Picks and Bans: Game 1 SK Telecom T1 vs Origen

There is a lot to take into account looking at both teams heading into this game. First things first, Gragas is disabled for the remainder of Worlds. This doesn't affect either team a huge amount since both junglers are primarily Elise/Reksai focused and can both play Lee Sin and Evelynn to some degree, although it could still affect Amazing on Origen a little bit, given he's had some success on that Champion at Worlds. We also have to mention the red side emphasis on keeping both Mordekaiser and Gangplank out of the game. For the majority of Worlds the responsibility of banning these champions has fallen to red side, but with the fact that Gragas is no longer available and Origen being red side for this game, the bans could be tailored to ban the junglers or.mid laners, keeping Eazyhoon down. MaRin has played Fiora excellently which throws doubt over whether or not sOAZ would be able to play Darius into him.

The reason leaving such high priority picks open is a possibility is because both teams are extremely good with Kalista or Lulu. Leaving multiple powerful champions available from redside and tailoring your bans to stop specific comfort champions from going through is very advantageous considering that blue side can only pick 1 'overpowered' champion in their first rotation. If Origen were to ban Azir, Elise and Fiora, SKT could first pick the Rek’sai, which would in turn give Kalista and Lulu or Gangplank and Kalista. The question then becomes what SKT is willing to trade. We know they've banned Mordekaiser on blue side, so does this mean they will first pick the Gangplank if it's up? Does MaRin play Gangplank at all? We have seen that soaz is very capable of playing the pirate when it’s available. We’ve not even scratched the surface when it comes to options so lets get to the picks and bans:

Bans

SKT: Tahm Kench, Mordekaiser, Gangplank

Origen: Elise, Rek’Sai, Lulu.

I really like the bans from both sides and it shows how SKT immediately adapted to OG’s banning style. First ban - Tahm Kench. This ban basically shows how much concern there is with Tahm Kench. His ability to save an ally in danger is unparalleled and quite frankly, very annoying to deal with. If he stays on top of his team’s AD carry it becomes almost impossible to focus the enemy marksman down unless you manage to kill Tahm Kench.

While it sounds easy to just kill the support, Tahm is different because the passive on his 'Thick Skin' ability basically gives him a second health bar if timed properly, and taking him down takes much longer than it should. So far, we’ve not really seen an answer to a support Tahm Kench in the bottom lane, so often it’s better just to get him out of the way. This also shows that SKT has no intention of first picking the toad, which leads us to think that they’re aiming for either Elise, Kalista or Lulu. Watching all of SKT’s games, we can safely say they’re looking for the Elise or Rek’Sai early since in every game, except their game against H2K, they have had a jungle pick in the first rotation (the game against H2K was a first rotation red side Darius/Kalista). Therefore, it’s up to Origen whether or not they wish to test the depth of Bengi’s champion pool post Gragas disable (which Bengi has played once against Ahq).

Bengi has played 6 total Elise games prior to facing Origen, and in every game it was a first rotation Elise (5 blue side 1st picks and once red side 1st rotation). Their past displays have shown that they’re perfectly fine keeping Kalista up for the enemy team as long as they themselves get one of the top tier junglers in the tournament. To avoid giving Bengi one of his most successful champions, Origen decide to ban Elise first. This signals to SKT that they’re seeking to trade specific picks and are possibly going to leave GP and Mordekaiser unbanned from their end. Origen has done this before, in their first game vs KT Rolster, when on the red side they target banned Lulu and Azir against Nagne. sOAZ is a very good Gangplank player, and the way GP’s ultimate works means it can be considered a direct counter to Mordekaiser. Since Origen had last ban possibility, if KTR did not ban Mordekaiser and first pick it for themselves, Origen would immediately counter with the Gangplank.

If KTR would ban the Gangplank, Origen would simply deny KTR Mordekaiser in form of a ban. This is slightly risky if the enemy team knows how to play GP for themselves, but considering how many times GP is banned in scrims and unavailable for teams to practice, it’s not entirely unreasonable to think most players aren't as comfortable first picking them over more commonly contested champions such as Elise. However in this instance there is no indication that MaRin is capable of playing Gangplank nor of Bang being able to play Mordekaiser.

SKT doesn’t take the bait and decide to ban out Mordekaiser and Gangplank for themselves instead of attempting to deal with either. At first it would have seemed like a good idea for SKT to continue the jungle bans to test Amazing’s Champion pool as well, but by not banning the Rek’Sai themselves, they leave the choice up for Origen to take, which in turn would allow SKT to guarantee themselves a power pick. We must not forget that it is Easyhoon playing instead of Faker. This changes how picks and bans work against SKT because although you really can’t ban out Faker, you can lower the impact of Easyhoon in games by banning out the Azir he's famed for. Easyhoon is simply too good of an Azir player to leave it up without getting a significant power pick in return. When you add the fact that Lulu, Kalista, Rek’Sai and Fiora are still on the table, Origen has a very tough choice to make since they only have two remaining bans and five ban-worthy champions on the side of SKT.

