Curse Academy have shown that they aren't one trick wonders and can play a variety of styles. In today's "Deep in the Rift", we discover that you can continue to rely on melee characters to be your primary carries, but still have a marskman threat elsewhere. Only Jaximus champions Ezreal while Fabbbyyy once again goes Tryndamere, with Rhux utilizing the newly buffed Olaf in a composition that thrives in skirmishes and applies loads of pressure to the map.
Every week, we will showcase one team with either an interesting or well-executed lineup, and analyze how they work. From the champions to the matchups, as well as its pros and cons, this article aims to help readers understand the pro scene better, and possibly even incorporate these strategies into their own games.
Picks and Bans
Curse Academy banned out Lee Sin, Zyra, and Nidalee while Gold Gaming LA banned out Jax, Shuvanna and Renekton. Gold Gaming LA's bans were focused on a very specific set of champions to weaken Curse Academy's recent "no marksman" composition that they have been using very frequently. Jax was taken out so he couldn't be a late game monster, and Shyvana for similar reasons, including her incredible mobility.
Rhux went ahead and first picked Elise, a reliable jungler or top laner that is powerful in all situations. Gold Gaming LA replied with a Thresh and Sivir duo lane. Thresh is an incredibly flexible pick that works
with anything, and Sivir has recently risen as the ultra-successful flavor of the month, bringing in the highest win rate of the current patch. Her movespeed steroid, disengage, and strong poke make her a safe laner that scales well into the mid game.
In response, Curse Academy went with what was seemingly standard meta adherence. At this point, ggLA could not have assumed that Ezreal would go mid which he ended up doing under the control of Only Jaximus, with Fiddle being the obvious support pick. In response to those pickups, Gold Gaming LA picked Irelia, one of the few champions that can stick to Ezreal, and Jarvan, an overall powerful jungle pickup.
Curse Academy rounded out their composition with a very aggressive Tryndamere and Olaf pick with ggLA finishing theirs off with an Anivia pick.
Execution
To ggLA's surprise, Only Jaximus headed mid lane solo with Fiddlesticks roaming around the map to assist OneBadBrad in the jungle. Due to Anivia's poor base stats, Only Jaximus got ahead early and planted mystic shot harass onto Anivia, while NydusHerMain went ahead and assisted Bischu in lane. Gold Gaming LA was able to punish Curse Academy's aggressive play and acquire a first blood on Fabbbyyy's Tryndamere.
The punishment didn't stop there as the counter roam from ggLA brought them into a very comfortable position. 6 minutes in, they were ahead 4-0 in a huge lead. All CS scores were incredibly low due to the amount of lane rotation and general map mobility. Even with the deficit, Curse Academy began the slow crawl back up into being a formidable team with Fabbbyyy grabbing a kill on Tryndamere.
Even though Curse Academy fell behind early, their late game potential was powerful. With the initial first towers dropping for each side, the game devolved into a farm-heavy phase, where Curse Academy was mostly playing from a defensive position to hold their tower while GGLA sieged and Rhux split push. With the midgame exchanges, ggLA remained ahead, but Curse Academy were quickly closing the gaps, finally utilizing their potential.
The majority of the game beyond then was mostly a vision war, with both teams fighting to see which portions of the map they could control to make plays and properly react to set up counterplays. The improved power of Olaf and Rhux's utilization really started to stand out at this point. While Curse Academy were able to fight somewhat close fights with ggLA, Rhux were able to pull out an unstoppable split push. Even though the inhibitors were traded, it was Curse Academy who seized the day and won the following fight, only losing Onebadbrad and Rhux as casualties.
Swapping the Lanes: How and Why
Now that Curse Academy has proven they can compete with the "no marksman gimmick" as well as standard, they've decided to do a bit of a hybrid of both. Only Jaximus brought back AD carry middle, which was played and popularized in OGN before Worlds when running two AD carries was popular -- only, Curse Academy doesn't run two. Instead, they opt to put AD carry where the role started during the birth of League of Legends.
While just any AD carry probably wouldn't work here, Ezreal fits perfectly due to his mage-like playstyle and the importance of his levels, as a fast level 6 means more map control and enhanced teamfight capabilities. If you make sure you have relatively self-sufficient solo bruisers that can double as carries with enough gold while having a support and, preferably, an AP support, you'll have a decent enough balance of damage to where they can't simply stack armor and win.
This team has its merits due to the fact that it still has an AD carry that doesn't necessarily need peel from his teammates. The reason why this primarily only works with Ezreal and perhaps very few other slippery AD carries is that rather than having a traditional tank line capable of peeling, champions like Tryndamere and Olaf do their job by caving the enemy's face in, diving past the front line, and annihilating.
However, due to the substantial amount of waveclear, the team doesn't have to teamfight early -- or at any point really. Due to the skillset used by the three particular farming champions used in this game, the team can be anywhere at anytime. Ezreal can poke down his opponents while Tryndamere and the newly buffed Olaf are nearly top of their class for cleanup duty. If they don't want to fight, either Tryndamere or Olaf can apply loads of pressure off the map and escape with relative safety.
Last but not least, we must not undervalue Ezreal's Essense Flux. With two farmed AD carries at his side, towers and objectives will melt later in the game with the attack speed buff applied by Ezreal synergizing well with both of the champions and making use of a currently very undervalued skill.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This team composition allows for terrifying rotations and invasions early game. If the enemy jungler isn't on their toes, you can ensure that they will feed first blood and, oftentimes, will be required to give up certain camps. Since you'll end up having three self-sufficient solo laners, the support is free to roam the map with relative ease, causing a lot of early disruption. Instead of purely melee, you'll also have some kind of ranged poke (though they did often have Jayce to help with sieging.) Since this team has excellent waveclear, Tryndamere and Olaf are great at diving. However, it's flexible enough to where if you want to split push instead, you're completely capable of it.
The weakness is early game. While the champions scale late, you can't always "turtle it out". The team composition and strategy is prone to heavy camping and terrible early 5v5's. Most competent premade compositions will crush this team in an early teamfight, meaning forced dragons will often go uncontested to the opposing team. If you can get past this phase, then you should be good, but proper banning will go a long way here.
Recommendations and Final Words
If you're going to run a similar composition with your friends or your premade team, consider banning out strong dragon-fighting champions like Rumble and stick to smaller skirmishes when you have the choice instead. If you still want to run a bruiser with sieging capabilities, go for Jayce -- just make sure to build him as a large damage threat. Caitlyn can work here too, but is less self-sufficient against dive compositions.
If you don't want to run Fiddlesticks supports, Leona is a decent alternative. You absolutely need to make sure you have very hard CC on your support and jungler so you won't get rolled over and kited in teamfights. Last but not least, if you end up on blue side, consider invading the enemy blue so that you can farm with Undertoe infinitely during laning phase where you might otherwise be zoned by the opposing duo.