Introduction Top
I will be going over the turning point in the series between TSM and C9. TSM were the favorites to win this tournament. Now, this is the second time that we saw Baptiste preform in the Spring VG8 Championship so it was a shock to say the least. So why did this team comp work? Koshka is a highly mobile character that relies on evasiveness to avoid taking damage as she is very weak. However, when she can be restrained to a small box, she is prey. So let’s break down the draft.
TSM starts off the draft by banning Glaive, a very versatile hero who they just wanted to remove from the draft as he can be any role so is hard to counterpick. Now, there are two junglers who are extreme power picks as of now, and they are Koshka and Grumpjaw. The C9’s draft analyst, physiX, emerges with a Grumpjaw ban. Now, TSM has a choice. They can either take the Koshka and risk that C9 has a trick up their sleeve, or ignore the open Koshka and take another hero. Because of the reduced hero pool from the bans on Glaive and Grumpjaw, that reduced their possible team comps, so they decided to go with the free Koshka. This fell into the trap of C9. After waiting a moment, C9 locks in Baptiste. Baptiste, while new, has many tools to deal with Koshka. He has a slow, a stun, and a fear inducing ability. C9 analyst physiX says that Gabe is “a great player with incredible mechanical skill, and was able to play Baptiste proficiently to the point that we were very confident in putting him on Baptiste against Koshka.” Although there was some hesitation, physiX said that she prefers to use up all their drafting time in order to make the right pick, and to anticipate their next moves. After this pick, they ban Lyra who has been a very powerful pick this patch. TSM decides to go with a Blackfeather ban. Instead of removing the Adagio, as a team with a heal usually has an advantage over the other team. TSM was thinking that they wanted to ban the Lyra so they could pick Blackfeather, who is shut down by Lyra. C9 wasn’t even worried about an Adagio ban, as they are confident with Oldskool’s Vox. However, when TSM didn’t ban Adagio, C9 jumped on the opportunity and picked him up themselves. TSM then picks up the Fortress who has good synergy with Koshka, and counters Adagio’s heal with his mortal wound bleeding. TSM then picks up Gwen, who is a solid lane pick. C9 decides to pick up the WP Rona in their jungle who has excellent synergy with Adagio, says physiX, who says that “Rona is a tanky front-liner while Adagio can use his Gift of Fire to apply damage from the backlines through Rona.” C9’s team has excellent synergy with each other, and their Baptiste counters Koshka very well.
The Early Game Top
The Early Game
The early game is massively important as teams can snowball in minute one as you can see in my favorite Broken Myth guide by Jackalope here :
http://brokenmyth.net/how-to-win-a-game-in-one-minute-vainglory-world-invitational/
C9 starts out very aggressively and invades the TSM jungle. Although they lose first blood, they do pick up a kill of their own and steal VONC’s farm. However, TSM came out of that teamfight with the same amount of gold as C9, with just slightly less experience. However, with a great rotation from VONC and FlashX, they pick up an early gank on Oldskool and pick up a kill. 3 minutes in, C9 starts a teamfight in the TSM tri-bush. This is executed perfectly. Gabevizzle lands his Ordained on VONC, trapping him. Instantly, ILoveJoseph, playing the Rona, uses Into The Fray directly on top of VONC, dealing damage to their entire team clustered up. Without his mobility, VONC is a sitting duck for Joseph and gets instantly killed. Because Joseph is in the middle of TSM, Oldskool can apply his Gift of Fire and burn the entire TSM lineup. Although Joseph goes down, Oldskool manages to pick up a kill on BestChuckNA, the TSM laner. Even with the early game power of Koshka and Tension Bow Gwen, the Ordained usage by Gabe followed up with a Red Mist of Rona absolutely obliterates Koshka, making it a 2v3 situation for TSM.
Reflex Block Top
If VONC picked up this 700 gold item, the game could have had an entirely different outcome. With a Reflex Block, VONC could easily escape Gabevizzle’s Ordained ability, meaning he wouldn’t have gotten instantly deleted by Red Mist. The fact that nobody on TSM picked up a crucible or reflex block might have been the reason that they lost, and is most certainly the reason it was a 13 minute game.
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