Coming off of a 3-0 victory over Unicorns of Love in the quarterfinals, Origen find themselves matched up against H2k-Gaming in the EU LCS semifinal. Despite having a very shaky early start to their season, Origen was able to overcome enough of their problems to finish in fourth, an impressive feat given that the team was in shambles early on due to serious underperformances from top laner, Paul "sOAZ" Boyer, and Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage in the mid lane.
Origen was carried early on by their bot lane with AD carry Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen continuing his dominant form from last year. Later on in the season, although the individual performance of the team improved, Origen still suffered from lapses in communication and coordination. Often games were won simply by out-skilling their opponents and capitalizing on the opposition’s mistakes, and even subbing in Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño Martínez at the mid lane could not fixed their inconsistency.
Their quarterfinal performance, despite being a 3-0 sweep, still left a lot to be desired. Although sOAZ looked much better mechanically, PowerOfEvil was still unreliable and the issues of team coordination and decision making were evident. They won their games very sloppily and often made poor decisions with large leads that would elongate the contest. Unicorns of Love were at a severe disadvantage against Origen in terms of individual talent and also made early game mistakes that would give Origen gold leads. Despite being handed these leads, Origen had trouble closing games out. They will need to be more consistent and make better decisions in order to compete with H2k.
H2k finished the season in second place, only one game behind the leaders, despite having to play six games without their starting mid laner, Yoo "Ryu" Sang-ook, due to visa issues. Although it never came to pass, they also had to deal with the drama surrounding Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou-Napoleon’s impending military conscription. In spite of these setbacks, H2k was one of the best teams in EU LCS and arguably the most solid in their play, utilising a smart and controlled style during the regular season that often found them building leads through rotations and objectives rather than kills.
This year’s new H2k roster included the jungle-support duo of Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski and Oskar "VandeR" Bogdan, who found a return to the form of their 2014 days on Team ROCCAT. Jankos was once again the First Blood King and VandeR was finally paired with an AD carry that truly complimented his skill set. FORG1VEN has also continued his stellar AD carry play, being incredibly dominant in lane as well as in team fights. He has diversified his champion pool and has become one of the best players in the league.
This semifinal matchup will feature the two best AD carries in Europe, and arguably in the West, with Zven facing off against FORG1VEN. Zven finished the regular season tied for first in percentage of team damage, with FORG1VEN in second and Zven was also first in damage per minute, while FORG1VEN was first in kill/death ratio. The stats really do pile up in their favour, with FORG1VEN and Zven also first and second in creeps slain per minute, creep score differential at ten minutes, and gold differential at ten minutes among AD carries.
One difference between the two that may turn out to be crucial is efficiency and the percentage of gold they each use on their teams. Zven demands the highest percentage of team gold among AD carries, while FORG1VEN finished in sixth. Even when FORG1VEN has been heavily targeted by enemy teams, H2k has still been successful due to other players being able to step up. Zven has been the only consistent carry on Origen throughout the season.
Origen will not have the same automatic advantage in talent against H2k, to the point where it can be argued that H2k are the more talented of the two squads. H2k has also been a much smarter and controlled team, displaying a lot of consistency and stability despite all of their roster troubles. Origen have had a very tough time finding consistency in their shot calling and collective decision making against the best teams in Europe, going 0-6 against the likes of H2k, Vitality, and G2 in the regular season.
These happen to be the three teams that finished above them in the standings and all are elite contenders. These teams all have the talent to stand up to Origen and also have much better macro play and execution, and simply do not make the sort of mistakes that Origen like to capitalize on. Because of Origen’s inconsistency and shaky decision making, I am picking H2k to win this series. Origen may be able to put it together for one game and get an early lead big enough to snowball, but they have not shown enough consistency to be dependable for an entire series, and have to be considered underdogs, if not rank outsiders.
Prediction: H2k over OG, 3-1
Statistics and Match Histories from oracleselixir.com and lol.esportspedia.com
Image from LoLEsports and content.azubu.tv
