EDIT: Bears disbanded, so I wonder if the open slots will increase?
Over the first three weeks, TPA and TPS proved they were extremely dominant, with TPA only losing one game to You Can't Stop Me and TPS going undefeated. As a result, the teams worked off-the-wall strategies and picks to test them in week four. From this, our featured match arises.
Now, ahq is considered a top team in the region. They placed very well in GPL, but did not make it into qualifiers for SEA for—reasons. But because TPA has secured their slot in both GPL Season 2 and LNL Season 1, they ran a very interesting composition. And while it wasn't perfectly executed, it's a pretty rich environment in which to discuss buffs and support summoner spells, which are topics I've been wanting to explore for a while.
Picks and bans
Lane speculation
Match ticker
What actually happened
Bonus discussion on support summoners
Picks and Bans
ahq bans: Corki, Orianna, Vi
TPA first picks Fiddlesticks.
TPA Lineup: Shyvana, Jarvan IV, Jax, Nidalee, Fiddlesticks
ahq Lineup: Renekton, Lee Sin, Kayle, Ezreal, Thresh
Lane Speculation:
I find all of these matchups very clever, but we're starting with top. Shyvana and Renekton are similar champions in their function, but they go about it different ways. TPA obviously picked Shy to answer Renekton. Both these champions are strong early. They can both easily clear waves, Renekton with his Slice and Dice and Shy with Burnout. Pushing out, though, is risky for Shy with Renekton's stun, but she can answer his trades in damage, with higher base values and better scaling, as well as her passive resistances. Their ults are also similar, with the goal to get into the middle of the team, be extremely tanky (Renekton with increased health, and Shy with increased resistances), and disrupt. I give this matchup to Shyvana because of her early base damages and ability to answer clear, but I'd say it's pretty even, and Renekton is better at performing his late game function than Shy. Elobuff, by the way, gives Shy a 69% win rate over Renekton. This was a smart pick by TPA.
On the other side, this was a smart answer by ahq. While Kayle probably won't do well against Jax in lane, she can eliminate some of his single target damage late game. She's one of the higher success rates versus Jax for this reason. She can also push the wave onto him better than many other champions. Though if she gets caught by Jax, which will not be difficult with his gap closer, she should be easier to burst down. Their ultimates are also somewhat similar, though Jax's only works on himself. I will give this lane to Jax, but she was chosen to mitigate late game impact in duels for split push or in team fight assassinations. Elobuff gives
AP Kayle a 60% win rate over Bruiser Jax.
The Thresh pick into this team is difficult for me to understand. Thresh was chosen after TPA had already shown Fiddlesticks, Jarvan IV, and Jax. JIV and Jax are champions you cannot really get picks on, and Fiddlesticks will make laning for Thresh extremely difficult in standard lanes, as Fiddlesticks will push against him, and he'll lose impact, and Thresh will not get much use in a 2v1 situation. The Thresh pick signaled to TPA that they could easily go through with their strategy. The Nidalee pick was the moment the team's potential as a siege team shone through. Fiddlesticks will clear waves, Nidalee will force the enemy off objectives, and Jarvan and Jax bruisers will follow up spears with isolation, heavy damage, and high dive potential. The addition of the Shyvana cemented this. But in lane, Nidalee will be somewhat weak, which is why she is relying on Fiddles to shove her lane and discourage engagements. But again, I feel like Nidalee and Ezreal serve similar purposes to poke. A lot of damage is loaded onto their respective qs. I will give this lane to TPA, because I feel Nidalee is safe after level six, and Fiddles will discourage Thresh engage.
This jungle matchup was in last week's feature, and it's probably the most standard matchup in this game. Both are good at diving, though JIV will do more early damage, and Lee Sin is more mobile. There's not much else to say about this. Jarvan will also clear camps faster.
