TL;DW – LTA North Edition: C9 Completely Outclassed by FLY in Game 2

Casseopia, Yone, Jayce, Varus, Azir, and Gwen were banned out to start with.

Xin Zhao was picked first by C9.  Neeko and Pantheon are taken by FLY.  C9 then goes with Lucian and Milio.  FLY grab Kai’Sa before the 2^nd ban phase.

Top and Mid Lanes targeted during the 2^nd ban phase as Gnar, Sion, Galio, and Ryze are taken out.

FLY restarts champion selection by picking Renekton.  C9 selects Ornn and Ahri.  FLY closes things out by taking Sylas.  Both teams have strong engagement and team fighting capabilities.

Team comps are: C9 – Ornn (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Ahri (mid), Lucian (bot), Milio (support) vs FLY – Renekton (top), Pantheon (jungle), Sylas (mid), Kai’Sa (bot), Neeko (support).

Early Game Highlights: A Little Bit of Blood

There’s a lot of skirmishing, but otherwise, the start of the game is uneventful.

Blaber starts up the 1^st Drake (Ocean), slowly whittling it down.  Unfortunately for him, it takes so much time that Inspired is able to come in and Steals it from him.  Blaber then gets chased down and killed by Quad for 1^st Blood of the game.

Blaber starts up Voidgrubs, but FLY comes in and pushes him off them.  He does manage to secure 1, while FLY gets the other 2.  Bwipo engages with Thanatos in Bot Lane.  When Thanatos tries to use Call of the Forge God, Bwipo stuns him.  Inspired then arrives with Grand Starfall and Steals the kill.

Early Game ends with FLY ahead in gold by 1.4k, but C9 ahead in farm.

Mid Game Highlights: FLY Starting to Get out of Hand

Zven tries to go in on Massu, but Busio counter-engages.  Zven and Vulcan start backing off, but Blaber reengages with Busio.  He gets Stunned by Inspired and is forced to pop Crescent Guard and retreat.  Off this exchange, Inspired takes the 2^nd Drake (Infernal) uncontested.

Thanatos almost takes out Bwipo, but he gets away.  Inspired then Grand Starfall’s into Bot Lane and helps Bwipo to kill Thanatos.  FLY then take the C9’s Outer Bot Turret for 1^st Turret of the Game.

C9 start up Void Heral,d but FLY manage to push them off the objective by killing Blaber (Busio gets the credit) and then take Shelly for themselves.

Busio dives in with Pop Blossom and knocks up 2 members of C9 in Mid Lane.  After a bit of fighting, Blaber ends up going down to Massu.  Thanatos jumps onto Bwipo but ends up dying to Quad.  Fight ends 2-0 for FLY, who immediately rotates down and takes the 3^rd Drake (Cloud) uncontested.  They are now on Soul Point.

Mid game ends with FLY retaining the gold lead (now 6k) and now taking the farm lead as well.

Late Game Highlights: C9 Are Simply Outmatched

Bwipo dives C9’s Bot Lane under their Outer Mid Turret.  The rest of FLY immediately collapses with him.  Vulcan dies to Inspired, and Zven dies to Bwipo.  FLY then drop Herald Mid and use it to take out the Outer Mid Turret.  They slam Shelly into the Inner Mid Turret as well, but leave immediately afterwards.

FLY start up Atakhan almost on spawn and take it completely uncontested.

Both teams set up around the 4^th Drake.  C9 starts it up almost on spawn.  FLY engages when the Drake is around Half Health.  Inspired is almost killed by Busio comes in with a massive Pop Blossom, and C9 starts falling like dominoes.

First, Blaber dies to Bwipo, then Vulcan to Quad, followed by Thanatos to Bwipo, Zven to Quad, and finally, after a chase through Blue Side Top Jungle, Loki dies to Bwipo.  In the middle of all this, Inspired secures the Drake.  FLY wins the fight 5-0 and claims Cloud Soul.

Bwipo fights Zven, Blaber, and Loki 1v3, forcing them all into their base.  He follows and almost dies, but manages to get out.  Zven and Loki are so low that Quad is able to skill them by casually Stealing Thanatos’ Ultimate and using it on them from a distance.

While this is happening, the rest of FLY takes Baron.  They then use the Buff to take Base Mid Turret, Base Top Turret, Mid Inhibitor, and Top Inhibitor.

As FLY marches down Bot Lane, taking structures as they go, Bwipo dives onto Thanatos.  The rest of FLY converge, and he dies to Massu.  FLY keep C9 back as minions take out the Bot Inhibitor.  They then turn their attention to the Nexus Turrets.  As the first Turret falls, someone pauses the game.  It seems that Busio DCed.

As the game starts back up again, Zven manages to kill Quad (the 1^st kill for C9 this entire game).  This, however, provides no benefit for C9 as the other Turret goes down, followed by Loki (to Massu), Blaber (to Bwipo), and Zven (to Massu).  Massu dies to the Fountain Laser, but FLY ends the game immediately after.

Post Game Analysis: LTA North Has Its New Top Team

FLY ends the game at 27:11 with a gold lead of 18.3k.  The final score was 20-2 for FLY.  There’s no other way to say this: FLY completely owned C9.  From beginning to end, they dominated.  The only thing close to an “opening” they gave C9 was Voidgrubs, but that didn’t matter in the end because C9 weren’t even able to take a single turret.

This was nothing short of calculated slaughter.  FLY clearly prepared for this series.  I’m not sure that there was anything C9 could have actually done to stop them once the game started.  With this win, FLY secured the first seed, as well as securing their position as LTA North’s top team.

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 3^rd dragon killed.

Late Game: Any time after mid-game.