Stratos Cup Round 2: Nitrogen vs Sodium

GAME 1

Analysis Format

INTRODUCTION

In week two of the Stratos Cup,Ozon3 Nitrogen took on Ozon3 Sodium, the two, up until recently, Bronze/Silver open league teams of Ozon3 Gaming. Ozon3 Nitrogen has since joined the Premier league ranks, leaving Ozon3 Sodium as the Organizations final Open League team for this split.

PICK/BANNING PHASE

Coming into banning phase, both teams decided to early ban each other’s mid laners. They both know that RDZombie and BuhRockObama are the powerhouses of each other’s teams. Ozon3 Nitrogen wanted to clear out the roaming mid laners, Taliyah and Galio; Taliyah is often a pick that BuhRockObama brings into game and can be very team-oriented, and Galio has a 47% win rate, with a much higher win rate among team play and against the carry, AP mid laners that they would like their very own RDZombie to bring out. Meanwhile, Ozon3 Sodium decided to ban out some of the more carry-oriented, high damage mid laners, Kassadin and Ryze. Kassadin is one of RDZombie‘s highest played mid laners. However, Ryze only has a 43% win rate at the moment, and is only a pick BuhRockObama seems to pull off, thus making this ban much less efficient. Following these bans, Ozon3 Sodium went for the Tristana ban, a very common and well-placed ban against OtterlyLost, who has over 300 games logged on her in the past season. Ozon3 Nitrogen went for the extremely strong Sejuani ban, one of the more common jungle bans of this past patch.

Following this, Ozon3 Sodium decide to pull off the flex pick, Jarvan IV. Assuming that the Jarvan IV is going jungle, Ozon3 Nitrogen pick off the Maokai for Optimity, one of Jarvan IV’s more difficult matchups, as Maokai is too tanky for Jarvan IV to kill while invading. They also pick the Ashe, which seems to not be one of OtterlyLost‘s preferred adc’s. However, they pick it anyways, perhaps out of sheer confidence in their ability to win. Next, Ozon3 Sodium decide to choose the Rakan and Twitch. Rakan is a strong team pick, even though it does not seem that Taran Wanderer69 plays him often. Lastly, Ozon3 Nitrogen chooses to take the Janna, even though it also is not a comfort pick for Vircom12. This will do well, as it utilizes the Ardent patch better than Rakan.

Proceeding to the next banning phase, Ozon3 Sodium chooses to ban out more of RDZombie‘s pool, Orianna and Cassiopeia. This is interesting because, although these are two decent team picks, RDZombie normally does not normally pick either of these champs. However, it is good to see that they are strongly focusing on banning out arguably Ozon3 Nitrogen ‘s largest powerhouse. Meanwhile, Ozon3 Nitrogen decides to ban the Gragas, a pick with a great ult and useful roams, but a low win rate in general and low pick rate for Acce1erate, and the Viktor, to get rid of one of Ozon3 Sodium ‘s picks from one of their powerhouses, BuhRockObama.

This leads us into our last phase of pick and ban for this first matchup. Ozon3 Nitrogen pulled off the Gnar pick for, of course, ThatGnarBar , who is going to try and show us whether or not he deserves his name. This is also a great team pick for Ozon3 Nitrogen . Ozon3 Sodium was next up on the block for picks, and they decided to bring Ahri to the table for BuhRockObama, which should be able to escape any ganks early game that Optimity tries to dish out for RDZombie. Lastly for Ozon3 Sodium , they decide to go with the Jayce for Freelance . This should be able to beat out Gnar early game, but seeing that they are both ranged top laners, it will be a fun lane to watch. For the final pick, Ozon3 Nitrogen pick the Syndra, who RDZombie seems to be familiar with playing.

PRE-GAME

In this pre-game matchup, let’s take a closer look at how each team should play the game out and whether or not they will be able to succeed with their chosen comps. First, let’s look at laning phase, starting with top side. The Gnar/Jayce matchup should go to Jayce based purely on champions and matchups. Ozon3 Sodium would then need to use this to their advantage to snowball, because otherwise, the Gnar is going to out-perform the Jayce late game in team fights simply based on utility. However, seeing that ThatGnarBar is on what is most likely his favored champion, he may win lane against Freelance, which would then render Jayce useless unless he simply pokes down a team or catches someone out.

