Last night in the wee hours of the morning, the first round of the LPL Quarterfinals began with a clash between WE and VG.
WE came in as the favorite with a marginally better season than VG, though personally I was leaning in VG’s favor. Easyhoon and DanDy have both made me pay for betting against them, and WE hasn’t been playing massively better
.
Game 1’s draft was fairly balanced. WE picked up Ekko, Kindred, Karma, Lucian, and Trundle and VG ran Poppy, Nidalee, Lissandra, Sivir, and Braum. Both teams elected to play standard lanes and Farmville 2k16 began. The game was pretty quiet until about 3 minutes in when DanDy and Easyhoon took an easy kill from Xiye’s Karma. There wouldn’t be any more action until a little after 5 minutes when DanDy landed a max range spear on Condi and managed to get the kill with a little help from Easyhoon
DanDy roamed top next where Loong’s Poppy had 957’s Ekko fairy low. DanDy connected with a spear, but on the dive, 957 managed to pick up a kill on Loong before going down to Easyhoon.
At 7 minutes VG was more than 1000 gold ahead of their opponent with noticeable superiority of the map.
VG continued to have complete control of the game and at 30 minutes they found themselves with a 10-1 Kill Advantage, a 11,000 gold lead, and a Baron buff. VG continued to snowball to a win at 36 minutes in what was almost a perfect game from Vici.
In Game 2, I feel VG left the draft with a slight advantage. Ekko, Kindred, Lulu, Lucian, Braum for VG and Lissandra, Graves, Karma, Sivir, and Bard for WE. Neither team has a massive advantage, but I feel VG had a minor advantage.
This time, WE chose to send Sivir and Bard to the top lane, but VG managed to react fairly efficiently. They took the bot tower before WE could take the top. Managed to go about even on the opposite tier 1’s, and then managed to snag Rift Herald in time to stay even on towers by getting a tier 2. 8 minutes in with the lane swap WE’s only advantage was forcing Loong’s TP. The gold and objectives were almost completely even.
At 12 minutes, WE started the second Rift Herald of the game, but VG easily contested 4v5 and pushed WE out of the pit, managing to snag the herald with no casualties.
First blood didn’t come until around 16 minutes in when WE contested at Dragon. VG took the Dragon in no time at all, but a well placed Bard ultimate put WE in position to take an easy 4 for 0. (and its worth knowing that Zero’s Bard went off in this fight and took 2 of these 4 kills)
at 18:30, Loong gets caught in WE’s blue side jungle and slaughtered.
WE continued to snowball, and at 30 minutes started a Baron. In VG managed to kill 2 of WE, but WE managed to take the Baron and get Condi a penta-kill for a 5 for 2 and a 10,000 gold lead. With Baron empowerment, WE managed to push through VG’s base and take game 2.
Game 3 showed nearly the same team compositions, only DanDy and Condi swapped Graves and Kindred. I definitely felt this was more of a boost to VG seeing as DanDy’s Graves is one of the best in the world.
The game started almost identital to game two with the WE lane swap and VG’s Rift Herald response. The difference came at only 8 minutes when VG managed to catch Zero’s Bard out and snag the first blood. Things turned around at 10 minutes when WE managed to grab a 3 for 1 in a fight that VG had no reason being in in the first place.
The “1” in that fight would be the last real kill VG got in the game (I don’t count last second fountain dives). With a little less than 30 minutes on the clock and 13 kills on the board, WE took game 3, and a 1 game lead in the series. WE showed complete ownership of the game, turning every fight around on VG for a resounding victory.
Game 4’s draft finally showed some different champions. Vici elected to play Maokai, Kindred, Lissandra, Sivir and Bard and WE took Poppy, Graves, Corki, Ezreal, and Thresh. I definitely think the draft favored WE. They built a powerful triple ADC comp with 2 very powerful peeling champions to back up the damage. As much as I’d like to think that Meowkai has the power to change games, I just don’t think he’s a solid enough answer to WE’s insane damage.
Game 4 finally gave us some real action with legitimate fighting happening within the first 5 minutes. VG started off looking a bit stronger with an early two kills and managing to take a 4-2 lead in the first 6 minutes.
VG lost their lead on a bad play where Loong was caught out and DanDy died trying to save him. The game remained almost entirely even until 25 when a kill on DanDy allowed to WE to start a Baron, which helped WE to another 3 kills in the contest. This was the beginning of the end for VG. With the Baron, WE’s ability to push was nearly impossible for VG to stop. In an attempt to stop the push, VG went all in, and went 1 for 5. With the ace WE easily managed to push in and take the win, and the series.
You can check out the whole series here courtesy of LoL Esports TV – Tournaments
All photos courtesy of lol.gamepedia.com