To cover the widest spectrum possible on OG’s side, they decide to ban out the Rek’sai and Lulu. Knowing that Gragas is disabled and the first ban is on Elise, you almost have to ban out Rek’Sai as well. The main reason is that in this meta, Elise/Rek’Sai and Gragas are considered the main 3 junglers. Without access to any of them, we’d have to see teams default to Evelynn (which hasn’t really been all that successful so far at Worlds) or Lee Sin (who prior to this series had a 50% win rate and none of the presence of Elise early game).

The Lulu ban is pretty standard against SKT. They play around Lulu’s two item spike really well, rotating in between lanes and using her speed-up from whimsey to run down opponents in a modified pick composition that really only they have played this year. This also removes the possibility of a Lulu Flex between top or mid. In addition to this modified pick composition, Lulu has been used as an ADC empowering champion, allowing late-game hyper-carries like Tristana or Jinx to manuever around teamfights and get repeated resets.

Really the only other possible ban in this situation would have been Azir (which in hindsight should have been because Easyhoon played extremely well with that champion during the game as well as xPeke not being particularly good with Shurima’s Emperor) but you can’t fault OG for choosing to ban Lulu over Azir, especially as a first pick Lulu from SKT’s side would reveal nothing about their team composition or which lane they would emphasize. Add to this that if OG had decided to ban Azir, allowing SKT to pick Lulu, then Origen would be hard pressed to pick Kalista as well due primarily to how Lulu can speed up a champion such as Darius to run towards Kalista forcing Niels to reposition and become useless in combat.

First rotation:

SKT - Kalista

OG - Evelynn, Alistar

As mentioned previously, the bans from OG’s side allowed SKT to take Bang’s Kalista, on whom Bang is professionally undefeated heading into the game. It seems like a logical pick since they have no reason to early pick Azir. xPeke doesn’t play Azir and if Origen picks an all-in style of composition, Azir can be very vulnerable in teamfights. While MaRin is a spectacular Fiora player, you do not want to pick it early without knowing if sOAZ has something up his sleeve against the grand duelist.

This is where it gets interesting. Origen locks in Evelynn. Up until this game, Bengi has played 6 games of Elise, 1 game of Rek’Sai, 1 game of Gragas and 1 game of Evelynn. With 3 of those 4 champions unavailable, Amazing locks in for a champion he himself has played during the EULCS this summer. Bengi has been very successful with Eveylnn in the LCK, so this is a straight take away from SKT’s jungler, forcing Bengi to play a champion he hasn’t used in this competition. The only other option for Amazing would have possibly been Lee Sin, but that would leave Bengi with a champion he has an 80% win rate with in the LCK over 12 games. It’s also a surprise we’ve yet to see Nunu during worlds, but more on that a bit later.

It surprised me that Mithy decided to go with Alistar when his Thresh was available. Sure, Alistar is much better than Thresh at locking down a Kalista, but Mithy’s way of playing Thresh in a disengage style is very similar to the way you would aid a champion with Tahm Kench, straight up plucking them out of danger. My only theory is that OG is looking for the biggest possible front line from the support position, which is definitely Alistar. Aside from that, Alistar is also very good at roaming and preventing dives underneath turrets. His aoe pulverize can disrupt enough people in a tower dive to turn the tides on their opponents.

Second rotation:

SKT - Jarvan/Shen

OG - Kennen/Viktor

We had seen Jarvan twice at worlds, once in the top lane and once in the jungle. The time Jarvan was taken in the jungle it was by ClearLove against SKT when Bengi was given Rek’sai…and it wasn’t good at all. Jarvan is very good at isolating a specific target from a team. Without being able to fall onto Evelynn, Rek’Sai or Elise, the next logical option for Bengi would have been Lee Sin or Nunu, both champions with which he has had success in the past, particularly Nunu who works well with Kalista with collective Dragon/Baron control, as well as teamfight zone control which would make for a deadly combo. Plus, Nunu is one of the few junglers that can still get away with seeking and harassing the enemy jungler in their own territory. Regardless, for the team composition that was later built, Jarvan works very well, since his ganks are strong and his teamfighting prowess forces his enemy to reposition or remain isolated.

Wolf has never played Shen support in the professional environment, but this tournament has shown us that is a perfectly valid flex pick for either top or support. Much like Jatt’s theory on the top lane nautilus (“The advantage to having a top lane nautilus on your team, is that there is a nautilus on your team”) the advantage of a Shen support is just that, Shen’s unique kit. His global presence is capable of turning around any early game tower dive attempts in the solo lanes as well as having the sustain for his carry with his Q ability (which, for those who don’t know, lays a mark on an enemy unit which when attacked by an ally, gives said ally increased health regeneration based on a percentage of Shen’s maximum health). This pick also works in case MaRin wouldn’t have an opening to play Fiora or Darius top because it might have not fit SKT’s team composition.

