Match analysis : SK vs Eclypsia - Game 1 - IPL Royale

Greetings Summoners!
This article will try to analyze the matchup game between SK and EC which can be found here on youtube. I will coordinate you through the game, pointing out its key moments and giving you screenshots of crucial situations.

 

First ban goes to EC and they remove Shen from the game. We can assume by this that they don’t want to have split pushes happening in the game, control the game by doing their own well timed ganks or simply prevent the global map presence that Shen could bring along. Perhaps they intend to take a hero which requires a lot of farm top, thus not wanting to lose too much map domination while having to play 5v4.

SK bans Jayce, which leaves quite a lot of questions open. With Shen being banned, Jayce does not seem to make much sense here as a ban. Perhaps SK is going for a Darius top lane, or some other similar bruiser who just can’t handle the laning phase against Jayce?

EC now bans Skarner probably being afraid of flash-ult pick offs. They might be going for an early push power strategy which could be stopped by Skarner. Or perhaps they will pick champions that need precise positioning and just can’t be allowed being out of it? Even though Skarner doesn’t make himself a lot of sense as a ban after Shen, they might want SK to pick a top bruiser while having another good counter pick solution for it.

SK follows up with a Fizz ban, sending out the message of a possible incoming Orianna. Other than that, it could mean that SK doesn’t want to play an early to midgame, but rather force a late game match.

EC responds with a XinZhao ban, probably continuing their anti-pick off idea. XinZhao can easily disrupt a whole lineup, its positioning and make sure that a certain called target is perma focused. On the other hand XinZhao offers a lot of damage output which might indicate that they plan to play quite squishy champions.

And the last ban from SK is Diana, pointing even more towards an Orianna pick. I guess the ban isn’t plain anti-Orianna focused, but simply acknowledging the power of Diana’s damage output throughout the game which can be very crucial on early and midgame phases, thus again showing that SK wants to enter the late game phase.

The bans overall let fast and early game junglers shine. We can expect a Shyvana, Mundo or Lee. SK’s bans favor an Orianna pick, while EC shows its tendencies towards a very mobile and hard to position mid champion. Top lane seems to be still quite open; however with the bans applied it kind of allows semi-mobile bruisers to be favored. Bottom lane hasn’t been directly touched by the bans, however EC shows that they are leaning again towards a mobile champion with high positioning factors. Judging from their bans, SK should be heading for a late game AD.

 

As predicted, EC starts with a fast, mobile and early game influencing jungler – Lee. This suggests that they want to pick off people, land ganks and simply push the enemy team out of their respective lanes – allowing complete map control for themselves.

SK follows up with an Orianna and Rengar pick. This is highly risky as they are revealing 2 easily countered champions and their idea to go for a mid to late game strategy. Even though they might want to secure their most favorite champions, I wouldn’t suggest such opening picks simply for the lack of mind games and strategic maneuvers.

EC responds with a Jax and Zyra. Now those are highly intelligent picks. They do not know whether Rengar is top or jungle, so they pick Jax to make sure there is a hard to counter champion on their top lane. Jax himself, can pretty much (with certain help) get snowballed to a point where he just doesn’t care against who he is laning. On the other hand, Jax can provide certain positioning in your team since he can zone out someone in team fights or keep someone alive. Zyra is a wonderful pick up, not allowing SK to be able to respond to her – they have no idea where she is.

She could be mid or she could be supporting. The overall synergy from EC is already much better than SK’s. Jax and Lee can do wonderful moves and strategies, while Zyra can make sure that both of them have enough time to do so. Rengar and Orianna don’t really have much in common except for maybe having good cc effects which can make Orianna’s life easier in terms of hitting her spells.

SK now answers with Lulu and Kayle. Now, Kayle here seems to be quite of a desperate pick – it makes no sense whatsoever with Orianna or Rengar. I mean, alright Kayle herself brings a delicate skillset, but what exactly is the point of this current lineup? To slow down a certain opponent and just burst him down to death? It is very unclear towards what SK seems to be going for – Kayle falls off in late game if not getting crazy farm – and Jax is there to make sure that won’t happen. The idea might be that Rengar himself will be the only one initiating and taking lots of damage, so that Kayle ult can keep him alive.

