League Analysis — Fnatic vs SK Gaming — Playoffs Round 1
27 MARCH 2021 — by League Analyst
After 8 weeks of competition, LEC is moving into the post season. The first series in playoffs is happening in the losers bracket, which means it’s do or die for both teams right of the bat.
SK and Fnatic are the teams facing off, two rosters that have had a shaky spring split so far. Fnatic had a particularly rough last week, putting them on a 0–3 loss streak, whereas SK hasn’t won a game since week 6 and are struggling to get back on track.
When looking at the matchup at hand, Fnatic should be considered heavy favorites. They decidedly won both matches against SK this season and are statistically stronger in most aspects. I’d go as far as to say that Fnatic is their own worst enemy today, and if they can avoid the sloppy mistakes that they force upon themselves, it should be a clear cut victory.
Being outclassed on paper, SK will have to find some type of miracle to advance to round two. Eyes will be on Jezu and Treatz in the bot lane to find some type of advantage for the team, but when playing against a shining Fnatic botlane, it’s going to be hard. All said and done, I predict a 3–0 game score in favor of Fnatic.
Game 1 — Draft
Teamfighting seems to be the name of the game for game one of playoffs. Fnatic has opted for a very standard front to back teamcomp with the Orianna as the centerpiece of the composition. The team is very engage heavy and relies on snappy engages to assassinate the enemy backline.
SK has a similar approach, but their team has a lot more self peel with both Ahri and Xayah. The main goal for them will be to survive the initial engage from Fnatic and kite out fights, allowing Xayah to utilize her feathers. Despite having a lot of engage, it’ll be hard for the SK carries to get past the Fnatic frontline. I favor the Fnatic comp 60/40 for this game.
Game one — Key moments & possible adaptations
Playoffs starts of with a very skirmish heavy game with a lot of fighting and aggressive dives. The early game was back and fourth with fights going both ways. Like we’ve seen many times before, Fnatic had problems executing fights and the game quickly got messy with the two teams going blow for blow.
The key difference from the regular season was that Fnatic actually had solid scaling, allowing them to fail some engages and stay even, without having the clock dragging them down.
The game turned in favor of Fnatic after a massive Orianna ultimate by the baron pit. With the buff secured, Fnatic blew open the game and acquired a massive gold lead. The lead would be enough to win the following instances and close out the game in a relatively clean fashion.
In terms of adaptations I’d mainly look at SK to draft more around the win condition that they opt to go for. In this game for example, the team needs to identify that they are conditioned to self peel and kite Fnatic’s engages. So the drafting a late Aatrox doesn’t make much sense.
Game 2— Draft
Another draft centered around front to back teamfights. Fnatic is once again the team with the classic teamfighting comp, with a lot of frontline combined with a scaling mage and hyper carry ADC.
SK has a very similar draft but rely on Gnar to be the primary frontline of the team. This means that the team will have to pick their fights very carefully to avoid getting run over. They have the range advantage with Lillia and Viktor to keep Fnatic at a distance and will have to play around the Gnar to find their timing to move forward.
It’s worth noting that SK has two winning sidelanes on paper, which might enable them to find some early advantages. The draft is pretty much 50/50 in my mind, but Fnatic has the ease of execution and SK will have to pick their fights carefully.
Game two— Key moments & possible adaptations
A huge comeback for SK in game two of the series! But despite the victory, the game looked very rough and Fnatic was in control for most of the game. Fnatic grew a big early lead by bullying out the SK top side, finding multiple ganks in the mid- and top lane. The game progressed rather slowly but after a teamfight victory 20 minutes in, Fnatic was able to get enough pressure to secure the baron and a 7k gold lead.
The advantage continued to grow with the baron buff as Fnatic broke into the SK base. But the game turned on it’s head as they tried to dive the bottom tier 3 tower. The overforce by Fnatic gave SK a small chance to get back into the game, and that chance would be just enough for SK to turn it all around. After barely edging out the following teamfights, SK ended the game, evening out the series 1–1.
