ManaLight Vs Choke Gaming ESL Semi Finals

Pre Game – Matt Andrews ( on stage caster )
It’s the calm before the storm, the teams prepare to take the stage ready for the ESL semi finals stream to go live, smiles all around hidden behind the smiles are  the serious faces ready to take on whatever is thrown at them, with some last minute pre match banter and some words of encouragement ManaLight and Choke take the stage.
 
Manalight look ready to play, they looked refreshed and ready to play as a team.
 
Choke say they’re confident and ready to take on ManaLight.
 
The Teams
 
Manalight

• Rifty – Top
• Phurion – Jungle
• Larsen Reborn – Mid
• Smiley – ADC
• Hadow – Support

Choke

• Tolkin – Top
• Nutri – Jungle
• Lukezy – Mid
• Jokerism – ADC
• Xoko – Support

 
Game 1
 
Picks and Bans

A Fiddlesticks hover over for Choke and ManaLight seems to suggest some well crafted subtle hints towards Choke’s previous jungler Dandychap who is a known fiddlesticks main.
The first five minutes of the game are back and forth between both teams, all lanes are skirmishing looking to poke first blood bot lane for Smiley.
As the back and forth continued, a very aggressive Larsen picked up a kill onto Lukezy 6 minutes into the game, leading to a 2-1 advantage to ManaLight however Nutri was around to pick the clean up on Larsen bringing it back making both teams even on score.
Nutri ganks mid lane looking to 1v1 Larsen, Larsen is chased out and being followed by Nutri, Larsen turned onto Nutri in order to secure a kill.
ManaLight looked to extend their advantage and force themselves into Nutri’s jungle, Phurion picked up a deep kill onto Nutri, meanwhile Top lane Tolkrin gets a 1v1 kill on Rifty.
An early advantage for Manalight meant that Larsen is able to turret dive for kills extending the lead of 2k gold to 3k for ManaLight, with the assassin playstyle of Zed ManaLight are look to force Nutri out of his own jungle whenever he is enters there is someone there from ManaLight is ready to force him out.
A finely constructed rotation to the bot lane saw ManaLight pick up 1 kill and a tower.
ManaLight looked to finish the top tower and fight Choke for the top tower, Choke give up the tower top lane but force ManaLight away for pushing further into the top lane.
ManaLight prioritised keeping vision control of Chokes red side jungle, this allowed them to pick up a few kills whilst Larsen is split pushing top lane, the rest of the ManaLight side was fighting bot side looking to take the second tower, ManaLight managed to pick up 3 kills and the first inhibitor of the game.
Larsen distracted Choke as the rest of ManaLight take baron, following up with the 25 minute baron ManaLight looked to push however Choke stood their ground and blocked the push attempt of ManaLight, Choke managed to Ace ManaLight after a long drawn out teamfight.
Following being aced ManaLight still wanted to push leading towards Chokes base, ManaLight secured the middle inhibitor and both nexus towers only to be forced of by nexus by Choke, Manalight did a 360 and went for dragon which was stolen by Choke, Nutri died in the attempt which enabled ManaLight to push and win game one.
 
Game 2
Pick and Bans

Jordan Walsh analyst / coach of Choke says “ we are ready for game 2 i believe it will be a 2-1.”
As the game started the casters mentioned the SACCO club group on League of Legends giving a shout out to eSports News UK’s very own Dom Sacco.
ManaLight decided to lane swap to take the top tower and get pressure top side early in the game, Choked responded by taking the tower at the same time as ManaLight meaning the 2v2 swap was not as impactful.
Larsen flashed on to Lukezy to finish him as he took a substantial amount of poke, both junglers capitalise, first Nutri picks up the kill onto Larsen following up Phurion dived under tower to finish of Lukezy, 1 kill a piece to both junglers.
Another back and forth at 6 minutes in sees the varus pick looking like its not working out for Choke as the second kill for ManaLight goes over to Phurion, the teamfight continues seeing both teams still even at 3-3 at the end of the fight.
ManaLight looked to invade Chokes jungle which lead to a death onto Rifty which enables choke to go on and take dragon for free and uncontested.
Both teams fight for the 17 minute dragon which leads to a drawn out team fight kills being picked up for both teams, the rest of the ManaLight team being chased by Chokes Lukezy and Xoko sees a fantastic flash piercing arrow picking up the kill, choke lead with 10 kills to 6 with a 3k gold lead.
Manalight lost their 2nd tower bot but manage to turn it around picking up 2 kills, manalight look to take baron of the 2 kills, baron got stolen by chokes jungler this leads to an all out team fight 3 kills for choke and 2 for manalight.
Choke’s Nutri took the 3rd dragon as the rest of the team take the first inhibitor mid lane, Choke wanted to rotate top lane to take the inhibitor tower but is forced away by ManaLight multiple times until ManaLights defence is finally crushed which forces a fight and a teleport by Rifty, 2 inhibitors were taken off ManaLight by Choke, an 8k gold lead now for choke.
A Baroned up Choke push towards the mid lane picking up 4 kills and securing game 2 making the series go to 1-1.
 
