League Analysis — Fnatic vs Astralis — LEC Week 6
27 FEBRUARY 2021 — by League Analyst
Is jungle dead? Patch 11.4 has arrived
It’s now week 6 of the LEC and pro play is moving to a new patch. Before we head to today’s match, we’ll be taking a look at the key changes of 11.4.
The big point of discussion in this patch is the jungle camp changes. Essentially, the jungle has been hit as a whole with nerfs to gold and experience on multiple jungle camps.
These changes adds up to a 42 experience and 40 gold loss when doing a full jungle clear. In terms of experience, this is about a 10% cut combined for the nerfed camps. Importantly, this doesn’t change the timing for any of the early level breakpoints.
These changes are not trivial but will definitely be felt when clearing. It is an indirect nerf to hard farming junglers as they will have to operate on a lower economy and the value of champions whose base kits and levels are very powerful will be more prevalent in the meta.
In most cases we are talking tanks, utility champions or early gankers. Either because these champions opt to gank instead of clearing (which doesn’t get punished as hard with these changes) or because the champion can operate on a lower economy because of earlier/cheaper item breakpoints.
Besides the jungle nerfs, Camille, Kai’Sa, Renekton, Samira and Skarner are all getting hit. These are all champions that have been seeing play in pro play to some extent and the nerfs might result in some changes in priority. Samira especially took some very big hits and will most likely not be seen this weekend. If you are interested in the numbers/changes, I would recommend reading the full patch notes, but I’ll be sure to mention them in the draft breakdown if the champion in question appears.
Fnatic vs Astralis
Heading back to today’s game, 4th placed Fnatic is facing of against 8th placed Astralis. Fnatic is coming into the day with a disappointing 0–2 performance behind them and is looking to bounce back and solidify their spot in the top half in the standings.
As for Astralis, the team has started to surge in performance after the addition of Felix “MagiFelix” Boström in the midlane. And with only 4 weeks left of the split, the spring season is reaching its climacteric phase and each individual game is growing dramatically in importance. The time to step up is now if you are going to secure a spot in the playoffs. For these two teams, this game is the first step to prove that they are worthy of moving on to the BO5's.
Draft breakdown
Finished draft shown at the bottom of the breakdown.
Blue Bans:
Ban 1 — Skarner
Because of his ability to screw up high profile targets in fights, Skarner has been rising in priority quickly. Despite small nerfs to his base health and health growth he’ll be the first champion to get banned away.
Ban 2 — Senna
Senna is one of the stronger ADC’s on the patch and is a viable ban for sure. I want to note that Jeskla hasn’t played the champion a single time on stage so far in 2021 but we obviously don’t know what is going on in scrims etcetera.
Ban 3 — Lillia
With the other junglers getting nerfed and bruiser items getting hit it’s not very surprising that Lillia is high on the priority list.
Red Bans:
Ban 1 — Twisted Fate
Twisted Fate has been untouched since the season started and remains as the most banned champion this split.
Ban 2 — Thresh
Thresh is one out of three champions with over 80% PB so far this split. We’ve talked about him many times, he’s strong with immobile carries and can be very versatile in game.
Ban 3 — Udyr
Let’s just say that Udyr is chilling at over 54% win rate in soloq. The champion is a tad bit overtuned and should remain banned.
Picks:
B1 Pick — Rell
We haven’t seen much change in the support role in so far this season. Rell and the other engage supports are dominating in the botlane and the priority is sky high at the moment as the other roles are decreasing in strength.
R1 Pick — Caitlyn
Caitlyn is interesting and was picked in the previous game with Rouge and Schalke. She has been receiving small buffs over the last couple of patches and is just as obnoxious in lane as ever. Her strengths are very similar to previous years; long range and poke combined with her traps, offering her a lot of sieging power.
R2 Pick — Seraphine
The Seraphine pick is very clever since it makes a lot of sense both as a support and as a midlaner with Cait on the team. Astralis has already secured and insane siege/sustain combo that also can be flexed around to avoid counterpicks.
B2 Pick — Kai’Sa
Despite the small nerf on 11.4, Kai’Sa should be very similar in terms of strength and I wouldn’t be surprised if we keep seeing a high priority on the champion. Picking it into Cait is a bit sketchy but it shouldn’t be a big issue.
B3 Pick — Graves
A very self sufficient jungle pickup in Graves. The champion is in my mind very team reliant and has to be able to move freely on the map to gain advantages. It is very stable and doesn’t show very much in terms of strategy.
R3 Pick — Morgana
The first Morgana of 2021! This is obviously a famous combination with the Caitlyn. In this case it should also be able to handle the Rell engage and provide crowd control for the team. The only noticeable weakness here is that the team is very weak against hard engage and if the black shield isn’t on point, it can get very scary.
Blue bans:
Ban 4 — Poppy
A very random Poppy ban. The pick hasn’t been picked in any of the major regions so far and hasn’t been buffed recently either. Maybe this is something that has showed up in scrims, but from the outside this ban is very unexpected.
Ban 5 — Gnar
Fnatic had some problems dealing with the Gnar last week so I don’t mind them banning it away.
Red bans:
Ban 4 — Syndra
I don’t really like Syndra at the moment so banning it away is a bit pointless in my opinion. I don’t see the upside to her that other mages cannot offer or can outperform in other areas.
Ban 5 — Renekton
Renekton just got nerfed again, please stop banning it. It is also completely useless against the Astralis composition, it’s an absolutely horrible ban.
Picks:
R4 Pick — Hecarim
I really don’t like the Hecarim here, Astralis has already drafted themselves an insane amount of siege and sustain. They are not the team that is looking for hard engages and no-one on the team is able to follow up a diving Hecarim.
B4 Pick — Ryze
With how Astralis is looking to play out the game I think the Ryze pick here is very clever. Look to split up the Astralis comp and drag them out to the sidelines with a strong “splitpusher”.
B5 Pick — Gragas
Gragas is very stable and should be able to get some value against the squishy Astralis backline, I like it.
R5 Pick — Shen
I mean the Shen is a good combination with Hecarim, but as mention earlier, I don’t think this is the right way to approach the game. Besides that Shen is a fine tank that can handle himself in lane.
Pre-game prediction
This is the first time in a long while that we’ve gotten to see a draft with the two teams going for extremely different teamcompositions. Astralis has an insane amount of siege/control whilst Fnatic is looking to move into the sidelanes and split up the controllers on Astralis.
Personally I think that the Fnatic draft is stronger, but also a lot harder to execute. If they don’t cover their flanks or overstay their welcome in a grouped scenario there is a chance that Astralis can run over them.
Key moments
The Fnatic botlane is god tier, managing to push in and abuse the Cait/Morgana lane, setting up Selfmade for early kills. But yet again we got to see Bwipo doing a very uncharacteristic missplay, overforcing an engage after what could be considered a wasted teleport at 12:30 in game.
Despite the misstep and Fnatic members being caught overstaying in the sidelane on multiple occasions, they were able to secure a huge teamfight victory over the third dragon, resulting in a very early baron. After a coupe of back and forth fights, the game ended with a baron steal from Selfmade and Nisqy running it all the way to the enemy nexus with the Ryze.
Post game takeaways
Hard to execute is what I called the Fnatic draft and they managed to get the victory, so I have to give them the credit they deserve. Fnatic knew what they had to do and played with intention, which is a very clear sign of a top tier team. They were able to bounce back after last weeks disappointing games and hopefully we’ll get to see some more good league tomorrow.
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