Vines and Felines: CS Summer Week 4
Over the past couple weeks we've taken a look at the strange and wild world of the Challenger Series. Last week we saw some real party animals bash their way through the jungle. This week we'll venture into the solo lanes. But watch your step, predators and plants alike are on the hunt.
The Queen of Thorns
With the AP item overhaul brought about by Patch 5.13, the mid lane meta pool is ripe for expansion. In Team Dignitas EU's second game of the week with Ex Nihilo, Chres "Sencux" Laursen dusted off his deadliest gardening sheers and brought the Zyra, the Rise of the Thorns, to the mid lane.
Zyra's insane damage combined with her exceptional peel, zoning, and crowd control thanks Grasping Roots (E) and Stranglehorns (R), made her a unique and effective addition to Team Dignitas EU's rather unorthodox protect the Kog'Maw composition. Zyra and company were able to able to effectively layer CC abilities over an Ex Nihilo squad that was designed to get to their back line and take down the ravenous ooze spitter.
Sencux took three points in the Sorcery mastery, and when combined with nine scaling cooldown reduction (CDR) runes and a first item Morellonomicon, his Zyra was dishing out more plants than a Home Depot on Black Friday. After his early CDR purchase, Sencux brought out the new Liandry's Torment. Although Zyra does not deal damage over time in the way a Brand or Rumble does, the attacks from one or two of her Vine Lashers make devastating use of the item's passive, and Liandry's AP buff works wonders for her early damage.
"Liandry's has always been a good item for AP Zyra and when it got buffed, I kind of saw it as bringing AP Zyra back," explains Sencux.
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Sencux also opted for the Ghost/Flash Summoner Spell combination, which proved very effective both in lane and during team fights. As a low mobility champion, Zyra benefits greatly from having two Summoner Spells that give her a form of escape. If she wants to go aggressive, Ghost enables her to continuously chase down her targets and gives her a greater chance of landing those skill shots.
Scare Factor
Rengar may be a carnivore, but he's not opposed to tasting new things. In his Challenger Series debut for Winterfox, Matthew "Akaadian" Higginbotham introduced the Pridestalker to a plant based diet when he solo-secured First Blood on the enemy Maokai at the 10 minute mark.
Akaadian was a little surprised that Vortex let him have his famed top lane Rengar, considering he even gave Vortex's mid laner Aaron "Bischu" Kim a heads up. "The funny thing is the day before [the match] I came in TeamSpeak with Bischu, we were in a Solo Queue game together and I told him, I was like 'I'm gonna pick Rengar tomorrow'. He probably thought I was trolling." The mind games are real.
After Akaadian's First Blood, Vortex's k0u pitched a tent and stayed top-side for the remainder of the laning phase. "As you could've seen that game, Rengar is very easy to camp," explains Akaadian. "That's why you don't see it a lot in competitive play."
While the strategy kept Akaadian in check for a little while, the early edge ensured that the enemy carries couldn't leave their base without the fear of becoming his next meal. Vortex wisely decided to revoke Rengar's Rift invitation in their second meeting of the week.
Akaadian insists that the key to Rengar is commitment. You can't get wishy-washy with your itemization. "If you're going to build him like a tank then build him full tank, and just use him as a crowd control and snare bot," explains Akaadian. "If you're going to build him with damage, don't buy any tank items. You have to completely commit one way or the other."
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That commitment goes beyond just build paths when it comes to Akaadian's Rengar play. According to him, it's not just about knowing how to use Rengar, but when to use him. "I trust my judgement enough, I almost always pick the right thing to do in a team fight," says Akaadian. It's all about going in at the right time and never looking back. "You can kill one person and then put two or three other people at half right next to them if you do a combo correctly in the middle of the team fight with the Tiamat," he says.
Remember carries, if you see that ! indicator, you're about to become cat food!
For more fun and interesting picks, be sure to watch Week 5 of the Summer Challenger Series this Wednesday, July 22nd right here on Lolesports. Be sure to catch up on the unbroadcasted matches from the previous day before the action starts on our spoiler free VODs page as well!
