(original photo courtesy of slaskiepozytywnie.pl)
It's hard to come back from a deficit. Gold, objectives and levels stacked together and create an insurmountable mountain. While ESC Ever managed to pull it back earlier in the day, Royal Never Give Up reminded them why those advantages matter so much. The match demonstrates the importance of cohesion in all aspects of a team's gameplan and how one weakness in the approach can make everything fall apart.
Recap
Match 1/1: ESC Ever (Blue) vs. Royal Never Give Up (Red)
Winner: Royal Never Give Up
Game Time: 31:20
BANS
| ESC Ever | Royal Never Give Up |
|---|---|
| Zed | Kalista |
| Nautilus | Alistar |
| Thresh | Twisted Fate |
FINAL SCOREBOARD
| ESC Ever | ||
|---|---|---|
| Towers: 2 | Gold: 48.8k | Kills: 6 |
| Tempt | Corki | 1-3-3 |
| Ares | Graves | 0-3-2 |
| Loken | Ezreal | 2-3-2 |
| Crazy | Vladimir | 3-4-0 |
| Key | Braum | 0-4-4 |
| Royal Never Give Up | ||
|---|---|---|
| Towers: 8 | Gold: 60.5k | Kills: 17 |
| Xiaohu | Lissandra | 3-1-11 |
| Mata | Bard | 1-1-9 |
| Wuxx | Lucian | 5-2-4 |
| mlxg | Nidalee | 5-0-9 |
| Looper | Quinn | 3-2-10 |
(courtesy of ESL, flickr)
Analysis:
After a comeback against Team SoloMid earlier in the day, ESC Ever had a lot of momentum. what won their first game was the strength of their decision making. Even at a massive deficit, Ever took and won important team-fights under their towers and slowly closed the gap. When TSM attempted Baron, Ever contested it despite further objective losses, aced TSM and then pushed for victory.
Against Royal Never Give Up, Ever made some of the same mistakes their earlier opponent did. Jae-Hee "Crazy" Kim's Vladimir was revealed to be a weak pick after Hyeong-seok "Looper" Jang chose Quinn and Ever later refused to play into their composition's strengths. If their earlier win was because of their focus on objectives and contesting their opponent, their loss this game was due to ignoring the key to their past success. Not pursuing objectives or protecting their already sparse vision let them fall further behind Royal with each minute.
Two strong aces at Ever's red buff and the middle lane gave Royal an advantage large enough for them to walk right down the mid lane, take out three towers, the inhibitor, and then the nexus for a win and an automatic berth in the IEM Katowice playoff stage.
