League Analysis — Fnatic vs MAD Lions— LEC Week 5
20 FEBRUARY 2021 — by League Analyst
The battle for third place
It is the second day of week 5 in the LEC and in today’s matchup, Fnatic will be battling it out with MAD Lions for sole possession of 3rd place in the standings. After Fnatic’s rough loss against Vitality yesterday, it’ll be an important match to bounce back and avoid a 0–2 week.
Since we’ve passed the halfway point of the split, the standings will become more and more important from this point forward. The top 6 teams will qualify for playoffs and as the weeks comes and goes, every game will increase in importance.
Last time Fnatic faced of against the Lions, they suffered defeat in an absolute bloodbath of a game. That was 3 weeks ago and both teams has grown a lot since then. MAD Lions have shown their talent by continually getting advantages in the early-game with their unrelenting aggression.
When ahead, they are one of the deadliest teams in the league and tend to explode their leads when a chance presents itself. The matchup between these two aggressively minded teams should guarantee us another exiting game with a lot of action.
Draft breakdown
Finished draft shown at the bottom of the breakdown.
Blue Bans:
Ban 1 — Seraphine
The early Seraphine ban is very valuable because of her flexibility. Not having to worry about her in the draft takes a lot of pressure of the team.
Ban 2 — Renekton
Banning away the Renekton early is in my mind still not worth it. It’s not as powerful as it was in the beginning of split and other champions should be valued higher in my mind.
Ban 3 — Rell
The Rell ban is something I value highly. Her playmaking potential is off the charts and she is a good blind pick as well.
Red Bans:
Ban 1 — Twisted Fate
Twisted Fate remains permabanned on red side.
Ban 2 — Azir
Azir is an interesting adaptation since the Seraphine got banned away. With the most popular response banned, this takeaway is quite clever.
Ban 3 — Orianna
I mean this ban is just greif. I’d say Orianna is quite overrated generally and it also means that Udyr is left up. I cannot see an angle where any ban is better than Udyr here honestly.
Picks:
B1 Pick — Udyr
The Udyr obviously gets picked away right away by MAD. In my opinion, it is the strongest jungler on this patch.
R1 Pick — Alistar
Once again, Hyli on Alistar. He is good on it and generates tons of pressure with the pick.
R2 Pick — Samira
Upset’s Samira gets picked up early as well. It’s clear that the Fnatic botlane is valuing the comfort picks that they have found a lot of success on.
B2 Pick — Senna
Senna gets picked up despite the fact that Kai’Sa is up and available. I think it’s an interesting choice that can be very valuable in certain scenarios.
B3 Pick — Tahm Kench
Tahm Kench is the classic support to pair with the Senna. It allows the Senna to go the fasting route and provides her safety against all ins.
R3 Pick — Lillia
Lillia is pretty much the only reasonable jungle pick for Fnatic at this point. I don’t like the trade with Udyr but this is 100% the best pick available.
Blue bans:
Ban 4 — Gangplank
One of the stronger toplaners banned away.
Ban 5 — Lucian
I really like the Lucian ban. MAD is already opting into a hard scaling teamcomp so taking away some of Fnatic’s snowballing tools will make their wincondition easier to achieve.
Red bans:
Ban 4 — Aatrox
I’d say the Aatrox ban is a bit random. Based on the draft so far I’d assume that Fnatic will be engaging into MAD so I’d even say that it would be a better pick for Fnatic.
Ban 5 — Ekko
The Ekko ban points to the fact that Fnatic is looking for a control mage in the midlane, it’s a fine ban for that purpose.
Picks:
R4 Pick — Syndra
Syndra comes in as the control mage we were talking about. Personally I would have liked to see Zoe here but the champions serve a similar purpose so it’s not that big of a difference.
B4 Pick — Viktor
I really like this pick personally. Viktor is in my opinion one of the most underrated champions in mid. He offers a lot of poke from long range combined with a high burst combo in the late game.
B5 Pick — Gnar
Another clever pick since most of the counters has been banned away. Fnatic can’t pick Kennen either since they are AP heavy already.
R5 Pick — Sett
I don’t know about this one. They counterpick themselves and I don’t know what the purpose of the Sett is here. In all fairness, this is a very hard pick and I don’t really have something that makes sense here either. The best thing I can come up with is Jayce, pick for lane and try to snowball through toplane.
Pre-game prediction
All things considered this draft is quite even. Personally I prefer the MAD Lions draft, mainly because of pure power of the picks. I also think Fnatic screwed themselves by picking the Sett into Gnar. They’ll be bleeding so much pressure on the map because of it and if MAD Lions can keep the bottom side of the map stable, they should be in a favorable positions as the game progresses. If Fnatic is unable to find favorable flanks and skirmishes, MAD will outrange with Viktor and Senna in the lategame, which might cause problems as the teams turn for the neutral objectives.
Key moments
Similarly to yesterday, Fnatic was able to get a small lead in the early game as Upset and Hylissang showed why the Samira and Alistar picks were so heavily prioritized in the draft. But like predicted earlier, Gnar turned into a big issue for Fnatic and drew a lot of their attention away from the bottom side of the map.
Despite Upset having another great game and doing everything in his power to carry, the game slowly started to turn as MAD grouped up around the neutral objectives. In both the 3rd and 4th drake fights, Fnatic was unable to find a favorable engage and MAD was able to secure the 2–0 over Fnatic this split.
Post game takeaways
Despite an 0–2 week, I don’t think Fnatic played badly at all this weekend. They had some very narrow winconditions and drafted themselves into quite a rough spot in both games.
There wasn’t any notable mistakes that worries me to much in terms of gameplay. Sure, Bwipo had some unfortunate deaths in lane but shit like that happens and isn’t something to overanalyze. On the other side of the map, Upset and Hylissang had two very good games and if the team can figure out how they want to approach the top side of the map I’m convinced that the team can bounce back for next week.
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