Season 2 Finals: Game 4

The final game of the world championships was incredible, and much closer than the previous match.

With first pick in their hands, Azubu Frost left Jayce available and instead banned Maokai. By removing the strongest counter to AoE compositions Frost forced Taipei Assassins to ban Sona and allow Jayce to pass through. Frost then enacted their bold plan to run a poke composition against TPA. Poke compositions are notoriously weak if they give up early game advantages, and Frost was choosing to run this composition against a team who had established early game leads three games in a row.

Having picked up Jayce, Frost masked their plan with Shyvana and Lulu. While Lulu is a strong pick for the composition, her ultimate combined with Shyvana's is a powerful engage. Shyvana doesn't bring a lot to a poke comp herself, but is a strong counter-ganker with her speed and durability. Frost was more concerned that CloudTemplar be able to secure their early game than contribute poke or disengage and used this decision to hide their intentions. Picking Graves and Lux finalized the composition. Frost chose Graves over Ezreal due to a need for additional disengage, which Graves' Smokescreen provides in spades. Lux, meanwhile, is arguably the single best poke AP in the game. While definitively a poke composition, Frost's team was not particularly weak in a team fight. If they could eke out an advantage by poking down towers, they would certainly be able to finish off TPA.

TPA's picks were very similar to the previous game, with the notable swaps of Shen instead of Jax and Ezreal instead of Vayne. Shen's global presence plays well with TPA's early aggression, and can potentially shut down a poke comp through his split-pushing. Grabbing him also prevented Frost from potentially running a Shen jungle. TPA may have wanted to field Vayne again, as Nunu is an incredibly good support for her, but her close range makes her a liability against poke compositions. Recognizing by that point what they were up against, TPA made the right decision.

Unfortunately for Frost the game started out very poorly. They attempted to invade TPA's Red, not knowing that it had been warded. With Stanley covering the nearby ramp to Frost's Blue, TPA had a very good idea of where Frost was hiding. TPA, rather than trade buffs, camped out near their mid tower to set up a counter-ambush. The moment Frost left the Wraith bush and entered ward vision, TPA moved to attack. While RapidStar escaped by the skin of his teeth, Madlife made an unfortunate route choice in full vision of the ward and was hunted down. Woong then compounded the mistake by running into the warded bush, hoping to steal Red. Before he even entered the bush Stanley was already in a position to flank him, resulting in a 2-0 kill lead for TPA at the very outset.

However, because of all the action Shy had obtained a fair amount of farm bottom. Sending Bebe and Mistake to 2v1 against Shy would barely have much effect while giving Woong and Madlife a chance to catch up and weaken Stanley. Instead TPA pressed their advantage by simply inverting the bottom and top lanes, placing both teams' duos top and solos bottom.

For the next four minutes Frost prevented TPA from extending their advantage, up until TPA executed one of the greatest series of subtle plays in the history of League of Legends. Though one coordinated action after another, TPA maneuvered Stanley from bottom to top and Bebe/Mistake from top to bottom, giving themselves massive Dragon control and leaving Frost a step behind.

It began innocuously with a gank bottom by Lilballz. While the gank itself didn't result in much of note, it gave Stanley the opportunity to farm and push the lane. Meanwhile, Toyz sent RapidStar back to base. Toyz then took Wraiths and roamed top, leaving Lilballz mid to pick up farm. Having pushed bottom, Stanley recalled to buy Heart of Gold and headed toward mid. Toyz' gank failed to result in kills, but sent both Woong and Madlife to base. Toyz and Mistake recalled as well, leaving Bebe to free farm as Lilballz handed mid over to Stanley.

Next, Mistake followed Toyz to mid rather than return to top lane. As Bebe recalled top, Stanley handed mid lane over to Toyz. Then Stanley, Mistake, and Lilballz attempted to at Frost's Blue. While the steal and subsequent gank top were both unsuccessful, Stanley had now shifted top lane, while Bebe was already bottom with Mistake en route.

As Toyz soloed Blue, Lilballz played off the expectation that junglers will assist their team with buffs to gank top once again. This gank did not result in any kills, but again bought breathing room for Stanley. With Stanley in a good position top and Shy pushed to his tower bottom TPA had complete Dragon control, and took it uncontested and without any threat to their towers, the culmination of over three minutes of carefully orchestrated plays.

