OGN Champions 3rd Place Preview
Riot·5/15/2014, 1:24:25 AM·0 votes·406 views
The 2014 All-Star break is over, and OGN Champions is back in action. NLB just had its third/fourth place game on Wednesday which saw SK Telecom T1 K ride the momentum they took from Paris to a 3-0 victory over the KT Rolster Bullets. Now, OGN Champions Winter 2014 takes center stage with their third/fourth place series which pits Samsung Galaxy Ozone versus CJ Entus Blaze.
Can CJ Entus Blaze recover?
Ozone out for revenge
Samsung Galaxy Ozone, the odds-on tournament favorite after beating SKT1K 3-1 in the quarterfinals, finds itself in this position due to a 3-1 loss of their own to their sister team Samsung Galaxy Blue. While they won't get to face Blue again in the tournament, they can vent their frustrations by beating CJ Entus Blaze. A victory by Ozone will earn the team 150 Circuit Points and bring their season total to 375.Can CJ Entus Blaze recover?
CJ Entus Blaze enters the third place game coming off of a devastating defeat at the hands of NaJin White Shield. Blaze managed to come back to tie their best of five with Shield at two apiece after falling to a 0-2 deficit, but lost the blind pick Game 5. It was the type of series loss that can hinder a team going forward for months. Should Blaze manage to circle the wagons and pull out a victory, the 150 Circuit Points will put them at 225 for the season.
Lane to watch: Top
CJ Blaze has leaned very heavily on both of their solo laners, Flame in top and Ambition in mid, to carry them to victories throughout the tournament. They will funnel farm onto those two, frequently to the detriment of AD carry Emperor. Ozone counters strength with strength in the top lane with their own star player in Looper.
The key to this matchup is metagame evolution in the top lane, specifically the proliferation of Teleport. Looper was running Teleport before Teleport was in vogue, and is considered the best in Korea at utilizing the Summoner Spell. He almost certainly will not be able to fully contain Flame if Blaze decides to rely on his split-pushing, but Looper's ability to turn a big engagement into an Ozone win through a timely Teleport cannot be overstated.
Lane to watch: Bottom
If there is a lane where Samsung Ozone enjoys a decisive advantage, it’s the bottom lane. AD carry Imp and support Mata are among the most devastating duos in Korea, at least partially thanks to Imp’s nearly bottomless champion pool. He’s proficient on the current AD carry power pick, Twitch, but also has a few off-the-beaten-path picks, particularly Kog'Maw. His partner Mata is the brains of the Ozone operation. The shot caller for the team, he’s solid on all of the major support champions. Mata's Leona is good enough to have drawn an occasional ban.
The unenviable task of containing those two falls to their Blaze counterparts, AD carry Emperor and support Lustboy. Emperor was known primarily as a Lucian player, but has added Jinx to his champion pool along with many top Korean ADCs. He is a more aggressive player than Cpt Jack, the player he replaced at the start of the 2014 season, and his inability to temper that nature has led to some puzzling decision making.
Emperor is supported by Lustboy, who has all of the traditional support champions in his repertoire. His pocket pick Nami has been seen in Champions Spring, and will likely come out if Blaze decides to run any variation of a siege/split push composition as a method for disengaging.
What to expect
Samsung Galaxy Ozone has primarily found success through siege, being the organization that first brought the Nidalee & Lucian siege combination onto the Rift. Derivations of that composition have been an Ozone mainstay for months. During Ozone’s series against Blue, Miss Fortune saw several picks. Imp has used her ultimate Bullet Time to fulfill the same role as Lucian’s The Culling, but also utilized her movement speed passive to roam more effectively between lanes and push.
In order for Blaze to counter that sort of attack, they will have to flank Ozone, a task which will take a healthy dollop of ward sweeping. An engage-heavy top lane or jungler wouldn't hurt either. Siege comps cannot survive a team getting into their siege lines, and will falter if an enemy champion manages to get that deep.
On the other hand, Blaze has been battling to avoid their tendency to play "Feed A Flame,” an extraordinarily passive approach to the game in which three or four members wait around for Flame to get strong enough to carry the team. Too often, that strategy fails them. They have fallen into that trap a few times in the tournament, but find greater success with an aggressive, tempo based style.
