League Analysis — Fnatic vs MAD Lions— LEC Week 2
31 JANUARY 2021 — by League Analyst
Match of the week
It’s day two of the second week of the LEC and today Fnatic will be facing of against MAD Lions to see who can proceed to 3–2. In yesterdays match, Fnatic showed up and defeated Team Vitality in a very dominant fashion. Now they are facing the second place team from the 2020 summer split and will be looking to assert themselves as a top team in the league.
As mentioned in yesterdays post, this match should give us a much clearer view of the level of this new Fnatic squad. The Lions are fierce opponents and won’t just fall over and die like Team Vitality did yesterday. Playing a clean game and not getting caught out of position will be key in todays match if Fnatic wants to come out on top.
We saw the team engaging in some unnecessary fights in yesterdays match and mistakes like those will have a much greater price against a team like the Lions. Despite that, I’ve been very impressed with how fast Fnatic as a team cleaned up their major mistakes from the first games of week 1. The communication seem way smother and the team is moving like a unit to gain advantages across the map. The team still seem to be dialing in their level of aggressiveness and willingness to engage in risky situations but the improvement so far has been nothing short of amazing.
Draft breakdown
Finished draft shown at the bottom of the breakdown.
Blue Bans:
Ban 1 — Renekton
One of the power picks of the toplane, I still belive it to be counter pickable but it’s a fine ban overall.
Ban 2 — Sett
Don’t really understand why you would ban Sett as one of the first three. It’s not one of the champions that have seen a lot of priority so far in the split so the ban is a bit random.
Ban 3 — Zoe
I really like the Zoe ban against Nisqy as it is one of his best champions and a very flexible pick that synergizes well with many different teamcomps.
Red Bans:
Ban 1 — Twisted Fate
One of two must bans on red side in my opinion with Olaf being the other one. Twisted Fate is very obnoxious and his stun setup has been terrorizing the LEC early on in the split.
Ban 2 — Olaf
The other must ban coming in for Fnatic with Olaf being taken of the table. He is simply too strong in the early game and despite being hit in the latest patch, Olaf continues to dominate in the jungle.
Ban 3 — Lucian
We saw this ban yesterday as well but I would argue it makes a bit more sense today as Humanoid is a very capable Lucian player and has had some very impressive showings on the champion.
Picks:
B1 Pick — Taliyah
The 2nd jungler on the LEC tier list being picked up with Olaf being taken of the table. One of the strongest champions available and a very good first pick.
R1 Pick — Pantheon
I really like the early Pantheon as it acts as a good flex that can go top, jungle and support. We’ve mostly seen it jungle but with the point and click CC it is definitely viable in other roles as well.
R2 Pick — Kai’Sa
One of the premium ADC’s with very few meta counterpicks. It’s a champion that we’ve seen a lot and most likely will continue to see as the split continues.
B2 Pick — Xayah
Xayah is one of the ADC’s that have seen a lot of play over in the LPL and that has been showing up more and more in the LEC. It’s one of the safer botlaners that doesn’t show to much in terms of strategy and can be played into most teamcomps.
B3 Pick — Azir
Surprisingly early Azir pick with many high tier mages still available. What makes the pick preferable in my mind is the disengage it offers into a Fnatic squad that has been drafting a lot of engage in all of their games so far.
R3 Pick — Irelia
Okay this is a somewhat random pick. Irelia is another flex that can go both mid and top. It’s a pick that does a decent job of beating Azir but will set Fnatic on a tight timer as both Irelia and Pantheon will scale quite poorly.
Blue bans:
Ban 4 — Gragas
One of many available tanks in the toplane that also can be flexed into other roles if needed. All around a solid ban.
Ban 5 — Malphite
Don’t really understand the Malphite ban when Ornn is available. It’s another tank taken of the board but I would argue that there are better options to ban out.
Red bans:
Ban 4 — Alistar
One of the engage supports getting banned, makes sense and will probably be followed up by a Rell or Leona ban.
Ban 5 — Rakan
Okay so the Xayah Rakan combo is taken away instead, with the lack of big frontline on Fnatic the Rakan pick could be potent so I don’t mind the ban.
Picks:
R4 Pick — Leona
One of the two remaining engagers being picked up. Just a very stable and powerful support that can lane against most champions in the meta.
B4 Pick — Wukong
The Armut special coming in with Wukong being picked up. This also explains the earlier Malphite ban as it is one of the biggest counters to Wukong. It’s a champion that absolutely destroys Irelia and also does fine into Pantheon. A lovely pick into the Fnatic teamcomp. It also offers the Lions some well needed frontline.
B5 Pick — Rell
The last engager get picked up as a response to the Leona. It’s a very potent pick that should be able to sync up with Wukong later in the game to set up plays for the team and frontline for the backline mages in Azir and Taliyah.
R5 Pick — Evelyn
Now this pick is very interesting. Evelyn being picked pretty much guarantees that Irelia will head to the midlane and Pantheon to the toplane. As Fnatic’s teamcomp was very ad heavy leading up to this pick I was looking for an AP toplaner like Singed.
Instead we get Eve which commits Fnatic to a very snowbally comp that most definitely will get outscaled as the game moves on. They’ll have to rely on early setup with Pantheon, Irelia and Leona to snowball the game out of control before they their champions start to fall of.
Pre-game prediction
This draft is rather interesting and both comps have very clear winconditions. For Fnatic it is very simple, win before the Lions outscale them. Naturally, the Pantheon, Irelia and Evelyn has some very potent early to mid game tools to snowball the game, but they will all eventually fall of a cliff and become completely useless.
This game is really hard to predict based on draft alone. I would give a slight advantage to the Lions based on the timer that Fnatic is on but it could honestly go either way.
Key moments
It feels like Fnatic play games just to make them completely impossible for me to analyze in a couple of sentences. I really have no clue where to start on this one. This was a game of constant fighting and the two teams trading kills with each other all over the map.
Unfortunately for Fnatic, the constant fighting resulted in Azir ending up with 6 kills 12 minutes into the game, setting him insanely far ahead. But despite that, the game remained very close until 20 minutes when Fnatic caught Mad Lions of guard greeding for the tier one tower in the mid lane. After a 3 for 1 teamfight, Fnatic managed to pick up baron and grew a 5k gold lead quickly after by picking up towers on the map.
Despite the lead, Fnatic was reaching the end of their timer and they weren't able to break into the enemy base with the baron buff. Instead the game slowly started to turn as the Lions kept fighting back. The game essentially ended 28 minutes in when the Lions won a fight in their blue side jungle which resulted in them picking up the baron and swinging the game back in their favor. After that point there really wasn’t much Fnatic could do as the Lions kept winning fights and eventually closed out the 50 kill game, 35 minutes in.
Post game takeaways
I don’t judge Fnatic for trying to force their opponents hand as the emphasis was on them to create a chaotic and volatile game state. But this was a bit over the top once again. Players were diving way to deep and going for unrealistic plays over and over again. It looked like their first game against Misfits, messy, uncalculated and reckless.
I would say it is quite clear where the team sits compared to the expectations we had going into the game. A clear lack of composure and patience is showing in the team, resulting in overaggressiveness and reckless plays. The coaching staff will have to step in and get the player ego’s in check. It looks a bit to much like soloq, a bit to much like G2, who also lost today with very similar mistakes showing up in game.
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