Picks Blaze Singed, Skarner, Orianna, Vayne, Lulu Dignitas Rumble, Rengar, Diana, Ezreal, Nunu
Due to some issues connecting to the stream we joined the game some 6 minutes in, Blaze had a small lead.
Dignitas made their move to equalise the score and picked up a double kill but Rengar got caught-out afterwards and gave Blaze a kill back, keeping their lead safe. Smelling blood after their last successful team-fight, Dig immediately went for another engage. They took Dragon and four kills for only two losses, putting them ahead in gold. They seemed to be capable of shutting down Vayne and the momentum had swung slightly into their favour.
Bloodlust was too strong for Dig though. They went too aggressive and ran into the entirety of Blaze, losing two for zero and both kills went to Vayne. Feeding a Vayne kills is always a disaster and Blaze had succeeded in stemming the blood flow, bringing them right back to even.
There was another large teamfight but sadly the stream failed so no one actually got to see it. When the streams came back, the score was 12-13 in kills and pretty much even on gold. Dignitas kept the pressure up; killing Skarner allowed them to take the second mid tower. Blaze appeared to be on the back-foot but the game was still exceptionally close at the 30 minute mark. Dignitas took the next Dragon uncontested, showing that Blaze felt they were behind and didn’t want to fight.
The shields for Blaze really started to come into their own. This caused Diana to over-dive to try and kill Lulu, who had Oracles, and died for with no gain. Meanwhile Vayne completed her GA and became so much harder to take out of team-fights. The next fight was of massive importance. Skarner flash-ulted Diana but she managed to barely get out alive and Dig turned hard on Blaze. Singed wasn’t tanky enough and died quite fast which allowed them to switch onto Skarner who fell almost immediately after. Vayne almost escaped but a beautiful Mystic Shot from Ezreal clipped her on the way out. The DOT from his red buff burned her GA and she died immediately after it brought her back. Dig followed this up with a Baron, a Dragon and extended their lead to almost 6000g.
Dig made a rather large mistake and used the Malphite ult on Nunu alone to secure a kill. Blaze, knowing that one of the most important ults for Dig was down chose this moment to engage. Rengar was barely caught out by Lulu and this led to Rumble and Ezreal going down and Blaze taking out the first inhib of the game. More kills followed and Blaze had quickly shrunk Dig’s lead, with Vayne neared her end-game hypercarry status. The next and last fight was a slaughter. and Blaze went 4-0 and took game one with a nice comeback.
Bans
Dig Maokai, Malphite, Jayce Blaze Evelyn, Sona, Ezreal
Picks:
Dig Rengar (jungle), Nunu (support), Katarina(top), Corki (AD), Orianna (mid). Blaze Jaxx (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Diana (mid), Lulu (support, Vayne (AD). .
A quiet start to game two, with no invades or aggression. An early attempt to gank Kat in toplane found Rengar instead and Blaze picked up the firstblood gold. Blaze went for the fast-push and took out the top tower before the 6 minute mark. After that they swapped their AD/support back down to botlane. This gave Vayne tower gold and a small CS lead over Corki, in addition to having just bought and thusly having an item advantage.
A failed 1v1 attempt in toplane ended with Jaxx getting the kill and extending his CS lead to over 200% of Kat’s. Before the game had reached 10 minutes, Blaze had a three kills to zero and were more than 2000g ahead. Kat did manage a really nice double kill in toplane but Vayne answered back immediately with a kill onto Nunu and took Blaze’s second tower and first Dragon of the game.
After a small break from action Blaze took an uncontested Dragon and moved to mid for another easy kill. But then they overcommitted to a dive and Corki picked up a kill, followed up with two more kills as Corki and Kat cleaned up. A bloodbath in botlane ended with Jaxx surviving by less than a hair and Blaze almost taking the Inhib tower. Dig won the next fight by almost killing Diana and taking out Lee Sin. However, Lulu destroyed their botlane inhib tower and Jaxx 1v1’d Kat to take the toplane inhib. They followed up by taking Baron but Jaxx went too deep and gave Dig a kill. This started a chase across the map that ended with Dig getting three kills for free, on Baron buffed champions. They couldn’t press into Blaze’s base safely, so they backed off to buy and heal up. Dig were doing ok in teamfights, still trading even, but the super minions started pressing into their base and they had to pull back to clean them out or start losing Nexus towers. A nice call from Dig ended with them picking up a free Baron and engaging on the back of Blaze. A brutal four-man stun from Jaxx allowed Blaze to nearly wipe Dig out with only a couple of losses.
Dig caught out Lee Sin and Diana in the midlane and then pressed into the Blaze base 5v3. They took one Nexus tower but Vayne managed to escape with almost no health once again and Dig were unable to end the game. Slugfest after slugfest goes slightly in Dig’s favour but only just and a last-second inhib respawn saved Blaze once again from losing. The time it took for Dig to try and end the game meant Blaze took themselves a free Baron afterwards. The Baron buff was too much and Blaze won the next teamfight. Nunu and Rengar tried to rush the Nexus and got it down to ¼ but just didn’t have the damage. The Nexus attempt delayed Blaze enough that Corki respawned and stopped Blaze from ending the game. Dig five-man pushed mid but a nice engage from Diana allowed Blaze to take the next teamfight and the win. An amazingly close game, world-class play from both teams. The best game in the event so far.
MVP: Lustboy will be taking this golden crown. Sure, it was Vayne who did the killing, but the big play that took Blaze back into the driving seat was a Glitterlance from Lulu onto Rengar. It pulled Dig into a fight they didn’t want and allowed Blaze to clean up and take back control. In addition to that he managed to cancel several Corki valk’s and this was pivotal in their victory. World class support play, both games.
A much closer set than the 2-0 score would suggest both teams put on a good show. Blaze proved the stronger team however and secured their spot in the top three.
- Jaszon ‘Lightblind’ Alexzander
Source : ign[dot]com
