Stratos Cup Round 2: Palladium vs Carbon

The dust is settling after the explosive second round of the Stratos Cup. The battles seen out on the rift this round consisted of Ozon3’s two premier teams, Palladium and Carbon, going head to head followed by the org’s two Open League teams, Sodium and Nitrogen, in an epic battle of rivalry. All teams involved showed immense sportsmanship and every match was truly a sight to behold.

Kicking off things, Palladium vs Carbon was the first set of teams to actually go to the full three matches of our best of three. The first game brought us an interesting draft phase; Carbon put a lot of their early bans on the mid and jungler while Palladium seemed intent on taking away several of the support’s picks along with the flex pick, Vlad. Carbon picked up a Gnar, Jinx, and Lulu, making for a very formidable looking late game teamfight. In the meantime, Palladium also opted for a teamfight composition, locking in three flexes in the form of Galio, Jarvan IV, and Annie; it was clear their intention was to go for the mid game, wombo combo and simply brute force their opponents through the power of their picks ults.

In second banning phase, Carbon focused ADC bans, taking away the Twitch and Tristana as late game hypercarry options while Palladium banned away two possible jungle options with Ezreal and Rek’sai. Carbon’s lategame teamfight composition was solidified with the locking in of Orianna and Vi, obviously intending to give Orianna the best possible ball delivery. And Palladium locked in Miss Fortune and Rumble to round out their comp, revealing the questionable Annie as their support pick.

This left Carbon’s team as Arkson on Gnar, Freelance on Vi, 1HitWonderX on Orianna, Pragmatic on Jinx, and Exhaust the Tank on Lulu. On the other side, Palladium’s team was traptrapskrrt on Rumble, RedShadow74 on Jarvan, Asteck on Galio, SGT Penguin on Miss Fortune, and Mewlife on Annie.

With the game starting, both team’s win conditions fairly obvious. Carbon needed big teamfights in choke points to make landing 1Hit’s very important ultimate as easy as possible. The goal was likely to get all of Palladium in a choke point and then drawn together to leave Pragmatic to AoE them down in Jinx’s rocket form. Specifically, they would prefer to have these teamfights later in the game so that Pragmatic would have time to scale up and being the big damage threat that they needed.

On the side of Palladium, it was largely the same kind of win condition with the exception that they needed to force fights early; Carbon’s team comp was far weaker in the early game, with a lot of their champions being very item reliant. Palladium wanted to start grouping and winning fights in the early to mid game and especially needed to put focus on getting their bot lane ahead; if SGT Penguin couldn’t get fed on Miss Fortune then their teamfight potential would be drastically lowered. It was in the best interest, specifically in the case of botlane, for Carbon to look for going even in laning.

And for the first thirteen minutes of the game, it seemed like Carbon would get just that. At 13:20, Carbon found themselves with a 1k gold lead and both of their solo laners with kills over their laners. Bot lane was more even with the exception of Pragmatic having a solid 20 CS on SGT Penguin. However, due to build path, Miss Fortune already had a fully completed item over Jinx, making Palladium’s bot lane deceptively strong.

A point that Carbon found out rather painfully. It was fourteen minutes in and Palladium was grabbing the first infernal dragon of the game.They secure it with little resistance from Carbon but not long after, a teleport to the river from Arkson has RedShadow and Mewlife both Gnar Ulted into the wall with Exhaust the Tank and Pragmatic bringing up the rear. Asteck tries to ult to Mewlife to help him stay alive a little longer but he falls quickly. The teamfight at this point is looking exceptionally grim but Carbon group up, allowing RedShadow to land a really nice Jarvan E-Q-R combo, trapping Exhaust the Tank, Arkson, and 1HitWonder in the Cataclysm. From the opposite wall, using his item advantage and the fact that four of Carbon were either currently trapped or in a perfect line, SGT Penguin fires off a perfect Miss Fortune ult into Carbon’s ranks.

The three trapped Carbon members fall to the ult while Pragmatic desperately tries to kite away from Asteck and RedShadow, falling to Asteck in the end. Freelance arrives late and dives into the three of the, likely desperately wanting to try and salvage the lost teamfight. He flashes and uses his ult to try and pick off RedShadow; he just doesn’t have the damage though and is CC’d down by Asteck and then consequently killed by SGT Penguin. With a shout of Red Team Quadrakill, Palladium had their needed early game lead.