Assuming sOAZ seeks the counterpick, xPeke has to take something safe in the mid lane. Since it is Easyhoon and not Faker playing in the mid lane for SKT, xPeke can go for something a bit more aggressive than previously, where he's mostly opted for Orianna or Anivia. xPeke wouldn’t get punished for blind picking a Viktor in the mid lane, who has very good wave clear and teamfight potential.

The interesting part of this phase is Kennen. For anybody who checked, Niels had been practicing a lot of AD Kennen during the week prior to this game against SKT. In the quarterfinals Fnatic had shown us the strength in Kennen’s utility as an AD carry. We are in a meta where supposedly, the top laner has to carry, utility from the bottom lane is almost invaluable and can remove the burden of also initiating fights from the top/jungle positions. Kennen is safe in lane, has a low econ build path and a lot of self-peel capabilities. In teamfights, an AoE ultimate capable of locking down multiple members of a team all at once is invaluable. Also, lets not forget, Kennen is a flexible pick, capable of going basically every lane besides jungle. Since Viktor and Alistar were locked in, it was certain that Kennen was either going to go top for sOAZ or bottom for Niels as adc. It was speculated that Kennen could be considered an answer to Fiora in the top lane due to the range advantage, plus the multiple spell rotations allowing for multiple stuns on the grand duelist.

Third rotation:

SKT - Fiora/Azir

OG - Tristana

It was anticipated that we were going to see Easyhoon on his tried and true Azir pick in mid. It’s a safe champion, plays alright into Viktor, doesn't get punished early and can match Viktor’s wave clear in the mid lane. Given that xPeke was probably going to take teleport as he has for the majority of Worlds so far, Easyhoon wouldn’t have any issues simply farming it out in mid.

What’s interesting to me is that despite seeing the Kennen pick, SKT might have assumed it was going to be AD Kennen and still decided to pick Fiora top. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not certain that Kennen can be considered a counter to Fiora, but rather than running that risk it would seem more appropriate to go for something other than Fiora. It is easy looking at the game to say it was a good choice, but in pure theory alone, Fiora is a melee champion with a short range gap closer against Kennen. In a standard lane setting, it’s very dangerous to allow Kennen to play into melee champions who cannot respond to the harass well. Sure the riposte can bounce one of Kennen’s stun back towards him, but Kennen has no problem re-applying the stun with his ultimate. 

On paper, at least, this seemed like a risk which could eventually pay off. Fiora scales really well into the late game and unless Kennen kept up the pace in terms of instant damage potential, Fiora would get to a point where Kennen wouldn’t be able to survive a fight, even when underneath his own tower. If SKT had taken a safer approach, we would have seen the Gnar from MaRin to match the Kennen harass (had it been a Kennen top) as well as nullify the possibility of a Darius pick from sOAZ, with Gnar beating Darius both in lane and out. This pick would have also given MaRin much more teamfight presence, especially into Kennen who seeks to run into your team.

With Fiora locked in from SKT, Origen decide that they like their chances of Kennen going into a melee match up against MaRin in the top lane. As their final pick, Origen locks in Tristana which at first seems weird to last pick an AD carry, but actually (to me at least) makes a lot of sense. Tristana trades very well in lane against a Kalista because of the Explosive Charge on her E. By the time Kalista has enough spears to Rend and do some semblance of damage, Tristana has probably already charged up her bomb and had it explode, dealing damage to Kalista. Not only that, but SKT’s line up doesn’t have so much front loaded damage or high burst counts unless we count the Rend stacking from Kalista (which takes far too long to be simply considered burst).

These are the team compositions in which a hyper carry based around auto attacking from high range thrive, especially when they’re capable of peeling for themselves in multiple ways (rocket jump as well as buster shot to create distance). If you do not kill Tristana quickly in late game teamfights, she can absolutely win a fight on her own thanks to the reset mechanic on her jump allowing her to reposition for her next target. One could argue that if seeking for a late game carry OG could have picked Jinx, but Tristana has a much better laning phase against a Kalista than Jinx as well as multiple methods to peel for herself, whereas Jinx only has her flame chompers. All in all, it was a good idea to go Tristana and send Kennen top, giving themselves favorable lane match ups against SKT’s comfort picks.

Conclusion:

When all is said and done, this has to be the best drafting phase in worlds until now. Both teams toying with flex picks and the threat of certain counters made it extremely intense and hard for them to adapt. The compositions that were drafted fit both team’s identities and really forced SKT to bring their A game to this match. OG’s picks forced SKT to show 2 new champions in their arsenal in the form of Jarvan for Bengi and Shen for Wolf. By the same token, the Kalista pick up and lack of burst allowed OG to pick a hyper scaling ad carry with enough presence to put pressure on Bang early. Whether or not all the points are what were going through the coach’s minds at that point, it was certainly a lot of fun looking at the individual picks and especially the order in which everything was done, which played a huge part in dictating most of what happened during this draft.

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Images courtesy of the lolesports youtube channel, riot games Flikr

Stats on players and champions courtesy of esportspedia.com and oracleselixir.com

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