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As a TSM fan, I always groan to myself when....

grLKQ9ma0o·5/9/2015, 6:04:25 AM·3 votes·1,321 views

I always groan to myself when Dyrus picks Hecarim or Rumble or carry top laners.

TSM's strategy is to lane swap because of Turtle's laning weakness. Hecarim sucks in lane swaps. So the strategy to fix that would be to give Hecarim TP/smite so he can get jungle xp as well. Dyrus doesn't TP/smite any champions competitively. And Rumble because he just always has terrible ults. His carry top laners always lose because they get camped because TSM's style isn't to ever help Dyrus.

I always groan to myself when Santorin picks Rek'sai.

Rek'sai for some reason always seems really lackluster on Santorin. Santorin's style is to gank early, but only continue ganking if it's successful. If he fails, he will just farm. Rek'sai sucks if you don't get going early. Also, Santorin's early objective control (and TSM as a whole) really is piss poor. Giving up dragons early is fine, but only if they make sure to take something else as payment, which they have not done at all in MSI.

I always groan to myself when Bjergsen picks Cho'gath or Urgot.

Bjergsen's Cho'gath is fine as long as his jungler and his top laner are doing well, but Dyrus usually gets a slow if not immediately destroyed start in the game. 4/5 games at MSI he gave up first blood. Again, that's fine as long as something else happens because of it. The champion pick mid lane means that Cho is sitting mid farming until 6 before he can actually do anything or have any kill pressure. Bjerg's style is to really get ahead at 10 minutes and then pressure the map--something he can't do on Cho. Sure, he might be winning in CS, but he'll just get ganked and lose his lead. His Urgot is also only effective when Santorin is really pressuring hard. It's one of the reasons I really like Santorin's Nidalee. He can both be aggressive and 1v1, gank early, splitpush, and support all in the same kit. Sure, it's not as good in the meta right now, but I think people have proven time and time again that playing a champ you are comfortable on and know you can make plays with is far better than just trying to play the meta picks.

I always groan to myself when Turtle picks anyone other than Sivir, Jinx, or Corki.

His Kalista is incredibly sub-par. He makes the wrong choices about when to jump in and when not to, and with the lane swap, they lose the incredible lane-bullying that Kalista brings, which Turtle just can't cash in on, especially against the world-class adcs of MSI. His Lucian is ok, but I think he just makes poor decisions with his positioning, and again, he just doesn't win lane. Ever. His Sivir is honestly really safe. He plays her well, and she's fairly forgiving with spellshield. Her ult helps his team win fights, something they completely rely on. His Corki is likewise very safe with some consistency of always bringing a certain amount of damage to the team. His Jinx is probably his most risky adc to play, but he does perform fairly well on her late game, with minor positioning errors and poor decision-making being his biggest flaws on the champ.

I always groan to myself when...

Who am I kidding? Lustboy is god. Any champion he picks, I feel like he makes plays on. The issue is when the rest of the team can't follow up. Then he looks like an idiot, even though he is LustCena, boy wonder.

At MSI, the compositions were:

Gnar (0/4/4) Rek'sai (1/1/4) Cho'gath (5/6/1) Sivir (0/2/4) Thresh (0/2/5)

Maokai (1/0/5) Sejuani (3/0/6) Ziggs (4/1/5) Sivir (3/0/7) Thresh (0/0/11)

Hecarim (3/6/1) Gragas (0/3/2) Ziggs (2/5/1) Kalista (0/7/3) Thresh (1/7/3)

Sion (2/8/1) Sejuani (3/3/3) Urgot (0/6/1) Corki (3/5/6) Bard (1/6/3)

Hecarim (0/5/2) Gragas (0/2/2) Cho'gath (1/6/1) Kalista (2/4/1) Thresh (0/2/2)

The only game in which none of the problem champs highlighted above were picked was in their easy win over the Turkish team. Not to say the champions were what made it easy, but it was a comfort pick.

10 Comments

coeurloyal5/9/2015, 7:50:31 AM3 votes

They really didn't show up at the tournament at all, and it was really disappointing. I have to say that I people are a bit harsh on Dyrus though; he picked Hecarim to prevent the other team from getting him as a pick and he gives up those first bloods because all of those teams come in with a "camp dyrus" strategy. All in all, he does what he can with the cards that he's dealt. With the exception, of course, of those crazy over-extended deaths he ate in both of those matches. Why he was so extended was very confusing, and I feel like he had to have known better.

That being said, I got really fed up with Bjergsen's Cho'Gath, as well. Every time they did it it felt like they were trying to force him to fit the meta. I will admit that he won a CS advantage in every single match, but they threw it away with their lack of gank protection so it did them no favors.

I had a lot of beef with their ADC picks, too. He plays a good Lucian (got the only NA penta on him), but forcing the Kalista pick was way too big a gamble to me. They should have left him on a champion he plays regularly, especially in that match where they had Cho in the middle.

The most disappointing thing was Santorin's lack of presence, though. He really seemed to be playing scared. I don't think his Rek'Sai is bad, but it's no question that his tank jg's are better. I don't know if they had some off-beat strat that they were attempting to run with the weird pathing he was doing, but whatever was happening in his jg play simply wasn't working.

Whatever the case, it was incredibly disappointing. I had really high hopes for a big Bo5 matchup against EDG in the tourney, but it definitely didn't happen. I swear, it was like they didn't even want to be there.

PoisonedTea5/9/2015, 1:07:51 PM2 votes

As bad as Santorin was Lustboy was almost just as bad.

The Lustboy I know is not the support that sits in lane and helps him farm, the Lustboy I know roams and puts pressure all over the map. I would have said he is the best support at it in the world but he didn't do it at all this time. And when he did he had to flash and forgot to take that into affect in lane.

This was not the Lustboy I know. Also what is with all the thresh picks. Were they trying to hid his really champions or what. The Lustboy I know doesn't pick thresh.

RyzeRework5/9/2015, 9:25:02 AM1 votes

1 word santorion they need to start picking a 2v2 champion like reksai or a nidalle and head top every game knowing the enemy is ganna do it

Aozora5/9/2015, 1:58:52 PM1 votes

Dyrus did well that tournament. He was literally the only one on that team that had global presence. Him and Lustboy seemed to be the only one actually trying to win meanwhile Santorin is afk, Turtle is going even in lane, and Bjerg is winning in cs but isn't on a carry sort of champ. He's complained that they put him on an island to get no help and try to make him play carries. If you're gonna put him on Hecarim you need to help him. TSM's strategy of just ignoring the top lane proved to be a really ineffective one and I'm honestly glad that it's been exposed. Maybe now we'll see them actually change up some stuff so they don't get abused in the international scene. Really embarrassing for the NA region.

Killstrado5/9/2015, 2:13:17 PM1 votes

I'm at work and all your post makes me want to do is go play league with my champs with fnatic skins lol

Mat7itan5/9/2015, 8:44:17 PM1 votes

I groan when bjerg picks cho.....