Woong and Madlife arrived bottom shortly thereafter, too late to have had any impact. With the primary purpose of having your duo lane bottom gone, Bebe and Mistake quickly switched back top again. The moment Woong and Madlife swapped back to top lane, Bebe and Mistake attacked them aggressively and, with Stanley ulting to make it a 3v2, killed both under their own tower without suffering a single loss. While this gave Shy the opportunity to deal significant damage to bottom turret, it put TPA well ahead of Frost.

Realizing the increasingly dire position they were in, Frost began aggressively pushing turrets. A 3k gold lead twelve minutes in is big, and Frost couldn't afford to let it extend further. TPA immediately recognized Frost's tactical shift and reacted accordingly, pressuring Frost's towers wherever they were able. This kept the gold gap, and TPA's advantage, steady.

Due to an engagement bottom where Lilballz died, losing TPA an Oracle's, CloudTemplar was able to deny TPA vision across the map. Facing the superior poke of Frost, TPA was not able to prevent them from taking Dragon. The damage TPA had already taken gave Frost an opportunity to push mid, but they were quickly deterred by Toyz' superior wave clear and waves of minions pushing top and bottom.

Seeing Woong bottom collecting farm, TPA made another play for Frost's Blue. Despite being thwarted by RapidStar, TPA were still able to capitalize on Woong's position and quickly took Frost's top turret. Frost then sought to renew their pressure on TPA by pushing mid while TPA was busy buying and dealing with the minions pushing bottom.

TPA responded to the pressure quickly and decisively. An instant after Shy attempted to harass Lilballz, Stanley was already ulting in to fight. Lilballz immediately Flashed after Frost, forcing two Flashes from Frost. At this point Frost could likely have escaped, but with all of TPA clumped together they instead attempted to fight.

CloudTemplar ulted into the middle of TPA, and while his ultimate did not hit any targets it placed him in the perfect position for a combination with Lulu ultimate. RapidStar followed up with Lux Ultimate, leaving all of the four TPA players present at half health.

However, several factors came into play which turned the fight against Frost. Shy was almost completely ineffective during this period. With all of his abilities on cooldown he was easily zoned by Nunu's ultimate and Exhaust, and took considerable damage. Meanwhile, Madlife and CloudTemplar were hit by the combination of Nunu and Orianna's ultimates. Before Woong could even arrive both CloudTemplar and Shy had fallen.

While both Bebe and Woong arrived late, Bebe arrived first and into a more favorable position. With Frost's tanky frontline dead, Woong had no breathing room to fight. He and the rest of Frost were forced to retreat despite many of TPA's players being very low on health. In hindsight Frost could probably have avoided this engagement altogether, but retrospective analysis is always easier than making an on the spot judgement call. It was possible for Frost to win that teamfight, but the small details worked against them.

This encounter set the stage for Frost's defeat. The core of a poke comp is the slow, agonizing tower push, sapping an enemy of their strength while you whittle down and take a tower. With TPA well ahead of Frost, Stanley could now take full advantage of Shen's ultimate and split push. This threat eliminated Frost's freedom to push and poke, hamstringing their team composition. Frost had no option but to poke as long as possible before forcing an engagement.

Frost executed that exact strategy, but it did not work out in their favor. Rapidstar caught Toyz with a Light Binding, and Frost quickly burst him down before he could finish using his ultimate. However, Shy and CloudTemplar both took considerable damage in the process, while the rest of TPA was largely unhurt. Both players quickly fell to TPA as Stanley ulted in, leaving Frost with an unfavorable exchange for all their trouble.

Up until this point the game was reasonably close, but from here on it would be entirely TPA's game. As with their previous victories, TPA would extend and crush Frost with their lead, though their aggressive play would backfire slightly during one tower dive. Still, by the time the game finished TPA's lead ballooned to over 16k. Any players wishing to understand how their own team can close out a victory should use TPA as their first and foremost point of study.

In the end TPA's superior coordination, teamfighting, and closing ability crushed Frost. When the Season 3 World Championships happen this level of play will be the bare minimum required to effectively compete. Frost was an excellent team, but TPA was simply better. It's a shame that many North American players were uninterested in these finals, as they were some of the best and most exciting games in LoL's history.