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. 

What we can take away from All Stars

All Stars has come and gone this weekend and while a "slumping" Korean team has once again swept an international event there are still some lessons we can take away from the event.

Korea has it figured out.

A lesson we mostly already knew but is good to have a reminder as more and more people are discussing what western teams have to do to catch up. It's clear by by how utterly slumping Korean teams have dominated the last few international events that Korea's support staff and deep rosters have made their teams a cut above.

SEA's underdog story is not repeating anytime soon.

There were some rumblings that SEA's representatives at Season 3 Worlds were not the best of the region. There were occasional suggestions that TPA, or TPS would have put on a better show even with their changes. Now TPA has been destroyed out of two international events in a row and it's finally put those ideas to rest. The SEA scene seems to have imploded since TPA won season 2 and they've clearly got a long way to go before they're competitive again.

NA is closing the international gap.

We already knew that Cloud 9 at their Hai point has been competitive with the best of Europe. Fnatic and Cloud 9 had a 4-4 head to head record before the event and it was one of the initial story lines people were quick to latch onto for all stars. Then Hai's lung collapsed and everyone expected that a weakened Cloud 9 would be knocked out of All Stars in the group stage. Instead Cloud 9 with Link subbed in the mid lane took second in the groups taking games off everyone but SKT. If a weakened Cloud 9 can take games off the best of EU and China it's not hard to imagine CLG and TSM, who were only just behind C9 during the spring split, could have similar results. This means potentially great things for NA fans at worlds as the summer split looks to be an even stronger split than spring was.

EU might be in trouble.

Certainly the most unpopular opinion to take away from All Stars, but one that needs to be considered anyways. Fnatic is 3 time EU LCS winner, making them clearly the best of Europe. If the best of Europe only manages a pathetic 1-5 record, barely escaping groups by beating TPA, at All Stars it should set off warning bells for EU fans and players alike. Those warning signs are made worse when you remember that the entire top half of the EU LCS has opted to make no roster changes. EU currently seems to sit content because they were all just a game or two back from Fnatic, but if Fnatic  is not competitive on the world stage then being slightly better than them should definitely not be the goal.

Worlds promises to be incredible. 

Riot already promised that Worlds would not have byes this year and now we've been given a little taste of what the Worlds format might look like. A full group stage with more than a dozen of the best from around the world is exactly what League fans have been clamoring for. And with NA promising to be even stronger leading into worlds we could be in for some amazing games this fall.