Gambit vs MeetYourMakers: By the Numbers

How much does breaking a winning streak affect a team like Gambit?  Apparently, a whole lot.

Granted, they have won a game since H2k broke their winning streak back in Week 7--against Giants.  Perhaps the results of IEM threw them off.  Or, perhaps Meet Your Makers has learned enough about other teams that they're able to capitalize off of the information they've gathered.

Either way, the game did not go as expected.

Initially, for the first 20 minutes of the game, things were pretty even.  This was no surprise for Gambit--they're a team that prefers to explode in the late game, and aren't afraid to let games go on for a while.  However, in the stall MYM picked up two dragons, and three kills.  Gambit still managed to net a tower just after 20 minutes (the first one in the game), but it would prove to be a drop in the bucket.

Pinoy almost gets kori, if it weren't for that Q shield.

At dragon #3, Meet Your Makers decided to turn on the pressure.  It was as though they'd taken a step back and realized that not only were they slightly ahead, but that Gambit was running out of options and they could call the shots.  From dragon 3 to the end of the game--18 minutes later--Meet Your Makers started to take an objective every two minutes.  By the last seven minutes, they were taking at least one objective every minute.

MYM banned out Sejuani and Rek'sai, forcing Diamond onto Hecarim.

1.  Ban out Diamond.  Diamond is a fantastic jungler who knows the ropes of all the typical jungle choices, but specializes in the junglers no one else uses.  Normally, a Sejuani ban would be almost laughable against any other team; however, along with a Rek'sai ban, it meant that Diamond would potentially fall back to another champion--maybe even one he hadn't brought to the LCS yet.  Although Hecarim was a great choice conceptually because of the mobility it would provide the team, trying to build a Trinity Force on a jungler meant it would take longer for him to be able to lay down the kind of damage they needed in fights.

Betsy could do so very little in the laning phase.

2.  Apply a lot of pressure to Betsy.  Even though Betsy and kori kept the lanes fairly even through the laning phase, Betsy's itemization was a little questionable (building a Morellonomicon before a Void Staff or a Abyssal Scepter).  In order to be really effective, Diana has to be in the middle of a fight.  In order to survive the middle of the fight (without the benefits of a Death Mark or some other way to become untargetable) one needs to have a little more survivability built up.  Whatever reason Betsy chose to rush Morellonomicon (perhaps for the Grievous Wounds passive to counteract anything Noxiak on Nami could do to save him, or for the cooldown reduction?), it made him a paper tiger in team fights.

Jwaow keeps three members of Gambit occupied.

3.  MYM's strong front line.  The glaring weakness of MYM's team composition was in their very squishy and immobile back line.  Nami would be somewhat helpful with her passive (Surging Tides, which slightly increases movement speed for 1.5 seconds), but the MYM back line was still quite vulnerable to a flank.  However, much like the Unicorns of Love game against Elements, the combination of Olaf and Maokai in the front line brought in the sort of tankiness and lock-down power MYM needed to respond to a threat at the back line.  Their effectiveness was also notably impressive, considering the fact that everyone on Gambit had the ability to get to the back line if they needed to.

MYM takes the fight before they secure dragon 3.

4.  Once you see an opening, don't give up the pressure.  The first twenty minutes of the game were notable in their lack of movement either way.  Even though MYM secured a few dragons and Gambit got a tower, the game stayed fairly even for quite a while.  What was impressive to watch, though, was what MYM did as soon as they found a crack in Gambit's game.  Dragon 3 and two kills for kori proved to be that opening.  It was hardly recognizable in terms of gold lead--the game went from even to a little under 1k in favor of MYM--but in terms of MYM's confidence and kori's ability to punish Gambit, the game swung solidly in favor of MYM.  With that edge, they were able to capitalize on every mistake from Gambit, and secure the win.

MYM gets their first tower at 26 minutes.

5.  MYM still has some kinks to iron out.  This game proved that MYM deserves to be competing at the LCS level, but it did still reveal some flaws that they'll need to work on if they want to continue to win.  It took a while for MrRalleZ to get his Trinity Force.  In general the team wasn't able to capitalize on item spikes as much as would be desired.  What's especially notable, though, was that it took MYM nearly 26 minutes to take down their first tower.  If MYM wants to pass ROCCAT and Giants, they will not only have to beat ROCCAT on Week 9 Day 2, but they will need to beat one of either H2k or SK gaming--both of which will take advantage of what MYM did not.

Other notable statistics:

• When Diamond gets into the mix, everyone goes crazy.  Diamond took 46.4k damage throughout the game--almost 3 times as much damage as his next teammate.

• Apparently, Kog'Maw needs to die once to start becoming effective.  MrRalleZ didn't die for the first 32 minutes of the game.  He also didn't get any kills until after he died for the first time--at which point he went on a godlike killing spree.

• HORO can shrug off a lot of damage on Olaf.  Olaf prefers to be damaged after all (his passive, after all, doesn't kick in until he starts feeling the heat), but HORO managed to take 34k without dying once.

• Despite contributing 1/3 of all Gambit's deaths, Diamond was involved for 100% of their 5 kills.  On the other end, Noxiak was involved in 90% of their 21 kills, and only contributed to 1/5 of MYM's deaths.