In the jungle, we will be seeing the matchup of Jarvan IV against Maokai. Jarvan IV has been strong for a few patches now, and a large portion of this success can be credited to his ability to gank lanes and his ability to invade weak junglers. His clear allows him to get to those invades as well. However, Maokai can survive those invades, often times long enough for him to get help against an overextended Jarvan IV for an easy kill in Maokai’s own jungle. Neither Acce1erate nor Optimity seem to frequently play their junglers, so it will all depend on how they do this game. Jarvan IV should gank Syndra and/or bot lane this game and not focus on top, as ThatGnarBar should be able to hold his own against ganks and RDZombie, OtterlyLost, and Vircom12 all have low-mobility champs (Syndra, Ashe, Janna, respectively). I would especially focus on Syndra, seeing as she seems to be who Ozon3 Nitrogen would like to get fed. For Maokai, I would focus on just trying to clear jungle and use vision to counter Jarvan IV’s ganks. Considering that every lane he is going against is super mobile (besides Jayce, but he’s still fast and can outrun a Maokai ult), Maokai should simply wait for Jarvan IV to show up somewhere. If Maokai is at the same side of the map as him, then he should countergank to stop the Jarvan IV from having a great gank. If Maokai is on the opposite side of the map, either get a couple of Jarvan IV’s camps or focus on that side of the map’s towers/monsters (dragon/rift herald).

In the mid lane, we have Syndra versus Ahri. They both have a good deal of wave clear (with Syndra being a bit ahead of the game), so if Syndra can keep waves frozen under her own tower, she will be safe from the early Jarvan IV ganks discussed above. However, this will allow Ahri to gank bot side, so Ashe and Janna should be doing the same as Syndra. RDZombie on Syndra will be able to handle himself late game once he has the ability to burst Ahri down, even if she tries to run. But, BuhRockObama can help Jarvan IV to roam around the map and gain objective control early.

Bot side, we should expect to see the Twitch and Rakan winning lane, as they have the engage, especially if Twitch goes invisible and then Rakan jumps to him and knocks up Janna early. Even when Ashe hits level six, OtterlyLost will not be able to go in on the Twitch-Rakan combo unless she hits an excellently timed ultimate while Maokai comes in with a perfect ult when Ozon3 Sodium is pushed in. Although Twitch has a rough early game, the supports make up for this difference. If Sharkleberry and Taran Wanderer69 push in early, they can roam for objectives with their Ahri and Jarvan IV. With a well-timed teleport from Ozon3 Sodium, it would be nice to see everyone easily converging on team fights for objectives, both early and late. However, Vircom12 should be able to hold the team up using Ardent more efficiently and keeping the carries alive. OtterlyLost should be able to carry with RDZombie with their combination of CC with ThatGnarBar, Vircom12, and Optimity.

Late game, expect to see some interesting team fights. Ozon3 Sodium has the early pressure, but Ozon3 Nitrogen has so much CC between literally every member of their team that they should end up winning team fights. As long as they kill Twitch and don’t get poked down by Jayce, they will naturally end up winning fights. Jarvan IV will hop on Ashe and/or Syndra (depending on who’s carrying at the time) with Rakan, but with Janna’s shield and ult, Ashe should not die. Once this large portion of engage is used up, Ozon3 Sodium doesn’t have much else to counteract the CC, and Ozon3 Nitrogen should win the fights that way. If I were Ozon3 Sodium, I would wait for Ozon3 Nitrogen to make a mistake by trying to engage with their CC, so that Ozon3 Sodium can disengage with all of their mobility and then go in with a mixture of Twitch and Rakan ultimate.

