TL;DW – LTA North Edition: FLY Dissect C9 in Game 1
Week 7, Day 1 of the LTA North Split 2. C9 vs FLY. C9 is on Blue, FLY is on Red. C9’s roster is Thanatos (top), Blaber (jungle), Loki (mid), Zven (bot), and Vulcan (support). FLY’s roster is Bwipo (top), Inspired (jungle), Quad (mid), Massu (bot), and Busio (support). C9 is 3-0, FLY is 3-0. For more information on what early, mid, and late game mean, see Terms at the bottom of the article.
Champion Selection: Battle for the Top Spot in LTA North
1st ban phase removes Casseopia, Yone, Jayce, Gwen, Neeko, and Varus from the game.
C9 starts things out but picking Vi. FLY opt for Rumble and Naafiri. C9 counter with Taliyah and Ambessa. FLY grabs Annie to finish out the first set of champions selected.
During the 2nd ban phase, Kai’Sa, Renekton, Lucian, and Karma are all banned.
Back to champion selection, FLY finishes their turn by picking Volibear. C9 decides on Ezreal and Alistar to round out their comp. Last pick to FLY and they go with Jhin. C9’s team is much more skirmish/pick heavy, while FLY has decided to go for strong dives with long-range follow-up.
Team comps are: C9 – Ambessa (top), Vi (jungle), Taliyah (mid), Ezreal (bot), Alistar(support) vs FLY – Volibear (top), Naafiri (jungle), Annie (mid), Jhin (bot), Rumble (support).
Early Game Highlights: FLY Trolls C9
The game starts out with FLY invading C9’s red side bot jungle. They bully Blaber out and take both Raptors and Red Buff.
Bwipo attempts to proxy the top lane but is chased away by Blaber and Thanatos. Even though he does make it back to the lane, he is eventually killed by Thanatos for the First Blood of the game. Since Blaber got assist gold, this mitigates some of the damage that losing his Raptors and Red Buff had on his gold and experience generation.
FLY takes the 1st Drake (Ocean) uncontested.
C9 starts up the Voidgrubs. FLY considers trying to interfere, but they get pushed away. C9 takes all 3 Grubs. FLY instead head bot lane to try and gank Thanatos, but he avoids it by Flashing to safety.
Early Game ends with C9 slightly ahead in gold (200) but FLY ahead in farm.
Mid Game Highlights: FLY Pull Ahead Considerably
As FLY starts to gather around the 2nd Drake (Cloud), Blaber Blast Cones into the Dragon Pit and starts up the objective. He’s spotted and has to dash out of the Pit. Both teams dance around the objective until Vulcan gets a little too close and Quad drops Tibbers on him, starting the fight.
Zven almost immediately takes out Busio. Inspired dives into the backline of C9, dealing heavy damage to Zven. This allows Massu to Flash forward and kill him, and then kill Vulcan. With the rest of C9 scattering, Massu uses Curtain Call and hits Loki with 2 shots. This allows Quad to finish him off.  Fight ends 3-1 for FLY.
After the fight, Inspired heads to the Drake to start it back up. In Bot Lane, Thanatos chunks down Bwipo, who escapes through Bot River. Thanatos heads up to try and stop Inspired, but Busio is there, and Bwipo comes in from behind.
Thanatos is jumped on and killed by Inspired as the rest of C9 make their way over. Busio drops his Equalizer in their path, halting their advance. Blaber takes a little too much damage and dies to Massu. At the same time, FLY secures the Drake.
FLY secure Rift Herald uncontested. The game then enters a long period of farming
Loki thinks that he has caught Quad out, but it turns out that he was the one in trouble. After taking some initial damage, Quad Flashes on top of Loki and drops a StunTibbers on him. This allows Inspired, who was nearby, the time to roam up and jump on Loki as he tries to flee and kill him.
FLY starts up the 3rd Drake (Infernal). Blaber tries to Steal it, but it is secured by Inspired. They are now on Soul Point. Mid Game ends with FLY ahead in gold by 1.4k, but C9 ahead in farm.
Late Game Highlights: C9 Make Some Bad Moves
After FLY takes the Drake, they engage on top of C9, who were hovering around. Most of C9 get away, but Loki, who Teleported in after respawning for some reason, dies to Quad.
Thanatos takes the 1st Turret of the game in Top Lane, but Zven walks into 3 members of FLY in Red Side Bot Jungle and dies to Busio. FLY takes Atakhan uncontested off this kill.
Thanatos runs into Quad and Inspired in the Red Side Top Jungle. He almost kills Quad but gets snipped down by Massu’s Curtain Call. Blaber, who came over to try and help, then gets chased down by Inspired and Busio and dies (Busio gets credit).
As both teams start to set up around
As both teams start to set up around the 4th Drake, Vulcan walks into 3 members of FLY. He dies to Massu. FLY continues to pursue C9, with Inspired diving onto Zven. He dies to Bwipo. At the same time, Busio kills Loki. Inspired then jumps onto Blaber, getting him low enough, to Tibbers manages to land a killing blow for Quad. Fight goes 4-0 for FLY.
Instead of heading towards the Drake, FLY decides to march down into C9’s base. They take the Outer Mid Turret, Base Mid Turret, and Mid Inhibitor before anyone from C9 tries to stop them. Thanatos eventually attempts to take out someone, but he dies to Massu. Though Vulcan respawns, he’s unable to stop FLY from ending the game.
Post Game Analysis: From Invasion to Victory
FLY ends the game at 25:17 with a gold lead of 8.9k. The final score was 15-2 for FLY. Starting from the beginning, C9 was completely outplayed by FLY. It started with Inspired invading and taking Blaber’s Raptor and Red Buff, and just snowballed from there.
While they did manage to get a kill early on Bwipo, he wasted so much of their time that it was only a rather pyrrhic victory. The only other kill that C9 got was against Busio, and they expended so much of their resources to kill him that the carries of FLY were able to fight in relative safety.
Ultimately, this was a bad start to the series for C9. They still have the potential to win, but they need to collect themselves and adapt better to setbacks. Also, they need to stop getting caught out.
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 the 3rd dragon killed.
Late Game: Any time after mid-game.
