Who is the best team in Europe?
Riot·8/16/2014, 2:02:05 AM·0 votes·17,524 views
Written by Frank ‘Riot Mirhi’ Fields & Taylor ‘Riot RoboTayCo’ Cocke
We’ll soon find out, as on Sunday, Fnatic will be facing off against Alliance in a Best of 5 series to determine the EU LCS 2014 Summer Split champion. And there’s more on the line here than just bragging rights. The top seed out of Europe is guaranteed to have a more favorable Group Stage pool next month--and thus a clearer path to becoming World Champions.
But that series is several days away? How awful. We want to tease out who has the best shot to win right now, and we’re going to do it by looking at Fnatic’s and Alliance’s initial Summer Playoffs wins. Frank ‘Riot Mirhi’ Fields and Taylor ‘Riot RoboTayCo’ Cocke weigh in on the question: “Who’d win in a fight: Alliance or Fnatic?”
Making use of the lane swap meta, sOAZ starts boots and capitalizes with first blood on Overpow
Further, as Deficio and Joe Miller pointed out during the cast, Fnatic takes advantage of any small mistake a team makes. This can be demonstrated best in their objective control and map control.
Roccat unsuccessfully ganks top, Fnatic replies with a dragon
And then there’s their longevity as a team. In two years, they’ve only swapped out a member once, and it’s led to the best team play and coordination we’ve seen in the entire LCS.
Great zoning, and chaining multiple member CCs in a chaotic team fight leads to victory
For their individual players, Fnatic has also shorn up their weaknesses. sOAZ is able to play tanks and mages in top lane, xPeke’s mechanics on mages and assassins has improved and finally caught up to his strategic mindset. Cyanide no longer looks timid on heavy engage champions, and Rekkles and Yellowstar are among the best bot lanes in the world.
Fnatic can't make a decision
With Roccat simultaneously starting Baron and hunting for the bottom lane inhibitor, Fnatic had to choose who they were going to stop. As soon as Fnatic floundered, indecisively stopping in the jungle, Roccat punished them by taking both objectives simultaneously. Sure, they lost Xaxus in the process, but it was the decisive play in the match.
Alliance has identical - if not stronger - punishing instincts. They love to wait for a team to make a mistake before tearing them apart for doing so.
Alliance capitalizes
Proving once again that Baron is rarely a good idea, Alliance swept away SK Gaming’s lead in Game 3 by responding swiftly and decisively to the latter’s decision to go after the big worm. This is how Alliance wins games - and Fnatic makes just enough mistakes to allow them in.
I’ll lay out some examples here. In the first, Alliance takes out SK’s Jesiz when his Ziggs steps out just too far in the lane.
Froggen doesn't put up with being out of position
Next up, there’s this troubled gank by Fnatic onto Roccat’s bottom lane. With Cyanide coming in for a lane gank, Rekkles and YellOwStaR feel confident going in on Celavar and Vander. Unfortunately for them, they failed to keep track of Xaxus's and Overpow's Teleports--and both just so happened to be up.. That one overextension gave Roccat a pair of kills and a free dragon, forcing them to play on their heels for much of the mid game.
Fnatic is known to overcommit
Sure, Fnatic ended up winning that particular game, but their early individual hubris may be a problem against the decisive and team-focused Alliance.
Notice that Fnatic did not start Baron, even when they might be able to trade for Dragon
Moving back to the Alliance vs SK Gaming series, if SK Gaming not made the aforementioned Baron blunder, they likely would have won the game, as SK Gaming was firmly in control.
SK Gaming controlled Game 3 for most of the game
I would say a better team would have been able to close out this game, most definitely a team as patient and strategic as Fnatic.
They waited until they had three 30-second death timers before attempting their first Baron. It was so assured that Overpow even used his teleport to try to trade an inhibitor for the Baron.
Throughout the entire split, we’ve seen the inconsistency of each of these teams at varying points. However the only thing that matters is how on form the teams are now. Fnatic and Roccat played five epic games - back and forth games - defined by risk vs reward decision making and good judgment than by mistake filled retaliation.
However throughout the Alliance vs SK Gaming series, we saw both teams make numerous mistakes. In this case, it was a matter of playing off of mistakes rather than making plays.
Count the numerous mistakes by both teams in this teamfight
I would say Roccat looked even better than Alliance did, and Alliance should be fortunate they played against SK Gaming in the Semifinals, or they could be in the third place match right now. If Alliance plays the same way against Fnatic as they did against SK Gaming, the series will be over very quickly.
Well, the bait almost worked
Even with the surprise attack coming from xPeke’s excellent baiting - resulting in Xaxus’ death - they simply overplay their hand and get chased down by the reset-heavy Roccat team.
It’s this sort of overstep that Alliance loves to exploit. Remember that they, too, are a team full of veterans. They know what it takes to win big games like this, and are willing to do exactly what they need to in order to take down the playoffs monster that is Fnatic.
Make no mistake: Alliance is decidedly the underdog here. Fnatic has had a firm grasp over the EU LCS since its inception. However, Froggen and company may just be the ones to decide that it’s time for a change.
Alright, we’re done sounding off--now it’s your turn. Let us know in the comments who you think will win the EU LCS crown, and how they’ll do it!
