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DIG vs FOX Game 3: #DIGWIN Strategy Breakdown
This article will take a look at the third match of Team Dignitas' series versus Echo Fox during Week 3 of the NA LCS Summer Split, looking at how the draft went down, and how Team Dignitas managed to secure a fast and clean victory.
The Draft
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The first phase of bans opens with rather staple carry bans. With Team Dignitas on blue side, they opt to narrow down FOX Froggen’s champion pool, banning out the opportunity for mid-lane Lucian, a pick that Froggen saw great success with during Game 2. Caitlyn and Leblanc are banned as per usual, being the most contested and banned champions in their respective roles.
Echo Fox selects fairly standard red-side bans, blocking out the near-permabanned Zac and Kennen from being first-picked by Team Dignitas. Like previously in the series, they continue to address Ssumday’s staple Shen pick, which had seen success previously. An interesting fact to note about this series is the complete lack of Galio; outside of this series, he saw a 100% pick/ban rate during this week. This is likely due to the nature of Ssumday and Looper’s playstyles, with both teams preferring to draft them onto split pushers and bruisers, as opposed to tanks. As for Galio as a flex mid-lane pick, it’s understandable that they’d prefer to put Keane and Froggen on control mages and carry-style mid laners.
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The pick phase for both teams has focused on securing bot laners and junglers. The relatively narrow and highly contested Marksman champion pool is at stake, as well as the selection of early-game aggressive junglers that Shrimp and Akaadian are notorious for.
With a relatively narrow Marksman champion pool to choose from, bot lane picks are highly contestable. Team Dignitas opens their draft by prioritising the Xayah pick, the next most contested Marksman pick of the week behind Caitlyn, with a 64% pick/ban rate. This narrows down the standard marksman options for Echo Fox to Ashe and Varus, from which they pick Varus. Additionally, they secure an Elise pick, one of Akaadian’s signature early-game pressure junglers, before Shrimp has a chance to take it.
Since the Xayah pick typically telegraphs a follow-up Rakan pick, they opt to pick him up before Echo Fox has the chance to deny the formidable Xayah/Rakan combo. With their final pick before the next set of bans, Shrimp’s signature Lee Sin is picked up before Echo Fox has the chance to ban him out. With Team Dignitas’ bot-lane in stone, Echo Fox picks up Thresh, a known counterpick into Rakan.
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With Shen and Kennen out of the question, the two split pushers contested between Looper and Ssumday are Renekton and Fiora. With Echo Fox as the next team to pick, they opt to ban away Fiora from Ssumday, The following Taliyah, Orianna and Ahri bans are fairly standard mid-lane bans, chipping away at Froggen and Keane’s options for meta control mages.
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With Echo Fox able to pick first, they opt to take Renekton, leaving Ssumday few options beyond Rumble from his previously seen top lane picks. Since Team Dignitas’ composition lacking reliable CC and frontline durability, they choose Gragas, a surprising and relatively tanky pick for Ssumday which proves to be very effective. They round their composition off with a Cassiopeia pick, drafting a very high-damage composition with balanced damage types and sufficient engage potential. Echo Fox has to take whatever remain from the heavily cut-down mid laner pool and completes their draft with Viktor.
Objective Control
One of the most significant factors contributing to Team Dignitas’ victory was objective control, grouping thoughtfully and maintaining dragon control.
Team Dignitas kept the tempo against Echo Fox for most of the game’s duration. To begin with, Shrimp was able to out-jungle Akaadian, as he always knew where the enemy Jungler was, and by getting more successful ganks off. After a shaky fight with the bottom laners (no one died), Team Dignitas managed to secure the first turret of the game (Lee Sin was there as well), only by a second to Echo Fox's destruction, on the opposite site of the map. After that, we went for the neutral objective exchange, with Team Dignitas securing Cloud Drake, while Echo Fox claimed the Rift Herald.
Team Dignitas made the above such a favorable trade for them. Upon destroying the bot lane turret, their bot laners immediately recalled and ran to mid lane. At the same time, Ssumday was pressuring the enemies that were doing Rift Herald, and made it clear that he had fighting intentions. Shrimp was able to solo-rush the Drake way faster than his enemies, and immediately ran towards the top jungle side.
So, the exact time Echo Fox kills the Rift Herald, Ssumday goes in on Akaadian's Elise and the fight breaks out. The outcome of this fight was a 2 for 0 trade for us, some free damage in the mid lane tier 1, a couple of buffs from the enemy side and vision all over the enemy jungle.
This turned the tides of the game in favor of Team Dignitas. Their gold lead began since then, and this is the exact moment they started holding the tempo of the game. After that, Echo Fox was not able to contest anything out of their side of the map, leaving the next drakes in their enemies’ hands. However, there were some sneaky Baron attempts from the Echo Fox side, yet without a Mountain Buff, killing it that fast was very difficult.
In fact, that seemed like a brilliant idea for Team Dignitas, so they attempted the same. When they saw that all the enemies were in mid lane and had no vision on Baron, they rushed it down so quickly (with Cassiopeia and Mountain Buff) that Echo Fox was not able to punish them for it.
With this buff, Team Dignitas won the fight that broke out seconds later, leaving victory in their grasp. They secured another Drake uncontested and easily closed out the game moments later.
Picking a Fight
Looking at the scoreboard, it’s easy to see that there haven’t been many kills this game, as both teams have been cautious in fighting and have been trying to wait out the struggle for map control. Team Dignitas uses this lull in action to set up a perfect Baron fight to win the game.
The first step is securing the Mountain Drake. Because Team Dignitas is ahead 4-2 on kills and are in control of side waves, controlling vision around Drake and lower river is simple and when the enemy team shows up to push waves back, Shrimp and LOD make short work of the Drake.
Now that Team Dignitas can take Baron with Cassiopeia and the Mountain Drake buff the moment the enemy trips up, they work on setting up a favorable fight condition. Even when the enemy team motions towards Baron here, Team Dignitas shows a strong presence and is able to scare the enemy off committing to a Baron fight.
Then, when LOD manages to hit the Statikk Shiv power spike on Xayah, Team Dignitas steps up and starts to make things happen. Big scans out the enemy jungle’s bush and sees that there is no ward. This means a proper engage/disengage is able to flank the enemy and create a favorable fight if the enemy team decides to challenge. Because there is also proper vision secured, Team Dignitas is able to confidently start Baron.
Cassiopeia is able to melt down the Baron before the fight even breaks out. Then, with the previous vision knowledge, Big is able to set up a teamfight beautifully.
Team Dignitas runs into the clustered enemy team with good item power spikes and is able to cleanly take the teamfight, securing a huge gold lead and having all team members survive with Baron.
A big part of this fight is how everything was tied together. Team Dignitas is able to control the speed at which Baron is taken, so when a good engage opportunity is presented by superior vision control and Baron dancing, the team is able to react to a smart engage and focus down carries without having to worry about objectives.
Varus and Elise are picked off immediately, leaving an enemy support, bruiser, and mid lane carry. The enemy Renekton is then focused down and the remaining members are forced to back out of the fight to avoid being also picked off.
Ssumday’s clutch ultimate leaves only one champion alive on the enemy team, so Team Dignitas is free to set up for one last base push. Because of the now very intensive pushing power from Baron and an influx of gold, this push is able to convincingly close the game out before 28 minutes. Victory!
Team Dignitas has put up some strong performances through thoughtful shotcalling, objective control and effective drafts. Look forward to more strong performances from Team Dignitas during the next half of the split, starting with CLG vs DIG on July 15!
Credit to Argoroj for his draft analysis, Ester1en for his objective control contribution, and Raventra's teamfight insights.