Unicorns of Love vs. SK Gaming: By the Numbers

Now that Fnatic found the weakness in SK's play style, it seems everyone has the formula.  That said, Unicorns of Love leveled the European leaders with an effectiveness all their own.

UOL set the game on tracks from Champion Select.  They took only a few seconds to make their bans and team composition decisions before they put it back over into SK's court.  Anticipating a low mobility composition, SK locked in Leona, but even her CC abilities would prove fruitless against UOL's onslaught.

UOL took early control of the lanes, taking down Forg1ven for First Blood.  Kikis constantly invaded the enemy jungle, keeping tabs on Svenskeren and looking for members of SK out of position.  This translated well into the midgame, with UOL looking to trade objectives and keeping up their momentum.

Once UOL got started, they kept up the tempo and never gave SK a break.  In the end, they plowed through every SK tower before 30 minutes.

Svenskeren thought Kikis would be an easy catch under turret.  Not so easy after all.

1.  High mobility in a low mobility composition.  Unicorns of Love were able to compensate for their lack of mobility (especially on Cassiopeia and Annie) by compensating with explosive mobility on their other picks.  Kikis (Nidalee) was all over the map the whole game, constantly poking lanes with spears and catching Svenskeren (Rek'sai) in his own jungle.  Vizicsacsi (Gnar) used anything he could to get the extra hop, bouncing around in teamfights only to unleash MegaGnar at the crucial moment.  Meanwhile, Vardags (Sivir) had his finger on the trigger to ensure UOL would always be able to out-maneuver SK.

Taking down Forg1ven for First Blood.

2.  Temper the SK cannon.  UOL was very intentional with their early game focus on Forg1ven (Lucian).  They made sure that he couldn't pull as far ahead as he would normally--in fact, up until the 10 minute mark, he and Vardags were very close in CS.  In team fights, they'd put a solid line between Forg1ven and the squishiest parts of their team so that he'd have little to pick off before UOL could tear a hole through their team.

The first of many fredy self-ults.

3.  Force the CC early.  The damage output from UOL was so strong that it naturally forced out all the CC SK had early in the engage--nearly every encounter featured fredy (Lissandra) using his ultimate to protect himself, and nRated (Leona) going down before his stuns could be fully utilized.  What little they could pull off did rack up 10 kills between their carries (5 each for Forg1ven and Fox), but it'd prove to be too little too late, as UOL would follow up with their explosive damage and mobility.

UOL occupies SK in the bottom jungle while Vardags pushes his way through a turret up top.

4.  Objective control and worthwhile trades.  In the early stages of the game, it looked as though Kiki's exuberance to invade the enemy jungle would cost them their early lead; he was caught out twice in the early part of the game and gave over a kill each time.  However, UOL was quick to take advantage of the focus and push lanes elsewhere on the map, taking their first dragon around 12 minutes.  They brought down the first tier of towers around 16 minutes, and closed out the game (with 3 dragons and 2 barons) in the next 14 minutes.

Sneak in a baron because SK doesn't have vision?  Done.

5.  Vision control.  SK dropped 68 wards over the game, compared to 93 from UOL.  Overall, UOL dropped around 3.1 wards per minute, while SK only placed 2.2 wards every minute.  UOL was also more efficient at vision denial, destroying 26% of SK's wards; SK only cleared 16%.

Forg1ven likes to take them down from afar.

6.  Still, you really can't keep the Forg1ven cannon down.  Despite the troubles his team faced, he still managed to farm the most gold (13466, 417 more gold than Vardags, who had the most gold on UOL).  He had an average of 450 GPM, and 9.95 CS per minute.

Other interesting statistics:

• Fox gave much more damage than he received, hitting a 1.8.  2nd was Forg1ven at 1.3, and 3rd PowerOfEvil at 1.2.

• Vizicsacsi soaked up the damage, averaging 14.5k damage per death.  2nd was Vardags at 11.8k, and 3rd Kikis at 8.3k.

• Unicorns had an average of 3.6 players at each kill; SK only had an average of 2.6.

• Unicorns were also extremely efficient with their damage, averaging 3.5k damage per kill.  SK, on the other hand, committed 5.5k damage to secure each kill.

• Hylissang and Kikis were the primary enablers for the Unicorns, each securing a 90% Kill Participation.  Vizicsacsi was next with 80%, and then Fox at 75%.