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Edward Gaming's chance at history

Riot·9/10/2015, 7:04:50 PM·0 votes·26,373 views

Edward Gaming's upset of SKTelecom T1 at the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational shocked everyone -- except for themselves.

EDG's history involves triumph and glory followed by heartbreak and agony. Over and over again. After being the best team in China at the tail end of 2014, EDG massively underperformed at the 2014 World Championship, particularly star AD carry NaMei. Going into 2015, the team joined the rest of China in welcoming Korean players onto their roster. EDG signed former Samsung players AD carry Deft and World Champion mid laner PawN to try to finally reach the mountain top.

"[Deft's] teammates always create space for him to farm and later he will carry the whole team in teamfights."

- Uzi, OMG AD Carry

But even EDG couldn't have calculated how much the move would improve the team. In LPL Spring 2015, EDG dominated competition. Their run through the regular season had all the momentum of a steaming locomotive. No one could stop them as they amassed a 38-6 combined record. In the Playoffs they suffered close competition from other regional opponents, but their LPL victory and date with SKTelecom at the Mid-Season Invitation was inevitable. Though the MSI Finals between EDG and SKT was incredibly close, it was coach Aaron and EDG that out-dueled coach Kkoma and SKT.

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In Summer, EDG looked similarly strong, but were knocked down a peg by LGD (the team they previously defeated in the LPL Spring Finals). Still, they found their way into Worlds without incident. Now, EDG looks to prove that their regional defeat was a fluke, and that their ascension over SKT was not.

The Play

Chinese teams have for years been stereotyped as being outrageously aggressive. While EDG is aggressive, they are not reckless in the traditional sense of the word. EDG's strategy doesn't involve maniacal tower-diving; it involves aggressively taking the map from you. They only act once they have an edge -- be it vision, numbers, income, or levels -- and when it's clear they do, EDG executes to a surgical level, employing some of the best team fighting of any team in the world.

EDG is a team of superstars, and while people may focus on individual players, really all of the players are carries on EDG. All five members have huge impacts on team fight, vision control, and objective control -- the main pillars of EDG's game plan.

Besides their execution from a macro basis, EDG applies a "protect the carry"-style of fighting just as well as the "dive the backline" or "flank their carries" style. They are flexible in their approach, and all members of the team adapt accordingly, as you can see in the clip above.

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Victory through subjugation

The traditional style of EDG was to win behind their former late-game AD carry NaMei, and that style carried over when Deft filled the same role. As such, EDG tends to focus on gaining control of the mid game in order to utilize their superior team fighting and map control. This creates a gamestate where EDG slowly squeezes the map away from the enemy team.

Each member of the team is able to contribute to this goal in different ways according to their role. In the end, though, the team is almost always able to fall back on Spring Split MVP Deft to save the day. Even if lanes are going poorly (including his own), the  map control and superior team fighting will enable them to overcome almost any deficit.

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Talk of the Rift

"Meiko is so good at setting up what EDG want to do around the map," says analyst Spawn.

EDG is versatile and dynamic -- they don't allow other teams to dictate the game in Champion Select or on the rift.

"Clearlove is a beast! He's played almost every champion in the meta."

- Crumbzz, Renegades jungler

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Deft is always the fall back, even if other members aren't performing as well, he can single-handedly win the game for his team.

"I think Deft is good at late game ADCs... His teammates always create space for him to farm and later he will carry the whole team in teamfights," says OMG AD carry Uzi.

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Interested in learning more about the other teams competing at Worlds? Check out the whole lineup, now.

9 Comments

pyroHedge9/11/2015, 2:44:47 AM5 votes

I don't believe EDG are the best team in the world right now, but they are the most crafty.

Take MSI. In the first game against SKT (in groups) they made some questionable picks in champ select and got slaughtered. From a "win everything" perspective the picks (which EDG never tried again during the tournament) were questionable. But from a "I want to win finals" perspective, it was genius.

Already that day AHQ beat FNC, and EDG slaughtered AHQ. This meant that AHQ was likely to be the #3 seed, and thus if EDG lost to SKT in groups, EDG would likely face an opponent they were confident they could beat. In other words, EDG wanted to place #2 in groups. A loss to SKT was a good thing.

But it carried a second advantage. One of the unexpected picks from EDG was Tristana. They used her to snag a surprise first blood, and had the game gone on long enough, she may have ended up being a terror. Sejuani was the other unexpected pick, and she'd be much the same: a late game terror. If neither ended up doing well (as expected), EDG would have revealed nothing of their overall strategy while still gleaning something of SKT's strengths and strategy. That's a win. And if either Trist or Sej unexpectedly did well, SKT may have opted to ban the champion in the finals, essentially giving a free ban to EDG. That's an even bigger win.

EDG successfully moved into an easier semi-finals match up, learned about their opponents strengths, revealed nothing of themselves, and had the outside chance of gaining a ban on SKT for the finals. And they did this all with a loss in groups.

The planning, of course, didn't end there, as they brought out a surprise team comp to take down the seemingly unstoppable Faker-LeBlanc combo. And who knows what else EDG had up their sleeve that they didn't reveal. Crafty, cunning, smart, however you define them, they're planning ahead and looking at the end game.

Move forward now to LPL playoffs. EDG dominated the latter half of the season, but then unexpected got murdered in the playoffs. What happened? Nothing happened. If EDG wanted to win, they would have had to fight through two of the best teams in China. Losing meant they would face weaker competition, and therefore would allow them to reveal fewer of their strategies. Most importantly, though, it got the target off their back. Had they dominated the LPL playoffs like they dominated the LPL regular season, they would have walked into Worlds as the #1 team and everyone would be trying to figure out how to take them down. Instead they're walking in at maybe #3, with a lot of other teams vying for contention. Like at MSI, EDG lose a game (or series) to make the ultimate goal (Worlds) easier.

Doubt that they're doing this? Just check out EDG's 1-3 loss to Invictus gaming in the playoffs before they won dominantly 3-1 agains the exact same team in qualifiers. As the castors said in Game 1 in playoffs: "This is a weird pick/ban phase. Clearly they know something we don't." And what do EDG know? They know they want to practice against the best that Invictus had to offer. They knew that they didn't want to reveal anything about their own strategy. And they knew they wanted to get the target off their back for Worlds.

Those who underestimate EDG at Worlds will pay for it. That much is for certain.

Im JHINn9/15/2015, 12:57:36 PM3 votes

edg go win ,

Qi Xiao Dian9/14/2015, 11:05:10 PM1 votes

u will win man

Marine Biologist9/13/2015, 1:25:55 AM1 votes

who's going to underestimate EDG lol? chances are that clg or fnc may play against them depend on group exit seeding, but I think chances are it's going to be china vs china or china vs Korea Pretty obvious LGD, IG, adn SKT respect EDG.

Killing Be Easy9/15/2015, 8:43:37 PM1 votes

EDG for the win!!!

SEA BEAST9/16/2015, 3:46:22 AM1 votes

EDG will win for sure

HugoooYu9/18/2015, 9:10:22 PM1 votes

厂长实力养猪！summoner 11 Sejuani