Origen makes Flash Wolves whimper, expects SKT clash in Semis

Riot·Oct 16, 2015·3 votes·22,480 views

In front of a raucous sold-out crowd in London’s historic SSE Arena at Wembley, Origen muzzled Taiwan’s Flash Wolves 3-1 and secured a spot in the Semifinals, where they'll clash with the winner of tomorrow's SKTelecom T1 and ahq e-Sports Club match-up. Though the fans in attendance didn’t get a full five-game series, Origen had an alternative method of ensuring fans got their money’s worth: stretching each game out to roughly 40 minutes in pursuit of late-game victory.

“It was intentional,” says Origen’s mid-laner Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño-Martinez, “because we knew we made mistakes when we tried to play too fast. We’d struggled with what we had to do, the gameplans we had to make. From our practice we found we were better, at least for now, playing these slow games. So we decided to pick a scaling mid laner like Anivia or Orianna and just go for late game. We’re a lot stronger when we can get to the late game where everything is more predictable.”

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Origen jumped out to an early lead in Game 1 off the back of a feisty Alistar engage from Alfonso "Mithy" Aguirre Rodriguez, which Jesper "Niels" Svenningsen was able to follow up to secure First Blood. And later on at the 32-minute mark, Paul “SoaZ” Boyer might as well have mistaken the Flash Wolves for a minion wave as he mopped them up with ease beside the Baron pit for a toothsome Pentakill. Darius has become one of the most ferocious top-lane threats of Worlds 2015. SoaZ’ Penta this evening marked the second Darius Penta of the tournament, in addition to being the second-ever Penta in Worlds history to be secured by a top-lane champ. All hail the dunk tank.

Despite Yi-Tang “Maple” Huang’s LeBlanc getting numerous picks by leaping from the fog of war to assassinate Origen members, the team used its eventual four Dragon stacks to force an engage from Flash Wolves who were intent on preventing a fifth Dragon stack. At that moment, Niels slipped into the Flash Wolves’ base and cheekily ended the game before the Taiwan squad could react.

BIRD IS THE WORD

Origen’s Anivia pick allowed xPeke to punish the Flash Wolves’ periodic lapses in team coordination by using her ice-wall ability to section off out-of-position foes and cramp their team-fighting style. In fact, it worked so well that xPeke brought it out in Game 2 as well, leading to another win. He had even planned to go back to it in Game 3, but thought better of it when the Flash Wolves locked in the first Caitlyn pick of Worlds 2015.

“We felt like with Anivia, it might be hard to do anything against Caitlyn,” says xPeke. “She can E over the wall, I don’t have enough range to hit her with the ultimate or the stuns that much, and we felt like with Orianna maybe when I come to three or four items, I can [kill her]. I usually don’t fix what’s not broken but we tried Orianna and it didn’t work out.”

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Wen-An “NL” Hsiung’s Caitlyn would prove Origen’s undoing in Game 3, securing beast-mode solo kills in addition to hijacking Baron with an immaculately timed Piltover Peacemaker.

“The Caitlyn was annoying,” says xPeke. “Our comp was fine, but it was this kind of comp that both of us want to kite. Neither one of us wants to commit because we don’t have an Anivia wall, we don’t have a stun to engage, and I don’t want to use my [Shockwave] to engage because it can go really wrong because if I use it, they Flash it and then they fight, we can lose. So I think that was a bit of our mistake because we were not sure how to play it. And at a certain point, Caitlyn had a freeze in bot lane. We tried to push mid turret but we couldn’t and we lost a lot of our advantage.”

Origen pulled things back in Game 4 to close out the series, uncaging the Anivia once again. xPeke mentions that Origen had some different comps and strats prepared in case they fell behind in the series, but since the situation never got too perilous, they were able to recycle the same basic comp and hold their secrets for the Semifinals in Brussels where they expect to meet SKTelecom T1. He’s relieved that Origen drew a less dominant opponent for the Quarterfinals so they have time to shore up some of their weaknesses in preparation for the later stages of the tournament.

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“Last week we had many mistakes that showed up and things we have to improve so if we’d drawn SKT [in Quarters], we would probably have lost,” says xPeke. “But now we have a huge advantage that we have a lot of time to prepare on everything we have seen ourselves to do bad, and a lot of chances to see SKT doing something bad. We will see their gameplan. They might struggle against a particular comp, they might struggle when one of their players is behind. Now we have that advantage that during this whole week and a half that we have, we can practice to fix our mistakes and we can watch their games. Right now I cannot say but if after one week we have fixed most of our mistakes, maybe we can make an interesting series there.”

