How Samsung White built advantages out of nothing.

It's no secret Samsung White is unparalleled as the best team in the world right now. They demolished competition on their way to being Season 4 World Champions this weekend. I and many others could talk at length about the incredible subtleties in their play, in fact I have a few more ideas beyond this one already. I chose this to talk about specifically because SSW were kind enough to do it both from a lead and from behind against SHRC this weekend to really demonstrate how they can create advantages from nothing.

In both games one and four White had their level 1 lane swap matched by Royal Club, matching up 2v2 in the top lane. Both times White used that fact alone to create and advantage by having their duo be the first ones to swap back to the bottom side. Each time Mata bought wards and used the fact they were the first to swap back to safely invade SHRC's jungle for vision. 

In game 1 Mata and Dandy invade SHRC's red buff placing a combined total of 5 wards, 3 greens and 2 pinks. Almost immediately after they finish placing the wards Insec shows himself on the one at double golems and Dandy uses that knowledge to dive mid lane and snowball Pawn's Jayce. Pawn used the mid gank to push down his tower and roam top, Dandy used the vision to out maneuver Insec, and bot used the oppressive vision to safely pressure Uzi in the botlane. 

By the time those 5 wards were gone SSW had a 1k gold lead, significant damage on the mid turret which would fall soon after and had used the vision of Insec to gain vision control over the top side of SHRC's jungle as well setting up another tower dive. Still it's easy to downplay the importance of the early swap from Mata by talking about SSW's advantageous lane matchups and the level 1 first blood that helped them afford so many wards. Thankfully White provided us with an example of the same thing but from a position of weakness in game 4. 

This time instead of a first blood advantage and having pressured the lane before the swap it comes after Looper's Kassadin died to a gank bottom while Imp died in the 2v2 top. Off the back of the 2v2 death Mata backs and again he uses the fact that by being first to switch there's no threat of the enemy bot lane collapsing to invade for vision. He's not able to illuminate it as completely as the previous example but he still gets a strategically placed ward. 

Moments later that ward spots a level 6 Insec passing by to setup for his first Pantheon gank. When he walks past SSW ping him and Pawn cheats down from the mid lane while Dandy clears red. A few seconds after they spotted level 6 Insec heading towards bot White signals clear understanding of what's happening as they ping the bot lane where SHRC's duo is pushing the minions into the tower as hard as they can. Thanks to the early warning of Mata's deep ward Insec is barely able to get off his combo before Dandy's Rengar snarls out of the jungle to turn the gank into a disaster for SHRC, and shortly after Pawn arrives to clean up Uzi and take the dragon with his teammates. 

In game 1 Samsung White used the early swap back to slowly build one small advantage onto another. In game 4 they used the same move to turn an early deficit into a punishing advantage.In both scenarios Mata knew that by swapping first he was safe to invade for deep vision. That vision gave Samsung White the knowledge needed to make plays from ahead or behind, and build advantages from nothing. 

How OMG used champion select to sweep Najin Shield

Despite being a clean 3-0 sweep the quarterfinal series between OMG and Najin White Shield was an absolute treat to watch. Both teams had high points in the games from Shield's early dominance game 1 and Watch's incredible smite steals to Cloud's ridiculous Janna play, Cool's dominating performance against Ggoong, and OMG's decisive calls. Above all else though the series really showed how important a good champion select phase is to victory. Every single game OMG was able to out maneuver Shield in champion select, securing themselves comfort and counter picks while also punishing members of Shield who had smaller champion pools.

Game 1:

Game 1 picks and bans. Source: LoLesports.

Looking at just the bans we can get a clear idea of what each team is focusing on for champion select. NWS bans Maokai, a common meta pick and something Save rarely plays, Jayce a target ban against Cool that will end up being used later in the series, and a priority pick for both teams Ryze. We can see that Shield is trying to make sure they make good use of their first pick advantage. Ryze and Zed have 100% pick or ban rate in Shield's games during the Korean regionals and group stages. Ryze was also a 100% pick or ban for OMG's games in the Chinese regionals and group stages. By taking Ryze of the table Shield intends to win themselves the only contested pick. Considering both Zed and Ryze have been hotly contested by most teams in the tournament it seems like a sound move to ban Ryze and secure Zed, it's also Shield's first big mistake.

Unlike for Shield Zed has a sub 50% pick or ban rate for OMG's games with OMG only playing it twice in 12 games between their regional qualifiers and Worlds group stage. Not only that but when OMG played it they did not first pick zed, they saved it for much later in the rotation. This means Zed was not only not contested, but also something OMG feels comfortable playing against.