Desired matchups for TPA are as listed, but because they ended up taking three smites—which is the interesting thing about this composition and further establishes it as an objective-oriented composition—they will likely want to place the duo lane mid so Nidalee and Fiddlesticks can help Jarvan contest buffs and dragons. I predict Fiddles starting slightly more than the standard five wards and relying on Nidalee's heal to sustain, picking up maybe a mana pot to shove lane. This will allow him to secure vision on multiple buffs for the team to challenge with their three smites. They can then shove lane and wreak havoc on Lee Sin's jungle, taking camps whenever smite is up. If he attempts to challenge, Fiddles can fear him, and Nidalee spear will force him away. Shyvana will be happiest top versus Renekton because of her high mobility and the long lane. Jax will go bottom in case of 2v1. But TPA would also be happy with the duo mid and Jax bottom against Kayle. Kayle is easier to dive in a 2v1 situation, but Jax will be able to farm better. Thresh will struggle either way.
ahq would be much happier seeing Renekton against Jax, which is the predominant counter. Both champions will do a lot for their teams late, but if Renekton takes the advantage, he can help close out the game before Jax gets caught up. In addition, Kayle can do well against Shyvana, since Shy has no real gap close pre level six, and she can kite Shyvana with her Reckoning and get free damage. Kayle can also answer the push and can counter Shy's potential dive with her ultimate. Finally, Kayle can shred through the extra resistances Shy brings. 2v2 is also the best option for Thresh, even if he gets pushed on.
If TPA gets their matchups, Lee Sin will want to focus the Renekton vs Shyvana lane, as Renekton's stun will allow for lockdown. Lee Sin will be able to gank the Nidalee and Fiddlesticks lane if they're pushed forward. Kayle and Jax will be almost impossible. Jarvan, however, can get an advantage for Jax in that lane early before Kayle has an ultimate if she pushes forward. In general, his lanes don't bring much crowd control, so that's his best lane to gank. Otherwise, the team's strategy is on forcing objectives. But he should be mindful of Lee's high gank potential and be primed for counterganks.
If ahq gets their lanes, Lee is happy to gank for Renekton and pressure that lane against Jax over and over. This, unfortunately, gives the devastating objective control compostion free reign over dragon, but if Lee and Rene can take a bunch of turrets top in exchange, it's definitely worth it. The brilliance of this strategy is that it will have to pull Jarvan IV top, negating some of TPA's strategy, but if both junglers and top laners are top, TPA will still have two smites and get free buffs and dragons in the lower jungle. Also, Lee Sin can gank Fiddlesticks, as he has low mobility and can get locked down by Thresh. The best method for countering TPA's strategy is probably to gank Fiddlesticks when dragon is in play, hope that Jarvan IV is top to support Jax, and force a smite war with Nidalee, which they might lose if they're down two men.
1:30 Both Shy and Jax gather top.
1:40 Kayle spotted mid, Jax heads down.
1:50 Because of ahq's stronger level 1, they invade; Jarvan IV trades red top, and Nidalee and Fiddles attempt to challenge Lee Sin's smite, but he still gets the buff...
2:40 Kayle spotted heading bottom, Jax continues following; at this point, Rene starts farming top, and both duo lanes are mid (Fiddles spotted by red ward sent Ez and Thresh mid and Kayle bottom).
2:57 With all smites on the map down, Lee Sin is free to take his own blue buff. Jarvan gets his as well.
3:13 Jarvan IV ganks Thresh and Ez mid, securing FB for Fiddlesticks, but Lee counterganks and kills JIV.
4:20 Lee shows top, forcing Shy back while turret takes damage and they proxy farm.
5:58 Lee is top again, forcing Shy to flash.
6:24 While Lee and Rene continue pressuring the turret, Jarvan attempt so gank bottom, just as Kayle gets six, resulting in only a flash, no kill, and Jarvan forced to back.
7ish Lee and Ren get first turret top.
8:17 Both junglers succeed in getting their own red buffs uncontested. Jarvan also takes blue for himself. Lee attempts blue invade, but mistimes, and Jarvan has already taken it.
8:57 The pressure of three smites on the bottom blue buff forces Kayle away from it. Fiddles takes it to continue pressuring midlane waves.
9:23 Because TPA's smites were all used to secure buffs, and Renekton came bottom, ahq gets the first dragon.
10:54 Kayle and Renekton shove out lanes and back, but then go back to their lanes and randomly decided to swap after Jax and Shy have shoved the lanes to tower, getting free damage while Kayle and Renekton lose exp. Meanwhile, GreenTea makes a case for the title of Worst Thresh Internationally in the frozen mid lane. Lee pulled bottom to answer Jax's shove.