I guess SK just wanted to have a top who can deal with Jax without having to worry too much about the lane in general. Having in mind that they still plan for a late game match – having Kayle might be a turning point of a crucial fight, keeping the AD alive. And the Lulu pick helps enforce this even more – getting more cc and an ult that can save someone from dangerous initiation (or simply keep that someone alive). SK chooses not to show their AD carry for the moment, but reveals their aggressive bot lane support.

EC doesn’t seem to be impressed with those picks and just goes straight for 2 hard to position champions - Katarina and Vayne. I guess the general idea is that they have enough frontline pressure in team fights, which should allow these 2 to do their positioning and deal damage. On the other hand we have to notice that the only champion that is not mobile in EC’s team is Zyra – every other champion has a skill to position himself. This could imply that Zyra will be serving as an initiating support – once she casts her skillset she can freely die anyways.

We can expect a very aggressive bot lane situation with high poke damage at stake. The idea behind Katarina will be to put heavy pushing pressure on Orianna and use this to gank all over the map and snowball herself to victory. For now, the only champions that can disable Katarina are Orianna and Lulu, so the basic idea of EC would be to put high pressure on Orianna and simply make her waste the ultimate, while Lulu should be forced to hard protect her AD. Once this happens, Katarina can do as she pleases. Vayne has a lot of team protection coming up with EC’s lineup and should be able to do miracles. On the other hand, she already has 3 squishy targets which she should be able to burn down fast in fights.

SK does quite a strange last pick now – Caitlyn. Even though I find her to progress to the late game quite decently – they knew that she would face an enemy Vayne. With Zyra to back her up, Vayne can go full retard on Caitlyn starting from level 2, as she completely out damages and out classes Caitlyn in their own 1v1 fights. Even though in theory Caitlyn should own Vayne, I find it to be quite the other way around, especially in these team compositions. If EC catches off Lulu with a good stun or slow, there is practically nothing Caitlyn can do to save her. The same goes the other way around if they catch off Caitlyn – Lulu will have a hard time to keep her alive.

Even though SK hasn’t got a too bad bot lane initiation themselves, it is highly doubtful that they will manage to position themselves all the time well in order to avoid giving Vayne a clear shot and path to destroy them. The only true way for SK to make sure that they will dominate bot lane is to go completely aggressive and bully Vayne and Zyra out of the lane as many times as possible in the early game phase, abusing the poke from Lulu and range from Caitlyn. Since Caitlyn consumes high amounts of mana they have to make sure every spell counts.

However, the real problem is that Lee can destroy an early attempt of pushing and bullying, so SK needs to put pressure on other lanes and force Lee to not be around – the problem here being that Orianna won’t be able to put enough pressure and Rengar just can’t gank Katarina early game. Even though Kayle should stand a good chance against Jax, Rengar can’t do much early game there either, except for trying to push the lane fast, losing however a lot of farm and XP this way.

In the end it seems that SK’s botlane will be mostly on its own, should however try to abuse lane ganks from Rengar as much as possible, as it seems to be the only gankable lane after all. This would force Lee to be more often on bot lane and give Kayle and Orianna a chance to keep in the game. I still think, that SK would have done much better with a Graves pick, instead of a Caitlyn here.

Now, the final question here is – which composition works, sounds and seems better? I’d say EC out picked SK by far, not only by doing good bans, but by simply picking more intelligently – they managed to keep mind games open and still build a very dangerous lineup with good synergy and damage output.

 

As said before, EC has only to worry about Orianna’s ult and Lulu’s W and R – everything else is less important. Baiting out those spells is game breaking for EC and they should try throughout the whole game to persist in doing so.

