Copenhagen Wolves vs Elements: By the Numbers

It seems like the European LCS was planning on some big upsets going into this week.  Not a single match went the way of the fan vote.

Copenhagen Wolves started out aggressive, looking for picks in Freeze's lane.  This started off the game well for the Wolves, allowing them to build up a 1.5k average gold lead through the mid game.  However, as stellar as the Wolves' early game was, their mid game was lackluster.  Elements, though behind, still managed to secure objectives--taking down the first tier of turrets around 20 minutes, and keeping a steady pressure at dragon.

Around 40 minutes, the Wolves started to pull ahead.  After a good team fight at baron, they were able to secure both baron and dragon only to . . . do nothing.  No other objectives were secured by the Wolves for the next 17 minutes of the game as Elements began to orchestrate their comeback.

Froggen pulls the Wolves into a shockwave that secures the baron for Elements.

For a long while there--all the way up to what would have been a dragon 5 buff for either team--it looked like Elements had the clear upper hand.  They had successfully brought down every one of the Wolves' towers, and only made the move to secure dragon to prevent the Wolves from doing so.  It even looked like they would be able to bring down the dragon pretty easily, but YoungBuck had other plans.

Elements gives up 3 kills in the first gank of the game.

1.  Elements need to fix their early game.  Something has to happen with Elements' early game.  For a team that has so many members who've competed internationally, you'd think that they'd have adopted the early aggression and capitalization that has done so well on the world stage.  Their stubborn insistence on this play style (and it definitely is stubborn--it's been the constant commentary of their last 13 games) hasn't served them well, even in their wins.

Finally, after 1:07, Wolves push through the final Nexus tower for the victory.

2.  That was one long game.  Despite their early game, Elements did manage to catch up quite a bit.  At least in that regard Elements does have pretty solid end game tactics--they managed to stall out the game long enough for the playing field to even out again.  However, their strategy allowed the Wolves to build up strength and force an unwanted engage in the end game.

Shook dives in the smite steal dragon, preventing the Wolves' Dragon 5.

3.  Big names, big plays--but not everyone can be a hero.  There were a number of big plays on the side of Elements--the multiplayer shockwave, for example--but it seems that Elements is playing with their reputation in mind.  Hero gameplay makes a difference in solo queue, where the team a player is facing typically has little experience with one another and has a problem adapting to a dynamic player that does well despite his team.  In competitive team play, though, a hero takes risks and forces objectives that sometimes may not be in his team's favor.  If Elements want to really take their play to the next level, they'll need to start thinking about what they can do as a team instead of what they're doing individually.

YoungBuck zones out Elements so the Wolves can secure Dragon 5.

4.  YoungBuck.  YoungBuck made a number of great plays--not the least of which was his zoning at the final dragon that cost Elements the game.  By the end of the game, he had laid down over 7k more damage than the next player on his team (Freeze at 32.8k).  If we could pick a player that clearly deserved credit for the victory, it'd be YoungBuck.

Elements crack into the Wolves' base with the help of Dragon 5.

5.  The power of Dragon 5.  We got to see both teams get Dragon 5 in this game, and see how they capitalized on the extra buffs it provided them.  Elements used Dragon 5 to crack into the Wolves' base, and nearly closed out the game; the Wolves used Dragon 5 to get the first Ace and the match.  The benefits of the new baron and the new dragon have brought an entirely different dynamic to objective control.  While giving up early dragons isn't much of a problem (it provides no substantial gold difference, aside from the first buff the other benefits bring only minor differences to regular game play), giving up Dragon 5 is sure to end in disaster.

Other interesting statistics:

• Airwaks soaked up 82.4k damage and only died twice over the whole game.  That makes that nearly two minutes Airwaks prevented Froggen to back just that much funnier.

• Rekkles was 9/0 until that last dragon; he also dealt the most damage from a single player at 49.3k.

• Krepo laid down 110 wards that game, including 17 vision wards.  All together, 435 wards were placed in the course of that game.

• Freeze came within 10 CS of setting the record for most CS in a single game.  That said, he only netted 400 more gold than Rekkles, who was 87 CS behind.