Familiarity Builds Respect - OMG vs Royal
Riot·10/11/2014, 4:26:27 AM·0 votes·10,721 views
Throughout the 2014 Summer Split of the LPL and the Chinese Regionals, OMG and Star Horn Royal Club have clashed repeatedly. The result of these clashes? A dead even 8-8 record. The familiarity between the two teams have given them both a huge amount of respect for one another, and each has confidence that they'll emerge victorious, in spite of everything working against them.
In the 2014 LPL Summer Playoffs, Royal started up 2-0 over OMG after dominant performances. But in both instances, OMG brought back the series and won 3-2 behind great playmaking by Yu "Cool" Jia-Jun, coupled with strong teamplay. It's a familiar trend, going back to the 2013 Road to Worlds where KT Bullets found themselves on the wrong side of Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok's rise to greatness.
The KT Rolster Bullets were up 2-0 on SK Telecom T1 in the finals of OGN Summer. A win would automatically qualify them to the 2013 World Championship, but a loss would force them into the Korean Regionals. Faker lead SK Telecom T1 back from 0-2 down to a 3-2 win. After sweeping his way through the Korean gauntlet, InSec found himself blocked once again by SKT. Though it was a 3-1 loss for KT Bullets this time, the door had closed on the team.
Now, with InSec again facing a team he's struggled against, Zero has a new plan for getting through OMG. Laughing, he said, "In the past, we don't have a very good record against OMG. We even lost in the playoffs twice after being up 2-0. So this time we want to win after being down 0-2." When I asked him why they shouldn't just win 3-0, he said, "It's more dramatic that way!"
The trend almost reared its ugly head again in the League of Legends 2014 World Championship Quarterfinals against Edward Gaming (EDG). After being up 2-0, EDG brought the series to a decisive fifth game, but SHRC was able to win the rubber match. Rationally, Zero did point out some of the issues with Star Horn Royal Club closing out games.
"When we win the first two games, we start to get anxious. So we need to just lose the first two and win the rest!"
"During practice games, Dada777 and Cloud both played. But based on practice games, we decided on Cloud as a team." OMG top laner Gao "Gogoing" Di-Ping said, explaining the team's re-evaluation of their starting support. "Dada777 had played well early on in LPL games and practice. Towards the end though, he started making a lot of personal mistakes, and that's why we decided to change."
It worked like this: at the beginning of Worlds each team member and coach had a vote for which support they wanted to start. Because of Dada's performance, they awarded him the spot for Groups. But after his issues in those games, "each team member and coach voted for which support would play, so Cloud replaced Dada777."
This familiarity with other teams is important for OMG both in terms of their game strategy and champion selections. This was made evident after Cool struggled on Yasuo during the group stage, despite having success on it in LPL. Cool attributed this to his lack of familiarity with international mid laners laning style.
Cool isn't the only player who believes familiarity will give them an edge. SHRC's InSec and Zero both stated because they had played against OMG so many times in LPL, they feel more confident against them than they would a Korean team.
Uzi believed champion select will once again center around Gogoing in the top lane, as it has during most of OMGs games, both in Worlds and the LPL. "I think Gogoing is a very strong player with a really deep champion pool, so that will be a huge concern going into champion select. [Ryze] will be a big consideration because our top lane is a good Ryze player as well."
Meanwhile, perhaps the breakout performance of Worlds has been the jovial support player Zero, whose use of Janna has been among the most pivotal to Star Horn Royal Club's success. "Janna is a great champ to protect the ADC," explained Zero. "Even though we can't communicate, I can just follow Uzi around and protect him. I don't know why other teams are giving it to me, but I'm happy they are."
Uzi echoed Zero's thoughts. "Janna will be important during champion select. We will try to get it as a pick for Zero, but we have to discuss how with our coach."
With the top champions for support and top overlapping, champion select becomes precarious for both teams. InSec has had his now-infamous Rengar banned from him repeatedly since his terrifying performance in the Group Stage. "I think it's great [that Rengar is banned from me], because teams are burning one of their bans everytime -- and its always going to be Rengar. If they don't ban it then I might play it anyway."