SK, on the other hand, has a lot of things to worry about. Lee can easily zone out Orianna or just make her life miserable in terms of hitting a well-timed ult. Orianna already has a hard time since all EC’s champion are so freaking mobile – what Orianna needed in this lineup is someone else to make sure she can land her stuff – an Amumu jungle could have worked here better. Even a Morgana support could have ensured certain stages of the game to run better in their favor. In the end, SK should try to force fights where they have to keep Orianna and Caitlyn out of direct approach – they should try to keep in line with an obstacle on one of their sides. I know, this sounds crazy due to Vayne being in the enemy team but here’s the visual idea of it :

As said, SK should try to force a constant early game fight on bot lane to prevent Vayne and Zyra getting that early lvl 6 and simply rolling over Caitlyn and Lulu. This should involve a Rengar lane gank. However, this means that Kayle has to win top hard and make a lot of pressure there, forcing Lee to help Jax. Orianna won’t be able to counterpush as good as Katarina, meaning that Orianna should focus only on hard farming and maybe try to push and get a tower in another lane while Katarina tries to gank.

The overall fact however is – if EC dominates early and mid-game, there will be no end game for SK. In other words, SK has to at least try to prevent too much growth on EC’s side to be able to keep up farm wise and map control wise. If they cannot position themselves well, or if EC simple has the upper hand in map vision and control – then SK can’t do much but let EC force a team fight. Once they lost control to this degree, only luck can help them out to win team fights.

The key to breaking EC’s early game dominance could be an early top lane tower, forcing at least Jax to keep being top for longer times. The other solution is breaking bot lane and getting drake opportunities to their advantage. I’m starting to believe that even Leona as a support on SK’s side would have been better – probably not for the late game fights, but simply to win early and midgame.

 

No invade is happening – I assume both teams understand the possible outcomes if badly positioned. Caitlyn traps can make an easy first blood while EC has huge damage output. However, the more important part behind EC is that they don’t want to waste any summoner spells in order to keep their early game presence active.

First blood on bot lane goes to Zyra casting ignite on Lulu who could have probably been saved by Caitlyn if she had used her Heal (ignite is only lvl 2) while she passed by her. Zyra doesn’t live long enough to tell the story and died to Caitlyn. We see a late incoming teleport from Katarina (I guess they didn’t communicate too well at the beginning of the game?), that won’t lead to a kill on Caitlyn. However, Caitlyn manages to bait Vayne and Katarina into a tower dive which ends up in another kill for her. She is now 2-0 and everything seems to be going just fine for SK.

Rengar prepares himself for a gank on mid. Ocelote is pretty obviously baiting, staying in lane on rather low mana. We know they can’t get a blue buff for Orianna, so why stay? Katarina can burn him down in 2 attempts since he doesn’t have flash anymore. Another thing to note is that he isn’t trying to hold onto any river side (as in trying to position closer to his own jungler route) showing that he feels completely safe in this bad situation.

He might be trying to bluff, but there are way too many negative things on his side of the story that he can be bluffing with success. I assume EC figured that out and timed Lee to be around. This ends up in a great counter gank and leads to a kill.

Well performed tower dive and gank by EC abusing Rengar’s mistake of wasting flash a few moments earlier.

Kayle is overdoing it on top lane and over diving, knowing that she still isn’t level 6 and pretty much calls a gank upon her. Orianna actually saw both Katarina and Lee heading to her jungle. I guess communication didn’t go well on this part? Timing for EC is great since they pushed out mid and Ocelote couldn’t act or move without losing too much farm or tower hp – on the other hand, he can’t even follow Lee and Kata to help Kayle – he’d just die while trying to do so.

Caitlyn could have E’d towards upper brush and land an additional auto attack on Zyra to get the kill, while escaping without any problems.

Wonderful coordination and timing from EC knowing exactly how long it takes for a plain boots support to return to lane and taking advantage of Caitlyn being solo on bot for too long. Actually Caitlyn herself can’t handle Vayne on lvl 6, so there was no reason for her to stay there. SK, having no wards and being constantly pushed in mid lane, is losing map control, gets their blue buff stolen and EC secures the first drake. Tactical thinking: What we could assume here is that Rengar was all the time top since Orianna didn’t go for her blue buff.

