League Analysis — Fnatic vs Team Vitality — LEC Week 2
30 JANUARY 2021 — by League Analyst
Week two is upon us
LEC is finally on the road and we’re now entering week two of the spring split. Fnatic is currently in a 7 way tie for 4th place with a 1–2 record. Rouge and G2 are leading the league with Misfits a close second. As we all know, things have just gotten started and I would recommend any new viewers to not read into the standings too much this early into the split. There are many weeks left and the standings will definitely shake up before we reach the playoffs.
In todays match, Fnatic will be facing of against Team Vitality for a chance to even out their record. I would say that Fnatic are heavy favorites and I almost guarantee an easy victory if the team show up in a similar fashion to how they ended of in week 1.
What will I be looking for today? Easy to execute compositions with simple winconditions, solid scaling and good engage tools. In a match like this, where Fnatic on paper is the better team in most aspects, there is no need to make things more complicated than necessary. I’d rather see the team focus on perfecting the basics, with good macro and really making sure that the team is on the same page. Communication and over eagerness was a big issue in week one for the team and I hope that another week of practice can clean up some of the mistakes that showed up in game.
Draft breakdown
Finished draft shown at the bottom of the breakdown.
Blue Bans:
Ban 1 — Lucian
The Lucian ban is somewhat random in my mind. It currently sits at a 55% PB in the LEC so it haven’t had an extreme amount of showings so far. Important to note is that Vitality’s only win so far was with a Lucian in the midlane, which might be one of the main reasons for the ban.
Ban 2 — Thresh
No Aphelios for you! We’ve covered this ban many times and I personally think it is solid.
Ban 3 — Kalista
I think that Kalista is a good ban and a champion that is very underappreciated at the moment. A super good lane bully that works well into the meta botlaners.
Red Bans:
Ban 1 — Twisted Fate
Twisted Fate is one of the champions that went under my radar going into the split. It currently has 100% win rate over 7 games and seems to one of the big power picks of this patch, definitely worthy a ban .
Ban 2 — Pantheon
The 100% PB of Pantheon continues. I think the main value of the champion comes from it’s flex potential as it can be played both top, mid, jungle and support. I would argue that he is a bit overrated at the time as his scaling is horrendously bad and a big nerf to his e made his diving ability much worse. The pro’s seem to think otherwise.
Ban 3 — Taliyah
Another champion that has 100% PB so far in the split and has shown great potential in game. Note that Olaf is left up with one of the AP options getting banned.
Picks:
B1 Pick — Olaf
As mentioned, the Olaf was left up by Vitality and is obviously getting first picked as a response. I still believe that Olaf is the strongest champion in the game currently but is has some very clear weaknesses. It forces your teamcomp into a very specific way of playing the game and Olaf will require backup when he dives into the enemy team. Although the viking has gotten nerfed recently, I don’t belive them to be big enough to force him out of the meta.
R1 Pick — Leona
Fantastic! A hard engage champion with CC into the enemy Olaf. Possibly the worst pick available and already sets Vitality into a horrible position in the draft. Having foresight on what Fnatic will be looking to draft I would pick Xayah and Gragas R1 and R2 to have good disengage and a flex pick in the Gragas that can be put in to counter Renekton or be flexed into jungle or support.
R2 Pick — Nidalee
Another pointless pick that most likely won’t accomplish anything in game. Just give me a Graves, Kindred or Gragas or any other champ that can stay alive versus the dive that is coming. I would call the draft lost at this point and predict Fnatic to win the game.
B2 Pick — Kai’Sa
Here comes the dive that we were talking about. Another power pick that makes sense with what Fnatic is drafting, all around a fantastic pick.
B3 Pick — Renekton
I mean the book is just writing itself at this point. Knowing Nisqy I wouldn’t be suprised to see Zoe or Galio come in later as well.
R3 Pick — Xayah
Okay, they finally picked something that isn’t absolute garbage. It’s just to late to recover for Vitality and they will be overrun in early game skirmishes.