12:19 Lee Sin forced top to stop Shy's push after Kayle backs, having been shoved out.
13:19 Rene has been aimlessly wandering while Jax free farms. After swap, he was a level ahead of Jax, but Jax managed to pass him by one level in this time period.
15:30 Lee and Renekton dive Jax, but Jax stays safe with ult pop, and Renekton forced out. This brings JIV, Nid, and Fiddlesticks bottom for a countergank, where Rene dies.
15:53 Fiddle ult manages to force Ezreal and Thresh away from tower, saving it.
16:30 In first real fight, TPA's bruisers zone out everything mid, but take tower damage from dive, and are forced away by Renekton. Trade 1-1. ahq gets second drag, but TPA gets bottom turret, top turret, and mid at this point. I'd say Jax getting bottom turret in exchange for the dragon here is the point where TPA wins.
18:38 TPA contest another buff; this one red, to Nidalee.
19:25 Jarvan IV engages Lee, who safeguards to a ward inside Fiddles ult and dies away from his team—on the other side of the Cata. Fiddles caught out, but Shy, who was dueling Renekton top, gets to the fight before her opposite, and they manage to kill Thresh and force Ez back.
23:30 ahq pushed back on all sides of the map, JIV gets free drag by himself.
25:25 ahq's red goes to Nidalee again
27:20 Jax is hooked over wall, fight goes 2-1 in favor of TPA, demonstrating why it's bad to hard engage face first into their team.
27:40 TPA secures second tier mid and bottom turrets they've been carefully chipping at.
29:42 Another dragon for TPA.
30:22 Archie's monster Shyvana pulls four members of ahq top and nearly kills two of them, but doesn't die. Jax continues shoving bottom. He peels off for ahq's blue. Their jungle is firmly TPA's after this play.
32:40 Jax, JIV, and Fiddles kill Baron while Nidalee attempts to zone ahq; she fail pounces and has to burn flash, but gets out. Lee trapped in pit, but can't contest three smites, dies. Everyone in the pit uses their leaps to push onto ahq, resulting in Thresh's death.
33:42 TPA able to dive past second tier top turret and kill tanky as fuck Renekton.
40:22 Nidalee lands a spear on Ezreal while Baron is being taken. When the fight starts, ahq, gets decimated by Shy, Jax, and Jarvan's dive. Nidalee cleans up. The game ends.
Champion select suggested this would be a very interesting game if TPA could execute their composition—only they didn't. I will give early game execution, exempting the lane secures, up to the point where Kayle and Renekton switch to ahq. Lee Sin acknowledged that the lower half of the map's objectives were not worth contesting with three smites and the siege potential of Fiddles and Nidalee. So he went top, ganked Shy over and over, and got a really early top turret.
Also, GreenTea's Thresh was bad. Fiddlesticks didn't shove the lane. He and Nidalee froze it. And I have never seen so many whiffed Death Sentences in professional play.
The beginning of the game was very interesting. Because of the weakness of TPA's champions early, they knew there would be a red buff invade, despite three smites, so Fiddles only warded that area, and Jarvan felt safe to take ahq's red freely. When Fiddlesticks and Nidalee failed to take the red buff—this is why they aren't junglers—they burned all smites and couldn't try to steal Lee Sin's blue buff. This gave ahq the early advantage, and Lee Sin continued to play smart. Can I say Naz is good? He's good.
Oh wait. The safeguard into Fiddles ult, away from his team. Goddamnit, Naz. You're making me look bad.
Nidalee and Fiddlesticks failed to push onto Ezreal and Thresh at all, and Lee Sin could have been farming his jungle, but he assumed that everything would be cleared from him, and he split lane farm instead. When everyone burned their smites on buff contests, he went for easy dragons. Jarvan IV didn't pressure Jax's early advantage over Kayle, and instead wasted time sitting in a bush until she got level six.
Based on the early game, TPA should have lost. Then Kayle and Renekton switched at an extremely awkward time, and Kayle was a level behind Shyvana, who had been farming top all game. So though the matchup should have been favorable, Kayle got forced back and fell more behind. Meanwhile, instead of pressuring his level advantage on Jax, Renekton did—something for two minutes. And then Jax passed him and he couldn't stay in lane either.
