TL;DW – LTA North: FLY Counters C9 in Game 1
Week 3, Day 1 of the LTA North Split 2 Playoffs. FLY vs C9. FLY is on Blue, C9 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). For more information on what Early, Mid, and Late Game means, see Terms at the bottom of the article.
Champion Selection: This May Be Very Important Later
Ban phase sees Gwen, Vi, Yone, Neeko, Taliyah, and Azir taken away.
FLY opens things up with a Varus pick. C9 opts for Ryze and Pantheon. Casseopia and Alistar are taken next by FLY. Senna is grabbed by C9 as the teams enter 2nd ban phase.
Trundle, Rumble, Renekton, and Bard are exiled during the ban phase.
Yorick is the next champion selected by C9. FLY completes their team by locking in Cho’Gath and Xin Zhao. C9 closes things out with Rell. FLY has a very strong team fight comp, with 2 sturdy tanks. C9’s comp is designed more for split-pushing with global assistance options and Late Game scaling.
Team comps are: FLY – Cho’Gath (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Casseopia (mid), Varus (bot), Alistar (support) vs C9 – Yorick (top), Pantheon (jungle), Ryze (mid), Senna (bot), Rell (support).
Early Game Highlights: A Scrappy Start
Deep wards for C9 to provide them with a good amount of information regarding Inspired’s pathing. Thanks to the wards, Blaber is able to invade FLY’s jungle and Steal Raptors. He als tries to Steal Red Buff but it’s warded so Inspired seems him and roams down to stop him. Busio roams up from Bot Lane as well.
Blaber leaves without securing he buff, takes a little damage from Busio, and tries to escape through the path into Bot River next to Raptors. There he meets Quad to kills him for 1st Blood of the game (though he had to burn Flash to do so).
Bwipo demonstrates why Cho’Gath is an excellent counter into Yorick by Devouing the Maiden of the Mist immediately after Thanatos spawns it.
Busio goes in on to Vulcan in Bot Lane but C9 are able to turn it around and chase FLY back down to their Turret. Blaber uses Grand Starfall to gank, Stuns Massu, and kills him. Bwipo TPs in but Loki arrives before him with Realm Warp. Bwipo has to immediately Flash when he arrives. He still takes a massive amount of damage but manages to survive.
To try and keep Thanatos from gaining too much of an advantage since Bwipo wasted his TP, Quad and Inspired roam up to Top Lane to gank him. Quad gets the kill. After this successful gank, Inspired heads over to the Voidgrubs and takes them uncontested.
Blaber jumps on to Inspired as he taking the Bot Scuttlecrab, only for Inspired to kite him down to Bwipo before counter engaging. Between Inspired, Bwipo, and Busio (who followed Blaber) the Jungler of C9 spends the next few seconds mostly airborne. He ends up dying to Bwipo. However, this kill took some time to pull off, allowing 3 other members of C9 to arrive. Bwipo ends up dying to Zven.
Early Game ends with FLY ahead in gold by 500 but C9 ahead in farm.
Mid Game Highlights: Drakes and Heralds and Turrets, Oh My
Massu gets caught out of position in Mid Lane, gets chain CCed, and dies to Blaber. Off this kill, C9 are able to take the 1st Drake (Chemtech) uncontested.
FLY secures Rift Herald uncontested as C9 trades it for the Outer Bot Turret for 1st Turret of the game.
FLY drops the Herald in Mid Lane and uses it to take the Outer Mid Turret.
C9 starts up the 2nd Drake (Infernal). FLY comes in to contest. C9 are able to secure to objective but they have to run away from FLY. Massu manages to land a Chain of Corruption on to Blaber and then kill him. Quad then follows this up by killing Loki. The rest of C9 gets away. Fight goes 2-0 for FLY but C9 claims the objective.
Mid Game ends with FLY now ahead in gold by 2.9k and also ahead in farm.
Late Game Highlights: Tanks be Busted in LTA North
FLY starts up and takes the Atakhan uncontested.
FLY takes the 3rd Drake (Mountain) uncontested.
Inspired gets jumped on while trying to Steal C9’s Blue Buff. Both teams converge and a fight breaks out. The first one to drop is Quad, followed almost immediately by Vulcan. They die to Blaber and Massu respectively. Bwipo gets into a 1v1 against Thanatos, which is interrupted when Loki comes in and kills him.
C9 starts chase after the 3 remaining members of FLY. While in the Fog of War, Inspired is able to break off from his teammates and head in a different direction. C9 continues to follow Massue and Busio into the Bot Lane and eventually catch up to them. Zven kills them both. Fight goes 4-1 for C9.
Thanatos gets caught out in Top Lane and collapsed on by 3 members of FLY. He dies to Inspired. FLY then starts up the Baron. C9 hovers around looking for an angle. It ends up being Busio who finds and angle on to Blaber. Everyone but Inspired jumps on him and he goes down to Massu. FLY then returns to Baron to help Inspired secure it. They then secure the 4th Drake uncontested.
Quad mostly solos the 5th Drake uncontested. FLY is now on Soul Point. Inspired came down to help towards the tail end to act as extra security. Just as they finish securing the objective. Blaber drops in on them with Grand Starfall. A team fight breaks out as both teams converge. Quad kills Blaber and Massue takes out Vulcan. Fight goes 2-0 for FLY, who head over and take Baron aftwards.
While his team is dealing with Baron, Bwipo gets caught out in the Bot Lane. 3 members of C9 chase hid down. Quad TPs in to try and help. Bwipo gets very low much manages to kill Thanatos when he Flashes into to try and finish Bwipo off. Quad then kills Loki. Zven tries to run for it but gets chased down and also killed by Quad. Fight goes 3-0 for FLY.
Off the back of these kills, they march up Bot Lane and take the Inner and Base Turrets and the Inhibitor. They then move over to Mid and take the Base Turret and Inhibitor.
As FLY starts to deal damage to the Lower Nexus Turret, Vulcan jumps in and hit Magnet Storm on to several people. There isn’t enough damage to follow-up, however, and C9 starts dropping.
Blaber dies to Quad, Zven falls to Inpsired, Loki and Vulcan both drop to Massu, and Thanatos says back and survive. However, as the lone survivor, he’s unable to stop FLY from destroying his Nexus.
Post Game Analysis: This Game Was Decided in Champion Selection
FLY ends the game at 36:19 with a 12.6k gold lead. The final score was 17-7.
All things considered, this game was relatively close at some points. However, FLY, despite being on Blue Side, managed to counter pick Top, Mid, and Support. This gave them a massive advantage during the game.
C9 utilized their champions and strategy well but, in the end, they weren’t able to make up for the deficiets of their picks. As one of the commentators pointed out, they had last pick and wasted it on a standard Rell. They lost this game in the draft.
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.
