SLE finals roundup by Good Chi Savage

 Going to the finals:

 - As much as we memed and trash-talked for comedic and hype-building purposes the points stayed true, we did think that the biggest gaps were in the top, jungle, and support positions. I think it's fair to acknowledge the matchup dynamic, I don't think saying someone is better/has performed stronger is BM. We also gave Evo props and respect for surprising us with diversity in strategy.

Strategy

- Prepped strat for Evo was to pick anti-mobility champs in midlane(Yasuo, Akali, Leblanc - only 2 mages we expected from Yeon were Viktor and Zoe), like Veigar, Vex, Lissandra, Talyah while leaving a wiggle room for Sovonix to also pick longer-range mages to make team fights difficult to play out for Ori who is known for his lower range adcs(Vayne, Ezreal, Lucian) and his niche picks Good Chi Sylas. We expected tanks top and Jeff to have a free lane to scale on his anti-tank champs since we knew that Evo won't play through topside so ganks there will be limited. For Bot we prepared to play vs Oriis picks with more aggressive lanes - we prepped a lot of Cait, but the backup was Ashe, MF, Xayah, Kog with the plan to challenge their botlane. 

-Overall the start was - we knew how much better than Evo we were in the early game so picking champs that scale better was the key since we trusted in our ability to win early games even with weaker early game champs and guarantee the win later with scaling. We were ready to face passive Evo through champ select and the aggressive Evo through moving on the map and being ready to react to any info we gain from vision.

Orii incident 

- It was unlucky that Orii had connection issues, I was very excited to play against him and take out full squad Evo. Vilance changed our draft prep completely, there was no more classic Orii picks and we had to adapt and face Senna and Aphelios which to our knowledge, Orii would not have picked. That being said Vilance was the best performing member for Evo in both games he played and he did try to carry, I don't think Orii would have changed anything with the rest of his team being beaten that much. Cant expect to be 1x9 carried by 1 player.

- I am happy that games proceeded to go on, we decided to let Evo play with their sub and not take the free win. There was also a talk about them losing 3 bans for every game, but thankfully it did not go through. We even offered to just take side selection for game 1 without the coinflip, but league officials went with the 3 bans. Also, we allowed Evo to do their 2 bans at the start of the draft, not the end so they could ban our famous champs. I say Good Chi did everything in their power to keep the maximum amount of competitive integrity. 

Game 1

Draft

We expected them to ban Azir Voli, but Azir was not banned(nick young confused meme ???). I guess they forgot who they are facing? 

Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to counterpick with

But nothing comes out when they hover their champs

Just a bunch of int picks

And motherfuckers act like they forgot about Azir

Anyways. 3 ban advantage was a lot, and we got a great draft, exactly what we wanted. Botlane picks were surprising but we were fine with it. I think with Azir, Ashe, Ornn, Evo had 30 min to snowball the game and I was confident in Naut and Hecarim early game to get us there.

Gameplay

Things were as we expected as we gained the early game lead with gameplay and reaction to Evos plays. The only struggle was the drake fight when Evo was freshly gotten their power spike and Hecarim with Senna root on him ulted into all of our team giving them a 5 man root, but we knew that after only losing 1 player in that fight we were confident in our scaling and team fighting. The game culminated in the 5-man Ornn ult followed by Azir pentakill moment, which was so beautiful, I cry every time. 

Game 2

Draft

Again, we got better scaling and were confident in our own early gameplay. Happy that they gave us the Ap Malphite through Sylas pick, that was one for good chi lore. Malphite pick possibly lost the draft for Evo, now Aphelios needs to flash Sylas Malph/Braum ult, gnar ult, and all that with nautilus ult on him as well. 

Gameplay

Again there was a massive gap in sololanes, botlane was impossible to do anything with Naut Kog vs Aphelios Braum. We got punished in one drake fight, but overall we were not worried. We had the playmaking from our top, jungle, mid and support, and late-game insurance from Kog. 

Game 3

Draft

Was happy to see Orii come back, but we were not worried. Early Lilia and Leona picks foreshadowed mf pick so we picked it away from them. Gwen and Yasuo picks hard-countered MF damage. We tried to salvage the draft with Neeko, but scaling-wise and overall gameplay vise Evo had outdrafted us as they had good counters into us. Gwen pick surprised us.

Gameplay

We were unable to close out the game after gaining a 3k gold lead in the early game and got outscaled later. Gwen and Yasuo just bought their team too much time and we did good with creative picks and shot-calling, but pick diff was too much. Orii played well, but the main factors were Yasuo and even more - gwen.

Gane 4

Draft

Had to swap out Viego ban for Gwen and to force Orii to play in more danger, Ezreal was taken out as well. We wen for more guaranteed lategame with Kog again. Counterpick on top was massive since Jeff was already having a stellar series and with a counter pick he gained a massive lead. The last pick was between Veigar and Lissandra as Lissandra was better to handle Viego, Akali, but Veigar was more for damage. Sovonix said, "I trust you with damage, Mikus" and picked Lissandra. heart warming. Braum into Ornn+Renata was massive, I guess Evo taught that Braum will block only one, but Renata ult needs setup, it's slow, and everyone can just walk out of it.

Gameplay

After losing another early game it felt like Evo started to feel an urgency and tried to force plays and fights since they would have lost the game later against Braum, Kog, Lissandra, but as I said before, we were really prepared to play the chaotic Evo as well and activity and moving on the map let us respond to everything Evo tried to do and the lead ballooned much faster than before proving that Evo is not a good early/early-mid game team. We cleanly transitioned this lead into the game.

Post-game thoughts 

Happy to see the preparation pay off. The first series vs Evo we didn't prepare and thought that we can just outplay and getting spanked was the best thing that could have happened. Very proud of my teammates as our work paid off. Everything that we prepped worked off, we could not get winning matchups in every role, but that is the nature of the draft, but we made sure to pick outscaling champs. And in the moments where matchups were bad, player skill came in outplaying their counterparts.

Post season thoughts

We didn't expect to win the league as some of the teams - Vitagen, Evo seemed very good going into it, as well as this was our first league together, but after losing close games in our first 2 games, we knew that these teams are challengable. The turning point was the game against Lotus where we were down 10k gold and came back to win the game. That was also the first game for our support Loco. After that, the vibe completely changed and we went into every game with a winning mentality lose or win. The dark horse story ends with a deserved win.

Shoutouts

Huge thanks to the SEL organization and casting - Sagey, Dread, Arvid, Sanixx, Brillman and Zathos.

As I mentioned before - thanks and very proud of my team - Jeff, Brox, Adrian, and Loco. Amazing season. Also shoutout to our support at the beginning Mainyu and Izzy who played a big role at the start of this roster. 

Good Chi family we did it! - Good Chi mascot Sel, Rengo, Lune, Itchi, Raisen!

Big thanks for prep help from other Good Chi friends, enjoyers and loyalists, and future teammates: Adrians crush Vyon, Mr Payn, Cucky Cheese,  Brady,  LMR, Verocity, Dwowza, Thaizz, Dutchh, Kaptenen, Shikiorin, X9 Dest, Olly and everyone that I did not mention but you know that you were a part of this journey!

See you all next season! - Savage, Good Chi Gaming