Stealth and Finesse - Challenger Week 6
Riot·4/7/2015, 5:50:16 PM·0 votes·3,038 views
Over the past few weeks, we’ve covered a lot from the strange and wild world of the Challenger Series. This week, after the dust settled from Souzpurefect’s explosive Teemo pick, one brand new champion has emerged out of the abyss and one fan favorites returns. Without further adieu, let’s take a look at some of the picks from the Challenger Series Semifinal week!
Though Fiora can effectively stomp champions who can’t handle her early aggression, she’s a sitting duck most of the time in lane. “Her weakness is a rather weak laning phase and she’s very sensitive to getting starved in a laneswap. She’s also very item dependant,” says Morsu. If even one thing goes wrong, she’ll just spiral downwards in effectiveness until she’s just stabbing at people with a wet noodle.
Though she has myriad weaknesses, Fiora's still an incredibly fun and competent pick that can catch many teams off guard in champion select.
As for altering the mentality of the game, Kez used her to his advantage by forcing Team Fusion’s jungle Zac to “waste a lot of time sitting around lanes because he was scared of Evelynn ganks, which didn’t happen until after level six.” Just by picking Evelynn the entire enemy team becomes increasingly paranoid because suddenly stealth wards are entirely useless to detect ganks.
Though Kez’s Evelynn did win the game, he believes that the Widowmaker won’t be appearing in the meta in the near future. “Her early clear is way too bad and risky to be the meta jungler. All of the meta junglers that are coming up to the surface have really good wave clear and synergize with Cinderhulk Enchantment.”
You can catch unique champion picks like these and more in the Challenger Series broadcast every Wednesday right here on Lolesports. If you've missed any of the matches so far, catch up over on the spoiler-free VODs page.
The Artist with a Sword
Fiora has been one of those champions that was released and unfairly written off by most professional players. Despite her knack for over the top plays when she’s fed, Fiora's never actually had a measurable impact on the professional scene as a whole since the day she was available. That all changed this week, when LowLandLion’s Bram "Morsu" Knol went 9/3/9 with the Grand Duelist in the EU Challenger Series against Gamers2 “I picked Fiora because I counter Irelia with Fiora in Solo Queue,” remarks Morsu. “Their team didn’t have crowd control that I wouldn’t be able to deal with in the first three picks.” He's referring to how Irelia cannot deal with Fiora’s innate sustain and aggressive nature, especially early on -- she’s a perfect counter to the rise in Irelia picks in the recent weeks. This applies doubly to the slightly less aggressive tank top laners, like Aatrox and Riven, who can easily be outplayed by Fiora's Riposte (W) and Blade Waltz (R).
Though Fiora can effectively stomp champions who can’t handle her early aggression, she’s a sitting duck most of the time in lane. “Her weakness is a rather weak laning phase and she’s very sensitive to getting starved in a laneswap. She’s also very item dependant,” says Morsu. If even one thing goes wrong, she’ll just spiral downwards in effectiveness until she’s just stabbing at people with a wet noodle.
Though she has myriad weaknesses, Fiora's still an incredibly fun and competent pick that can catch many teams off guard in champion select.
See No Eve-il
Though not nearly as obscure as Fiora, Evelynn has almost been forgotten in recent competitive play. Ever since the ward changes back at the very beginning of the season, she’s been increasingly stunted and difficult to be effective with. But unlike any other jungler currently in game, Evelynn changes the mentality of the enemies just by being picked, due to her stealthy nature. “Evelynn brings a huge amount of pressure and presence on the map because enemies can’t see you unless they have pink wards placed, which are hard to obtain early,” says TDK’s Kevin "Kez" Jeon.
As for altering the mentality of the game, Kez used her to his advantage by forcing Team Fusion’s jungle Zac to “waste a lot of time sitting around lanes because he was scared of Evelynn ganks, which didn’t happen until after level six.” Just by picking Evelynn the entire enemy team becomes increasingly paranoid because suddenly stealth wards are entirely useless to detect ganks.
Though Kez’s Evelynn did win the game, he believes that the Widowmaker won’t be appearing in the meta in the near future. “Her early clear is way too bad and risky to be the meta jungler. All of the meta junglers that are coming up to the surface have really good wave clear and synergize with Cinderhulk Enchantment.”
You can catch unique champion picks like these and more in the Challenger Series broadcast every Wednesday right here on Lolesports. If you've missed any of the matches so far, catch up over on the spoiler-free VODs page.
