With the meta unsettled, a new roster for Giants and new season in LCS for Misfits, this split begins with lots of questions.
Will Alphari, the British top lane star be able to hold his own in the LCS? Will Ignar be able to expand his champion pool beyond melee supports? Tom Beer recaps the match.
Game 1
Misfits / Giants
Maokai / Illoai
Khazix / Reksai
Syndra / Corki
Jhin / Varus
Thresh / Nautilus
It became clear in the first 10 minutes that Alphari was to continue his Challenger Series aggression. He abused his opponents’ cooldowns and jumped in consistently for trades. Each time the minion wave favoured him, allowing him to push to an 18 cs lead after only eight minutes of play.
PowerOfEvil roamed top lane and killed Flaxxish under tower. Across the map, an excellent flash flay-into-hook combination from Ignar dropped Hustlin to a grey screen allowing Misfits to take he first tower of the game.
Misfits rotated around the map brilliantly to ensure themselves a 3-0 tower score and 3k gold lead at the 15 minute mark.
“The critical moment would came at the 43-minute mark – Misfits saw Flaxxish pushing bot and went to rush. However, Memento was able to dive in and steal the buff.”
Giants managed to claw back drakes and towers to halt the bleeding. At the 33-minute mark Giants won another team fight exploiting Jhin’s inability to fight through the tanks.
At 38 minutes Night got picked off, having overextended with full vision in bot lane, and Misfits seized the opportunity to take the Elder Drake (though they had no previous dragons, limiting its power).
The critical moment would came at the 43-minute mark – Misfits saw Flaxxish pushing bot and went to rush. However, Memento was able to dive in and steal the buff. In the ensuing team fight, Giants got three kills and only one death.
The game ended just over three minutes later, with Giants claiming the victory.
Game 2
Misfits / Giants
Rumble / Kennen
Khazix / Reksai
Orianna / Ryze
Varus / Ashe
Malzahar / Karma
Misfits began game two as they had started the first. Both junglers met in the river to fight over wards, Kakao with the double buff jumped onto Reksai – forcing her to retreat and flash backwards towards her own tier two tower, escaping with a sliver of health.
Night on Ryze came from below his tier one tower to aid his team mate and lock Khazix down with Rune Prison. KaKAO wisely switched target to Ryze and skilfully dodged two Overload shots, securing the kill with the burning damage of the Red Buff.
The action however didn’t end there; KaKAo retreated back towards the mid lane river through the jungle, sniped with an Ashe arrow and finished off with a flashing Mantra-Q combo.
Beyond that highlight however, by the 18-minute mark Misfits had secured three towers and two drakes. Giants, despite having a strong team composition, had Flaxxish fill the role of split pusher.
At the 24-minute mark, with vision of Flaxxish split pushing top, Misfits fully committed to a Baron take. While the strategy was similar to game one, Misfits now had the champions to really defend the attempt.
With Orianna and Rumble, Misfits could create zones of danger to either delay Giants’ approach or secure a pick and turn to fight. With no Giants vision and the amount of crowd control and engage options within the Misfits comp, it was the same decision as game one, but with infinitely better setup. Baron was secured.
The game ended a few minutes later after a team fight top gave four kills to Misfits.
Game 3
Misfits / Giants
Maokai / Nautilus
Reksai / Khazix
Syndra / Ekko
Ashe / Varus
Taric / Karma
Game three began with a bang! A three-man gank from Misfits at the three-minute mark targeted the mid lane. Alphari, KaKAO and PowerOfEvil all jumped onto Ekko mid lane, securing the kill onto PowerOfEvil underneath the tier 1 mid tower.
However, Flaxxish answered Alphari’s teleport, cutting off the retreat towards their own tower and forcing them down the jungle path adjacent to the river. Memento on Khazix deleted Alphari (whose health was beaten down from taking tower shots), and then gifted a kill to Flaxxish by emptying KaKAO’s health bar.
PowerOfEvil, now alone and retreating, was dead before he got back to his side of the river. What started off as a brilliant gank was equally brilliantly responded to, giving Giants a 3-1 lead.
After this, Giants slowly let Misfits claw back from the early game disaster to another 3k gold lead.
At 23 minutes, Misfits applied pressure top to draw Giants there then had the inside track to rotate back bottom to secure a free drake without surrendering anything.
“It was an entertaining series from Misfits, earning their first win in the LCS. They showed early game dominance and an ability to snowball a lead, but also some areas to improve on.”
At this point in the game, Alphari had secured a 30 cs advantage over his lane opponent. Misfits won a team fight with four kills to one death and moved onto Baron at 24 minutes. For some reason however, maybe spooked by the low damage and the imminent respawns, they pulled away from Baron despite only Nautilus and Karma being alive for Giants.
At 31:30, Night was caught out again and killed in Misfit’s jungle. From here Misfits cleared vision and headed straight to the Baron, where Memento played hero a second time and stole the buff. It expired before they could break into the base of Misfits however.
Misfits then surged up the mid lane and begin a base race that got them an inhibitor and Nexus tower for the cost of two tier two towers. From here, Misfits returned to base then caught Giants mid lane, deleting Memento and two other Giants before finishing the game at 36 minutes.
Summary
It was an entertaining series from Misfits, earning their first win in the LCS. They showed early game dominance and an ability to snowball a lead, but also some areas to improve on and some decisions that seemed perplexing.
Alphari looks to continue his aggression in the top lane and IgNar has shown he can play the ranged supports, so strong in the current meta that he perhaps didn’t need to in his Challenger career.
Further reading: ‘Our goal is to win and to keep winning’ – an interview with Misfits general manager Alicus
