Team Impulse vs Team Dignitas: By the Numbers

If things had played out differently, we could have seen a very different Dignitas earlier this season.

This match was a rather one sided affair.  Dignitas took the lead in the early game and didn't let go.  They were quick to rotate and collapse, forcing fights in their favor like we'd expect from Team Impulse.  Even XiaoWeiXiao fell behind in a lane heavily in his favor.

For Team Impulse, this was an unmitigated disaster.  Dignitas managed to get a few early kills, but nothing that would really put them that far ahead.  Instead of capitalizing on the unconventional jungle and the favorable lane match up, it seemed the pressure was too much to handle.  From 24 minutes on, Team Impulse had nothing to say about things.

Dignitas closed out the match just over 41 minutes, 16 kills to 5.  If we had seen a performance like this earlier in the Spring Split, instead of vying for 8th, Dignitas would have made it into the playoffs.

Impact is forced to farm under turrets and falls far behind in the early game.

1.  Minimize Impact's impact.  Even though Impact was able to contribute substantially to his team--he did the most damage on this team, after all--but when he resorted to using the Equalizer to wave clear, it became obvious Impact was falling far behind.  Between the unfavorable lane swap and a lack of mitigation, Impact fell behind early on and wasn't able to contribute as effectively as one would've hoped.

Shiphtur Shunpo's away from XiaoWeiXiao at the last moment.

2.  What happened to XiaoWeiXiao?  This was easily a favorable lane match up for XiaoWeiXiao.  Shiphtur has great mechanics, but LeBlanc is equipped with a kit that can explode Katarina.  It's clear that Shiphtur respected the LeBlanc early game, saving his trinket and Shunpo for the quick escape.  For fear of being punished for getting too close, most of Shiphtur's farm was done tentatively with an eye for an escape route.  In the end, though, Shiphtur really couldn't be stopped.  And XiaoWeiXiao?  0/3/0, with 10k damage to champions.  At least he beat Shiphtur with CS.

XiaoWeiXiao in and out for the dragon steal.

3.  That dragon steal, though.  If there was a moment that Impulse appeared to be about to turn it around, it was at that third dragon.  The gold lead was modestly in Dignitas's favor--about 1k--and XiaoWeiXiao was able to jump in and steal that dragon after Azingy preemptively used Smite.  Unfortunately that 6% wasn't enough to turn things around for Impulse.

Dignitas takes a fight near baron.  Incidentally, the fight started with a four man collapse on Gamsu.

4.  The damage game.  Most games are fairly close at the end of the game, with the winning team dealing slightly more damage than the opposing team.  This game, however, looked as though Impulse couldn't be bothered to do damage to Dignitas.  Overall, Dignitas did 24k more damage to Impulse than Impulse did back.  In terms of percentages, Dignitas did 150% more damage over the course of this match--over 1/3 of which came from CoreJJ.

Dignitas comes charging down the mid lane.

5.  Dignitas capitalizes on their lead.  When teams that traditionally haven't been doing very well in the Spring Split realize they have the advantage, it's as though a lightbulb turns on and an otherwise absent confidence and certainty reminds us all why they were LCS material to begin with.  After Dignitas lost their tier 2 mid tower but managed to secure dragon, that moment came for them.  Every two minutes from that point onward was another kill, another objective, or both.

Other interesting statistics:

• Azingy and KiWiKiD shared the brunt of the vision battle pretty equally, while Impulse relied fairly exclusively on Adrian.

• CoreJJ didn't just do a lot of damage to champions--he just flat out did a lot of damage.  In the end he'd done a total of 404.8k damage.  To put that in contrast, the next most damage was Apollo at 249.1k, followed by Shiphtur at 245.5k.

• Impact had the best kill participation at 80% (of 5 kills).  Three members of Dignitas had a 69% KP, though--Gamsu, Shiphtur, and CoreJJ.