THE GAME

To begin the game, we had Ozon3 Nitrogen on the red side and Ozon3 Sodium on the blue side. Both teams start out aggressively going to each other’s respective blues. Ozon3 Sodium and Ozon3 Nitrogen each ended up with three people on the respective enemy blues, but Freelance decided to go too far with trying to poke the enemy team off of his blue, whereas no one on Ozon3 Nitrogen did this on the bot side. This caused an early death for Freelance and an easy kill for Optimity and assist for ThatGnarBar. RDZombie made sure BuhRockObama could not get involved by having a smaller fight aside from the Gnar and Maokai. At 4:45, after an unsuccessful gank bot lane, Acce1erate came from the bot side jungle into mid lane, where he ganked the over-extended RDZombie. With a finalized charm and a couple of auto attacks from Ahri, BuhRockObama picked up the first kill for Ozon3 Sodium as Acce1erate trots away. Soon after, knowing that the Jarvan IV probably backed after his gank, Optimity decided to counter gank top lane using a blast plant to surprise Freelance and secure a kill for ThatGnarBar. Unfortunately, that would not be the end of Freelance ‘s troubles top lane, as he tunnels onto a control ward and is out-traded by the Gnar, who already had a kill and an assist on Jayce.

In order to make up for the early game loss of top lane, Acce1erate came in to try and kill ThatGnarBar after a jungle invade, but ThatGnarBar was not going down without a fight. He may have been extremely overextended, but he knew he was fed and that he could move, and he ended up killing the Jarvan IV. However, Freelance was able to pick up the kill on Gnar and get both the shut-down gold and double buffs. Meanwhile, Ozon3 Nitrogen knew they were able to take dragon with the enemy jungler down. Soon after, the first team fight took place. Ozon3 Sodium was able to take down the Maokai by catching him out in his own jungle, but they were quickly caught out of position and did not focus the right people, thus putting two easy kills on OtterlyLost. This was immediately following an amazing Janna ult by Vircom12, which both separated Ozon3 Sodium and kept his carries alive.

From here, Ozon3 Nitrogen began to snowball the game by getting in well-times ganks from Optimity on all of his lanes, as every one of their lanes were winning. After Ozon3 Nitrogen took rift herald and pushed down mid, they started looking for picks and deep vision, but they overextended for it. As seven of the ten players were distracted on the map, BuhRockObama saw his chance to make something out of nothing. He caught Syndra out as she was headed towards the fight and killed her with ease. This allowed a few things to happen. First, this made OtterlyLost start walking towards the Syndra to see if she could help before Syndra died. Second, due to a lack of communication, ThatGnarBar went all in under tower against three members of Ozon3 Sodium , but with no damage to follow-up. Once Ozon3 Sodium was able to pick him off, Ozon3 Nitrogen had only one tank to stop them from destroying their carry, but Ozon3 Sodium had too much engage for Ashe to be able to escape. With a quick flash, Maokai was the only one able to escape the pain of Ozon3 Sodium ‘s vengeance.

However, only a couple minutes later, Ozon3 Nitrogen sent RDZombie to continue pushing bot side while the rest of them took baron. This ended up working well this time, as Ozon3 Sodium had to push waves away from their towers to prevent a further push from the enemy team. After several more team fights and instances of Ozon3 Sodium catching Ozon3 Nitrogen out, including a TRIPLE KILL from BuhRockObama. At 30:45, the two teams began fighting once again, this time in the baron pit. This fight was caused by Ozon3 Nitrogen all going for the baron once they saw most of Ozon3 Sodium back through deep vision. Acce1erate stopped his back to try and prevent the baron, but since he was the only one, he was quickly bursted down by the carries. Now, Ozon3 Nitrogen knows they can take the baron mostly uncontested, as they nearly killed the enemy jungler. ThatGnarBar decided to stay outside of the pit to zone the enemy team off, and ended up getting a huge two-man ult on Taran Wanderer69 and Freelance. After killing the Rakan, Ozon3 Nitrogen turned back on the baron to finish it off.

After backing, Ozon3 Nitrogen saw that they could not take any towers, as the enemy team had too much wave clear. Thus, they decided to go on dragon. Taran Wanderer69 was not going down without a fight though, as he went in for a two-person ult into knock-up with an ult coming in from Acce1erate as well. It seemed like the excellent wombo-combo was going to help Ozon3 Sodium get back into the game for an amazing comeback . . . but they forgot about one of the most fed people in the game, ThatGnarBar, who was not at dragon for the initial fight. Ozon3 Sodium took out the fed Ashe, but the Gnar was able to catch up to the fight after a fantastic Janna ult from Vircom12 , who made sure not everyone died before the Gnar got there. Once he arrive, Gnar was able to help finish off the remaining three members from Ozon3 Sodium. From here, Ozon3 Nitrogen was able to push into nexus turrets, and Optimity managed to grab a root on Sharkleberry to kill off the main carry. As Ozon3 Sodium rushed out to defend their nexus, ThatGnarBar once again came to the rescue to finish off the Rakan and Ahri. This ended the game, with a win for Ozon3 Nitrogen.

