle receives heavy attention as Trundle, Poppy, Sejuani, and Naafiri are banned away.
FLY starts up the 2nd set of champion picks by choosing Wukong. C9 closes out their team with Maokai and Corki. FLY ends the draft by picking Annie. C9’s comp has excellent peel and 2 ADC’s for extra power. FLY has more CC options but is technically tricky to execute (especially against Milio and Maokai).
Team comps are: C9 – Gwen (top), Maokai (jungle), Corki (mid), Lucian (bot), Milio (support) vs FLY – Sett (top), Wukong (jungle), Annie (mid), Kalista (bot), Renata (support).
Early Game Highlights: FLY Strikes First
Game starts innocuously enough with just farming and warding. So much so that they show an interview to distract us from the level 1 tedium.
C9 starts up the 1st Drake (Infernal) but FLY arrives to contest and they back away. Blaber tries to leave through his Red Side Tri-Brush but runs into Quad. Between him and Busio, Blaber is chained CCed and dies to Busio for 1st Blood. FLY then takes the Drake.
As Bwipo tries to recall just out of Top Lane, Thanatos comes over and interrupts him. They get into a full-on fight, but Blaber arrives to turn the tides and Bwipo dies to Thanatos.
FLY takes all 3 Voidgrubs uncontested.
Early Game ends with C9 ahead in farm but just 200 and also ahead in farm.
Mid Game Highlights: All For The Drake
FLY starts up the 2nd Drake (Chemtech). C9 hover around but decides not to try and contest so FLY secures the objective without incident.
Bwipo TPs in behind Thanatos in Bot Lane as Inspired comes around through C9’s Red Side Tri-Brush for a gank. Thanatos, who was far up in lane, tries to make it out but, despite getting under Turret, dies to Inspired Flash-Auto Attacking him.
Blaber, Zven, and Vulcan are all Mid. When Blaber tries to leave lane and enter Top River, he runs into Massu, Busio, and Inspired. He gets CC but manages to turn the fight around and gets Inspired low.
Now on the run, FLY flee through their Red Side Jungle and, even though Loki TPs to help, they manage to get away. However, this allows C9 to rotate over and take Rift Herald uncontested. As C9 fights Shelly, Bwipo takes their Outer Bot Turret to secure 1st Turret of the game before C9 can.
C9 drops the Rift Herald in Mid Lane and uses it to take FLY’s Outer Turret and provide a distraction so that they can start up the 3rd Drake (Hextech). FLY take out Shelly after her charge and then rotate down to engage C9 at Dragon Pit.
Thanatos sneaks around and takes out Quad and Loki manages to shoot down out Massu but Bwipo gets into the Dragon Pit and removes Blaber from the area, allowing Inspired to get in and Steal the objective. Blaber then kills Busio in retaliation. Inspired and Bwipo gets away. fight goes 3-0 for C9 but FLY manage to secure the objective and are now on Soul Point.
Mid Game ends with C9 still ahead in gold (now by 900) and also still ahead in farm.
Late Game Highlights: Sett Breaks the Game in LTA North
FLY starts up the Atakhan. Bwipo runs distract but too many members of C9 arrive, so FLY disengage from the objective to help him out. He gets low but also takes Vulcan low. Both of them have to back off. Inspired goes in and Knocks several people Up but dies to Zven. However, he is able to create the opening for FLY to turn the fight.
Massu takes down Blaber, Busio uses Zven to execute Vulcan, Bwipo eliminates Thanatos, and Massu deletes Zven before Loki Flash on top of him and kills him before dying to Quad for the ACE. The fight goes 5-2 for FLY, though they are too low to attempt Atakhan again. Instead, they settle for taking the Inner Bot Turret of C9.
Both teams start setting up around Atakhan. FLY pulls the trigger first with Inspired jumping on to Zven. He gets away back and forth fight breaks out. Bwipo comes in from behind C9, grabs Loki, and delivers him to FLY. He dies to Bwipo. C9 almost manages to push FLY off of Atakhan but aren’t successful. They give up and FLY secures the objective.
Both teams start to dance around the 4th Drake (which is started by Blaber). While both teams do some damage to the objective, they most just tank the Auto Attacks while trying to find an engage angle.
Bwipo is finally able to find a kill on to Thanatos, but Blaber is able to take down the Drake. Loki then drops Inspired, Blaber takes out Busio and Massu, and Zven ends Quad. Only Bwipo manages to get out alive. Fight goes 4-1 to C9, who also get the Drake. They then roam up to Baron and take it too.
Bwipo tries to contest but he’s extremely out numbered. He dies to Zven for the ACE.
Using Baron Buff, C9 marches into FLY’s Base through Bot Lane. They take the Inhibitor and start chipping away at the Lower Nexus Turret. Bwipo jumps in and starts a fight. He manages to take out Blaber and Loki. Quad dies to linger damage from Blaber. Massu takes down Thanatos.
Inspired dives on to the retreating Zven and Vulcan. Though he dies to Zven, he’s able to delay them enough for Massu to arrive and get a Double Kill and score the ACE. Fight goes 5-1 to FLY.
C9 gets caught out moving from Mid Lane to FLY’s Red Side Jungle. Zven dies first to Massu. He is quickly joined by Loki, who also dies to Massu. Thanatos and Quad kill each other. Blaber then dies to the lingering Tibbers, given Quad a posthumous kill. FLY marches down Mid Lane, barreling through all the structures in their way, and ends the game.
Post Game Analysis: Close But Not Enough
FLY ends the game at 29:34 with a 3.7k gold lead. The final score was 18-14.
Another close game. FLY won this game off the back of a team fight, which is my personal favorite way for a team to win. Techincally, the last fight was a catch but it the opportunity to make the catch wouldn’t have happened without the team fight in FLY’s Base.
There wasn’t much more that C9 could have done during that Base fight except for possibly slowing it down and poking down Bwipo. However, they were at his Base so he could always just heal up and come right back in.
In any event, Bwipo Sett was the game winning factor. He was able to jump into the middle of C9, take out 2 members, and survive. Not sure what the counter to that is except either banning out the champion or focusing resources to starve him out during the Early Game. Also, I feel I have to say this, don’t get caught out.
Terms
Early Game: Any time before 10 minutes, first Outer Turret down, or first level 10 (whichever comes first).
Mid Game: Between Early Game and either 20 minutes, 2 Inner Turrets down, half the players are level 16, or 3rd dragon killed.
Late Game: Any time after Mid Game.
