TrevorJ
2017-06-13 06:17:18
Longzhu Gaming’s debut in the LCK turned the hype for their new roster filled with top 10 KR solo queue players up to a fever pitch.
Their addition of mechanically talented players like Kim “Khan” Dong-ha, Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan and Gwak “Bdd” Bo-seong coasted them to a 2-0 start in the first week of play.
Their reliance on flashy mechanics and passive early games gave Longzhu the extra “oomph” as Papa Smithy dubbed it on the LCK broadcast that increased the hype around them — they’re already on the doorstep of greatness.
Despite this I still felt skeptical and before I go on a rant about their flaws, I want to say that week two proved Longzhu are legit.
With that preface, both of their week two matchups made it glaringly obvious that LZ were a one dimensional team that puts far too many eggs in the “outplay” basket.
Veteran support GorillA led the team on his signature Thresh through the series. (2017, Inven Flickr)LZ's ability to win based off mechanically outplaying their opponents was put to the test in their first match of week two against reigned world champions SK Telecom.
Contrary to the narrative of new carry players, Longzhu’s surprise victory in game one was commanded by their veteran bot lane Kim “PraY” Jong-in and Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon. Longzhu’s conservative draft was based around enabling Cuzz to safely farm on Kha’Zix and then create picks later on, but the duo lane took it into their own hands.
Securing first blood with a solo kill and another one to follow at 12 minutes set the pace for LZ, freeing up GorillA to roam. In the first of many scrapy brawls in the series, GorillA managed to turn a fight at Rift Herald allowing LZ to secure it and take complete control of the game.
Despite some resilience, LZ slowly choked SKT out by playing cohesively as a team led by GorillA’s playmaking Thresh. The key to Longzhu’s victory was putting emphasis on roam priority and creating a safety net to stop SKT from making aggressive moves in the early game.
Blank is subbed in for Game 2 against Longzhu (2017; OGN Stream)
SK Telecom realized LZ’s strategy to beat them and chose to sub in Kang “Blank” Sun-gu who is capable of thriving in a more conservatively paced game. Overall, SKT went for an adaptive draft flexing Gragas jungle while Longzhu went for an obscure Cassiopeia/Zed solo lane duo to pair with their core of Kha’Zix/Ashe/Thresh from last game.
Subsequently, Lee “Faker” Sang-Hyeok and Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon built defensively on Taliyah and Kennen respectively which again gave priority to LZ early on. After they’d built for those matchups, Longzhu sneakily swapped lanes and because of the mismatch maintained control of the game until around the 20 minute mark.
By then, without the prior snowball of Pray and GorillA solo killing bot, Longzhu was capable of losing fights and SKT slowly started to bully them with superior synergy.
That culminated in SKT breaking open the game with a mid game fight at 28 minutes by catching GorillA with vision in LZ’s jungle and then translating that into a baron at 30 minutes.
Blank’s Gragas was the clear factor that turned the tables for SKT, opening up itemization like Locket against the assassins and providing utility with his kit solved all of their previous problems.
Game 3 played to the same tune when Longzhu left up Elise and allowed SKT to draft three pushing lanes, which freed Blank to take over again.
[Embed video of Blank invading Longzhu’s Blue]
Blank has the opportunity to start the game by going from his red to Longzhu’s blue because SKT’s bottom side of the map shoves early. This play encapsulates how they won the game: by bullying out Cuzz and winning through map control.
Despite GorillA repeating his immaculate performance on Thresh and their solo laners keeping skirmishes close, LZ found themselves down 4-0 in turrets at 20 minutes. The game became organized chaos where each team continually skirmished and found picks, but during those fights Longzhu was flailing while SKT was calculating their moves.
This series highlights how cerebral of a team SKT is and that LZ are clearly lacking some of that element, which can be explored more in their series against Jin Air. If you didn’t see the VOD for this game I recommend it as it’s hard to describe how close this game was despite SKT maintaining a gold lead for 44 consecutive minutes.
Longzhu’s second match of the week against Jin Air further highlighted their one dimensional playstyle and flaws that the new roster has. In the first game, they drafted a familiar Kha’Zix composition with pushing lanes that allowed them to turtle until mid game skirmishes.
While Jin Air’s Eom “UmTi” Seong-hyeon controlled the early game with multiple successful ganks, the gold stayed even until around 20 minutes when LZ saw their chance to strike.
At 26 minutes Longzhu took a fight over Ocean drake where BDD decimates Jin Air with LeBlanc and the snowball begins rolling.
Longzhu’s mid laner Bdd has become a premier LCK prospect (2017; inven flickr)
LZ secured their first gold lead of the game with that fight which led to a Baron and accelerated 12k gold lead over the next 14 minutes on their path to victory.
Although they won the game, LZ were severely outmaneuvered in macro-strategy during the first 20 minutes of the game, teetering on losing control from inexperience.
Seeing that vulnerability, Jin Air started the second game with an obscure level one that netted them first blood for UmTi against an unsuspecting Cuzz. After a couple kills had been traded bot lane, UmTi takes his first blood lead down there to transitions it into a global lead for his team by securing a kill and first turret gold.
Jin Air doesn’t lose control of the gold lead the entire game and with less firepower available because of subbing in Kim “Rascal” Kwang-hee to relieve Khan, Longzhu can’t help but slowly lose the game.
Game 3 (Khan subbed back in) is the closest of the series, but is again commanded by Jin Air backed with a superior draft and team strategy. Securing Kled and Galio with a carry jungler like Graves allowed UmTi to freely invade top side in the early portion of the game.
This culminated in a 3v3 top side at 16:45 that Jin Air set up perfectly for and win as a result, picking up the gold lead and not losing it for the rest of the game.
Rift Kit representation of Jin Air’s set-up for their game turning top side play (rift kit)
Shortly after, Jin Air rotates bot side and forces another fight with the combo of Kled/Galio to secure the outer ring of turrets. Longzhu again failed to keep up in skirmishes when behind, and without a lead, proved that they can be dismantled through a macro-focused strategy.
Even if LZ have the mechanics to put themselves within striking distance of Korea’s elite, they’ll never land a solid punch without shoring up their macro shortages.
It’s important to highlight how the mid priority Lee “Kuzan” Seong-hyeok applied in Jin Air’s two victories enabled the constant proactive vision placement and movements they made. In their loss against SKT, Longzhu also had to keep up with an intelligent, veteran mid laner who knows how to control a game at his own pace.
Both of the organizations behind them are also equipped with a deep coaching staff that implements adaptations game-by-game seamlessly and won’t be rattled by a team with braun like Longzhu. If LZ wishes to break the ranks of LCK, then they’ll need to develop other win conditions that aren’t drafting laners that can protect Cuzz in the jungle and skirmish well. If the coin flip that early game skirmishes doesn’t go in their favor Longzhu falls behind in gold and is unable to achieve their one win condition: stall until we can outplay you.
That strategy will let LZ have a field day with a solid 70% of the competition in LCK based on raw mechanics, but the best of the best in Korea will just slowly squeeze the life out of them at the taste of an early gold advantage.
Developing a foundation for their macro game and team synergy is going to be vital if Longzhu wants to break the final wall and for once cash in on the cacophony of hype that surrounds their roster.
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Sources: eswiki, inven flickr, rift kit, kenzi’s LCK flickr, OGN/SpoTV streams