The notable mistake that I’ve noticed in both games so far is that Hecarim has been diving way to deep in grouped scenarios. The pick’s main strength is his ability to build space with his fear and separate the back- and frontline. But when diving to far ahead of the team, there won’t be anyone to follow up. When that happens. Hecarim will have a hard time to accomplish anything in the fight, making the champion useless.
Game 3— Draft
Big changeups for game 3 with two very different drafts compared to the previous games. Both compositions are very volatile and early advantages will be key to winning the game. Fnatic has a clear advantage in the bot lane since SK counterpicked themselves with Rakan into the Rell. SK however, has the advantage in the toplane where Jayce should be able to bully out the Karma.
The big problem for SK is that Akali will be very hard to maneuver in a grouped scenario against Hecarim/Rell/Karma. Setting up a 1–3–1 will be crucial for the team if they want to come out on top. I favor Fnatic quite heavily for this one, around 65–35. I really dislike the Akali and Rakan picks and if Karma can survive the laning phase it should be a free win for Fnatic.
Game three — Key moments & possible adaptations
Early domination by Fnatic in game three of the series with Upset finding 3 early kills on Kai’Sa. The huge lead gave Fnatic huge momentum in the game, resulting in a very early dragon stack. Unable to bounce back, SK was forced to surrender the infernal soul and stall, desperately looking for a window to chance to get back into the game. 26 minutes in, SK went for the baron to force Fnatic into a fight. But with the soul and the grouped power of the Karma, Fnatic easily won out and closed out the game shortly after.
This game was quite a huge draft gap in favor of Fnatic, and with the early missteps in the bot lane, it became very hard for SK to get any control on the map. It’s very clear that Fnatic is the stronger team, so defaulting back to scaling and attempting to punish overextensions by Fnatic would be my suggestion for SK to turn the series around.
Game 4— Draft
SK is throwing a curveball again in game four with some unique picks coming in. Truth be told, I really like what they have put together. Having the miasma (Cassio W) and the Urgot against the short range Fnatic composition should be very valuable. Maneuvering the fights should be difficult for Fnatic and they’ll have to rely on the Karma to top them off. I give SK a 60–40 advantage in draft for game four.
Game four— Key moments
What a way to end the series! Once again it was Fnatic who threw the first punch, picking up three kills before the minions even spawned. And it went from bad to worse for SK as they continued to drop kills in the early game. The botlane in particular had big problems, with Selfmade coming down to deny waves multiple times.
SK was able to get a few kills back in the toplane, targeting the weak side Karma from Bwipo. As the game progressed, SK started finding shutdowns and slowly clawed their way back from the early deficit. 20 minutes in, the game was dead even in gold and fights were very close. In many ways it was Jenax versus Upset trying to carry the game for their respective teams.
A massive e flash outplay by Jenax was enough to secure SK the baron. But the team overreached shortly after and lost out in a fight around the tier 2 mid tower. Quickly recovering, SK repeated the play and found a 3–0 fight, leaving only two Fnatic members to defend the base. In a heroic defence, Upset and Nisqy managed to hold on, letting the other Fnatic members respawn and collapse on a retreating SK.
The collected kills secured Fnatic the elder dragon and shortly after, the baron. And with the two buffs Fnatic was able to close out the game, finishing the series 3–1.
Post series takeaways & Play of the series
Not quite 3–0, but quite a dominating victory for Fnatic in the first round of the post season. It did however, look shaky from time to time and the team went for some questionable fights in the mid game. And to be clear, the fights aren’t bad because their are lost necessarily. It is more about the intention of the fights; why they are fighting and what advantages they can gain by winning them.
Fnatic showed up in the early game today and found big advantages in multiple games this series. If they can clean up the mid game and be a bit more patient, games should look way cleaner going forward. It’s still a lot of games left to be played and next week Fnatic will face of against the lowest seed of the loosing R1 teams.
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