Game 3
Pick and ban
 

A slower game three leads to no real action for the first 14 minutes, an over ambitious Lukezy attempts a tower dive on Larsen which turns bad as Phurion is there for aid, first blood goes over to Larsen.
A flash cocoon by Nutri followed up by a malzahar ultimate by Lukezy enables a kill on Phurion in chokes red side jungle.
ManaLight dive Choke in which Choke manage to capitalize and 3 -0 manalight on the botched dive by ManaLight, Choke looked to take the first baron of the game Phurion looked to secure it by stealing, but Nutri’s smiting skills are on point as the first baron is secured by choke followed up by the kill on Phurion, choke look to close down the lead manalight had gained.
A blood bath top lane as Nutri and Tolkin dive Rifty, kill onto Rifty picked up by Nutri, Kill on Phurion goes over to Tolkin, Larsen and Hadow clean up Tolkin and Nutri for a 2-2 fight.
A fight towards dragon side leads to all out war between both teams 3 kills picked up Larsen almost acing Choke, Nutri is the last to be alive for Choke.
Final fight of the game, Manalight go hard manage to take down Lukezy, Smiley goes big triple kill for smiley, the ace and game for manalight. GG.
 
Post Match
How do you feel that you performed today?
Lukezy: “think I performed quite good I should of played a little bit less aggro game 3 and I got punished for it by Phurion ganks, other than that I don’t think I could of done better than throughout the best of 3 series”.
Frozen Dawn: “I think today we performed a bit poorly, but I also feel Choke performed very well. I think compared to how we have performed before its a disappointing performance, I think everyone on the team is also feeling the same.”
Who was your hardest opponent this season?
Lukezy: “well manalight progressed throughout the season, so i have to say what everyone else would say and this is that renegades because everyone considered them and still do as a strong opponent.
Frozen Dawn: “It would have to be Renegades they where the only team to take a game of us outside of the premiership at I57, teams rarely get ahead of us and at I57 Renegades had an 8k gold lead.
Did everything go as planned?
Lukezy: “yeah, basically we got the drafts we predicted and wanted but it was just in game macro issues that didn’t go well.”
Frozen Dawn: “Things certainly diviated from our plan, we have a problem of our early game being our weakest point, very often we dont maintain the focus we need in the early game and we dont expect certain things such as teleports, as a result we make plays that are generally too agressive, we usually get it out of our system and we had it today against Choke, hopefully it wont happen again and we are looking at working on this.”
Frozen Dawn on Day 2 of the ESL UK Premiership: “I have prepared for both Banditos and Exertus because we have played both of them at I57, in a sense we can look at their games then and adapt, I am expecting one or two new picks from either team, the only difference now is that Banditos has Maxlore jungle.”
Lukezy on playing malzahar game 3: “It was not that hard of a matchup because i kept pushing and he has to use his mana to waveclear, eventually i had the pressure on azir 24/7, i don’t think we got much out of that pressure because i missed out on cs because of wanting the pressure and Phurion kept ganking.”
What was it like playing with Nutri instead of Dandy?
“we used to play with Nutri a few weeks before playing with Dandy joined us, but the difference was felt for example when Nutri stole the baron in the second game i am pretty sure dandy wouldn’t of even been close and that brought us back into the game, i think if we had played with dandy we would’ve lost the series 2-0”.
 
What’s the next step for the team?
“I am not sure because i don’t think anyone is contracted from the roster and the new summer season will be soon and i cannot say anything because i do not know myself.”