After that, TPA took advantage of their innovations a bit better, as they finally took down all first tier turrets when Lee went for dragon. That made the map theirs. They secured every buff and every dragon from that point forward. Without the pressure of the turrets, ahq could not contest anything. Then, because TPA had the late game power of Jax, Nidalee, Fiddlesticks, and Shyvana over ahq's single late game answer of Kayle, TPA could easily shove waves into their base for as long as they wanted until they lured them out for barons. Sure, TPA could have finished the game earlier and more smoothly with the amount of dive they had—they won the few dives they did undertake—but they didn't have to, so they played an ultra safe game, got the good Nid spear, and wrecked ahq for a victory.
The brilliance of the champions TPA chose are in the heavy front line to keep Nidalee safe. Nidalee can heal up any damage and keep chucking spears. They don't really ever have to engage, but Shyvana and Jax will do damage while just building tanky, so they can. And the shred from Nidalee traps and Jarvan's Dragon Strike will synergize with the entire composition to increase damage. They can shove to tower and not worry about out-scaling. If they really wanted to, they could also dive on a team with a more threatening late game.
Is this composition unstoppable?
Well, no. TPA also banned smart. Gragas and Zyra have the most powerful disengages in the game, and they were prime bans. In addition, Shen can seriously disrupt a dive, even if Jax and Shy will make quick work of him in lane.
In addition, I feel like multiple damage threats will wreck this strategy. An assassin or a Tristana in place of Ezreal would still be able to get to Nidalee and force TPA to back off. The biggest issue, of course, is how completely unbalanced Jax is. He makes this composition really strong and limits options for countering it. They picked a Renekton instead of a damage threat, and then they didn't even get to pressure the matchup!
Bonus discussion on support summoners
Uhhh. Don't worry. I'll get to the TP.
If it's so good, why don't people run three smites all the time? Well, it's a very niche strategy based on the champions they picked. Obviously, Shy and Jax ran Ignite because those are good spells for them to run. They can get kills in lane and they'll be in range to throw it down and tip the scales. If you don't take ignite, and the enemy laner does, it's a terrible idea to engage them, even if you should theoretically win the matchup. The bonus of the ignite will buff the enemy with the appropriate mastery and deal the extra true damage.
Marskmen don't run ignite because it's safer to run barrier, and their job is to be safe until they're fully built—then stay safe while doing sustained damage. Barrier also counters ignite, so if the enemy marksman runs barrier, and you run ignite, they'll win. Also, your support can take it. Which brings me to my point, finally.
These are your standard bottom lane summoners. Let me first say that ignite is useless here. AP Nidalees don't run it because they don't get kills until late, and usually they use their spears to snipe when the enemy is running out of ignite range anyway. So Fiddles shouldn't bring it either.
Exhaust was useless this game because Kayle is the only hyper carry, and her damage is sustained, so it's a tough call. Exhaust could have been okay, but they were relying on three bruisers being able to zone her out. It's bad to bring for just Ezreal.
Which removes the viable and necessary support summoners for Fiddlesticks, but what about Nidalee? A lot of AP Nidalees take barrier mid lane, but the enemy team had pretty much zero burst damage, and Nidalees take it for long range burst in the mid lane. In terms of cleanse, we're talking Renekton and Thresh, and if they get to her, her entire team is fucking up their shit.
So when you burn through that check list, you're left with either summoners that are sort of good or something you can experiment with: namely smite and teleport. In my opinion, they should be considered standard support summoners if ignite and exhaust are. Exhaust was used less than Cleanse in the world championships, and maybe two players reliably picked Cleanse (Piglet and Uzi, who made it to the finals, if you're curious). Ignite makes sense to get extra damage and secure kills for the AD carry, but you run the risk of feeding everything to the support, and you don't really want that. So Smite, which will give you more situation objective control, and Teleport, which is great on someone like Fiddlesticks when he first gets his ultimate to gasp gank other lanes and turn fights.
Ultimately, it comes down to, if your other choices are just mediocre, why the fuck not? This is a great area to experiment with in competitive play because it's actually balanced and nothing is straight up better than everything else in the game.
Now. If only Riot could figure the rest of it out.
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