The week 2 matchup of the week was a very back and forth match between Team 8 (2-2) pitted against Team Coast (1-3). While Team 8 is a newcomer to the LCS Coast has been here before and made their return hoping to stay this time. In the end it was Team 8 who came out on top after 45:14 of an exciting game.
It was 304 days ago when Scarra said it about Coast “Up until they lose the game, they’re winning”. Unfortunately for Coast this week that didn’t change, even 43 minutes into the game they had a gold lead which sprung after an amazing five for zero ace which led to an inhibitor and baron. Even that wasn’t enough for this one that had six changes in lead throughout.
It began at 6:05 with a patient bottom lane gank from Porpoise (2/2/9) on on Cris’ Gnar (3/3/9) featured below. During the gank they knew the flash was down on Cris and Porpoise landed his flag and drag perfectly in the middle of hop by Cris, nullifying his escape. The Chilling Smite would solidify his death.
Coast brought it back immediately afterwards from an impressive double tower dive on Slooshi (4/3/5) from Jesiz (6/4/5) on Ahri with help from Impaler’s (1/3/8) Rek’Sai. A couple minutes later, Jesiz continued his great play and bursted Porpoise down from full health to about 200 hp during a failed gank which led to him establishing a 20 minion CS lead by 10 minutes.
It was at the ten minute mark where CaliTrlolz (5/4/3) flexed his muscle and forced Cris on Gnar out of lane yet again. His Sheen being his only real item at this point was enough on Jax to continue to punish Gnar just for coming to lane. CaliTrlolz was instrumental in the early game for Team 8 and was the only lane that really managed to keep up.
He showed he was in control of the game at 11 minutes by teleporting to the top lane while Gnar limped back to his bottom lane. After an impressive amount of dodging skill shots by Maplestreet (5/2/5), CaliTrlolz teleported in to destroy Mash’s (4/4/5) Corki and send Impaler and Sheep (0/2/10) fleeing with their tails between their legs.
The game became very strategic and objective focused for the next 20 minutes or so. The largest lead in that time was only 2.5k and was held by Coast between 23 and 25 minutes. A failed Baron attempt by Coast left them extremely vulnerable and when they were caught by Maplestreet and double killed, their 500 gold lead was erased. In the meanwhile the split pushing by Jax was helping Team 8 to keep up with Coast.
At 37 minutes a teamfight erupted where Team 8 managed to split up Coast and coordinate their attacks really well. They came up with a 3 for 0 and didn’t even lose much health. As a result Team 8 managed to push in the mid lane and take down the mid tower and inhibitor, giving them the largest lead either team would have for the entire game. Worth noting at this point, Coast had four dragons to Team 8’s zero dragons but despite that Team 8 won the fight.
In the aftermath of that the biggest fight of the game broke out when Coast responded to the Baron. It appeared free but three members of Team 8 came to contest it. Even the fed CaliTrlolz couldn’t win in the face of 3 vs 5 odds and Coast managed a clean 5 for 0 ace. At this point 39 minutes into the game, Coast would regain the lead and possibly had a chance to win the game.
The team takes down Team 8’s top inhibitor at 39:22 and still, no members of Team 8 are alive with minions pushing through the inhibitor for Coast, this was the situation:
It’s the best possible chance that Coast had to win the game outright but instead they retreated, perhaps the costliest mistake they made this game. Instead of pushing, with 18 seconds until Porpoise’s Jarvin IV was up, they retreated to the Baron to take the slow play. They had the minion power to push here and could have ended it if they were able to handle Maplestreet and Dodo (0/3/11) which with five members all healthy besides Sheep’s Thresh, should have been an easy task.
The game went back to a grudge match of push and pull where no team had a definitive lead while Baron wore off for Coast. Just 5 minutes later at 44:17, Dodo would send the Dark Binding heard around the Rift, catching Mash and beginning the final fight.
2-1 now :) that was a fun game
— Jun Kang (@dodo8lol) January 31, 2015
He clearly enjoyed the entire marathon of the game but that catch was what would spring the final push for Dodo and Team 8. The match pushed both teams to their utter maximum and was all about the small things. CaliTrlolz great start is likely the only reason Team 8 was able to stay in the game long enough to pull it off. Great playcalls and split pushing by Team 8 brought them their second victory this season.
Stick around and check back later this week for the early season impressions after two weeks and again for next weeks Game of the Week featuring CLG (3-1) versus Gravity (3-1).