SCORE TO SETTLE

xPeke along with his teammate SoaZ are the first two players to reach the Semifinals in three separate World Championships, and the significance is not lost on the veteran superstar. He still remembers how it felt to make it to the Semis with Fnatic back in 2013.

“The feelings tonight are the same I had [back then],” he says. “I was happy we made it [to the Semis in 2013]. I remember at that time I was excited because I thought that we could make it to the Finals. We’d never faced SKT before at that time. We knew they were strong but we were not sure so we had a bit of hope that we could make it to the Finals and show up there. Probably not win because they looked strong, but I remember after losing [to Royal Club], at first I felt a bit disappointed, but then I looked back and I was like, damn, we made it so far. I was so happy with the success of that year. I feel like this time is the same but even better. We are here to prove that the success of this year wasn’t a coincidence.”

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If he didn’t think he could realistically beat SKT back in 2013, does he think he can do it this year if the Koreans dispatch ahq tomorrow as expected and meet Origen in the Semis?

“Right now we’re practicing to beat them,” he says. “But being honest, I know with our current mistakes, we wouldn’t be able to beat them more than one game. Hopefully after practice I can be confident we can take a whole series!”

SKTelecom T1’s match against ahq e-Sports Club kicks off tomorrow, October 16th, at 17:00 British Time, 18:00 Central European Summer Time, or 9:00 AM Pacific Time.

For more Quarterfinals and Worlds content, visit Lolesports.

Jason Killingsworth is a senior writer for Riot Games, based in Dublin. When he’s not being a beacon of deadpan journalistic objectivity, he paints Origen and Fnatic logos on his bare chest and babbles like a demoniac at his laptop screen. He can be found on Twitter @RiotWhiski and has previously written about the history of lane-swaps in professional play.

38 Comments

Fed Support NAOct 16, 201512 votes

OG from Challenger to World Champions #TheDream! Hands down SKT still world favorites (as in they gonna win).... but.... I wanna see Fanatic vs Origen for the FINALS!!!

Flash WardOct 16, 20153 votes

EU>NA gg wp

aítchOct 16, 20151 votes

Fnatic GET IT RIGHT

Live2LetDieOct 16, 20156 votes

Origen makes game last 40 min to win. Skt wins with the slightest advantage pre 20. I think we know who will win

Radioactive ManOct 16, 20155 votes

It's going to be a massacre if they play like they did against FW.

SKT is probably gonna continue their shut-out, but they showed some serious potential in the future.

LLificOct 16, 20155 votes

Have to be honest, even I am a fan of Faker. But I can't help expect Origen make the history. Be the team that beat Korean war machine at the world. God speed, OG.

C9 BuffBabyOct 16, 20151 votes

Corny

Im JahhOct 16, 20152 votes

As i have read befor in this Artcle comments, we will see a lot of salt from Na this year...

C9 BuffBabyOct 16, 20151 votes

Nah, just hilarious you would think so high of OG when they only beat FNC once. Not to mention FNC struggled to pull ahead of AHQ and SKT just wiped the floor with AHQ today. As I said before, FNC won't make it out past EDG and OG is just done with the lucky draws. Rip EUW.

KvvvvOct 17, 20152 votes

Well they just wiped EDG out

KaitriOct 16, 20153 votes

og made a lot of mistakes that will be punished by skt. skt will close those games out very quick. og pls work on that!

BluetrixOct 16, 20153 votes

Not sure why there's so much beef between EUW and NA, I'd personally cheer for any non-asian to win an E-Sports-Event since we westerners are the underdogs. Come on, essentially, EU and NA are different sides of the same coin. I'd cheer for NA, too, right now. Best of Luck to Fnatic and especially Origen!

C9 BuffBabyOct 16, 20152 votes

Origen has had nothing but great draws so far, nothing more. Easiest group as far as competition goes, then they get to face Flash Wolves and didn't even make it convincing. This EU vs NA trash talk still going on when #7 smashed their group in the first week and had everyone rattled. Get over it!

YesJesusLovesUOct 16, 20153 votes

OG and FNC got it going on!!! tho i see SKT winning Worlds, EU >NA this year bb. C9 win next time. Hai Believe!!! Cloud 9 for life.