Zyra positioned herself pretty bad while walking back to the lane, thus taking way too much harassment damage, without proper trades happening. This could be a mind game from EC since they know Lee is heading bot, but still shouldn’t be so badly performed then. SK shows too obviously that they know a gank is incoming and suddenly act defensive after good damage output on Zyra. They act too safe and lean towards the brush which should have been enough signalization for EC to disengage this gank.

Bot lane is becoming way too pushed from SK’s part and as said – Caitlyn just can’t handle Vayne’s initiation. Noteworthy awareness: Katarina is pushing mid hard again and should have teleport up. SK doesn’t think about this and the obvious thing happens.

SK didn’t time drake well and Kayle shows herself on top so EC is safe and free to do it yet again.

SK manages to get the mid tower since EC showed too much aggression towards a top lane gank on Kayle.

I feel as if a simple Lee Q and R would have been enough to make a kill happen here, however if they wanted to force flash then it was worth it.

Good move by SK; knowing where Katarina is Ocelote could freely move to top and secure kills.

Great initiation again, great use of mechanics and wonderful turret damage focus by EC.

Fantastic play by Vayne and Zyra, not letting Orianna get a clear focus and wonderful use of Vayne mechanics to finally land a kill on Ori. Orianna’s mistake was to turn too much towards the wall after Zyra missed her combo – Zyra is no threat here anyways so there is no reason to turn back from her – if Ori kept running slightly to the right, she could have avoided the stun from Vayne. Throwing the ball lost her another 1 second of positioning and movement, giving Vayne the opportunity to position herself. Overall, Ocelote couldn’t kill them anyways – he had no flash, no ult, no ignite – against such a farmed and mobile AD. It looked like a desperate try and out of focus decision.

Wonderful performance by EC, perfect timing and they steal blue buff again.

No reason for Caitlyn to stand against a solo Vayne in addition to not knowing where the rest of her team is. On the other hand Vayne wouldn’t be so aggressive if there was no back up around her.

Tactical note – What is the big picture about Kayle staying top? Is there any special use of it? Should she be heading back to offer a better outcome of fights with her ultimate? Maybe the top tower might be worth losing – or sending Rengar to defend the lane while sending Kayle back might be a better solution then, especially if you want to keep the tower? I don’t know – I just feel that Kayle hasn’t done enough in this game – yet.

It seems as if EC wanted Jax to hard push top while keeping SK busy and “letting them” slowly get drake. However, Vayne is completely out of position which ruins the whole plan – but, Jax is moving right away back thanks to good voice communication. In this chaos of a fight, SK turns out the glorious victor and gets a morale boost. Katarina however, ends up dying for no reason.

Lee shows himself on top, which leaves an opening for SK. Zyra and Vayne manage to position themselves bad as well, even more so they are running together (stacked) being a double squishy vulnerable target for SK.

Again EC timing blue buff and map control.

Lee sees 3 SK members at wraiths which gives a free opening against Caitlyn and Lulu for EC, while both Lulu and Cait make a big mistake of going towards EC instead of backing off. After the initiation EC stays cool and doesn’t overdo it, but rather waits for SK’s mistake.

Rengar goes for Zyra to finish her off even though she already wasted all spells and isn’t a real threat anymore – in the end, she just flashes away. He should have focused Vayne, knowing at least on a roughly based intuitive timer that she shouldn’t still be having flash. This way Vayne is free to position herself and SK can’t get pass Jax, Katarina and Lee anymore.
Kujaa dies running back into the fight, letting Orianna ult him. SK groups too much letting Vayne yet again freely position, while being themselves an easy target for AoE damage and pick offs.

Good poking by EC, not letting SK do baron. However, SK maybe should have initiated sooner to prevent a lost battle and baron, forcing a 5v3 or 5v4 fight.

Nyph is solo and catchable, while Kevin is too far away from Ocelote and Panda, who are without any protection there. Luckily, EC can’t properly initiate on them either. EC does a wonderful job using Kujaa as a Karthus to dash out enemy cc, do some damage and die with a reason while getting all the focus. This way Ocelote wastes his ultimate on a lonely Zyra who manages to cast everything she needs to before she dies.