Blue bans:
Ban 4 — Gragas
A pick that I mentioned earlier that Vitality should have picked up. It is now too late as Fnatic bans it away.
Ban 5 — Tristana
Removing another bully midlaner that could mess with Nisqy. I mean it’s a fine ban, the draft is pretty much over anyways.
Red bans:
Ban 4 — Zoe
Very strong ban knowing they are facing Nisqy. All around strong champion in the midlane with a lot of setup for her team.
Ban 5 — Syndra
No clue what this ban is about. Completely pointless and wastes a ban that could have been used on Galio or Alistar/Sett.
Picks:
R4 Pick — Gnar
Picking Gnar into Olaf and Kai’Sa, who you will never be able to hit with your ultimate, another fantastic pick if you ask me. Obviously picked as a counter to Renekton but I struggle to see a world where it does much of anything outside of lane.
B4 Pick — Rell
I was leaning towards Alistar or Sett, but the Rell pick serves the same purpose as another engager.
B5 Pick — Orianna
Orianna is the obvious blindable midlaner left up here and works well to speed up and support the rest of her team. There are definitely more spicy picks available but I really don’t mind the Orianna.
R5 Pick — LeBlanc
Ah, the classic “we’re fucked, let’s pick a volatile snowball champion to try to save ourselves”. It’s very much like the Jax pick from Schalke last week, super desperate and most likely wont work. This time it’s also a self counterpick into the Orianna. Also, mercury’s treads is op and counters the entire Vitality teamcomp.
Pre-game prediction
So I think that I’ve been pretty clear with who I think won this draft. Fnatic has done exactly what I was hoping for. They drafted an easy to execute composition with very clear winconditions and a lot of engage tools. I expect the game to be a walk in the park if Fnatic keeps it clean and stays on the same page in game.
The casters pointed it out on broadcast as well; Vitality’s comp is all over the place and doesn’t really make much sense at all. They have some strong picks laning wise, but as a team it looks really messy.
Key moments
The game barely begun before it was over as Renekton started the snowball 3 minutes into the game by solo killing Gnar under his tower. This is obviously a huge blunder by Szygenda and he should have either thinned out the wave to prevent a dive or simply back of and respect the early game prowess of Renekton.
The game essentially ended two minutes with Vitality’s botlane disrespecting the enemy Olaf, walking up in lane only to be chased down by the viking who was spotted in the lane just a couple of seconds earlier.
With the first drake coming up, Fnatic postured very aggressively to choke out the Vitality botlane, picking up more kills and getting an early 2k gold advantage. After this point the game was pretty much over, and the game turned into a complete soloq fiesta with Fnatic ending the game 33 minutes in with 24 kills to their name.
In terms of analysis there really isn’t much to cover in this one as Vitality got so insanely outdrafted. Fnatic demonstrated exactly how the game should play out 9 times out of 10 and ended up getting another victory on the board. Of course the game wasn’t clean what so ever past 15 minutes, but this early into the split it doesn’t feel necessary to look too much into it. The Fnatic squad had a good time and outclassed Vitality in all aspects of the game.
Post game takeaways
For Fnatic fans this game should be a big relief. They showed once again that they are tiers above the bottom level LEC teams. The team played a stellar early game and abused their comp to absolutely slaughter Vitality on the rift. Despite the game turning into an absolute mess after 15 minutes, it really doesn’t mean much of anything since the game essentially ended with Renekton and Olaf running over the early game together with a roaming Rell.
Looking forward, it’ll be exiting to watch Fnatic face of against some of the expected higher rated teams in the league. In matches where mistakes are more likely to be punished, we’ll get a better view of how clean Fnatic’s play really is. For me it is still hard to tell if the squad is trolling around in game or if they really are struggling to close out games in a clean fashion. In this game alone, Nisqy died twice by tp’ing into the enemy team, probably as a response to a call by a teammate. If this happens in closer games they are game loosing mistakes, but it might just be them messing around. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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