FM stun Choke 2-0 to progress to the ESL UK LoL Premiership final

FM-eSports beat Choke Gaming 2-0 in today’s ESL UK Premiership League of Legends Season 2 Semi Final, with FM putting in a fantastic performance to knock out their rivals.
FM will now face Team Infused in the final.

Casters: Sona, Munchables and Excoundrel
Analysts: Brixton, Impaler
Stream: ESL LoL Twitch stream
Pre-match talk:

.@Tundra_LoL on the semi-final: “We’ve had a lot of roster issues and we can only give our best. I expect it to go to three games.” @ESLUK

— eSports News UK (@eSports_News_UK) December 6, 2015

.@DongsEUW on playing @fmeSports: “We’re confident coming into the matches. If we stick to our gameplan we can win 2-0.” #ESLPremiership

— eSports News UK (@eSports_News_UK) December 6, 2015

Both analysts believe Choke will win.

Game one

Line-ups:
Choke Gaming – red side (numlocked top – Olaf, Dongs jungle – Rek’Sai, Ravenno mid – Ahri, Joekerism ADC – Sivir, The Hadow support – Alistar)
FM-eSports – blue side (Nutri top – Shen, Keeno Combo jungle – Elise, ZiViZ mid – Viktor, Toaster123 ADC – Tristana, Tundra support – Tahm Kench)
Report:
numlocked started off very aggressive, almost killing Nutri in the top-line, who survived with a smidgen of health.
After five minutes, Dongs flashed in and knocked up both Nutri and Keeno, helping numlocked and himself pick up a kill each. 2-0 to Choke.
Soon after, ZiViZ killed The Hadow in the mid-lane, with the help of Tundra.
It looked like The Hadow was going down again, this time in the bot lane, however numlocked teleported in to save him. However, Toaster picked up a kill before numlocked took down Tundra. 3-2 to Choke.
The mid-lane battle between ZiViZ and Ravenno was hugely competitive, with both players pulling off some impressive escapes and burst-damage attacks on one another.
FM almost made an impressive escape, with Tundra swalling up ZiViZ away from three Choke players in their jungle, but it wasn’t to be. But moments later, Keeno stole the dragon and Toaster picked up another kill to make it 4-4. It was neck and neck at this point, with both teams having 24k gold each.
Choke managed to pick up another kill mid, with numlocked getting away with a whisker of health to make it 5-4 to Choke.
At around 25 minutes, FM pushed aggressively, whittling down Choke’s health. Choke players pushed them away then took the risk to take the dragon, however with little health, FM managed to pick some of them off. numlocked managed to get a kill before making another epic escape. But it was FM in the lead at this point, with 9 kills to Choke’s 7, 4 towers to Choke’s 2, and 46k gold to Choke’s 44k.
After some quiet moments, a big team fight got underway mid, but as Choke targeted Tundra (Tahm Kench) and took a while taking him down, it allowed FM to pick up some kills, before taking Baron. But Ravenno was soon there to grab a triple-kill.
FM then pushed hard in the bottom lane, with Nutri split-pushing in the top-lane with an army of Baron-empowered minions.
The hard-fought skirmishes continued – to be expected in a classic FM/Choke matchup of course.
But Choke went behind after trying to kill FM at Baron – twice. Toaster’s damage and Nutri’s impressive positioning was too much for Choke, who fell behind 24-15.
With Baron minions, and Toaster’s insane damage, FM pushed hard to ace Choke and win game one.
 

Game two

Line-ups:
Choke Gaming – blue side (numlocked top – Renekton, Dongs jungle – Lee Sin, Ravenno mid – Orianna, Joekerism ADC – Tristana, The Hadow support – Alistar)
FM-eSports – red side (Nutri top – Malphite, Keeno Combo jungle – Elise, ZiViZ mid – Corki, Toaster123 ADC – Lucian, Tundra support – Soraka)
Report:
Game two got off to an even quieter start than game one, but it was interesting to see ZiViZ pick Corki for the mid-lane.
On the 11-minute mark, he performed a fantastic gank bot, getting behind Hadow and Joekerism to give his teammate Keeno Combo a double-kill.
FM targeted the bot-lane again, moments later, killing Joekerism again. This prompted numlocked to teleport bot, but Nutri secured a double-kill and FM took the lead 7-2, putting FM in good stead to face Infused in the final.
numlocked and Ravenno fought back to notch up a couple more kills, but Dongs got caught out being greedy mid – making it 8-4 to FM.
Some impressive play by Tundra (playing Soraka) helped FM make a fantastic push mid. With Choke targeting Toaster, but Tundra just healing him to keep him alive, this allowed other members of FM to take down Choke. It was 14-5 at this point, and FM continued to push hard – eventually taking the mid-lane inhibitor.
FM soon pushed the bot-lane, and Choke weren’t able to stop their assault. FM win the second game – and the match.

Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.