Shockwave! A Look at Keane's Dominant Orianna in the NA LCS

Team Dignitas has had a great first few weeks of the 2017 NA LCS. A lot of this has been attributed to Ssumday’s performance in the top lane. Admittedly, Ssumday has been playing phenomenal (the FlyQuest series especially). This article examines another key component to Team Dignitas’ success, Keane in the mid lane.

Keane has historically not drawn much attention in the mid lane. He is known for picking off-meta champions, like Malzahar in game 3 against TSM or even further back like Hecarim mid in the promotional series against CLG, but is perhaps glossed over when playing standard meta mages. We’ll look at Keane’s most played champion Orianna (5 out of 10 games), who also happens to be one of the staple mid laners in the current meta.

Runes and Masteries

Keane takes the same runes and masteries on Orianna in every game. The rune page consists of AP Quints, magic pen reds, health per level yellows, and 3 magic resist and 6 cooldown per level blues. While low on defensive stats, the scaling health and scaling cooldown reduction set up Orianna to be a great late game carry. This is consistent with Orianna’s playstyle as well — she struggles early with no items, but with a couple items she can become an absolute carry. This page also seems to be consistent among most of the LCS mid laners, and is clearly seen as the optimal set up for Orianna. Cloud 9’s Jensen, CLG’s Huhi and Flyquest’s Hai all take the same page.

The masteries are mostly similar across mid laners as well. In the Ferocity tree, Keane takes Fury, Feast, Natural Talent and Battle Trance. Interestingly, Keane puts one point in Vampirism for 0.4% life steal and spell vamp. CLG’s Huhi does the same Ferocity tree as well. Natural Talent is a scaling mastery which gains additional AP and AD per level which greatly helps Orianna in the late game. However, the 1 point in Vampirism seems to be targeted towards the early game. In theory, the spell vamp and life steal would help Orianna sustain a little bit better through the laning phase. However, 0.4% is barely anything. For example, 1 autoattack for 50 damage restores 0.2 health. Yet, Keane and other midlaners see the value in this small amount of health gained back.

In the Cunning tree, we see Savagery, Secret Stash, Meditation/Merciless, Dangerous Game, Precision and Thunderlord’s Decree. The only variation we see in this tree is in Meditation vs Merciless, where some laners take 2 or 3 points in either. Keane prefers 3 points in Merciless over 3 points in Meditation. While Mediation does offer bonus mana regen, Keane likely feels that dealing increased damage to low health targets is more valuable.

Items

In terms of itemization, Keane diversified his build slightly in each game. His first full item was always a Morellonomicon. This is a standard AP Mage item that provides ability power, mana and cooldown reduction which all benefit Orianna. Occasionally, Keane bought a second Doran’s Ring, though this was usually only when he was forced to recall after a gank.

Keane’s second item varied situationally. Against heavy magic damage team compositions, Keane chose to purchase a Banshee’s Veil. The new Banshee’s Veil still provides the iconic spell shield that is associated with the item, but also a good amount of AP and magic resist. These are exceptional stats against a composition like the Rumble, Elise, Taliyah, Caitlyn and Karma composition Team Liquid chose in game 2 of their series. Keane also chose to go Banshee’s Veil second against Hai’s Syndra. Blocking a stun from Syndra with a spell shield significantly lowers the chance of getting instantly killed by her ultimate, which may explain Keane’s choice.

We also saw Keane go for a Luden’s Echo second. Luden’s Echo provides a larger amount of AP than a Banshee’s Veil (100 AP vs 70 AP), as well as movement speed and a passive which charges up and deal splash damage to 4 additional targets. Obviously Orianna benefits from the AP to increase her damage, but Orianna also benefits significantly from the movement speed to help her position better. While her Command: Dissonance gives bonus movement speed, the skill is used mostly for damaging purposes in combination with Orianna’s ultimate for a huge burst of damage. The bonus movement speed ensures that Orianna can set up correctly, even without having to use her Command: Dissonance for the speed boost. The splash damage is nice as well because Orianna tends to deal damage to tightly clumped enemies which almost guarantees the splash damage will land.

To close out his build, Keane chooses from Liandry’s Torment, Rabadon’s Deathcap, Void Staff and Zhonya’s Hourglass. Ultimately, the item choices come down to gold and state of the game. Liandry’s Torment, Void Staff and Rabadon’s Deathcap all significantly increase Orianna’s damage. However, against compositions that are stacking magic resist, Keane prefers Void Staff or Liandry’s Torment over Rabadon’s Deathcap. On the flip side, when Keane is ahead, we see that Keane builds towards Rabadon’s Deathcap earlier. We never see Keane complete a Zhonya’s Hourglass, but the stasis active protects Orianna while her skills are on cooldown. It also provides some armor, which is necessary as Keane’s rune page does not run any armor.