Much like sister team CJ Entus Frost, when Blaze goes aggressive they tend to generate of storm of pressure on the opposing team. They push, they kill, and take advantages off of everything they can. However, that aggression can sputter out if Blaze doesn't get a big enough lead and the opposition's composition scales out of control. That's the primary way to counter the aggressive version of Blaze: Hold on early, and overpower late. Conversely, if Blaze goes "Feed a Flame," Ozone will need to counter Blaze's passivity with aggression of their own.
This series is slated to started at 3 am PDT / noon CET on Friday, May 16, 2014. It will be broadcast live at Twitch.tv/OnGameNet
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CJ Entus Blaze enters the third place game coming off of a devastating defeat at the hands of NaJin White Shield. Blaze managed to come back to tie their best of five with Shield at two apiece after falling to a 0-2 deficit, but lost the blind pick Game 5. It was the type of series loss that can hinder a team going forward for months. Should Blaze manage to circle the wagons and pull out a victory, the 150 Circuit Points will put them at 225 for the season.
Lane to watch: Top
CJ Blaze has leaned very heavily on both of their solo laners, Flame in top and Ambition in mid, to carry them to victories throughout the tournament. They will funnel farm onto those two, frequently to the detriment of AD carry Emperor. Ozone counters strength with strength in the top lane with their own star player in Looper.
The key to this matchup is metagame evolution in the top lane, specifically the proliferation of Teleport. Looper was running Teleport before Teleport was in vogue, and is considered the best in Korea at utilizing the Summoner Spell. He almost certainly will not be able to fully contain Flame if Blaze decides to rely on his split-pushing, but Looper's ability to turn a big engagement into an Ozone win through a timely Teleport cannot be overstated.
Lane to watch: Bottom
If there is a lane where Samsung Ozone enjoys a decisive advantage, it’s the bottom lane. AD carry Imp and support Mata are among the most devastating duos in Korea, at least partially thanks to Imp’s nearly bottomless champion pool. He’s proficient on the current AD carry power pick, Twitch, but also has a few off-the-beaten-path picks, particularly Kog'Maw. His partner Mata is the brains of the Ozone operation. The shot caller for the team, he’s solid on all of the major support champions. Mata's Leona is good enough to have drawn an occasional ban.
The unenviable task of containing those two falls to their Blaze counterparts, AD carry Emperor and support Lustboy. Emperor was known primarily as a Lucian player, but has added Jinx to his champion pool along with many top Korean ADCs. He is a more aggressive player than Cpt Jack, the player he replaced at the start of the 2014 season, and his inability to temper that nature has led to some puzzling decision making.
Emperor is supported by Lustboy, who has all of the traditional support champions in his repertoire. His pocket pick Nami has been seen in Champions Spring, and will likely come out if Blaze decides to run any variation of a siege/split push composition as a method for disengaging.
What to expect
Samsung Galaxy Ozone has primarily found success through siege, being the organization that first brought the Nidalee & Lucian siege combination onto the Rift. Derivations of that composition have been an Ozone mainstay for months. During Ozone’s series against Blue, Miss Fortune saw several picks. Imp has used her ultimate Bullet Time to fulfill the same role as Lucian’s The Culling, but also utilized her movement speed passive to roam more effectively between lanes and push.
In order for Blaze to counter that sort of attack, they will have to flank Ozone, a task which will take a healthy dollop of ward sweeping. An engage-heavy top lane or jungler wouldn't hurt either. Siege comps cannot survive a team getting into their siege lines, and will falter if an enemy champion manages to get that deep.
On the other hand, Blaze has been battling to avoid their tendency to play "Feed A Flame,” an extraordinarily passive approach to the game in which three or four members wait around for Flame to get strong enough to carry the team. Too often, that strategy fails them. They have fallen into that trap a few times in the tournament, but find greater success with an aggressive, tempo based style.
Much like sister team CJ Entus Frost, when Blaze goes aggressive they tend to generate of storm of pressure on the opposing team. They push, they kill, and take advantages off of everything they can. However, that aggression can sputter out if Blaze doesn't get a big enough lead and the opposition's composition scales out of control. That's the primary way to counter the aggressive version of Blaze: Hold on early, and overpower late. Conversely, if Blaze goes "Feed a Flame," Ozone will need to counter Blaze's passivity with aggression of their own.
This series is slated to started at 3 am PDT / noon CET on Friday, May 16, 2014. It will be broadcast live at Twitch.tv/OnGameNet