League Analysis — Fnatic vs Rouge— LEC Week 8
15 MARCH 2021 — by League Analyst
It is finally time for the last game of the spring regular season! Fnatic versus Rouge is the matchup at hand. Because of earlier results today, Fnatic is 100% locked into playoffs and now has to play for top four. If they win today, they’ll get the security of the winners bracket in the post season. Otherwise it’ll be do or die every single best of five going forward.
With two losses this week, the Fnatic squad hasn’t been able to find their footing at all. And if they don’t win today, it’ll be the first time since 2016 summer that Fnatic doesn’t end in the top four in the regular season.
Draft breakdown
Finished draft shown at the bottom of the breakdown.
Blue Bans:
Ban 1 — Tristana
Mid/bot flex that can work both as a counter to control mages or as a scaling hypercarry in the botlane. Because of the flexibility I like the early ban.
Ban 2 — Rell
The premium engage support banned away.
Ban 3 — Caitlyn
One more time we get to see the long range Caitlyn banned early on in the draft. She is a sieging machine and also dominates most ADC’s in lane.
Red Bans:
Ban 1 — Lillia
The flexibility in game has drawn more and more bans towards the Lillia in the later stages of the spring split. Since she can initiate plays without having to commit herself to a fight, teams can pick and choose when to go for a play. She is also one of the fastest clearing junglers in the game.
Ban 2 — Twisted Fate
For the last time in the regular season, TF eats another red side ban.
Ban 3 — Hecarim
Another strong jungler taken of the board. I’m not convinced that Hecarim is ban worthy but with a lack of better alternatives, I suppose it’s fine.
Picks:
B1 Pick — Senna
Here we go again, with Senna being picked very early. If combined with Tahm Kench, I really hope that Fnatic can identify the weaknesses of the duo.
R1 Pick — Aphelios
Blink and you’ll miss it, Thresh is up and available and the first part of the duo is picked up straight away.
R2 Pick — Thresh
He is usually banned away, but today we’ll finally get to see the Thresh on the rift. What Aphelios lacks in mobility, Thresh covers up with lantern and the rest of his peeling tools.
B2 Pick — Orianna
In typical Rouge fashion, more scaling is coming in with a safe and reliable control mage in the midlane.
B3 Pick — Cho’Gath
Blind Cho’Gath is not something that we see often. With counters like Gnar up and available, it could be sent down to the botlane together with a fasting Senna. It most likely comes down to what Fnatic goes for in the toplane.
R3 Pick — Lucian
Most likely mid Lucian, giving Fnatic a priority lane to play around in the early game.
Blue bans:
Ban 4 — Nidalee
Fnatic is very AD heavy, so AP junglers are being targeted by Rouge.
Ban 5 — Taliyah
Another AP jungler taken away.
Red bans:
Ban 4 — Olaf
The jungle pool is being targeted very heavily but I don’t agree with the Olaf ban. Instead of defaulting back to nerfed picks that was strong in the early parts of spring, players need to look towards the next powerpick. I look towards Graves, Karthus and Kindred.
Ban 5 — Udyr
I feel very similarly about the Udyr ban. The nerfs has hit him hard and players need to look towards something else in my opinion.
Picks:
R4 Pick — Gragas
Top or jungle, Gragas is a flex and we’ll have to see where Fnatic decides to place it.
B4 Pick — Graves
Not exactly the most spicy pick but Graves has been one of the most reliable junglers for over a year at this point. He doesn’t define any draft, but he’ll always be there to do his job.
B5 Pick — Gnar
Good into Gragas and also a solid blind pick offering both sidlane and teamfighting pressure. This also means Cho’Gath is heading down to the botlane.
R5 Pick — Nocturne
It’s finally time for the Bwipo Nocturne. He is a very strong duelist in the early stages and can utilize his early pressure to roam and find advantages with his ultimate once he reaches level 6. With Stridebraker and Sterak’s Gage he is tanky enough to dive into the enemy backline without having to sacrifice his own life.
Pre-game prediction
Up until the second ban phase, this draft looked very promising for both teams. I do however think that Fnatic once again has put to many eggs in the early game basket. With Aphelios on the team, I would have preferred opting for a more front to back teamcomp.
Instead it’s more early game with two priority lanes in mid and top. This does however mean that the team lacks a reliable frontline. And walking past a Cho’Gath, Gnar and Orianna isn’t going to be easy. It’s up to Fnatic to find advantages with their prio lanes, otherwise this game might end up just like yesterday.
Key moments
Play after play, Fnatic used their powerful laners to create huge early leads. Or at least, that’s what I would have liked to say. In reality, it was another day with failed executions.
For the first 15 minutes, it was Fnatic picking the engages. But Rouge was ready and showed exactly why they are the best controlling team in the league, outplaying each individual scenario despite being at a disadvantage. And with Fnatic falling behind, the effect of Rouges scaling started to take over.
In split scenarios, Fnatic was able to find some favorable plays. But when the true 5v5’s began, they couldn’t get past the huge Rouge frontline. Graves, Orianna and Senna was to much to overcome and Rouge handed Fnatic another loss.
Looking towards playoffs
0–3 is the scoreline that many will look at when evaluating Fnatic going into the post season. But despite the unfortunate last week, I still have hope for the team.
Fnatic has been faltering in the early game, trying to force themselves into favorable scenarios. But it is important to remember that it is the draft approach that Fnatic has used which forces them to go for these early executions. So there are many possible fixes; one way is to clean up their early game and make these aggressive compositions work.
The other choice is to look for easier and more reliable teamcomps. This does however require the team to stop overforcing, a problem that the team had in many games early on in the split. Either way, there are gameplay aspects to fix and we’ll need to see a different Fnatic in the BO5's.
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