Gogoing's also showed why Ryze is frequently banned from him. "Because of the Group Stage, we got to learn a lot of things to improve team chemistry," he said. "For top lane specifically, I learned other top laners strengths, weaknesses and advantages over others in terms of style. I felt in control of my own game, not nervous at all, and had peace of mind. [Because of my performance, Ryze] will probably be banned from me."
With so much emphasis on champion select, what will the matches come down to? Gogoing had this to offer: "It's important for us to maintain control of the game speed, mostly just control the tempo. We also are going to analyze Royal Club's style from the Quarterfinals and Group Stage and discuss with coaches how to adapt. Even though we beat NaJin Shield 3-0, I think there are a lot of things we need to improve on."
Finally, Cool emphasized the familiarity and respect of these two teams. "Since we have played against each other in LPL, we will know the areas we need to concentrate on improving and at what points we have advantages against them."
You can watch OMG and Star Horn Royal Club fight for a spot in the 2014 World Championship Final on Lolesports.com on October 12 at 5pm KST/1am PDT/10 pm CEST.
Frank 'Riot Mirhi' Fields is a Senior Web Content Coordinator for Riot Games. You'll find him in solo queue on Ahri trying to DFG charm his way up the Diamond ladder, or on Twitter where he'd love to talk to you about esports.
The InSec Curse
At the beginning of the 2014 Summer Split, Star Horn Royal Club made one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of Chinese League of Legends: they brought over Korean KT Bullets star Choi "inSec" In-seok, along with substitute Yoon "Zero" Kyung-sup, to augment their lineup that was based around world class ADC Jian "Uzi" Zihao. "I left at the end of the season, so it was hard to find another Korean team so quickly," explained InSec. "I got a bunch of offers and just took the best one." While InSec's revolutionizing of the Chinese jungle has been well documented, he's had an even more profound effect on Royal Club. China in general has yet to really grasp some of the concepts of game control and vision. InSec has lead by example in the jungle, controlling the pacing and aggression for his team. However, InSec has been as of yet unable to get away from the curse that follows him throughout his career.
In the 2014 LPL Summer Playoffs, Royal started up 2-0 over OMG after dominant performances. But in both instances, OMG brought back the series and won 3-2 behind great playmaking by Yu "Cool" Jia-Jun, coupled with strong teamplay. It's a familiar trend, going back to the 2013 Road to Worlds where KT Bullets found themselves on the wrong side of Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok's rise to greatness.
The KT Rolster Bullets were up 2-0 on SK Telecom T1 in the finals of OGN Summer. A win would automatically qualify them to the 2013 World Championship, but a loss would force them into the Korean Regionals. Faker lead SK Telecom T1 back from 0-2 down to a 3-2 win. After sweeping his way through the Korean gauntlet, InSec found himself blocked once again by SKT. Though it was a 3-1 loss for KT Bullets this time, the door had closed on the team.
Now, with InSec again facing a team he's struggled against, Zero has a new plan for getting through OMG. Laughing, he said, "In the past, we don't have a very good record against OMG. We even lost in the playoffs twice after being up 2-0. So this time we want to win after being down 0-2." When I asked him why they shouldn't just win 3-0, he said, "It's more dramatic that way!"
The trend almost reared its ugly head again in the League of Legends 2014 World Championship Quarterfinals against Edward Gaming (EDG). After being up 2-0, EDG brought the series to a decisive fifth game, but SHRC was able to win the rubber match. Rationally, Zero did point out some of the issues with Star Horn Royal Club closing out games.
"When we win the first two games, we start to get anxious. So we need to just lose the first two and win the rest!"
The Cloud Solution
OMG started off the Worlds 2014 Group Stage looking like they didn't belong. After going 0-2, with losses to LMQ and Samsung Blue, OMG rallied to win three of four remaining games to advance to the Quarterfinals. With such a slim margin of error, OMG looked to be a heavy underdog going into their match against NaJin White Shield. After a week of struggling through their matches because of Dada777's mecahnical mistakes, OMG decided to swap to their substitute support player Cloud, who played with the team for much of the 2014 LPL season.
"During practice games, Dada777 and Cloud both played. But based on practice games, we decided on Cloud as a team." OMG top laner Gao "Gogoing" Di-Ping said, explaining the team's re-evaluation of their starting support. "Dada777 had played well early on in LPL games and practice. Towards the end though, he started making a lot of personal mistakes, and that's why we decided to change."