Laning Phase

To look at Keane’s laning phase, we’ll take a look at the game 1 against Team Liquid’s Goldenglue and game 2 against FlyQuest's veteran Hai. Against Goldenglue, Keane held his own. Keane matched Goldenglue’s CS for the first 5 minutes until he was ganked by a roaming Karma which forced him to back early. This gank sets Keane slightly behind. Yet the recall only forced him to lose 1 wave, and Keane stays within 10 cs of Goldenglue throughout the early game.

What is interesting to note how little help Keane gets in this game in the early game. Despite the early gank from Karma, Keane gets no jungle help for 10 minutes. Shrimp helped other lanes, and even secured a kill onto Reignover. But Keane was left largely on his own. From this we can deduce that Team Dignitas likely feels confident in Keane’s ability to maintain his own in the mid lane. Orianna’s passive, Clockwork Winding, gives bonus damage on her auto attacks which helps her CS effectively. Additionally, Orianna has relatively good wave clear with her Q-W combo. It is not quite as good as Taliyah, which should force Orianna to lose some CS under turret, but Keane was able to maintain solid CS throughout the early game.

In the FlyQuest game, both midlaners are given no support for the first 6 minutes. In this situation, Keane’s Orianna out performed Hai’s Syndra. We should take into consideration that Syndra’s early game, like Orianna’s, is not Syndra’s strong point. Keane skillfully abused this weakness by constantly pushing in Hai’s Syndra which forced her to lose CS. Keane even stole some of Moon’s raptor camp as well through this constant pressure. By 6 minutes, both mid laners were looking to recall and Keane pushed the lane before recalling. At this point, Keane had a 12 CS lead over Hai at 6:35 into the game. Half of this CS might be made up by the wave crashing into the turret, but this is still an impressive display of skill. While some of this can be attributed to the matchup, maintain a solid CS lead while applying pressure clearly displays Keane’s aptitude on Orianna.

Team Fighting

Of course, the biggest telling of an Orianna’s skill is her team fighitng ability and the use of her ultimate Command: Shockwave. Teamfighting as Orianna requires great ball management to ensure the maximum damage, as well as setting up a good Shockwave. We’ll take a look at a couple teamfights that really showcase Keanes’ ability to teamfight.

Perhaps the most memorable Shockwave was game 2 against Team Liquid. Despite being behind in the game, one huge teamfight allowed Team Dignitas to get back into the game (although ultimately they still lost). Keane’s Orianna, was not having a great game with a score of 0-3-3 at the 37 minute mark. Team Dignitas, after winning an early fight, head for the Baron which would greatly increase the odds of winning the game. Team Liquid attempts to contest but funneled into a choke point. Team Dignitas’ Big gets a “big” flank onto Team Liquid and lands a snare and ultimate combo which wass followed up by Gragas’ Exploding Cask and finally Keane’s Orianna.

Here we can see the great positioning of Keane’s Orianna. Instead of positioning inside the pit with the other 3 members of Team Dignitas, Keane is positioned on the outside of the pit. This positioning benefits Keane because he’s able to cut off a hypothetical escape route up the river. Of course, Team Liquid was snared and could not run up anyway, but if they could, Keane’s Orianna would have stopped them. The positioning was also important in ensuring that Keane’s Orianna ball could reach the fight to land the Shockwave. Had Keane positioned behind the Gragas, he may not have been able to land the best Ultimate.

Another great ultimate is in Game 1 vs Team EnVyUs. The teamfight which decides the game happens at 30 minutes. Again, Team Dignitas was able to catch the opposing team in a choke point. Ssumday led with a taunt on Shen which was followed up by a great Orianna ultimate. While it looks like an awkwardly placed ultimate, Keane’s target selection is immaculate. He was able to catch NV’s mid, top and AD carry with this ultimate. NV’s AD Apollo was able to dodge out the ultimate due to his own ultimate, but the ball positioning was excellent in this fight.

Conclusion

Keane’s Orianna has a solid laning phase, never coming out too far behind and his team fighting is excellent. Looking at his damage dealt to champions for each of the games, he did plenty of damage, even doing the most damage in the game once in the 5 games. His ultimates are usually pretty good, though he is not perfect. In game 2 vs NV for example, Keane is picked off instantly by Pirean’s Taliyah for making a positional error.

Orianna is an incredibly powerful carry when correctly positioning the ball and herself. She seems to be perfect for the current meta, where a lot of jungle focus is sent topside which requires a self-sufficient midlaner. Orianna’s strong laning phase, as well as wave clear makes for a great candidate. Though she has little mobility, and is punished heavily for errors in positioning, in Keane’s hands she is a force to be reckoned with.