On OMG's side they ban two meta bans Zilean and Alistar that no one wants to deal with, and then use their final ban to target Gorilla's Thresh. They then use their own first rotation to secure Janna away from Gorilla. This does a couple of major things for OMG, first it pushes Gorilla off his comfort champions. Gorilla played 11 of the 16 games during Korea regionals and groups on either Janna or Thresh. Secondly, it also counter picks the Zed for team fights, Janna's shield and Ultimate are great tools to help teammates survive a Zed all in and Cloud would make full use of them throughout the series.

Shield knowing they're going to have issues team fighting with the Zed against a Janna build a reasonable 1-3-1 split pushing comp. The idea being that Zed and Kassadin get rolling early and split while the mobility of Kha'Zix and Corki with the peel of Morgana keep them safe. Unfortunately for them OMG also knows this and respond with a counter pick Ahri who can shut down Zed early and get picks on any Shield member foolish enough to try split pushing, and their own powerful split pusher with a much better early game Irelia. This gave OMG enough early power to stop Shield snowballing and enough pick pressure to force Shield into a difficult choice between dying trying to split push or struggling to team fight effectively against a stronger 5v5 comp. The game was actually quite close in large part to some incredible early pressure in the jungle from Watch but OMG's decisive moves and Cloud's vision control kept them in it long enough to overcome the early setbacks and take the victory their champion select phase had crafted for them.

Game 2:

Game 2 picks and bans. Source: LoLesports

In game two we can see clear adaptation in bans from Shield, they realized that while OMG has played Maokai it's not an overly likely pick for either team and removed it from their bans. They've also correctly identified Gogoing and Loveling as major players in OMG's first victory and removed the champions used so effectively by them. Finally they adopted the meta Zilean ban that's basically mandatory if you don't want to deal with a first pick Zilean. This time Shield is trying to stop OMG from getting the advantage with first pick by leaving up a lot of contested champions. They intend for OMG to pick Ryze, Kha'Zix, or Zed first and leave the other two for Shield. It clearly works as they secure Zed and Kha'Zix but again they've failed to account for how much priority OMG gives to those champions. Loveling had already shown he's willing to run other champions into Kha'Zix, and again OMG doesn't put much stock in Zed, the result is OMG gets one of the most contested picks for both teams, Ryze, almost for free.

OMG's bans don't change much switching to blue side. They keep the Alistar meta ban, and continue to target Gorilla's champion pool with Thresh. The one major change is moving Lulu into their bans. mostly done thanks to Shield banning away the Zilean that OMG had banned on red side, but also a reasonable target ban against Ggoong. The Lulu is not an integral part of OMG's champ select here but removing her as a potential flex pick made the Zed even more predictable and removed a counter to the burst they'd eventually build into their team comp.

This time around OMG gets the biggest contested pick of the series in Ryze. Again they counter the Zed pick with Janna and due to Shield's bans this time they bring Rengar for pick and engage potential instead of the Lee Sin. OMG builds a really good all around counter to what Shield is trying to do, countering the Zed all-in, having good siege, incredible burst potential, plenty of disengage, and even a late game Ryze that will make it impossible for Zed to split push. Shield again doesn't have an answer they put together a sort of awkward 1-3-1 comp but it's more of a weird poke siege comp due to the fact Save builds Nidalee as an AP top. The game ends up dragging on longer than it should have due to some incredible smite steals from Watch, but apart from the stolen Baron buffs the entirety of game 2 is as heavily in OMG's favor as the champ select.

Game 3:

Game 3 picks and bans. Source: LoLesports

Game 3 is an oddball honestly, it's the closest Shield comes to actually winning champion select, but ends up in a comp filled with stuff they're not comfortable on. The bans from Shield are good, they remove a lane dominant comfort pick from each of OMG's carries. They also assemble a strong 5v5 team comp with decent laning and excellent late game scaling. If it were any other team I'd say Shield had the edge in champion select here. The problem is, all but Lee Sin are champions Shield rarely if ever plays. Nami is Gorilla's 4th support behind game 2's braum, Ggoong and Zefa rarely played their picks in the regionals or group stages, and Save has neither played Maokai before nor is he known for his tank play. Shield has also again made some champion priority mistakes here, they take Lee Sin as the first pick giving Gogoing Ryze for the second time and failing to recognize Loveling is content to play Kha'Zix into Lee Sin. 

OMG reverted back to their red side bans from game 1 and used the same champion select strategy. This time they weren't able to bait Ggoong into a 3rd straight Zed vs Janna match, but they were able to secure Gogoing's Ryze again and steal away Zefa's Corki he'd played much of worlds on. This resulted in OMG mostly assembling the same style of comp they'd had the first two games despite the Lucian ban. Lane dominant ADC, Gogoing on a comfort scaling champion, play making jungler, and Cloud being an absolute nuisance on Janna. The one big weakness in OMG's game 3 lineup was picking up Zed last pick. The Zed didn't really do anything for their team comp. Something like a Yasuo which Cool had shown before likely would have fit the comp better but Cool seems hesitant to play it after his poor performance on Yasuo in groups.

