How Shrimp Abused an Early Game Advantage

A few weeks ago, we saw a great series between Team Dignitas and Cloud 9 in the quarterfinals of the NA LCS Summer Split. There is so much to discuss about this series from Altec’s phenomenal play to the insane comeback by Team Dignitas in Game 4. However, in this article we’ll take a look at the extremely strong Game 1 by Lee "Shrimp" Byeong-hoon which set the stage in the jungle for the remainder of the series. In particular, we’ll examine how Shrimp abused an early game mistake by C9 Contractz to swing the entire game into his favor, and how you can translate that into wins in solo queue. 

The game started out with C9 blowing Shrimp's Flash by landing a hook level 1. This should have been an advantage that C9 abused but was unable to do so as Shrimp is quickly able to get a gank off in the top lane and secure first blood for himself.

A good hook from C9 Smoothie forces Shrimp to burn Flash.

This gank was immediately followed up by a questionable decision by C9 Contractz to go for the kill on Ssumday’s Maokai which ends up getting himself killed. We won’t discuss whether or not this was a good or bad play, but instead we’ll discuss how Shrimp turned these two early kills into pressure and control of the map for the rest of the game. 

With this lead in the top side of the map, Shrimp basically has two options. He can continue to win the top side of the map for Ssumday by continually pressuring the Flashless Gnar or he can try to create pressure on the rest of the map. Shrimp decides to do the latter, immediately following up his recall with a gank in the bot lane. This gank, while not securing any kills, does force C9 to use 3 summoner spells.

Shrimp probably decided that it was more beneficial to get Caitlyn rolling than to try and keep Ssumday ahead. Even with the gank and kill in the top lane, Gnar’s incredibly powerful laning phase meant that Ssumday was still behind in CS. An additional gank may have turned an unfavorable lane to about an even lane at best. Getting Altec’s Caitlyn going is a different story. If Team Dignitas’ bot lane has priority, it makes it harder for Smoothie to roam and keeps Sneaky’s Twitch, another late game hypercarry, from snowballing early. The early gank pays off as Altec is slowly able to create a CS lead in the bot lane and get a great recall timing with B.F. Sword, Boots, and a Control Ward on the first buy.

There is an additional aspect that is worth mentioning. With the bonus gold from 2 kills, and the first blood bonus gold, Shrimp is able to purchase his Tracker’s Knife which gives him 3 wards to place. This allows Shrimp to get deep wards in Contractz’s jungle and track where the Rek’Sai is. Invading into Contractz’s jungle is also relatively safe due to the level advantage he had ensuring that he would come out on top in skirmishes. This is quite a strong advantage that Shrimp has set up. Not only does the rest of Team Dignitas have vision of Rek’Sai in the jungle, it allows Team Dignitas to set up great vision in the river around dragon. Both Altec and Adrian purchased control wards and placed them in river to secure the dragon area. This sets up a gank attempt in the bot lane, as well as giving Team Dignitas the rift scuttle. While these may seem like miniscule advantages, the information allows Team Dignitas to alter their play depending on where they see Rek’Sai. Additionally, Rek’Sai’s powerful gank potential is basically nullified and Contractz is not able to do much of anything for the first 10 minutes of the game.

Look at the bot river vision. Almost completely blue!

We see the power of these wards at about 9:50 when Smoothie attempts to roam up to gank Keane in the mid lane. Because of all the vision in the river, Keane is quickly able to spot out Smoothie and plays safe under his turret. Smoothie was finally able to roam due to C9 having the push in the bot lane, but this was again put to waste by the excellent vision control. Because it is so late into the laning phase, Team Dignitas had already gotten substantial damage onto the bot lane turret as well. In solo queue, securing this vision will help your midlaner play aggressive without fear of a gank. 

Team Dignitas gains a huge lead at around 13:30 minutes. Feeling pressured by the low health bot turret, C9 feel like they have to make a play. Both junglers had been playing around the bot lane to try and secure/deny the first turret gold, and C9 strikes first. Smoothie goes in for a hook, but misses. Yet he continued the pressure knowing that Contractz was around the corner. Unfortunately, Contractz is shut down by excellent play from Adrian’s Thresh. A quick flay back, and Box ensures that Rek’Sai cannot get a good knockup onto any of the C9 members. This is followed up by a hook onto Blitzcrank, a TP from Ssumday and a turret dive securing first turret gold and 2 kills.

Shrimp’s play around botside made this play incredibly difficult for Contractz. Contractz is behind in items and so cannot be as aggressive, and his only early game play was cancelled out by a countergank by Shrimp.

From this point, Team Dignitas expertly play out the game. Shrimp continuously abused used summoner spells with E-Q combos and Flash Ultimates. This secured a couple kills, and ultimately Baron. From there, Team Dignitas is able to close out the game.

This game was carried by Shrimp abusing his early game advantage. He was able to secure two early game kills and translated that into tons of blown summoner spells, vision and pressure on the bottom of the map which ultimately snowballed Team Dignitas to their win. He was able to accomplish this all while shutting down Contractz’s Rek’Sai who was only able to pull of two ganks in the first 15 minutes of the game.

Abusing mistakes, which happen more often in solo queue than at the professional level, is key to success in solo queue. If you are able to translate advantages, as big as a double kill or as small as a burned summoner, you'll be able to climb much faster.