The Good
Darshan’s godly Shadow Dash
Shen’s Shadow Dash feels as though its hitbox is narrower than a pencil at times, but that didn’t stop CLG Darshan from making one of the best plays of the season with it. As Xmithie went for the possible Baron steal against FlyQuest, Darshan channeled his ultimate – then managed to pull off a fantastic four-man taunt as he arrived. It was enough for CLG to regroup and take the teamfight win, with a Baron on the backside to boot.
The Bad
Poor poor Hakuho
Blast cones are still fairly new to the game, so it’s not entirely Hakuho’s fault here. However, you have to wonder why Hakuho was even clicking at that point. Doesn’t he trust Apollo to get him out?
At any rate, Hakuho tries to click on the plant and misses, causing his character to walk towards the blast cone and get knocked up instead of knocked out to safety. He then might have been okay, if not for Team Dignitas smartly aggroing Baron, letting him do the dirty work of finish off NV’s support. Feels bad, man
Dardoch’s bizzare invasion
Solo invading the enemy jungle is always fraught with danger, but a pro player can usually pull it off without too much risk. Unless your name is IMT Dardoch and you forget the basics – then it’s a terrible experience. Immortals’ jungler went for a level three invasion onto P1 Meteos’s red buff and was instantly sniffed out by a well-placed ward. Sure, that’s not his fault – but then he’s seen AGAIN by a Kalista sentinel and keeps going. Next mistake? Dardoch kills the blast cone – his only escape if the invasion goes awry – and tries for the red steal. Naturally, P1 instantly collapse, and instead of Dardoch Flashing over the dragon wall to get away, he chooses instead to Flash... just kinda wherever. It’s ultimately a whole heap of bad decision-making from one of the best junglers in the league.
The Weird
LirA’s AD Nidalee
Apparently, AP Nidalee is just too mainstream for NV LirA. He brought out an incredibly offbeat AD build for the Bestial Huntress against Cloud 9 last week, which certainly shocked the rest of the league. The weird part? It worked – LirA picked up a 10/1/8 KDA, smashing the second-place team in the league and carrying his team to victory in game 1 of the series. Guess we’ll all be seeing a lot more AD Nidalees in our soloqueue games…
ROCCAT on a winning streak?
Up until about two weeks ago, ROCCAT had lost every single match they played. Now, they’re suddenly sitting pretty with a four-match winstreak, defying all expectations. Sure, some of their wins have come against struggling teams like Origen or Team Vitality, but ROCCAT have also taken down middleweight squads Giants Gaming and Fnatic. It’s not clear if this is a fluke or a sign of a revitalized ROCCAT yet, but it’s certainly one of the weirder stories to come out of the last few weeks.