They went on to win this first game, using the Miss Fortune’s early lead to rip through teamfights. SGT Penguin was easily the MVP of this match, ending the game with a perfect KDA of 12/0/8. That being said, the game wasn’t the cleanest by any stretch of the mind, with both 1HitWonder and Pragmatic keeping up very well on farm most of the game; the gold lead right up until the end was very small between the two teams and it consistently felt like, at any point, Carbon could make the turn around.

After a break to give the teams time to relax and collect their thoughts, we jump into champion select for the second time. The bans this round felt less targeted toward a specific lane with Carbon taking shots at Jungle, Top, and Bot, banning away the Zac, Gnar, and Tristana, getting rid of both engage and late game. Palladium, meanwhile, removed Taric, Vladimir, and Orianna; obviously they wanted to remove the best options for late game teamfights from Carbon’s pool.

One thing to note, however, is that both teams left open favorite champions for each side. Palladium left Freelance’s Jarvan on the table and readily available for him while Carbon allowed Mewlife on his Thresh. Both of these were picked up fairly quickly. Carbon also locked in a Twitch for Pragmatic and Alistar for Exhaust the Tank. Meanwhile Palladium picked up Galeo for TrapTrap and Sejuani for RedShadow.

In the second banning phase, Carbon looked to remove the two champions that Palladium did best with the previous game; both Rumble and Miss Fortune were banned, leaving SGT Penguin to pick up Sivir and Syndra for Asteck. Palladium’s bans were more focused on getting possible mega tanks out of Arkson’s hands, something that they may come to regret; both Sion and Cho’gath were removed from the champion pool. In an odd turn of events, however, Arkson ends up on Trundle, a champion that hasn’t really been seen much this season due to the heals and shields meta just making him entirely too kiteable. 1HitWonder also locked in a Viktor, a devastating pick in the right hands.

Palladium’s comp seemed more geared toward mid game teamfights once more, with good engage from both the Sivir ult and the Sejuani. The aim was clearly to start big fights full of CC and AoE damage, very similar to the previous game. Carbon’s comp was more split pushy, the intent clearly intended to be to have Twitch, Alistar, and Viktor wave clearing a lane while Jarvan and Trundle looked for towers other places. Overall, it certainly felt like Palladium had the stronger team composition.

Once in game, Palladium does attempt to do a late invade that doesn’t come to much more fruition than stealing away the blue buff from Freelance. Afterwards, the game continues in a rather slow fashion. In top lane, Arkson is taking full advantage of Trundle’s dueling powers, really bullying TrapTrap out of lane and putting the pressure on. It was, however, midlane where first blood comes out.

Syndra’s laning phase is decently strong and 1HitWonder just ends up taking too much poke damage, leaving Asteck free to get a nice Q-E-Thunderlord’s combo in for the final kills. However, Freelance’s appearance means that Asteck has to burn his flash to escape.

The game is very even for most of the early game, not much honestly happening. Despite, at one point being down in kills, Carbon’s CS on both their top and ADC mean that they are regularly equal or ahead of Palladium in gold, even when Palladium manage to snag a very important infernal drake.

The back and forth nature of the match made it feel like at any point the game could be tilted in either team’s favor at any moment. Neither team seemed to be gaining traction on the other. However, Carbon’s team scaled exceptionally well and Arkson was honestly on fire. His Trundle was a terror for Palladium to deal with and he continued to apply pressure where he could until, finally, he drew three of Palladium’s member’s bot.

This left the rest of Carbon free to take baron uncontested and finally break open Palladium’s base for a win.

The final game rolls in with high tensions. Surprisingly, Arkson is allowed to have Trundle again and this may have been Palladium’s downfall. As the players appear on the rift, it was almost like someone had flipped a switch on the side of Carbon. From the get go, Carbon took over the map in a brutal showing of macro control, their intentions clearly to just let Arkson split push and pressure them to victory.

A duty that Arkson took with extreme prejudice. At some points, it seemed like Arkson, with his full damaged Trundle, was going to 1v9 the map. Consistently, it would take two to three players of Palladium to simply deal with him. This left Carbon to completely overrun the parts of map that Arkson wasn’t in, allowing them to completely dominate Palladium in the third match.

Both teams had an amazing showing and this round of the Stratos Cup was honestly the closest one; any moment could have been a turning point in any of the games, showing just the fervor and determination of Ozon3’s two original premier teams. Great job to both of them and what an amazing showing.