Rengar jumps onto Vayne who is protected by both Lee and Jax. Meanwhile, Katarina abuses a stacked (!) SK team of Caitlyn, Lulu and Kayle, while Ocelote can’t really do much anymore. Lulu doesn’t react and dies ulting Rengar istead of herself or someone around her. This way Katarina’s ult isn’t stopped and she gets the chance to deal her full potential of damage output. Kayle doesn’t manage to ult Caitlyn and eventually wasted it on herself.

Zyra again fantastically initiates on Ocelote trying to force out his ult and get focused by SK. Ocelote doesn’t even manage to react as the whole EC follows up and just bursts him down. Rengar focuses down Zyra yet again, while Vayne is let to freely position herself.

 

I find it interesting to think about the next idea – EC let SK’s top lane alive to force the enemy to farm at it, letting themselves be safe and sound about doing good calls all over the map. You can roam, while he has to defend. EC did this to both top and mid securing map domination throughout the game.

EC pretty much executed everything their lineup can do - perfectly. Aside from some positioning mistakes, they executed well and forced SK to use their spells in a wrong direction or combination. Zyra performed greatly, practically leading EC into every battle and making sure she didn’t waste her life.

I guess SK could have tried to have more map presence and control. They basically didn’t secure any objectives and were playing as if they simply hope to out farm EC and finally just capitalize on their mistakes in one or two team fights. All we saw from SK throughout the game was passive aggressiveness without any proper initiation or focus. The only lane that started somewhat good was bot lane, but they just couldn’t deliver their advantage to the mid and end game phases.

Kayle’s skillset didn’t really bring much to SK’s lineup and they didn’t abuse her well either. I have the feeling that a Malphite top would have done more and perhaps allowed a more versatile game style. This way they would have had an easier time charging for a battle and landing those crucial spells. On the other hand, Caitlyn would have an easier time to dps as well – this way they had to worry too much about keeping her alive while actually having no one to protect her properly and still deal damage in fights.

EC combo-ed their lineup well and picked very intelligently denying Orianna to be useful throughout the game or even Rengar to have any chance to focus down someone.

Throughout the game EC’s Zyra bought and planted 28 wards, while Lulu invested her money into 21 wards and 3 oracles. Zyra kept more vision active early game than Lulu, getting several pink wards and securing map vision to her team’s advantage. EC’s gold advantage around the 10 min mark was 2.5k gold, 20 min mark 5.6k gold and 30 min mark 9 k gold.

EC’s 10 min mark item choice is logical and good. Vayne knows that she can win against Cait only if she survives the initial few hits and therefore got a Ninja Tabi. Katarina does an Abysall pick up forcing even better early game presence.

SK’s Rengar didn’t do much and maybe getting 2 doran’s wasn’t a good choice. Ocelote builds huge mana regen even though he can’t leave the lane – this might have been ironical since they couldn’t secure blue buff for him – if he had less mana regen items and had to have blue, maybe they would have timed and secured it better? I feel as if Cait should have taken attack speed instead of the 2nd doran’s to keep up with Vayne.

EC’s 20 min mark items look all still well thought off and Zyra picks up an interesting addition to her build – Fiendish Codex, allowing her more sustain in terms of her skillset. SK’s items look alright with the gold disadvantage they are in and considering what items they had at the 10min mark. I still feel that Cait should get more attack speed.

EC seems to be fully prepared to end the game. Maybe finishing Morello’s Tome wasn’t crucial on Zyra, but it still brings in more damage so it’s acceptable. Kayle turned out too squishy and not dealing enough damage. Rengar never managed to make use of those early doran’s and ended up with low rated items. Ocelote, while dealing damage, just dies too fast. Cait finally got her attack speed, but far too late in my opinion.

 

There you go Summoners, a detailed matchup analysis. Sorry for the quality of the images - it just can't get better with the quality availible on youtube. Let me know which game you’d like to see next and what kind of additional information you’d want to see, or where you want even more detail. Until next time – remember to time each casted flash well!