POST-GAME

In this post-game, I will talk about some of the mistakes/successes of each player, rather than the team as a whole. This is in hopes that each player can see what they did wrong/correct and can focus on building off of this. Don’t take any of this personally, it is only here to act as advice.

Freelance was able to successfully poke people down in team fights and get a few catch-outs for his team to get back into the game. However, he should have dominated early game against the Gnar with his poke and snowball off of the early game. This did not happen, though, and the Gnar began to snowball instead. He did, however, do well with catching the backline of the enemy team when he had the chance.

Acce1erate managed to get a decent amount of ganks early, but a few of them were not successful, which put him behind. Had he tried to invade more, especially bot side where the non-mobile champs sat, he may have had more success for later on. He also should have focused a lane that was winning rather than the top lane. If he ganked mid more, where the enemy was non-mobile and losing lane, they may have been able to snowball off of Ahri.

BuhRockObama had an outstanding game, despite some of his team’s mishaps. He may have gotten caught out a few times, but for the most part, he was able to get picks where he needed to and get out, the sole purpose of an assassin mid laner. The only complaint I had personally was that he did not roam more early to extend the lead that he was gaining. As the powerhouse, he should know to roam more and get the rest of his team fed so all the weight isn’t on his back.

Sharkleberry had several great points where he went invisible and caught out members of the enemy team. He managed to save several turrets this way at first. However, his lead did not extend into late because of poor team fighting and positioning on his part. With the high engage on his team, he should have went behind the enemy team and then told his team to go all in while he ulted.

Taran Wanderer69 ended up with a few great combos with his team, but he failed to use his ult and engage when necessary. At first, he used his ult several times when no one was around to follow-up. Later on, he should have saved his ult only as a disengage tool or to counter someone else’s ult first. He should not have ulted before the other support, as his ult cancels Janna’s.

ThatGnarBar played an extremely impressive game. He was pitted against a lane he should have lost early, and even when he was ganked early, he made something out of nothing by killing the Jarvan IV. He had at least three outstanding ults as well that may have won his team the game. He showed up at the perfect times for his team fights as well. I would say that he should have communicated a bit more with his ults, though, as they could have turned out much better than they did. Overall, I think it’s safe to say that this Gnar main deserves his name.

Optimity jungled exactly the way he was supposed to, with playing more passive when possible and catching people out with his ult in lanes that would be otherwise ungankable. He managed to get himself ahead early with the invade and ended up being the main frontline of the team, defending his fed carries. However, he should have gone in much earlier than he did often times. It felt like he wanted someone like Gnar to go in first, which caused more disarray among the team than what was needed.

OtterlyLost managed to pull off a few early kills in teamfights and burnt out the enemy frontline due to well-coordinated positioning with her support. She stayed alive for as long as possible and put down the damage on the team when possible. She should have saved ults when possible, though, as they could have affected teamfights much more than they did. Also, she should have stayed away from fights whenever Gnar wasn’t there, as he kept her alive in most situations outside of Janna.

Vircom12 managed to have several fantastic ults, as discussed previously in this analysis, and he kept his team alive when they were outnumbered in order to spare time to wait for the rest of their team. I would tell him only to make sure you peel a bit more for the adc, as Janna should be able to almost entirely prevent the death of an adc, especially since his team was already fed.