Gaxx DOct 16, 20157 votes

I was under the impression, that NA had only 3 teams advancing for the worlds, not 7. C9 who beat every other team in the gauntlet is easily considered the TOP3 team in NA, and looking at other teams performances (need I remind you, that your "#1 team" was in the very same group as FW and failed to advance?) they could be considered TOP1. Also "easiest group" for Origen? Number 1 CN seed (who were considered the strongest region) with the "best adc" in the world, #2 Korean KT, who are extremely strong as well, and you can't really count them out, regardless of their loss to SKT in the finals of LCK, and your #2 seed. Also, C9 didn't "smash" anyone in the first week. Yes, they won their games, not denying it, but in no way they dominated any of these teams. And what ultimately matters is the fact, that they failed to leave the groups, even though they had 4 chances in the 2nd week. The one who needs to "get over it" is you. Hide your salt in the kitchen.

barkleycoolOct 16, 20152 votes

Ok guys, talk as much as u want, but our skt will crush u all LOL

Theo626Oct 16, 20152 votes

SKT SKT LETS GO BOYS

TarkamacskaOct 16, 20152 votes

"our"

Btw i dont really care about SKT, they are an another dimension. Teams are fighting for the second place, not the first. The only surprise on this tournament would be nothing else but a /total/ loss for SKT. Also a gentlement doesnt chear for the strongest team.

Delicious SushiOct 17, 20151 votes

So I am Korean, and I cheer for SKT. So I am not a gentleman anymore? Wtf is ur logic?

C9 BuffBabyOct 16, 20152 votes

FNC won't make it past EDG and Origens luck of the draw gonna get stomped out by SKT, stfu with that "EU>NA" bS. Just say FNC>C9 or OG>TSM. Sounds corny when everyone on these teams are from different countries or hired from another continent. It's a game, not the olympics is all i'm getting at here.

Gaxx DOct 17, 20152 votes

I was wondering if you can produce any more salt after today.

capdetrenOct 17, 20151 votes

pffff. rekt. NACL op

LeviukaOct 17, 20151 votes

Oh boy, change ur name and comment again as u've never said this, I wish you have 14K IP, I saw ur comment yesterday, and I was like, okay, I'm replaying this saltful comment tommorow, and there you go.

TarkamacskaOct 16, 20153 votes

So we should be prepared for a year-long saltiness in every NA comment, right? After 2014 worlds and IEM EU was quiet till the MSI, we lknew that we are a bit behind, even if our performance wasnt so bad on the worlds . Na will still trashtalk even if they were demolished. I know that Origen /or any other team including Koreans/ has almost 0 chances agains SKT and the Fntic vs EDG is a 50-50 or maybe 40-60. Still.. NA is fcking weak now, deal with it. The next year will be better. Probably.

FrostArcOct 16, 20155 votes

Love how you say they had a weak group when they had a favourite to win Worlds 2015 LGD and KT rollsters who is a analyst predicted finalist and lets not even mention NA TSM, so remember group D was group of death for a reason. Also drawing flash wolves is propably what they would wish for but that doesnt mean they are weak. They 2-0 Koo Tigers and beat oh look at that another NA team. The point is Origen is not a perfect team but they, alongside Fanatic, are the hopes of the Western teams and has been since worlds started.

C9 BuffBabyOct 16, 20151 votes

You call those analysts lol! You hear the crowds cheer when they vote for opposing teams because they're just a jinx. Those "analysts" couldn't guess which foot to put their shoes on.

C9 BuffBabyOct 16, 20151 votes

Only one in Origens group that brought the competition was KT, TSM and LGD just handed out free wins and a free pass to OG. FW lasted longer than they should have so OG got a pass in knockout stage. Rip OG vs SKT

B6WS TSW99Oct 16, 20154 votes

w/e you say, OG is for sure one of the top 5 teams in the world right now,

C9 BuffBabyOct 16, 20152 votes

LOL!!! I literally broke down laughing, thanks man. You made my morning. Time to watch SKT vs AHQ, hopefully not as boring as yesterdays games.

ScrippoOct 16, 20152 votes

Both SKT and AHQ are already prepping for finals. OG will be no contest for the winner of today. Unless they magically improve a unworldly amount.

SecondComingOct 16, 20152 votes

Sorry Origen and Fnatic, but finals have to be SKT vs ESG so Faker senpai can have his revenge (yeah they beat EDG both games, but group stage wins aren't the same as winning on a final...)

capdetrenOct 17, 20152 votes

welp...edg is out

Bl4ckslay3rOct 16, 20151 votes

OG didn't need to show more than one strategy to beat FW. I Hope they do prepare well against SKT. But still, great perfomance OG!

Earl EulrichOct 16, 20152 votes

or maybe they´ll just also beat them with the Bird...i think FW already thought it´d be a niche strategy and they won´t use it again (for that i have been rather happy to see that Peke actually is willing to go for a less greedy build at times, so it´s already two strategies with only one bird (late-lategame or mid-lategame)). though as seen they came very prepared for each opponent in their first week, they also came very prepared for the more lategamish YW - i think they can actually find sth. that works vs SKT. And in the LCS they played rather fast games when they first showed up, so maybe they can surprise them with some more early aggression.