League Analysis — Fnatic vs Misfits — LEC Week 1
23 JANUARY 2021 — by League Analyst
Picks to watch for in 2021
As this is the first Fnatic game of the 2021 season we’ll have a lot of new picks to watch out for. With the huge item update in the offseason, a lot of new champions has risen in priority. Here are a 3 of them:
Kai’Sa
Kai’Sa is currently one of the strongest ADC’s available in the bot lane and currently sits at over 90% PB in both the LCK and LPL. Her consistent damage output and fantastic dive ability are just a few of the strengths of the daughter of the void. Depending on the game her kit works out very well with both “Kraken Slayer” and “Galeforce”, two of the new items added to League of Legends in 2021.
Olaf
The berserker is back and stronger than ever. We all know what the viking is capable of, it’s all forward and with the new item “Goredrinker” Olaf can now go even deeper into the enemy backline. He is almost guaranteed to show up as one of the leading junglers in the meta, being able to snowball any game out of control with his dominating kit.
Renekton
The butcher of the sands is just as strong as ever and also one of many fond users of the new “Goredrinker”. The notorious toplane bully is still the gatekeeper to the toplane island and you better be prepared if letting him trough the ban phase. If not, your backline will have to fear for the diving crocodile. Now we’ll head into the first Fnatic game of 2021!
Draft breakdown
Finished draft shown at the bottom of the breakdown.
Blue Bans:
Ban 1 - Twisted Fate
A solid ban and most likely chosen since Nisqy is known to rotate around the map to support his team.
Ban 2 - Thresh
I would assume the Thresh ban is to deny an Aphelios pick. The champion can’t really be picked without him because a lack of mobility so the Thresh is crucial because of his lantern.
Ban 3 - Pantheon
An all around strong champion with flex potential.
Red Bans:
Ban 1 - Olaf
Strongest jungler in the game at the moment and one of the must bans at the moment for red side in my opinion.
Ban 2 - Akali
Another pick that most likely will remain banned for a while. Akali is still one of the most potent pro play midlaners and her shroud is still broken.
Ban 3 - Camille
I’m honestly don’t know if Camille is ban worthy at the moment. As we saw at worlds this year, there are quite a few viable counters that can deal with the champion. If you aren’t willing to play those champions I guess the Camille ban is fine.
B1 Pick - Renekton
I really don’t think Renekton is first pick worthy at the moment and since they banned Thresh I question why they don’t pick away the Kai’Sa and push Upset onto one of the lower tier ADC’s.
R1 Pick - Kai’Sa
Both the strongest ADC and Bwipo’s girlfriend’s favorite champion so it all makes sense. Jokes aside an obvious pick.
R2 Pick - Gragas
A strong pick into Renekton assuming it’s going top, could also be flexed both jungle and support. Also makes a lot of sense since he both is capable of disengaging a Renekton or engage himself.
B2 Pick - Taliyah
The most PB% champion in the LCK at the moment and has 100% win rate with 6 wins and 0 losses in the region. Since an AP jungler basically is a must to get a damage type mix it is definitely a solid pick. Also works well with the Renekton to set up CC chains.
B3 Pick - Xayah
No clue what the reasoning for this pick is. I personally would hover towards Miss Fortune/Samira/Jhin or even Kalista depending on how much you want to risk on needing to snowball the lane. In the LCK Kalista was recently paired with Jarvan IV and is a cool lane combo that I would argue teams should be looking for more often as they are very oppressive in the laning phase. Regardless, Misfits have not seen much engage from red side so the Xayah doesn’t really make much sense.
R3 Pick - Hecarim
So the Hecarim could go both jungle and top but since I prefer the Gragas top I would put Heca jungle. I just don’t understand the point of picking a diver into Renekton Xayah. Blue team is already lacking reliable engage so simply picking a Graves or Lillia would be my choice here.
Blue bans:
Ban 4 - Orianna
A random mid ban that somewhat synergises with the Hecarim engage. It’s a fine ban since Gragas still could flex support.
Ban 5 - Syndra
Simply another mid ban, pretty much running down the mage tier list.
Red bans:
Ban 4 - Alistar
One of the top tier supports at the moment, makes sense.
Ban 5 - Rakan
Don’t understand why banning you would ban Rakan over Leona but it’s a fine ban otherwise.
R4 Pick - Leona
Best support pick left and also makes a lot of sense when looking at how the teamcomp is shaping up.
B4 Pick - Zoe
Zoe into Gragas, Hecarim and Leona? Seems unnecessary in my mind. I’d rather see Azir since he can disengage and has mobility. Even LeBlanc could be viable here but is obviously much riskier and can be abused.
B5 Pick - Galio
Actually a very smart pick and a good denial from Misfits. A good anti engage ultimate that also can me used with the Renekton for aggressive plays. Works fine vs Leona and gets Xayah trough the lane.
R5 Pick - Viktor
I mean the midlane champion pool is narrowed down quite a lot and Viktor isn’t bad per say. But isn’t Azir just better? Even a smacking down an Ekko would be very cool in this position. I don’t hate the pick but I still feel like there could be better alternatives.
Pre-game prediction
I’d say that Fnatic won the draft quite hard and has tons of tools to force plays around the map, something I value very highly in the current meta. I still question the choice to draft heavy engage into the early Renekton and Xayah but the lack of engage on Misfists is a bit worrying and I don’t really understand what the teamcomp is looking to do except surviving when Fnatic decides to pull the trigger.
Post game key takeaways
This game was a big mess not going to lie. As mentioned in the pre game prediction, Fnatic was the team who got to pick the plays. The big problem that we can conclude in hindsight was that they picked some really bad fights.
There were a lot of skirmishes and random fights across the map, but the game remained quite even until the second drake fight where Fnatic overforced and get aced by Misfits. After that point, a few more random fights over nothing resulted in the game collapsing and Vetheo closed the game with a fantastic play on Zoe.
I wouldn’t say that either team played the game particularly well and I still think that this was Fnatic’s game to lose. Mainly because they had the ability to pick when and where to force plays. A series of overforced plays that Misfits punished resulted in Fnatic’s first game in 20201 ending as a loss.
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