It worked like this: at the beginning of Worlds each team member and coach had a vote for which support they wanted to start. Because of Dada's performance, they awarded him the spot for Groups. But after his issues in those games, "each team member and coach voted for which support would play, so Cloud replaced Dada777."
Familiarity Breeds Confidence
While the world looked for more controversy around the change, OMG was concerned with throttling NaJin White Shield. The win was not as convincing as initially believed. "OMG exceeded expectations. But NaJin, I think, wasn't performing particularly well that night," InSec said. Meanwhile, OMG mid laner Cool had another explanation for their seemingly easy dispatching of Shield. "During the Group Stage, since we were in the group of death, all of the games were difficult for me. But against NaJin Shield -- not that NaJin is easy to beat -- we felt like we had an advantage since we scrimmed against NaJin Shield to practice for Group C. Therefore we were familiar with their style. Knowing their ability gave us confidence that we could beat them."
This familiarity with other teams is important for OMG both in terms of their game strategy and champion selections. This was made evident after Cool struggled on Yasuo during the group stage, despite having success on it in LPL. Cool attributed this to his lack of familiarity with international mid laners laning style.
Cool isn't the only player who believes familiarity will give them an edge. SHRC's InSec and Zero both stated because they had played against OMG so many times in LPL, they feel more confident against them than they would a Korean team.
Shared Philosophies and Champions
Cool's struggles in the Group Stage lead him to showcasing his expansive champion pool and even some new picks in the Quarterfinal. "During practice games, I had used Jayce several times. When I watched OGN and Korean Regionals, there were a lot of players using Jayce. I thought he would be an easy champion to control the game, and also wasn't that hard to pick up." While Jayce and his deep champion pool will give Cool a unique option not shared by his mid lane counterpart Lei "corn" Wen, there are a number of champion picks that go both ways, primarily because of the similarity of the two teams' drafting strategy.
Uzi believed champion select will once again center around Gogoing in the top lane, as it has during most of OMGs games, both in Worlds and the LPL. "I think Gogoing is a very strong player with a really deep champion pool, so that will be a huge concern going into champion select. [Ryze] will be a big consideration because our top lane is a good Ryze player as well."
Meanwhile, perhaps the breakout performance of Worlds has been the jovial support player Zero, whose use of Janna has been among the most pivotal to Star Horn Royal Club's success. "Janna is a great champ to protect the ADC," explained Zero. "Even though we can't communicate, I can just follow Uzi around and protect him. I don't know why other teams are giving it to me, but I'm happy they are."
Uzi echoed Zero's thoughts. "Janna will be important during champion select. We will try to get it as a pick for Zero, but we have to discuss how with our coach."
With the top champions for support and top overlapping, champion select becomes precarious for both teams. InSec has had his now-infamous Rengar banned from him repeatedly since his terrifying performance in the Group Stage. "I think it's great [that Rengar is banned from me], because teams are burning one of their bans everytime -- and its always going to be Rengar. If they don't ban it then I might play it anyway."
Gogoing's also showed why Ryze is frequently banned from him. "Because of the Group Stage, we got to learn a lot of things to improve team chemistry," he said. "For top lane specifically, I learned other top laners strengths, weaknesses and advantages over others in terms of style. I felt in control of my own game, not nervous at all, and had peace of mind. [Because of my performance, Ryze] will probably be banned from me."
With so much emphasis on champion select, what will the matches come down to? Gogoing had this to offer: "It's important for us to maintain control of the game speed, mostly just control the tempo. We also are going to analyze Royal Club's style from the Quarterfinals and Group Stage and discuss with coaches how to adapt. Even though we beat NaJin Shield 3-0, I think there are a lot of things we need to improve on."
Finally, Cool emphasized the familiarity and respect of these two teams. "Since we have played against each other in LPL, we will know the areas we need to concentrate on improving and at what points we have advantages against them."
You can watch OMG and Star Horn Royal Club fight for a spot in the 2014 World Championship Final on Lolesports.com on October 12 at 5pm KST/1am PDT/10 pm CEST.
Frank 'Riot Mirhi' Fields is a Senior Web Content Coordinator for Riot Games. You'll find him in solo queue on Ahri trying to DFG charm his way up the Diamond ladder, or on Twitter where he'd love to talk to you about esports.
such fascinating evolution
are you 
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