GAME 2

Article Format

Starting off in Game 2 of the second round of the Stratos Cup, hosted by Ozon3 Gaming, we have Ozon3 Sodium trying to redeem themselves after a rather close loss to Ozon3 Nitrogen in Game 1. On the Ozon3 Sodium side, we have:

Top: Freelance (Jarvan IV)

Jungle: Acce1erate (Gragas)

Mid: BuhRockObama (Orianna)

ADC: Sharkleberry (Tristana)

Support: Taran Wander69 (Leona)

On the Ozon3 Nitrogen side, we have:

Top: ThatGnarBar (Cho’Gath)

Jungle: Optimity (Maokai)

Mid: On3Man (Malzahar)

ADC: OtterlyLost (Caitlyn)

Support: l pipsqueak l (Lulu)

With Ozon3 Sodium securing the First Blood on what was one of the carries for Ozon3 Nitrogen in the previous game, ThatGnarBar, they seemed to be off to a great start. At about 7:10, the Ozon3 Sodium attempts to converge on mid lane after deciding they need to make a play before Dragon, and after a great follow-up by the team after a stun from the Leona by Taran Wander69, they manage to snag a kill on On3Man. After several minutes, both teams decide to avoid fighting and simply trade objectives: each destroys one turret, and Ozon3 Sodium take down the Earth Dragon while Ozon3 Nitrogen takes down the Rift Herald. At 15:00, if we were to simply compare vision, it looks like Ozon3 Nitrogen is doing much better than the enemy team. This allows them to make sure the enemy team cannot easily catch anyone out. Following up with a great Body Slam at 16:00 by Acce1erate, Taran Wander69 manages to CC the enemy jungler enough to secure the kill. However, Leona gets caught out with low health and ends up being killed, but not without BuhRockObama securing a kill on the Lulu. Following up, it looks like the president himself wants revenge for the death of his fallen support, and kills the Caitlyn and Malzahar for a TRIPLE KILL.

Transitioning into mid-game, we see that Ozon3 Sodium has three turrets, while the enemy team has only destroyed one. The Orianna has four kills at this point, and is the most fed champion in the game. We also see that Ozon3 Sodium have an Earth Dragon, while Ozon3 Nitrogen have already used their Rift Herald without being able to secure a tower from it. In a small fight bot lane at 17:45, ThatGnarBar overextends to try and kill the Jarvan IV, but Taran Wander69 makes sure none of his teammates are going to be harassed for free on his watch. With a final root on the jungler, Optimity , who had come to help Cho’Gath, Leona secures the kill. However, On3Man took down Leona in return. BuhRockObama comes to help, while killing the Malzahar, but ends up in the stomach of ThatGnarBar. Sharkleberry finally finishes off the Cho’Gath after this. Meanwhile, Ozon3 Nitrogen was going to take advantage of the losing fight, and they take the mid tower. After both teams reset, Ozon3 Nitrogen catch out the Tristana, Orianna, Gragas, and Leona, while only Lulu is killed on the side of Ozon3 Nitrogen. This, followed up by a team fight where Ozon3 Nitrogen scores an ACE against Ozon3 Sodium, causes the gold discrepancy to flip around. It only gets better from here for Ozon3 Nitrogen, as they kill four more members of Ozon3 Sodium with only one kill in return for the enemy team, while they also secure Baron. As the team pushes with their Baron buff, their two tanks are caught out and just as they seemingly lose the fight, On3Man comes in with the TRIPLE KILL for Ozon3 Nitrogen.

As we move into the later portion of this game at 30:00, we see that Ozon3 Nitrogen now leads 22-17 in kills, 5-4 in towers, but lacks the two Earth Dragons that Ozon3 Sodium used their early lead to secure. As Ozon3 Nitrogen continues to push in towers, we see a flash-ult from the 11-3 Malzahar, who seemingly misses entirely and sits there for a moment, contemplating his decision. Soon after, Ozon3 Sodium manage to gain a leg up on the enemy team by catching out the two enemy carries. However, even with the amazing amount of picks Ozon3 Sodium picks up from Ozon3 Nitrogen, the front line from Optimity and ThatGnarBar is seemingly impenetrable and Ozon3 Nitrogen ends up winning the following fight 4-1. Finally, while the Cho’Gath distracts the entire enemy team and swallows the Tristana whole, Ozon3 Nitrogen end the game with a final team fight and the destruction of the Nexus.

This concludes this series of the Stratos Cup, and we hope you enjoyed reading!

THANK YOU FOR READING AND I HOPE TO HEAR FEEDBACK FROM ALL OF YOU!!