Despite the fact Shield had the more well rounded comp it was still clear that OMG won the champion select due to their superior familiarity with the strategy and champions their composition involved. OMG were able to secure multiple contested picks, several of which were comfort champions for their star players, as well as force Shield into not just unfamiliar champion picks but also a strategy far different from that they'd attempted to build throughout the tournament. The relative strength of Shield's well rounded team did allow them to stage a bit of a comeback in the middle of the game but it was simply not enough to contest with the confidence of OMG on so many comfort champions. 

Throughout the series OMG showed superior champion select. It's clear OMG did their research understanding that Shield will first pick Zed given the opportunity, and exploited that fact as well as the limited champion pools of Watch and Gorilla to build advantages in their picks. They also made key adaptations like taking Zefa's Corki in response to Shield's Lucian ban to further push Shield out of their comfort zone. It's clear OMG's champion select was much better researched and prepared than that of NWS, and it was a key factor in OMG sweeping the series. 

Worlds Quarterfinal Predictions

Samsung White vs Team Solo Mid

I know I got bit once before claiming TSM had no chance, but I really feel like saying anything else here would just be hopeless NA fanboyism. TSM may have managed to squeak through to first seed in NA but they struggled in their group ending 1-1 with SHR and an SK that had to play one of their matchups with a substitute. Meanwhile Samsung White dominated their group even against EDG who've had SHR's number all LPL long, and SSW are the heavy favorites for the entire tournament. White has demonstrated better team work and better champion select than TSM. White's bot lane out classes TSM's by a monstrous margin, their Jungler is far and away better both at understanding and working from the jungle than Amazing, and solo laners Pawn and Looper are world class players who are unlikely to allow Dyrus or Bjergsen to put the rest of TSM on their backs.

Predicting Samsung White 3-0 the match is the only realistic option to those of us without access to time machines.

Samsung Blue vs Cloud9

Where Samsung White is incredibly strong, Samsung Blue has shown some weaknesses including dropping a group stage game to Fnatic. Some people mistake Blue for the better of the Samsung teams because they've managed to beat White in the team kill matches but they have clear weaknesses in champ select and their early game play. They also clearly have issues dealing with chaotic games as Fnatic and KTA have both proven.

Cloud 9 has managed to earn the honor of being the first NA team to take a game off a Korean team in high level play since 2012 with their victory over Najin White Shield to secure a ticket to the quarterfinals. In their games against Shield C9 demonstrated a clear understanding of the sort of chaotic split push pressure that Blue has proved weak against in the past. Cloud9's players are also not especially out matched by Blue's, Deft is not particularly aggressive in the bot lane, Dade's champion pool is small enough he can be pushed out of his comfort zone, and Balls has successfully proven he's a world class top laner. The big problem for C9 is they've been a bit terrible on red side lately, their Champ select suffers and it negatively effects the rest of their play.

I'm still not willing to call this series in C9's favor, but I think they've got the tools to give Blue trouble and take at least 1 game. 3-1 Samsung Blue.

Star Horn Royal Club vs Edward Gaming

This one is a bit hard to call as there's not a lot of direct confrontations in the LPL to draw from. SHR did have better group stage results but they didn't face an opponent as strong as SSW nor did they openly admit to concentrating on the bracket stage instead of groups. Namei seemed to struggle a bit in group stages as some positioning errors led to a tie breaker game against AHQ, he shaped up in the final game though which is a good sign for EDG.

EDG in the group stage seemed to have better champ select than SHR and they're less reliant on Namei getting ahead than SHR seems to be on Uzi. Also important to remember EDG did beat out SHR in their last meeting to take the 1st seed from China.

I think this one has some potential to go either way but EDG are the favorites given past results and the relative strengths of the teams. 3-1 EDG.

Najin White Shield vs OMG

Shield looked great in their gauntlet run to qualify as the 3rd seed from Korea, but their groups performance got a little spotty. They completely misprepared for more than one game letting major comfort picks like Irelia, Lee Sin, and Rumble through against Alliance and C9. Their champ select disaster resulted in two dropped games, and the one against Alliance ended up being a perfect game at that. Shield also looked very uncomfortable dealing with chaotic split push when they faced Cloud9.

OMG also suffered problems during their group stage games. Cool and Dada777 have not looked very good against their competition. Dada777 especially has become a glaring weakness for OMG with his limited effective champion pool which unfortunately lines up with Shield's star support Gorilla. OMG won't be able to exploit the weaknesses in Shield as well thanks ot their own weak support needing the same picks Gorilla uses to be effective. While OMG did show some ability to create chaos against their opponents they also quite literally escaped groups by a single auto attack.

OMG should be able to put up some fight against NWS but so long as they continue using Dada777 their bot lane will be an ever present liability against Gorilla. 3-1 NWS.