Be aware that this and all posts on the subject contain spoilers. If you haven't watched the finals yet do so now, not because I want you to read my analysis but because they are some of the best games in League of Legends history.
The first game is notable for being the only game which Azubu Frost won. It's important to note that for the vast majority of the early game, and much of the game thereafter, Taipei Assassins had a clear gold lead and advantage. Understanding what happened and why begins with the team's picks.
The initial picks from both sides were fairly innocuous, but were nonetheless critical to each team's strategy. Anivia has incredible control over the area of a team fight between her stun, her wall, and her ultimate. Combined with Lulu's slows and knock up, it becomes difficult for opponents to avoid fighting within the unfavorable ground of Maokai's ultimate. Moreover, Maokai's ultimate multiplies the power of Anivia's passive and the health gain from Lulu's ultimate. Finally, Maokai is a strong pick against AoE compositions, for which Sona/Ezreal are common choices, without being weak against other possibilities. TPA's final picks reflect their awareness of Frost's plan, as well as their own strategy. Olaf is already incredibly tanky and difficult to stop when his ultimate is up, and combined with Maokai he can easily dive through the AoE to reach Frost's carries. TPA's plan was clearly to have Vayne hang back to avoid the bulk of the AoE while the rest of the team survived off their mix of defensive multipliers and innate tankiness, and then let the best cleanup carry in the game go to work.
Frost's strategy was a little more straightforward, but at the same time they made a few subtle choices which cut into the effectiveness of TPA's team composition. Karthus has some of the highest sustained damage in the game, especially if the enemy fights within his Defile. Even with Maokai's ultimate Karthus is extremely dangerous. Amumu adds additional sustained AoE damage and incredibly strong initiation to the mix, locking down opponents long enough for Sona to ult (or vice versa) and Ezreal to follow up. Irelia brings true damage to counter Maokai's protection and additional AoE. All of the champions Frost picked are also strong even in non-AoE compositions, giving Frost more options than simply AoE or lose, though ultimately AoE would win them the game.
In the early game Frost had a brief lead following CloudTemplar's level 3 gank top. This was an interesting moment as most players consider Amumu's early ganks weak. While it took two Flashes and an Ignite, CloudTemplar and Shy successfully ganked Stanley's Olaf from full health when he was on his half of the river. Amumu doesn't have burst, but the power of two stuns and sustained damage was enough to bring Olaf down.
The lead didn't last, and it's important to highlight what TPA did to catch Frost unaware time and again. After Frost's failed counter-gank top resulted in two kills for TPA, Lilballz was able to farm up enough gold to buy both Philosopher's Stone and Oracle's. He then aggressively cleared Frost's wards, going well out of his way to reduce their vision of the map. Rather than leave it to the psychological pressure of the fog of war, TPA's players frequently changed lanes, roamed, and collapsed on any skirmish or teamfight at the drop of a hat. The combination of early pressure and vision denial resulted in a 5k gold lead for TPA despite Frost's slight farm edge.
Where it all went wrong for TPA was the next teamfight. TPA expected Frost to attempt a flat out retreat after taking dragon, leading Toyz and Stanley to use Anivia's wall and Olaf's axe to try to cut off CloudTemplar and Shy's escape. Frost immediately turned to fight, making the placement of both abilities worthless. If Anivia's wall had been placed to block the rest of Frost it would have at least forced Flashes in order to enter the fight.
Every member of TPA was bunched up, not expecting Frost to simply turn around and fight. As a result when CloudTemplar nailed Toyz with his Bandage Toss all five members of TPA, and most importantly Bebe on Vayne, were caught in Amumu's ultimate. For a critical two seconds Bebe was unable to make any contribution to the fight, wasting a significant portion of Vayne's ultimate. At the same time the stun from Bandage Toss prevented Toyz from exerting any zone control, and when he attempted to use his ultimate Madlife hit him with Sona's, cancelling the Glacial Storm. Toyz was egged before he could do anything significant. While Bebe avoided most of the AoE, these issues allowed RapidStar's Karthus to sit untouched in the middle of TPA for almost the entire fight. By the time Toyz resurrected and TPA burst RapidStar down they were already dangerously low on health. With Woong's Ezreal at full health, Requiem incoming, and TPA's crowd control expended to kill RapidStar, survival was impossible.
Between the Dragon, the quadra kill, and the tower that followed Frost closed the gold gap to 1.5k gold in the blink of an eye, with most of that being concentrated on RapidStar. TPA began to rebuild their lead by picking off isolated members of Frost, but when the next hard engage came under their own tower it hardly mattered that Bebe dodged Amumu ultimate or that RapidStar was the first to die. RapidStar flashed over a wall to not only position himself in the middle of TPA, but also in where Vayne's Condemn wouldn't push him out of the fight. By the time RapidStar was dead all of TPA were below half health, setting up what was nearly a second quadra kill. TPA were still ahead on gold at this point, but they had no answer to Karthus. The difference in team-fighting strength was such that they lost even when Amumu ultimate was down.
While TPA's team composition had potential versus an AoE composition, the combination of good farm and seven kills in a matter of minutes made Karthus too big a problem for TPA to deal with. It was still a close, hard fought game, but one that clearly became Frost's to lose once they caught up to TPA.
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